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Google To Drop Support For H.264 In Chrome
Steve writes "Google just made a bold move in the HTML5 video tag battle: even though H.264 is widely used and WebM is not, the search giant has announced it will drop support for the former in Chrome. The company has not done so yet, but it has promised it will in the next couple of months. Google wants to give content publishers and developers using the HTML5 video tag an opportunity to make any necessary changes to their websites."
... we will need to have every browser installed, because every other website on the intertubes will be using different technologies that are only supported by one browser.
Less choice is so much more convenient for me. I love being forced to use Quicktime/Flash/Silverlight to view online video content.
The CB App. What's your 20?
Does Chrome really have the market share required for this move to have any effect on the decisions of web designers?
I love how they harp on about doing this because they support open standards - They bundle Flash with Chrome!
Double standards or what?
Google is obviously betting that WebM in Chrome and Firefox can carry enough weight to compete against H.264 in MSIE, Opera, and Safari.
Google, obviously, has enough web-surfing based data to factor into this judgement call. Whether or not Google is right on this call, one thing is certain: Google wouldn't do this unless they were fairly confident in WebM's chances against the looming patent trolls.
This, I think, is the noteworthy aspect of this bit of news. A patent troll going after WebM will now have to expect to have to deal with Google's well-funded lawyers.
John Gruber over at Daring Fireball asks some very relevant questions about this. The most interesting is: if Google is so concerned about open standards, will they also be dropping the embedded Flash player from Chrome?
Google To Cede Web Video Market To Adobe
Maybe it's better to weed out all the half-free proprietary stuff now before they have a chance to go all Unisys on you.
This serves two strategic purposes for Google. First, it advances a codec that's de facto controlled by Google at the expense of a codec that is a legitimate open standard controlled by a multi-vendor governance process managed by reputable international standards bodies. ("Open source" != "open standard".) And second, it will slow the transition to HTML5 and away from Flash by creating more confusion about which codec to use for HTML5 video, which benefits Google by hurting Apple (since Apple doesn't want to support Flash), but also sucks for users.
It is, in other words, a thoroughly nasty bit of work. It's not quite as bad as selling consumers down the river to Verizon on 'net neutrality, but it's close. And if Google is actually successful in making WebM, not H.264, the standard codec for web video, they're literally going to render hundreds of billions of dollars worth of tablets, smartphones, set-top boxes, etc. with H.264 hardware support obsolete.
"But wait!", the OSS fans are saying. "Isn't Google really standing up for freedom and justice, because H.264 requires evil patent licensing?"
No. Expert opinion is that WebM infringes on numerous patents in the H.264 pool, and will need a licensing pool of its own to be set up, just like Microsoft's VC-1 did. So the patents are a wash. This is Google manipulating the market entirely for selfish advantage here, and it's all the worse because they're pretending otherwise. And it's going to be really frustrating watching people fall for it.
This space unintentionally left unblank.
Maybe not
WebM is opensource (and grants use of its patents for free), so there's a bit of difference here. They're not pushing proprietary technology.
The move is an attempt to force other browsers to adopt WebM. If you want to complain about "Less choice", than you would have the same complaints against MS and Apple browsers.
The thing is, if Google doesn't do this, and allows both formats, they are contributing to the success of H.264, and detracting from the possibilities of success of their WebM.
You, the consumer are caught in yet another standards-war. Which side will you be on?
AccountKiller
Either you're trolling, or just ignorant.
Browser market share
Chrome has 13.5%, which is more than Safari, Opera and all mobile browsers combined.
The big 3 browsers are IE, FF, and Chrome, so yes, this is significant.
AccountKiller
or the reality of "We've decided to stop supporting formats for things that aren't free", would be a more simple answer.
Wow, that is exactly the kind of thing that Microsoft would do before it finally got the idea that standards are good. Like the way Windows Movie Maker would only save in WMV format. Although MS used to ignore the standards, only to add them in later rather than blatently removing support in an existing product.
But I can understand why Google might do this. It is annoying that we have the situation (yet again) where you have to choose between one standard that is more commonly used with better device support, and a more open standard (without patents) that is not quite as good (mostly because it doesn't get accelerated). It is the MP3/OGG situation again. And Google's solution is the same that open source audio software did - they will rely on plug-ins like LAME to add support.
Also the similar thing happened when the GIF format patent became a problem. It got dropped from a lot of programs where they didn't want to have to pay for a licence.
I'm not sure why TFA said that it was controversial that Microsoft added H.264 support to Firefox. It seemed quite reasonable to allow Microsoft's patent licence to be used in software installed on their operating system.
What? That page says "Click here to download plugin".
how does x264 get around the patent scheme of H.264?
By recommending that users emigrate from the United States, South Korea, and other countries whose courts enforce software patents, I presume.
Except that H.264 is not a web standard at all.
On my copy of Chromium on Ubuntu, pasting into a text field works fine on "/comments.pl" pages, just not on "/story/" pages. Try opening the comment ID (e.g. #34842318) in a new tab before clicking Reply to This. If you still can't get it to work, such as if you're trying to post a top-level comment instead of a reply, try writing your reply in Notepad or Gedit.
Google owns Youtube and is working to make every video available in VP8.
Except for the ones that need the Flash-only ad engine because they either are posted by Partners or make fair use of music.
You are the dumbest commented ever. I find it hilarious that you are dropping support for WebM in your own website for a video format that isn't free, which you are trying to favor over other formats. You currently run an anime and manga website, but probably won't for long because you have no plans on getting off your ass and converting your video content. You are taking a big risk because you're risking your website visitors completely abandoning your piece of shit site. I don't have worries about Google switching to WebM and I trust the new format, especially from a company who has done more to push open standards and open source than any other company. The members on your site and forums will not continue to support your site, and while you loaf around in your parent's basement, you'll have no idea why you're losing traffic. It's a new format and since it's not supported on your DVD and Blu-ray player, so it baffles your tiny brain and you don't understand it.
AccountKiller
I'll be on the side of "screw your video, gimmie the transcript"
'course, I'd be on that side regardless of what format the video is encoded in.
Insert wit here.
But then they'd be liars since they're still supporting Flash.
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
It is a double standard, but it looks like they took a dose of pragmatism with their idealism on Flash. They support and promote open standards where it is practical (not necessarily not controversial), and use proprietary work when it isn't.
AccountKiller
H.264 is not a free codec and consequently, you have to pay if you wish to encode content in it or decode content encoded with it. They just are gracious enough not to charge you for streaming it. Consequently, it's not supported by Firefox natively nor in any other browser that cares about being sued and can't or won't pay.
Google's motivation is obviously to try to establish an open source, free (as in speech) codec as the web standard for video. That way, we won't have the silly issues you mention above. So why are you not happy with this move?
Keep in mind that browsers like Firefox, Konquerer, Seamonkey, etc., because they are open source, cannot legally integrate H.264 into its browser. On the other hand, there is nothing stopping Microsoft, Apple, Opera, and Google, and anyone else who wants to from integrating WebM into their browsers. It simply boils down to an administrative decision to do so.
So if you want your web-based video to "Just Work," you absolutely must support WebM. Or more precisely, you absolutely must not support H.264 unless MPEG releases it to the public domain or under a free (as in speech) license, which I think there's exactly zero chance of happening.
Really, nobody should be using Chrome anyway. Firefox has a much, much better spec on nearly every level, is open source, has the adblock extension available....
Last I checked, Chrome has a working adblock extension and has equal or better support for web standards compared to Firefox.
I tell all of my clients to use Firefox exclusively. That way you KNOW the code is truly open, secure, and up to date. There is no way to know this with a closed source browser, and I can't for security purposes ever recommend using one.
ProTip: Chrome is also open-source.
I had a sig once. It was lost in the great storm of '09.
If I recall correctly, chrome isn't open source, chromium is. For all we know chrome has some addictions chromium does not. However, I agree with where you're coming from.
Open Source != (Open) Standard
Whether a tool is open source or not doesn't make it a standard, open or otherwise. What makes something a standard is when a group of people, companies, etc... (IEEE, ISO, ITU,etc...) get together propose and ratify a standard. In the case of h.264 the MPEG-LA and its members contributed their technologies and processes to the pool to build many of the wonderful products we like today. The only way that all of these different products by different manufacturers work is if they all support the standard. All of these companies built these technologies to make money.
What Google did with WebM was buy a company and provide one of their newly purchased products as open-source. This product may, or may not, come under scrutiny for various IP issues. Many have stated in the past that a number of WebM's algorithms are very similar to those of h.264 and its "freeness" may come in to question.
Googles actions today are not for you or for me. They are for the positive gain of Google as well as the negative impact on all of Google's competitors. This would not be a bad thing if this did not take into account the fact that millions, if not billions, of people already own products that make use of h.264 and therefore negatively affects consumers if they are forced to buy new products.
In the long run, will it matter? Won't there be something new by 2014 anyways? I doubt the MPEG-LA members are resting on their laurels and not working on h.265 or MPEG-5 or whatever is next anyways.
I wish people would wake up and stop believing the "don't be evil" mantra when Google is as bad as Adobe, Apple, Microsoft, and/or Oracle.
But then they'd be liars since they're still supporting Flash.
They support flash plug-ins that come from Adobe. I don't remember getting an install for h.264
Bottom line: This gives Flash (Player, at least) a shot in the arm.
Up to date versions of Flash player can handle h.264/mp4 video just fine - no Flash wrapper necessary. So you encode an mp4/m4v file, then add a softlink that ends in ".flv". Just one encode and your bases are covered - no Flash encode, no WebM either.
#DeleteChrome
Your post is far tl;dr. All I get out of the first half of it is that you like H.264. Good for you, you're entitled to your opinion. So is Google, so is MS, so is Apple, so is FF. Every browser maker has chosen a side - may the best codec/browser win.
AccountKiller
In between IE specific sites and Apple boycotting flash it's already hard to access information on the web with a device one happens to have at hand. Now with this, Android users will be locked out of content owned by anyone who managed to kick dependence on both Adobe and Microsoft. All that remains if for Apple and Microsoft to block Google search and Internet will go to good old walled garden days of CompuServe and AOL.
H.264 is not a free codec and consequently, you have to pay if you wish to encode content in it or decode content encoded with it. They just are gracious enough not to charge you for streaming it.
For...branded encoder and decoder products sold both to End Users and on an OEM basis for incorporation into personal computers but not part of a personal computer operating system (a decoder, encoder, or product consisting of one decoder and one
encoder = "unit"), royalties (beginning January 1, 2005) per Legal Entity are 0 - 100,000 units per year = no royalty
The maximum bite for an encoder/decoder is 20 cents a unit.
MPEG LA is geared for licensing production and distribution of H.264 video on a commercial scale. They don't give a damn about your wedding videos until you become a national franchise.
They don't give a damn about the geek's freely distributed Star Trek fan-flick.
For..where an End User pays directly for video services on a Title-by-Title basis (e.g., where viewer determines Titles to be viewed or number of viewable Titles is otherwise limited), royalties for video greater than 12 minutes (there is no royalty for a Title 12 minutes or less) are...the lower of 2% of the price paid to the Licensee (on first Arms Length Sale of the video) or $0.02 per Title (categories of Licensees include Legal Entities that are (i) replicators of physical media,
and (ii) service/content providers (e.g., cable, satellite, video DSL, Internet and mobile) of VOD, PPV and electronic downloads to End Users).
Where an End User pays directly for video services on a Subscription-basis (not ordered or limited Title-by-Title), the applicable royalties per Legal Entity payable by the service or content provider are 100,000 or fewer Subscribers during the year = no royalty
For...where remuneration is from other sources, in the case of Free Television(television broadcasting which is sent by an over-the-air, satellite and/or cable Transmission, and which is not paid for by an End User), the Licensee (broadcaster...) pays...according to one of two royalty options: (i) a one-time payment of $2,500 per AVC transmission encoder..or...annual fee per Broadcast Market starting at $2,500 per calendar year per Broadcast Markets of at least 100,000 but no more than 499,999 television households
The Enterprise Cap for H.264 in 2011 is $6.5 million a year. H.264 is deeply entrenched in theatrical production. Broadcast, cable and satellite distribution. Industrial and military applications. Home video.
There are over 900 H.264 licensees and collectively they dwarf Google.SUMMARY OF AVC/H.264 LICENSE TERMS
Chrome ships with Flash, you know.
Very well, but now they must remove the proprietary Flash technology. Oh they won't ? OK, they are a bunch of hypocrites and liars, but you should already know that by now. BTW, H264 is not Apple, it's a standard developed by the MPEG and the VCEG experts groups together, a lot of companies, but WebM is... Google. Always Google against the whole word. This is called Hubris, and they will end badly burned if they think that they can do whatever they ant because they are so big and cool.
Flash wrappers are the legacy way to put video on a web page. If you wrap the h.264 decode up in flash than the licenses for the decoding support are Adobe's problem. Flash works in pretty much any browser anywhere the user is willing to install the plug in. I don't see Google as having any issue with that. What is pretty clear is that the HTML 5 video tag WILL replace those flash objects for sites with simple needs at least, sites like Hulu, netflix, et al will continue to use other tech.
Open browsers can't for license the software they'd need to implement native decoding of h.264 to handle the video tag, yes plugs and external handlers could be uses as kludgy workarounds but that would tilt the table in favor of the mainstream commercial browsers. Google has a vested interest in getting content encoded in their format, and its open so anyone else can use it as well, it is also the technical equal of h.264. Even though Google will gain leverage in the content industry in general through this they can never really hit anyone to hard over the head with it because of the openness, I for one hope they enjoy success in pushing WebM as the way to do video going forward. I don't use chrome but this means I am going to have a better experience in my browser of choice, Seamonkey, and Google is not trying to take that choice away from me unlike the folks pushing the h.264 browsers.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
You can fairly easily do a side-by-side comparison and notice that overall there is nothing but branding and data mining that's missing, really. I personally use Firefox but Chrome would be the only alternative I'd seriously consider, thanks to Chromium. If you want to go in some mad conspiracy theory whereby Google is hiding optimizations and features in a separate Chrome build, have fun.
H.264 already is a success, a resounding one.
And still an illegal one if you live in the USA and want to distribute an encoder/decoder built using GPL source code.
Any media playing solution which requires getting arrested is not really a 'success'.
You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
Except H.264 is the best codec. Google didn't choose WebM because it's better, they chose it because they own it and (purportedly) because it's open. They did not choose it for being a high-quality codec, they chose it for entirely meta and political/ideological reasons.
Yes. The chief of those meta issues being that distributing any Free Software implementation of H.264 in the United States of America is illegal due to software patent law.
I don't know about you, but where I come from, not getting arrested is a pretty good driver of technology choices, and yes, does tend to trump 'quality' issues. A slightly higher-quality video codec, distribution of which breaks the law, is not even a starter. It simply cannot compete with WebM in the GPL-derived software market at all.
It's certainly very sad that the makers of H.264 have deliierately put their product outside the realm of rational economic choice by using the big patent gun to make its distribution in GPL-compliant form flatly illegal, but, well. Destroying a whole class of potential users of their own product was their choice, even if it wasn't a sane one.
Google, however, have only one economically rational law-abiding choice left open to them if they want to distribute a GPL-derived media player, and that's to use anything but H.264.
I admit I find it rather strange that you consider legality to be a mere 'meta' issue. Do you regularly break the law in your daily business life, and expect others to?
You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
>H.264 already is a success, a resounding one. It has been for nearly a decade.
Technically good, and completely useless legally and morally to an open and free web
>WebM is shit. Theora is shit.
Technically, Theora is fairly bad (but still usable in a pinch), and VP8 is alright. Both are excellent for the health of the free and open web.
That is all that matters.
Climate Progress - Hell and High Water
It's short term vs. long term thinking. We can have a slightly better codec thats got a thousand patents on it or we can have one that isn't patented. We are talking about a very slight difference in quality here.
Yes the patented codec may be slightly better now, but if an open codec becomes the standard then in the long term we're better off as it will be easier for people to make improvements to it.
With a patented codec we have to pay. Sure it may be cheap now, but further improvements to it will also be patented which means it will never be free. And over time the price will rise and it will become less likely anyone will be able to come up with a codec to compete with it, not because no one else has the skill to do so, but simply because it will be illegal because of the patents.
We have an opportunity to get free of all of this. Yes we have to sacrifice a small amount of quality today. And it is a very small difference in quality we're talking about. But if WebM becomes the standard then you'll have a lot of companies working to improve it. if H.264 becomes the standard a lot of companies will work to improve it. The difference is that one will be patented and the other won't.
I remember a time when we did our own checks rather than swallowing the marketing bullshit from the creator of a product.
I'm one of your fans on here. Here's why I don't like H.264, for starters I run Linux on a few of my systems and there's no Quicktime available on it. On my Windows systems I don't install Quicktime because it's bloated. It tries to run ALL the time by default, seriously what a ridiculous thing for a media player. Not to mention that it installs a bunch of unrelated junk - like Bonjour.
I've used H.264 for quite a while. I was thrilled when it became available as a streaming format under Flash.The superiority of H.264 is debatable however, just like the debate between Ogg/Vorbis and MP3. End users can't tell the difference anyway. Google has a huge monetary cost associated with using an inefficient codec - YouTube. That cost would dwarf licensing costs by a long shot.
I think we're literally seeing intelligent people at Google advocating a technological change which ultimately is in the public interest. You can't support open source software while proprietary systems like H.264 are in use. It creates an artificial barrier into entry in the market to free software by causing unwitting users to entrust their personal information to a format they must pay to use. There's no positive for ordinary people with H.264, none. Google has just gained a lot of points in my book.
I have a theory that the truth is never told during the nine-to-five hours. - Hunter S. Thompson
Nope. They officially came out against it and for WebM. WebM support has been in Opera since the 10.50 release.
Portable versions of Firefox, GIMP, LibreOffice, etc
Call me crazy here, but wasn't YouTube converted to h264 years ago for compatibility with the Flash-less iPhone? What's Google going to do, release a browser that's incompatible one of their own websites?
Except the "standard" has already been set in stone. There are outright bugs in VP8 that damage quality, but google refuses to fix them because that would break compatibility with existing bitstreams. Which reminds me of the story of make's creator refusing to change its stupid tabs/spaces handling because he already had ten users.
I am trolling
I vote open standards!
Google is risking criticism for the greater good, forcing change and encouraging the adoption of an open standard.
Nobody said doing the right thing will be easy. There will be hiccups, but it will be worth it.
Or maybe the problem is the software patents?