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Microsoft Slams Google Over HTML5 Video Decision
jbrodkin writes "Microsoft is accusing Google of some heavy-handed tactics in the battle over HTML5 video standards. In an attempt at humor, a clearly peeved Microsoft official wrote 'An Open Letter from the President of the United States of Google,' which likens Google's adoption of WebM instead of H.264 to an attempt to force a new language on the entire world. Internet Explorer 9, of course, supports the H.264 codec, while Google and Mozilla are backing WebM. The hyperlinks in Microsoft's blog post lead readers to data indicating that two-thirds of Web videos are using H.264, with about another 25% using Flash VP6. However, the data, from Encoding.com, was released before the launch of WebM last May. One pundit predicts the battle will lead to yet another 'years-long standards format war.'"
Kettle, meet pot, pot, meet kettle - you are both black.
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
when Microsoft does it!!
Microsoft has filed a patent application for Irony...
The hyperlinks in Microsoft's blog post lead readers to data indicating that two-thirds of Web videos are using H.264, with about another 25% using Flash VP6
yes, but once Google updates Youtube to only use WebM, I guess that'll show 91% of all online video to be in WebM format.
I wonder what Microsoft will say then?
Dammit, does this mean I need to buy the white album again?
Microsoft,
Nobody but people who spend to much time with the business world or tech world really give a damn if you're in a tiff with google. Just do whats best for the consumer: support both.
Frankly, you're in no position to talk badly about a company forcing new things on the rest of the world.
MS considers their position to be perfectly opposite to google. No matter what choice google makes, MS will try to find a way to spin it as wrong and completely distinct from their own stance.
Here, MS has by many measurements, less than 50% share, and Chrome, Firefox, and Safari all reject H264, meaning it actually has a shot.
That shot is small, as practically speaking, all this HTML5 video stuff is mostly moot with 100% of those video sites using flash players, which gives not a rat's ass about any of this. This move will only reinforce Adobe's position.
Also, I wonder why the hell the browser vendors did not link into Quicktime, MS's media framework, and gstreamer respectively for their OSX, Windows, 'other' video support, instead of all this BS that won't work out well.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
(crawls into corner and whimpers).
But seriously: I just don't see any compelling reason to switch to a new codec when everything I own already uses MPEG4's H264. It makes as little sense to me as deciding to move from Bluray to HD-DVD. Or VHS to Betamax. Or MP3 to Snogg Vorbis.
I'd rather just stick with the current standard. Oh and yes Firefox, Opera, et cetera support MPEG4 video, via the Flash support.
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I found MS's blog post to be pretty dang funny. If you don't get the satire, check where all those links go - apparently Theora was made by Klingons.
Sure, I disagree with Microsoft's stance, but I will concede that they made a very humorous point.
If Google want to pull a Microsoft they just need to drop flash and H.264 in Youtube and convert everything to WebM and then convince (bribe) Netflix to do the same...
----------------------------------- My Other Sig Is Hilarious -----------------------------------
Internet Explorer 5 debuted in 1999. Firefox didn't arrive until the end of 2004.
and Apple with safari?
I'm god, but it's a bit of a drag really...
IE isn't pushing any specific format. IE9 will support h.264 out of the box but will also play other formats if codecs are installed. IE9 will support WebM just fine. It's not like a browser has to pick a format and that's it; Chrome can perfectly well include support for WebM out of the box as well as h.264, as is the situation today. Or they could remove built-in h.264 and support installed codecs. The problem is that you have entities that are deciding to snub platform-provided methods for playing media in favor of political posturing in their own attempt to "fix the web". In the end we're going to end up with fragmentation and it is the end user who will lose.
We have Firefox, Chrome and Opera which decide that it's a good idea to avoid a format which is so patent encumbered that you've to pay licences to program a player, to program an encoder, to stream a video and to create a commercial video using that format (try to guess what it'd be like if authors had to pay Microsoft a licence to use the.doc format when they write their novel).
And on the other side, Apple (Safari) which own part of the licences and Microsoft who decided to pay... But neither are streaming anything (unlike Google via Youtube) and both have plenty of money available.
I don't see the problem with Google removing H.264 support from his browser... It's not like if he was the only one who don't support that format nor like if he had a major market choice...
What could have been wrong would be if Google suddently moved Youtube to WebM-only without Flash or H264 fallback AND was the only one to support that format... But the format is open and free...
"Competition, motherfucker, have you heard of it?"
So what is the problem? This clearly is an interesting experiment in competition, which will have more support? Google pushing WebM with Youtube and Google Video and Chrome and other browsers, or MS with H.264 and IE?
Competition in standards isn't such a great thing. If you're going to release a new standard it should be for a very good reason, because everyone will have to support all standards (unless they totally fail, in which case they're just a waste of time).
I know H.264 has some sort of proprietary ties, but they're pretty weak, and introducing something completely new (instead of, say, enhancing and throwing their weight behind Ogg/Vorbis, which in itself would be somewhat irresponsible if less so) seems really crazy.
// MD_Update(&m,buf,j);
Good for you! Can you please pay the Licensing fees then for everyone?
I am certian that if you give Google a few Million they will see it your way.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I think we all know the answer to that. Youtube, Firefox and Google Video VS. MSIE, the probably most hated browser?
Hyperbole: I use it liberally!
Difference being at that time MS was wrong because W3C standards are better than MS's bastardized HTML. This time, from everything I've read on the subject, H.264 is better.
Microsoft is accusing Google of trying to lock people into their standard?
Is someone at MS taking the piss?
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
English doesn't have license fees, making it unusable for everybody that doesn't want to pay. If it had, I guess Esperanto or Klingon would suddenly seem like a better choice.
Google is pushing a free and open standard that they released at an initial loss!? What bastards! We can't let them get away with this travesty and have their name associated with everything good about to come from the internet!
...this is coming from the same company which tried to force their own new hypertext markup language upon the world.
Also, we don't have a single world language in the literal sense, and much less when it comes to video formats. Complaining about a browser (with a 10-12% market share, mind you) not supporting H.264 is like complaining about people on the web who are not speaking English.
...."Have you mooed today?"...
Standards are no good when there are barriers that prevent some folks from implementing them. Standards should be open if they are not then I am fine with competition in standards even when that means things don't just work.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
I find it better to look at the content of a decision before I judge it right or wrong, rather than just see who agrees with the decision. Normally I disagree with MS. This time I agree with them.
That's the worlds smallest violin playing just for you.... if you don't hear that you'll probably need to download an ogg plugin.
Funny, I don't remember having to pay a licence fee to use English.
How many "standards" has Microsoft tried to force upon the industry? Far more than Google. And it's not like you don't have a choice. That's what chaps Microsoft the most, choice. You shouldn't have a choice.
This is software we're talking about. It can do more than one thing.
There are some simple questions that can make it easy to choose between competing standards.
1. Are they sufficiently similar quantitatively in doing the job?
2. Are they sufficiently similar qualitatively in doing the job?
3. Is anyone allowed to use them without inhibition?
It's not hard. If one of the potential standards satisfies all three of those requirements and the other does not, that is the better standard. Why? Because we strive to be a free market economy. We do that because it is a better answer -- mathematically speaking -- than being a biased-market economy. Free market means satisfying the customers needs (item 1), their wants (item 2), and their freedom to choose (item 3). Competition is one of the pillars of free market efficiency. Encumbered standards create inhibition to competition.
Economically speaking, this is Dick & Jane stuff. The only people who could fail to get it are the ignorant and charlatans.
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"...which likens Google's adoption of WebM instead of H.264 to an attempt to force a new language on the entire world. Internet Explorer 9, of course, supports the H.264 codec,...
People should listen to Microsoft! What better expert is there with regards to forcing things on the entire world?
...introducing something completely new (instead of, say, enhancing and throwing their weight behind Ogg/Vorbis, which in itself would be somewhat irresponsible if less so) seems really crazy.
I pretty much agree with the rest of your post, but it's perhaps worth pointing out that WebM actually does use Vorbis audio and a Matroska container. I hadn't previously heard of the VP8 video codec, but Google apparently placed all the patents in the public domain, open sourced their implementation, and licensed the specification under Creative Commons.
In light of all that, I'm inclined to support it over H.264, despite the fact I hadn't actually heard of it before I saw this article.
I know H.264 has some sort of proprietary ties, but they're pretty weak, and introducing something completely new (instead of, say, enhancing and throwing their weight behind Ogg/Vorbis, which in itself would be somewhat irresponsible if less so) seems really crazy.
My understanding is that its patents that sink H.264 on the "open" front. Specifically the lack of open licensing terms.
Of course, my understanding is that Theora and VP8 infringe on a subset of the H.264 patents anyway, although no one is entirely sure which ones and no one really wants to go looking.
Incidentally, WebM uses Vorbis for its audio, so in a way, Google is backing Vorbis. Just not Ogg, instead they've invented a new container format that I think is either Matryoshka directly or a modified version of it.
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
as a professional web developer who makes his living from web development, i say no to anything that involves internet explorer. internet explorer has accrued so much karma over the torture of web developers trying to make perfectly standard compliant code of websites fit the standards-ignoring whims of internet explorer that, its name is akin to 'plague' in the eyes of long time web developers. couple this with microsoft glorious, glaring, dazzling reputation in regard to open standards and compliance, and you can understand where i am coming from.
...
'years long standards/format war' ? really ? with what ? internet explorer lost a lot of share to become head to head with firefox. chrome is eroding ie even more. google has much more reach on the web than anything microsoft, because google had come up embracing the web, even to the point of setting up adsense/adwords to enable small websites and advertisers that everyone on the internet was ignoring and snubbing, including microsoft. from webmaster tools to google analytics, and many more. what microsoft has to show against all these ? internet explorer
there isnt going to be any format war. microsoft has nothing to wage a war with.
Read radical news here
an attempt to force a new language on the entire world.
You mean, like,
I have discovered a truly marvelous proof of killer sig, which this margin is too narrow to contain.
I predict many years of having multiple browsers installed...
wait - I have multiple browsers installed...
So, I predict many years of, effectively, no difference to end users like me.
If only it were a simple matter of technology, we could all agree with you. Unfortunately, H264 is a serious problem in the USA, because of software patents and license requirements. You cannot produce legal free software H264 editors in this country, nor can you import legally produced software from other countries. True, patent trolls will probably find a way to corrupt WebM, but at least they would have to put some effort in.
Palm trees and 8
Of course they would, anytime someone does not follow M$ way of doing things they complain, but when we complain about them not following the rest of the pack for xml OO, they get all bent out of shape....well suck it up M$ you aint the biggest kid in the sandbox anymore....you have to learn to play with others.
H.264 High Profile is undoubtedly more efficient them WebM. WebM quality should have an upper bound of about the same as H.264 Main Profile.
I think in that Mozilla, Google, and Opera are right on this one. This is about openness and innovation. H.264 stifles innovation, while non-patented codecs allow greater innovation.
Today, H.264 seems to make sense, but limits the freedom of people to build software, hardware, and services based around web video.
The lesson of the internet is that libre and gratis standards combined with connectivity help foster growth and innovation like nothing else we've ever created.
I support dropping H.264, at least until all browsers support a freely available codec. Free standards should be mandatory, and costly ones optional.
Unfortunately, the only way to help move some players to free standards is to refuse to support the paid ones.
I'd rather have the option of using both, but value the innovation of having free standards everywhere over that option as a short term tactical move.. That's exactly what Google, Firefox, and Opera are doing.
Blessed are the pessimists, for they have made backups.
"Competition in standards isn't such a great thing."
That's true. Look at the mess that was AM Stereo - there were three competing standards in the US, and the consumers were left confused. Eventually AM Stereo died out since consumers were afraid of picking the wrong standard (as happened with Betamax and HDdvd) and being left with a junk radio. ----- Meanwhile in other parts of the world AM Stereo became very successful because their Governments chose ONE standard, and consumers quickly adopted it.
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A Men In Black reference? Well done good Sir, well done indeed!
Next up, I'd like a Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure reference.
This is my footer. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
MPEG4/H264 will soon be an open standard too. ,/quote>
Are you a sock puppet for commodore64_love? The H.264 patents expire during 2023. That is not soon, that is in over 12 years. 12 years ago, we were all thinking RealVideo or MPEG-1 were the state of the art for web video. If we're still using H.264 online in 12 years, I shall be quite disappointed.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
BESIDES the licensing fees will disappear very soon. MPEG1/2/JPEG are already public domain if I recall correctly, and MPEG4/H264 will soon be an open standard too
MPEG1? Check.
MPEG2? *bzzzzzzzzt* 2023.
JPEG? Yep, was never patented to begin with.
H.264 soon? Well, if 2027 is soon.
And you didn't mention MP3, but that is 2012/2017 depending if you think the submarine patents are valid or not.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Cant we just support both and let the real-world usage sort out which is "better"?
Standards are no good when there are barriers that prevent some folks from implementing them
A barrier that is self-imposed is not a barrier. Refusal by Google & Opera to pay MPEG's 10 cent/browser license fee is equivalent to me saying, "I am barred from watching SyFy Channel, because I have to pay the $60 fee to access it." - That is not a barrier; that is a self-inflicted wound because I'm a cheapass.
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If they wanted to be bizarre, they could even support their internal codecs for things they provide, and fall back to platform codecs for everything else. The only reason for Chrome to refuse to play H.264 video is a political one.
So much for net neutrality, eh?
You're special forces then? That's great! I just love your olympics!
If your "iGadgets" can't be updated with software to support new codecs or variations in existing codecs, then I fear you have already wasted your money on crappy technology.
Remember to maintain your supply of
This is exactly what google's move reminds me of. How many years did us web devs spend banging on about Acid2 before IE finally passed it?
If you don't risk failure you don't risk success.
And they're so confident that WebM is now patent-unencumberd that they're willing to stake their own money on it.
Oh, wait - no, they're not, are they? They won't contribute to any sort of a defense fund for those folks who want to use WebM in case they're sued in the future. Not so confident after all. And considering how much like flipping a switch it was for the encoder/decoder guys to add WebM support to H.264 products, the odds of it not actually violating H.264 patents are very small indeed.
You're special forces then? That's great! I just love your olympics!
>Firefox
Kids these days.
Mozilla != Firefox
Climate Progress - Hell and High Water
Great, another plugin to install that :
a/ costs time to code
b/ will probably be buggy
c/ will require user interaction to update
d/ will be another security problem
Please let us get rid of the whole notion of plugins to view free content. The web should just work without installing tons of crap just to watch a video.
Yeah, but this time, we the people will have someone on our side for a change. Unlike PNG in the mid 1990s and Vorbis around the turn of the century, the implementations we have will be big'n'mainstream. It's nice to not be a marginalized weirdo hermit for a change.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Netflix will also be a big player in how this all plays out.
Remember to maintain your supply of
Sadly, they are often the best choice in a balance between audio quality (pretty bad across the board), capacity (sadly, not many large portable devices available), and user interface (buttons vs. touch screen). - In other words, I may have two iPod Classics - but only because they're the best of the worst. And I have absolutely no faith that Apple will update either of them, because my Classic 6G still has problems playing back audio - problems that were fixed in the 6.5G firmwares - in software, not hardware. So yeah. Some of us have crappy devices that were pragmatically purchased and just happen to be iDevices. :)
I think I have the wrong audio codec for this article - all I hear is "waaa".
Explorer 5
That's what I run on my Mac G4 (400 Mhz). Yeah it sucks. But I can't run any of the currently-supported OSes like 10.4 or 10.5, due to Apple restrictions. So I can't use Safari as an alternative.
10.4 can be run on G3's. What's the restriction, you have to pay for it?
Also WebM is not even an open standard. It is controlled by Google. It is even less open that flash is.
>I know H.264 has some sort of proprietary ties, but they're pretty weak
Weak is not the word I would use to describe the MPEG-LA.
1135 patents from 26 companies in 44 countries does not sound very weak either.
Climate Progress - Hell and High Water
Firstly, it's great to see Microsoft writing anything that's open (and, yes, I know they have in the past). Secondly, when it comes to standards (non) compliance and forcing others to use languages, their choice of method of attack leaves them incredibly open to ridicule. Yes, it's a war. Yes, the goal is internet dominance. No, they don't stand a chance. The fight will be on the droid/smartphone front, not on the desktop.
*** Don't be dull.***
Which parts of the world would that be?
The WebM container is a strict subset of Matroska. Most FOSS container handling software had explicit support for it like a week after it was announced (and could probably have handled it anyway, as MKV).
Climate Progress - Hell and High Water
You don't get it. Video decoding hardware is very specific in what parts of what codecs it supports, and it can't be upgraded through software. The x264 devs already determined that WebM contains algorithms that don't translate well to efficient hardware, and that it will be a huge resource hog compared to current h264 solutions, until dedicated WebM hardware is released to the market.
As for the whole licensing discussion: I think everyone should pull their head out of their asses and stop spreading the H264 licensing and royalty FUD. The H264 patent pool serves only a single purpose, which is licensing H264 for use in commercial products and services. The terms are very clear, only if you make more than x amount of money (somewhere in the neighbourhood of a few hundred thousand dollars) you have to pay a very reasonable royalty fee as a compensation for using the work done by the MPEG group and ITU. I don't see what's wrong with that.
The only arguments against H264 that people can come up with are irrational, and hypothetical, and none of them make any sense at all. What if MPEG-LA reverses their decision and asks everyone to pay up for watchin youtube? What if MPEG-LA challenges open-source codecs in court to crush them? What if the lock the specifications and extort everyone hosting an H264 to pay up? None of these make sense unless you think MPEG-LA are codec fascists who are only out to screw everyone, instead of just trying to make money off a very advanced piece of technology that is widely regarded as the best you can get for video coding.
Does the fact that x264 negotiated a licensin scheme with MPEG-LA for 100% legal distribution of x264 for commerical purposes make any sens if they want to extort non-profit use? MPEG-LA is effectively taking x264 licensees now, or in other words: they make money off the commercial use of an open-source codec that's freely available for non-profit use.
Let's see how long will remain Youtube in H.264 ;-)
A barrier that is self-imposed is not a barrier. Refusal by Google & Opera to pay MPEG's 10 cent/browser license fee is equivalent to me saying, "I am barred from watching SyFy Channel, because I have to pay the $60 fee to access it." - That is not a barrier; that is a self-inflicted wound because I'm a cheapass.
Of course SyFy's subscription fee is a barrier. But it doesn't really matter if there are SyFy haves and have-nots.
And of course MPEG's 10c fee is a barrier -- as is their higher fee for encoding.
Now, these fees might seem very cheap to you -- but they'll be a significant barrier to the developing world, and we'll end up with internet video haves and have-nots, which is exactly what Mozilla's mission it is to avoid.
I think this bad analogy pretty clearly illustrates what the unwitting proprietary stooges don't understand. Refusal by software makers to pay licensing fees or agree to other terms in order to get permission to implement something, is equivalent to you saying, "Since people have to pay the $60 fee to do business with a single source, requiring the people to watch SyFy in order to get tax instructions isn't appropriate."
The problem isn't that you're barred from SyFy. The problem is that neutral entities shouldn't be making you do business with SyFy instead of letting you choose who to do business with, from all the choices that arise in a free market. A "standard" with licensing dependencies is like a government endorsing -- no wait, requiring -- a particular company.
You are allowed to implement WebM. You're allowed to implement Theora. You have to get on your knees and beg permission (and pay) to implement H.264. That (not just the money itself) is what makes H.264 inappropriate.
Think about all the non-proprietary stuff that browsers do, and what it would have been like if people hadn't been allowed to do all that stuff back in the 1990s. Now you want this one little part of the browser, to have a stranglehold? What's so special about video that we put up new barriers that we're used to not having, pretty much everywhere else?
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Firefox is based on Netscape. That debuted in 1994.
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I bought some Sennheiser earphones to replace the ones bundled with my HTC Desire. I was very disappointed to hear a hissing noise when I plugged them in and opened the media player. I was more disappointed when a web search showed this was a general problem with the device.
The earphones are so sensitive that they're plenty loud enough on 10% volume (the minimum). If you have some that are similar, have you noticed the same problem with an iPhone? (Assuming your hearing is good enough that you would notice).
It dont matter if H.264 is better. The standard, the lowest common denominator, need to be free of patents and dirty licenses. Web sites and browser are free to support other codec if they want (http content negotiation). Although, free codec must be available by default.
If all browsers (except the free one) support both, we will end up in a situation where only the proprietary one will work with video because, as you said, H.264 is marginally better and will be prefered by the content publisher. Those publisher are lazy, they wont encode the video twice if Ie, Safari and Chrome support the same codec.
With Chrome and Firefox supporting exclusively WebM VP8 Vorbis and IE9 that will support both, publishers will have no choice but to use WebM by default. Ensuring that the web become more free and accesible by the most peoples.
I'd rather have the option of using both,
Strangely, IE9 would be your browser of choice then.
And I say strangely only because this is /. and here choice is always good as long as that choice has nothing at all to do with Microsoft.
Saying Android is a family of phones is akin to saying Linux is a family of PCs.
...on the entire world, when that's OUR job!"
That is good for you. But obviously you are not creating commercial content. Or any content that is on an ad supported web page that is legally encoded in h264. Take a look at the MPEG license included with any camcorder or codec or sofware (Final Cut Pro) and you will see that its for NON-COMMERCIAL USE ONLY and any content you create for any commercial reason requires you to get an additional license for MPEG-LA to distribute that said content. With WebM that is not the case and I for one will not be producing commercial content in h264. The law is the law and if you use that algorithm you must pay for a license or use it illegally so I will use WebM legally and royalty-free for commercial and ad supported content. Thank you very much Google.
I don't see the "format war" potential here.
Format wars were VHS vs Video2000 vs Betamax. BluRay vs HD-DVD. And the losers were primarily the manufacturers that bet on the wrong tech, and the other manufacturers that could barely sell anything before the format was settled on. After all users had to shell out real money in serious amounts to buy one, and even more if they wanted to be compatible with the others. The space taken by an unsightly pile of equipment notwithstanding.
Now H.264 is effectively free for end users. I know there are license fees and whatnot but no end user has ever seen a bill for an H.264 player as far as I am aware. In other words: if it's not already included in your OS, you will be able to download it somewhere, and such an installation is usually very very easy. And has to be done only once. Problem solved.
WebM same story. But without the license fees.
And before anyone starts to complain about "installing so many plug-ins", I'd say many FF users chooses FF for the many plug-ins available. It's just that they're called "add-ons" in newspeak.
So it may be a format war, but for most of the end users there is no difference. Video on the web will just play. Be it in Flash, H.264, WebM, or whatever comes next.
Microsoft has been told they cannot beat up the children on the Internet playground anymore. Instead, since Google doesn't want to play Microsoft's game, MS tells all the other kids that the Googlites are weird, wear their underwear backwards, and aren't smart enough to play a real game.
Every mans' island needs an ocean; choose your ocean carefully.
Also WebM is not even an open standard. It is controlled by Google. It is even less open that flash is.
Open format? Yes. Three-clause BSD license with royalty-free patent license
Less open that flash? No.
My iRiver 120 was way better than the iPods available at the time (maybe 1st or 2nd gen?). I recently bought a 2nd hand iPod though, just so that I could connect it into iPod aware accessories.. car stereo, portable speakers, even the treadmills at the gym have iPod connectors so you can watch movies on the treadmill screen. They won't work with any other media player though. Bleh.
I wish everyone would get on board with some media-streaming-over-USB standard.
which is totally what she said
Ten cents a browser sounds really cheap, until you do the math and count the number of downloads each browser has. For example, Firefox 3.6 has had nearly 400 million downloads since January 2010 ( http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/stats/ ). That's nearly $40 million a year to include a third party's software to support a single feature in a product they're giving away for free. I'd rather see that money go into stabilization of the codebase, new features, etc.
I'd actually prefer they went the platform codec route. Setup is a little more complicated, but there's no licensing fee for personal use of MPEG-LA formats ( http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?f=37&t=1977899 ), and if I need a license for non-free media I should just get one for my computer rather than depending on each and every one of my web browser companies to provide one to me.
Yes, on a micro scale it seems silly to "cheap out" by not dropping a dime on each of your users to give them a standard video experience. But when there's a free one available, why not push that? WebM is completely free for anyone to implement and use as they see fit.
PS: Your analogy doesn't quite hold. Try "I'm to cheap to recommend SyFy shows to friends, because for each show a friend decides to watch, I have to pay SyFy a ten cent referral fee."
"This post contains words, known to the State of California to cause thought. Wash brain thoroughly after reading."
So you support a closed but "free" (possibly TBC) proprietary system run and controlled by a single commercial enterprise (Google) over an open standard created by multi-company input (with no one in overall control) run by a reputable international agency that has minimal end-user fees for commercial use only.
You're an idiot.
HTML5 video tag is dead... And this is why Flash/Silverlight will still remain the defacto standard for viewing video on the web outside of Youtube.
You don't get it. Video decoding hardware is very specific in what parts of what codecs it supports, and it can't be upgraded through software. The x264 devs already determined that WebM contains algorithms that don't translate well to efficient hardware, and that it will be a huge resource hog compared to current h264 solutions, until dedicated WebM hardware is released to the market.
Oh, I get it. This is a very similar situation to the earlier days of video cards that supported "Windows acceleration" instead of more generic graphical acceleration. Software is fluid and has been since the dawn of computers. Device makers have lots of options to allow them to accelerate H.264 content without some artificial lockout of other technology, especially when that technology has been around for MANY years.
WebM is based on technology that predates H.264 by years (VP3.2 was the first open version, on which VP8/WebM are based, from 2001, versus 2003 for H.264). This is not "new" in any sense of the word I am familiar with.
Remember to maintain your supply of
The idea that this has anything to do with Net Neutrality is ridiculous.
A browser not supporting a codec has no impact on your ability to retrieve a video encoded with that codec.
I may as well claim that Adobe is undermining Net Neutrality because I can't edit Photoshop files I downloaded from the internet without buying their software.
Just another proletarian malcontent.
Wait, you're going to tout the "standards compliance" of *Netscape*? Ummm... Netscape was just as bad as IE at standards compliance...
Open format is not the same thing as an open standard.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_standard
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_format
A 400MHz G4... Let's see... That's something like my G4 Cube, which was release in 2000.
Yeah. Apple's restrictions are all that's keeping you from running a modern browser and OS on a ten year old machine. I seriously suggest you try running Chrome 9, Firefox 4 or IE9 under Win7 or Ubuntu 10.04 a P2-400 with 256 to 512MB RAM. While you're at it, try to play back an HTML5 video streamed from the web.. Let us know how it goes.
Apple is just codifying what is, for intents and purposes, a functional limitation. If I were them, I wouldn't waste resources trying to support ten-year old hardware, either. It's nice that, eg, you can run an XFCE-based desktop under Linux on that kind of hardware and perform basic tasks, but you're still up against the "Try and run a modern browser and play back H.264 or WebM video" restriction.
--srj/mmv
I just don't see any compelling reason to switch to a new codec when everything I own already uses MPEG4's H264. It makes as little sense to me as deciding to move from MP3 to Snogg Vorbis
"Snogg" Vorbis? Harumph... I love it when someone without wit tries to be witty. As to the reason to switch,
Licensing and patent issues!
That seems to me an excellent reason to switch from ANYTHING that group does, especially if you're publishing.
Oh and yes Firefox, Opera, et cetera support MPEG4 video, via the Flash support
Flash is a horrible, insecure mess. Better than Silverlight, but still bad. Both should be avoided whenever possible. OTOH,
Look, if you're a Windows fan running Win 7 on your Sony computer, that's fine with me, but I want standards to be not only standard, but free and unencumbered. Your consumerist stance is antithetical to the nerd mindset. We build shit, invent shit, construct shit, come up with new ways to use shit. Proprietary "standards" are a great hindrance to true nerds.
ASIMOV'S Opinion Piece - Internet Giving Kids Higher IQ: http://www.asimovs.com/2011_01/onthenet.shtml
Asimov's been dead for almost twenty years. Why use his name for an opinion piece expressing someone else's opinion? I sincerely doubt Dr. Asimov would agree with it were he still alive. BTW, here's how to make that into a link:
<a href="http://www.asimovs.com/2011_01/onthenet.shtml">ASIMOV'S Opinion Piece - Internet Giving Kids Higher IQ:
(You don't need the closing tag </a> in a sig unless something not in the link follows.)
Free Martian Whores!
OT, and probably not the solution you are looking for, but you can run current Linux on that Mac.
http://www.ghacks.net/2009/06/10/revive-your-old-mac-g3-g4-or-g5-with-linux/ (there are plenty more tutorials out there on the subject)
Safari can then be installed on Linux, though it's not supported by Apple and you'll find Chrome or Firefox a lot easier.
But, heck, anything's gotta be better than IE5. :)
I'm not dissing MacOS, it's good stuff. Truly. And, of course, you might have software that depends on MacOS. But you might want to at least consider adding a Linux partition and run that when you wanted to do web browsing and stuff with something a tad more modern.
"This post contains words, known to the State of California to cause thought. Wash brain thoroughly after reading."
What does that have absolutely anything to do with net neutrality?
Dilbert RSS feed
An "open format" become "open standard" when they become a standard. This is exactly what all this is about; Pushing a open format for the video standard instead of a patent encumbered one.
So it's not enough for you that one codec is definitely encumbered with patents and that the owner of these patents is highly litigious, while the owner of the other codec has placed all patents they hold relevant to the codec explicitly in the public domain. You demand that the latter group also provide legal protection for you?
Do you get legal protection against patents for all the software you use?
It's incorrect to say that WebM is equally dangerous to use from a patent litigation point of view. Is it 100% risk free? No. But what non-trivial piece of software is, when a static image file format has resulted in royalties being collected under threat of litigation?
Just another proletarian malcontent.
It was intended as a more generic comment, but taking it more seriously...
When a browser manufacturer (Google) who owns the most popular video source (YouTube) talks about changing both to move away from existing standards, and actively removes functionality used to view videos served in the most popular video codec on the web, I think that does impact neutrality, don't you? Especially when their "solution" is for everyone to reencode their videos in a codec that - surprise - is also owned by Google.
So now one company owns the player, the distribution mechanism, the codec, and the video search that reveals the content, all while saying its doing so "to be open.". What could possibly go wrong?
You're special forces then? That's great! I just love your olympics!
Thankfully, I am certain they wouldn't. Google can certainly afford to pay MPEG LA's fees for themselves, if they're doing this its to protect their users because they know that if they had to pay to publish or browse videos on YouTube the website would die faster than a heartbeat, and that the only thing keeping MPEG LA's fees away so far is the fact that WebM is providing a strong, Free alternative to it.
No problem is insoluble in all conceivable circumstances.
I live in the EU and there are no such restrictions for H.264 use here - for example see VLCs position in their FAQ (they're based in France). The fact that over in the US you have to pay is no concern of mine or most other people in the world. Hear that sound? It's the sound of the world's smallest violin playing.
Listen to my latest album here
I haven't had any hissing ... with this said, I have trouble with certain songs (I have to go into iTunes and lower volume specs for the MP3 and then re-sync the phone) being too loud even on the lowest volume setting (similar, perhaps to your using the minimum volume setting).
Does the noise continue if you pull the jack out a bit or jig it to one side and hold it there?
It's the "net" part of Net Neutrality that makes it irrelevant to this. This is the older and more well-known problem of companies forcing incompatibility to achieve one of their goals when it's not in the interest of the masses. You waved the wrong flag. Try "Freedom" next time.
Also, your assertion that Google is in control of every aspect of this are completely false:
The player is a codec, and Google has open-sourced it, placed all the patents they own that pertain to it in the public domain, and promised never to sue anyone for using it however they want. So they do not "own" the player.
The distribution mechanism is the web. Google is a big fish in that particular pond, but they do not "own" it, and any attempts to exert control using their influence will be seen as a fault in the network, and they will be routed around.
The codec, as has been discussed, is the player.
As for the video search that reveals the content: Google is only one option among at least two acceptable options, and to suggest that they would tamper with their search results to promote WebM over h.264 is ludicrous. They would lose market share faster than the GIF file format.
I may agree with your apparent wish that Google would just support h.264, but your opinions on this matter are not well thought-out. I suggest you stop posting on this article.
Just another proletarian malcontent.
You can't be "censored" by the masses, no matter what your persecution complex is telling you.
Just another proletarian malcontent.
I know H.264 has some sort of proprietary ties, but they're pretty weak, and introducing something completely new (instead of, say, enhancing and throwing their weight behind Ogg/Vorbis, which in itself would be somewhat irresponsible if less so) seems really crazy.
Look here, the proprietary ties are NOT weak in the least. And WebM is based on Ogg Vorbis.
Free Martian Whores!
LOL this choice was made for Chrome,Opera and Firefox the cutting edge browsers for financial reasons. Nothing to do with religion.
Nope, I was appealing to the pedants with mod points.
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
I seriously suggest you try running Chrome 9, Firefox 4 or IE9 under Win7 or Ubuntu 10.04 a P2-400 with 256 to 512MB RAM.
It works very well, thank you.
I haven't tried streaming video yet though, but given how much of a resource hog h.264 is, I doubt it'll work very well. Still, I'm sure it'll do just fine with all other HTML5 features, far better than IE5 does for you Mac users thanks to Apple's planned obsolescence.
Sure, it's kind of off-topic on this discussion, but do keep in mind HTML5 is far more than a video codec or two.
No problem is insoluble in all conceivable circumstances.
Shouldn't be MS in favor of dropping H246 and support WebM? Sure it's from Google, but WebM is free, meaning they don't have to pay any cent to MPEG LA. Oh wait, MS is a member of MPEG LA, so if everyone is using WebM then MPEG LA and thus MS don't get a dime from the internet. Aren't they a little bit biased to accept their arguments?
http://www.mueller-public.de - My site http://www.anr-institute.com/ - Advanced Natural Research Institute
So you also believe that chrome (and all browsers) should drop support for MP3 in the tag, I take it?
I asked this of another poster. Does this mean you support getting mp3 out of the tag in all browsers? My understanding is that Chrome supports it. Is that a bad idea?
I think the problem is that we have conflated the need for compression algorithms with the ability to share files with each other.
I think for the good of humanity, by law, all files should be able to be open and viewed "free of charge." -- as in a software or hardware producer need not pay licensing fees ever for the privledge of opening a file using any other technology.
Similarly, all tools used to compress files can be paid for by the software producer (like Final Cut or what have you) and passed on to the creative business consumer in the price of the software and hardware needed to perform the encoding and other things. Once paid, however, no author of creative content should be required to ever pay license fees for use of those tools, whether their content is free or not.
This simplifies the whole process and makes everything free and open, while still allowing enterprising folk to come up with better and better compression algorithms and get paid for doing so if they charge a fair market rate. It also means no one ever need fear getting locked into any particular format since all formats are free to decode.
Asking people to think is like asking them to buy you a new car
"A group of people disagreeing with you is not censorship."
Yes it is. At their choice, I cannot see that comment. That's censorship. Sure you can change settings and get around it to view the comment, but that's usually the case with any censorship.
I'd rather have the option of using both,
Strangely, IE9 would be your browser of choice then.
And I say strangely only because this is /. and here choice is always good as long as that choice has nothing at all to do with Microsoft.
It is definitely about choice. Google said no...and they have to pay for the damned thing.
These options do not apply to XP. The OS with the majority share :). Microsoft Wrote a plugin for Firefox for H.264 as well !?
I mean, YouTube has users far in excess to Apple, let alone iPhones. Actually I wouldn't be surprised if there are YouTube *channels* with more subscribers than there are Apple users.
But... the future refused to change.
A controlling body preventing another group of people from seeing selected content is censorship.
When the controlling body and the group of people are one and the same, it is not censorship. So censorship is not what's going on on Slashdot.
Please mod this and parent Offtopic; I fear our nerdly pendantry has led us far astray of the original discussion.
Just another proletarian malcontent.
Nah, Firefox has rejected X.264 outright, much like Google is doing. Good point on XP, although it's falling out of favor fast. IE8 will run on XP, but IE9 won't.
Of note, I agree with them (Google, Mozille, et. al.) in principle, but if there's something out there in X.264 and I want to watch it, then I want to watch it.
Saying Android is a family of phones is akin to saying Linux is a family of PCs.
Wow, I can't believe it.
Is Microsoft actually arguing for a real, actual standard in the face of two 'open source' centric companies, which are pushing their "own thing"? This is hard to fathom, particularly since there is fairly wide adoption of H.264 already - transitioning to 'standard' HTML5 H264 for many sites won't be as difficult, because the media encoding is already being done as such already for (say) flash.
What am I missing?
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
That's what you get for early adoption of a dying tech.
j/k.. sorry, just had to.
No. Forcing the WebM/Theora video issue should also have the side effect of bringing support for vorbis.
The goal is not to drop patented algorithms, it is to force everyone to support unpatented alternatives. I think dropping H.264 should be enough to accomplish this goal. If not, then yes, I do support dropping MP3.
Also note, MP3 decoder patents likely expire in 2012, and encoder patents expire in 2017, vs 2028 for H.264. That's a whole different kettle of fish on those timescales.
Blessed are the pessimists, for they have made backups.
The terms are very clear, only if you make more than x amount of money (somewhere in the neighbourhood of a few hundred thousand dollars) you have to pay a very reasonable royalty fee as a compensation for using the work done by the MPEG group and ITU. I don't see what's wrong with that.
You're only talking about products that were encoded with h.264. The actual encoders and decoders are NOT free for non-commercial use. If Firefox or Opera included H.264 support in their browser they would have royalty fees at around $6.5 million due to the number of downloads they get (it goes by units shipped, not by income). Therefore it is not feasible for Firefox or Opera to include it for financial reasons. As for Google, aside from this move saving them quite a bit of money by not having to pay for a license for their free browser, they are supporting a royalty free codec, that happens to be one they purchased and continue to develop. It's also an open codec with the specifications posted.
For H.264 to develop an encoder or decoder you must pay to distribute it once you pass 100,000 units (downloads). For WebM there is no royalty no matter what. Hmm.....who's spreading FUD?
This is about openness and innovation. H.264 stifles innovation, while non-patented codecs allow greater innovation.
"Innovation." Yes. Because you can make better fucking videos with WebM, right?
How are you going to "innovate" with an open codec?
When it comes to the consumer, a codec is a codec. It all comes down to quality and performance, and since pretty much every bit of hardware out there directly supports H.264, giving it the performance edge by a mile, I'd say that codec provides the greatest benefit to the consumer.
Does it make you happy you're so strange?
Theora has been "claimed" to be infringing on H.264 patents for years and to date no one has found a single one, filed a lawsuit, or otherwise successfully proved the claim. I, for one, don't think they ever will.
This is what bugs me the most about Google abandoning H.264.
They're a bunch of ideological zealots saying "Screw your phone, screw your iPod, screw your video card, screw your laptop, screw your PS3, screw all your expensive hardware that supports H.264. We're switching to WebM. It offers no real-world benefits over H.264, but it's OPEN!"
At the risk of sounding like a bitter old man, that's a load of fucking hippie bullshit.
Google can feel good about themselves for being "open", and save a few cents in the process, but all my hardware, which did its job perfectly, now won't. (That, and we won't see hardware supporting WebM until somewhere in 2012.)
Does it make you happy you're so strange?
Google has already paid for their license, so every additional program (Chrome) for them is free. (Free) * (all 1,000 users of chrome) = (Still Free).
Google is essentially saying so that they can save themselves the $.10 license fee, that I should have to replace my video cards ($550 + $220), my bluray player ($200), and my cellphone ($500 - including early termination fee). Sorry, but I think I know what side of the fence I'm sitting on. Greedy bastards.
Innovation happens when consumers become producers.
That's the magic of open standards, with end-to-end connectivity.
The Internet's growth is the best argument for the necessity of limiting restrictions on the formats of interchange. If you needed a patent licensed server and browser to be on the net, would we have seen the innovation and growth?
It's IMPORTANT that the web does not become Cable. Cable is where you pay money for content, and that's the end of it. The use of open standards on the web allows for end users to make the software and content they choose.
If you only want cable, buy that, but stay out of the net neutrality and codec war, because its not *for* you.
Blessed are the pessimists, for they have made backups.
Except you SHOULD know that h.264 decoding is done in hardware, while there currently isn't any cell phone able to decode WebM in hardware that I am aware of (I'm sure someone will point out one somewhere that noone has ever heard of) and that includes Google's own Nexus phone that WAS JUST RELEASED THIS MONTH. Decoding video in software (vs using the dedicated hardware to do it) will cause your portable device to eat through it's battery in a matter of a few hours if that. Sorry, but I like my cell phone/tablet/music device to sort of last me 10-12 hours on a single charge.
WebM is based on technology that predates H.264 by years (VP3.2 was the first open version, on which VP8/WebM are based, from 2001, versus 2003 for H.264). This is not "new" in any sense of the word I am familiar with.
And it sucked even worse back then.
1. Fail. There is a maximum license cap, and google has already exceeded that cap with youtube alone. The additional cost for Chrome is $0.00.
2. Fail. H.264 has open source codecs as well. See: x264.
3. Fail. I will not be replacing my video cards, my bluray player, my cell phone, and my entire bluray library in the next 12 months, so the codec will not "be gone" in the next year. Perhaps in 7 years, but definately not before then.
seems as simple as which ever the w3c supports to me. if it ends up supporting both, then all browsers should be capable of both.
I don't see how H.264 is actively restricting aspiring young producers.
Cameras can record in it. Inexpensive software, even software that comes bundled with a computer, can author in it. Various websites like YouTube and Vimeo can serve video in it for free. Yes, that's really onerous. The average person is not going to spend one extra cent on H.264.
By the time that you reach a level where you may possibly have to pay a license fee for it, you're going to have much bigger costs in the realm of bandwidth, productions costs, and such.
As for "end to end connectivity"... H.264 is great for that, because it's widely supported and you can use it every step along the way. WebM... not so much.
It's all ideology. Like Ogg Vorbis vs MP3. MP3 may be riddled with patents, but go say "Ogg Vorbis" to some random person on the street and they'll think you're an alien.
Innovation comes from what you do with it, not whether it passes some nerd kosher test.
Does it make you happy you're so strange?
Yes, Microsoft is providing a plug-in for firefox so firefox can watch H.264 videos as well.
If your "iGadgets" can't be updated with software to support new codecs or variations in existing codecs, then I fear you have already wasted your money on crappy technology.
If your gadget of choice relies on software instead of dedicated hardware for media playback, then I know you have wasted your money on crappy technology.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Getting everyone on one standard that submarine patenteers can then pounce on is not in everyone's best interests.
The way things are going, competition is good. No one standard should be one to rule them all...and in the darkness bind them once the opportunity is ripe to launch a patent nuke.
How about having to pay 20-30 cents per copy of linux (thats an infinite price increase in many cases)...
And if you start there, where does it stop? A few years from now you might have to license so much proprietary crap that free software simply ceases to exist.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
Cameras can record in it, but not legally for commercial use.
http://www.osnews.com/story/23236/Why_Our_Civilization_s_Video_Art_and_Culture_is_Threatened_by_the_MPEG-LA
Windows and Mac come with a license for personal use, but other operating systems like Linux and FreeBSD do not. Also, if you want to use it for commercial use, you need a separate license.
Yes, Youtube, Windows, and Mac are licensed, and you can use the web like a cable TV.. That's exactly my point. If we want nothing more than we have today, H.264 is fine. If we want freedom for code slingers and artists to choose their own path we need free standards.
Innovation requires freedom. I produce some small commercial videos and I write code. I cannot legally do what I want with H.264 without licensing, and they won't sell me a license. For me the choices are to break the law, use free standards, or drop the project. You'll see millions of instances of this over the next 17 years until H.264 patents expire if we don't have a free standard that's supported everywhere.
You want to have a website with paid tutorial videos? Can't use H.264 to sell content without a license.
Want to use the excellent handbrake video encoder? Can't without breaking the law.
You want to build a distributed, self-generating screensaver that produces web video? Cant without free standards.
Patented standards hamper innovation and economic growth. The most important examples of this are the ones we haven't come up with yet...
Blessed are the pessimists, for they have made backups.
Tell us then. How much less could you care?
Cory Doctorow talking about cloud computing makes as much sense as George W Bush talking about electrical engineering.
Do you think *anyone* would use these browsers if they weren't free?
Users would have to pay for their OS, and use whatever browser it came with. This would lead to another IE6, where the browser stagnates for many years because it has no competition.
Users who wanted to use a free OS would be unable to access all parts of the web, forcing them to either pay up, be left out or become "pirates".
The ascent of Firefox and now Chrome has been nothing but good for the web as a whole, because they broke the IE6 stranglehold there is finally innovation happening on the web again... CSS is moving forwards, HTML5 is well on its way to being widespread, MS have been forced to start improving their browser and it's much easier for other organisations to make useful web browsing devices.
Could the iPhone have existed 10 years ago when the majority of sites were designed only for IE? Probably not, people would have considered it to be a half assed browsing experience (like WAP and other mobile browsers were) and it would have died out.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
"That is bullshit, because right now THE standard for personal broadcasting is h.264.
And it's for the same reason it's so popular for playing videos - hardware support."
Circular logic, as hardware support basically had to come into existence once big media decided to make it its codec of choice.
comment first, facts later. http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
GP isn't talking about Chrome, Opera, and Firefox. He's talking about the knee-jerk Slashtards that twist every discussion into an opportunity to bash whatever company they currently think is uncool. At it's best, /. *can* be a source for reasoned technical discussion and information. At it's worst, /. is a bunch of loser dorks stroking each other about how geeky and elite they are, and how everyone else are sheep and fashion victims. In a sea of that, it's always refreshing to see a calm, well-reasoned post.
Facebook is the new AOL
Your blueray player uses chrome? wut...
Ok, so if Chrome is no longer going to support H.264 then it won't be able to support YouTube except via Flash. Google already has to pay the maximum licensing fee's possible to MPEG-LA for the H.264 encoded YouTube video, so dropping support in Chrome won't save them any money unless they also replace all of their streaming video with WebM transcodes. If they require all YouTube streaming to be done in WebM, I certainly won't be going there.
/. denizens, but I can't see how anyone can pretend that Google is trying to be altruistic, and doing things for the "Good of the Open Net". As the Arstechinica article on the topic points out, H264 is an open (although not royalty-free) standard, whereas WebM is royalty-free (for the moment), but not an open standard.
Chrome for Mac, at least in my experience, does not perform as I expect any program to on my platform (mac). Most keyboard short-cuts (Command + H to Hide, Command + M to minimize the window, etc.) don't work for me. That's very basic, and universal functionality that is broken on a platform that prides itself on polish. (I admit that I'm probably the minority in noticing this, most people I know don't use many keyboard shortcuts, instead favoring the mouse for EVERYTHING.)
I see this as blantant and Microsoftesque attempt to control the standards process for their own gain. I don't take moral umbrage with that kind of manuver like many
P.S. is anyone else having trouble pasting url's into the editing window? I tried in 2 different browsers unsuccessfully to past the url for the arstechnica piece. Instead of accepting the Paste the cursor jumped ahead the appropriate number of characters without changing the text inside the editor window.
Bureaucracy expands to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.-Oscar Wilde
MP3 are not open and are patent encumbered. Vobris(open and clear) or even AAC(open but encumbered) is preferable to MP3. Since MP3 is dated and superior alternatives are already in use, i dont see why any browser should drop MP3 support for the purpose of pushing a better standard.
1990 called, they want their MP3s and animated GIFs back.
Better for what though? Better for internet streaming?
Can I click anywhere in the video and the progressive download will start playing after downloading a few frames or do I have to wait a couple of minutes for it to download a huge chunk of the content? In my experience OGG gets this right, click anywhere and it'll start playing. H264, not so much..
Yes because if for no other reason vorbis actually IS better in that situation and its use should be encouraged by all vendors.
Circular logic, as hardware support basically had to come into existence once big media decided to make it its codec of choice.
Does it matter WHY it came into existence, when the FACT is that it's at the core of huge personal publishing platform now?
It's not circular, it's a chicken and egg issue. the FACT is that right now millions of people are eating metaphorically tasty chicken broadcast sandwiches without knowing or caring if the egg or chicken came first.
You simply cannot label h.264 as "for consumption only" at this point with a straight face.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
And Microsoft offered to cover the license free for Mozilla so that the video issue in HTML would be done with. Google has just set back HTML 5 by years. Additionally the contract for the license has in writting that it will not exceed 10% of current rates at renewal. Most important of all, WebM is not lawsuit proof, they will get sued and those that use it could be named as well. h.264 is pretty safe because its a very large patents pool. The chances of something coming up from that which isn't covered already is low. WebM on the other hand is just google. And google isn't taking the responsibility for any patent suits so every user of it is at risk. And for those that say well no one has sued Theora yet, so what. If they ever get popular and some one worth sueing uses it, it will happen. Google has money so you can bet WebM will result in lawsuits. Simple Solution, browsers support h.264, WebM and Theora, and web sites can decide if they want the best and safest codec h.264 or the risky but politically correct open formats. It is so hard to put support of all 3 into the browsers?
They could always build the support for WebM directly into the browser. Unlike h.264, they wouldn't have to pay anything to do that. :) and no plugin, yay
You need to go back and research what happened with AM/FM radio. It isn't what you think. I believe there's a good National Geographic episode on it, or maybe a Discovery episode. Either way it is very informative.
It's inappropriate to be setting forth a premise such as yours without backing it up. It leads to a very confusing version of what really happened.
You can lead a man with reason but you can't make him think.
Of course, my understanding is that Theora and VP8 infringe on a subset of the H.264 patents anyway, although no one is entirely sure which ones and no one really wants to go looking.
How can you add any weight to a claim that patents are infringed if "no one is entirely sure which ones and no one really wants to go looking"?
It's not like WebM isn't open for inspection and the patents in the patent pool are known.
If there was a clear infringement, we'd know about it. Most likely, if there are any patents that cover WebM, google has decided that the patent is invalid and so they're not afraid of it. And similarly, the patent holder would be afraid to sue because if the patent gets invalidated, they don't get their money from all the H.264 licensees.
*sigh* back to work...
How many of those patents have survived legal challenge?
*sigh* back to work...
The only reason end users aren't having to pay for H.264 is that they're pirating it! Google is just doing their part to stamp out piracy.
How do you propose Google, Mozilla and Opera continue to give away their browser for free if they have to pay 10 cents for every user of it?
How are open source developers supposed to pay 10 cents for everyone who uses their code?
This is basically an attempt to kill free software, because in a free market price competition would eventually turn software into an utterly unprofitable business, where software is all given away free.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
But not for the web. There's no video standard for the web. Webm will hopefully become it.
And none of them will be published without being converted by video hosting services. So they might as well convert to webm.
Clever signature text goes here.
I don't know what Microsoft would say, but I bet Vimeo would be thrilled.
to quote GP:
The use of open standards on the web allows for end users to make the software and content they choose.
That's only half right. As you point out, H.264 does not restrict aspiring CONTENT producers in any meaningful way. It does, however, impose significant restrictions on aspiring SOFTWARE producers, most notably with regards to browsers but anything that plays video is affected.
I think this is a move in line with Chrome OS. They want to make sure they don't have to pay anyone in order to distribute this as an operating system.
As a proud owner of a CR-48, it IS a nifty little device and Google's first stab out into the desktop operating system realm. It only makes sense for them to rely on their wholly owned solutions rather than entrapping themselves into paying a royalty fee to distribute it.
Whence Chrome OS goes, desktop Chrome will follow, the two are designed to have a completely uniform look, feel, and function, in essence not being two at all but simply different aspects of a single whole.
bend like the reed
Every English textbook that you learned English grammar from was the "fee".
They're working on fixing that.
If you look at WebM's VP8 codec (the only one that matters), you'll see it's quite similar to MPEG4-pt2 (the original MPEG4 instead of pt10 which is H.264). If you look at the MPEG-LA (the patent-pool/licensing authority for the "patented" codecs), you might notice a few patents that seem to cover some aspects for the VP8 algorithm. Well, it's never been tested in court to see if VP8 actually reads on any those patents (or even ones that aren't part of the patent-pool), so it a bit premature to assert that WebM's VP8 is somehow non-patented and allowing for greater innovation than H.264.
As usual, the headlines aren't really the whole story. This whole thing may just be FUD, but making this about free-vs-paid is really just a disservice. Both are currently free, both have a patent cloud. The only thing that is true is that some corporations like MPEG-LA's business model, and some other folks want to go it with Google on their side (even though both sides said that they aren't indemnifying anyone for patent infringement). Both MPEG-LA and Google are out to make money. They just want to do it a different way.
Sadly Google's move doesn't really help consumers much at all. H.264 isn't going away overnight so for the forseeable future, consumer devices will probably all have to support H.264 and thus the potential "free-ness" of the WebM/VP8 doesn't reduce anyone's cost basis, but it adds to it (now they will just have to support H.264 and WebM/VP8 on their devices). It probably saves Google some money (maybe they don't have to support both), but this is just like Apple not supporting Flash to try to save a few bucks and strong arm the marketplace, replace Apple with Google and Flash with H.264. How is this additional cost fostering growth and innovation? There may be other principles involved, but growth, innovation, and paid are all red herrings in this fight...
Google doesn't have to pay 10c or anything at all to support H.264 in their browser. They can do what everybody should do and support whatever codecs I have on my computer. The vast majority of PCs today have H.264 decoders installed. Use that and you can play H.264 video without paying a dime in licensing fees.
H.264 is the industry standard for video. It has hardware acceleration support on most newer PCs. Google is again doing thei customers a huge disservice. They are NIH hardheaded morons.
MPEG2? *bzzzzzzzzt* 2023.
I thought DVD was using MPEG-2 in 1996 and patents lasted only 20 years. What MPEG-2 patents expire in 2023 and not before or during 2016?
It's IMPORTANT that the web does not become Cable. Cable is where you pay money for content
It's IMPORTANT that you pay money for content. If not, nobody will produce it. I don't think we want a world with no ESPN, no Comedy Central, no Universal Studios and MGM, no Netflix, no CNN. I seriously don't think all the kitty videos in the world can make up for an hour of ESPN.
It's not a matter of privilege, it's a matter of technology and cost. Why should a commercial developer devote resources to supporting hardware that has long since made them any money and whose support probably diverts resources from new initiatives.
Time and technology marches on, and if you can't afford, say, an hundred-dollar Atom desktop that could play h.264 then, well, it's unfortunate. It's not like Apple or Microsoft or even Canonical built a kill-switch into their software, it's that you can't reasonably expect a developers to waste tens or hundreds of man-hours trying to shoehorn capability into a 10+ year old machine. There's a point of declining returns in play.
Should we support 286s still? ST506 drives? CGA adapters?
Or do you mean we could hold back video on the internet to appeal to people with ten-year old hardware. How would we force content providers to downsample everything to 172x144 15fps Sorenson or MPEG1? I'm a dyed in the wool socialist and even I think that's an impractical thing to do.
--srj/mmv
I believe you missed the point. Let's have the WHOLE quote:
It's IMPORTANT that the web does not become Cable. Cable is where you pay money for content, and that's the end of it. The use of open standards on the web allows for end users to make the software and content they choose.
Paying for content is a valid model.
What I mean by "It's IMPORTANT that the web does not become Cable" is that I wish to avoid driving the Internet away from the "content at the edges" model where everyone can be both a consumer AND producer of content, to a centralized, controlled, homogonized pipe of a few pre-packaged pieces of content. Think the web VS compuserve or AOL if you go back that far. Or the web vs cable TV, which was my point.
I'm not saying Cable TV is bad, just that the web is the generator of innovation and growth that it is because the building blocks are both libre and gratis. Lets keep it that way as much as possible.
Blessed are the pessimists, for they have made backups.
But not for the web. There's no video standard for the web. Webm will hopefully become it.
h.264 has become the de-facto standard for the web, because you can use it in Flash players, and it works on any iOS device.
And none of them will be published without being converted by video hosting services.
To h.264 if you take a look at what the Flash is wrapping. They are just transcoding to lower bitrates or resolutions.
And there's a lot of h.264 specific software and devices for that also...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
To produce H.264 content you will need a content-production piece of software. This software can be free or it can be for pay. For-pay content production software will generally fully support H.264, Gratis software will obviously not be able to do this if there is a license fee for H.264 encoding.
So, how is allowing (as opposed to mandating) any particular codec limiting choice? How would, in any possible way, allowing H.264, the only open standard video codec with a good online profile, in Chrome limit choice? Nobody has argued that Google should not support WebM, by all means, they should. They should also support H.264. In fact they should support all codecs instaled on the users computer.
By limiting our choice to a single codec Google is the one limiting the field. Google is the one preventing me from publishing in the format that I find most suitable for my content.
Google is doing this so that Google can run the world. It is a way to limit choice not expand it. IE 9 will support whatever codec I have, it will hardware accelerate any video stream where the codec supports hardware acceleration. Google will not support HW acceleration since no HW out there will accelerate WebM.
Please elaborate on the understanding and background that leads you to conclude that limiting the choice for the entire world to one single codec is more freedom and openness than it is to allow both the producer and the consumer to chose which codec to use.
Which would make it impossible to access the web using free software, you would have to pay for an h.264 license if you wanted to browse the web...
That starts a slippery slope, and in a few years time anyone wanting to use linux might end up having to buy licenses from a large number of sources, or buy a distro which includes them. Gone would be the days of downloading a free cd image and using it.
Software companies are scared of free (as in no cost) software, because they realise that if they have to face competition, eventually it will force prices down to nothing.
Just look at hardware, years of competition have resulted in very rapid innovation in the hardware space, combined with rapidly dropping prices and razor thin margins. The only reason hardware isn't given away free is because of per unit costs (ie materials & manufacturing)...
The use of patents is twofold, firstly to provide a base on software prices to prevent competition driving the price to zero and second (later) to create an artificial barrier of entry into the market so that smaller more nimble competitors cannot compete with the established players, thus allowing them to keep prices high.
If left to a free market, software would become a business where no money can be made (as it has no natural floor to pricing), and all commercial software development would be done by companies using it to aid other lines of business (hardware, consultancy, internal use etc)... You would also find that a majority of software would be open source because pooling your development effort would save a lot of money (think of the effort of building your own embedded os from scratch vs using linux and making the tweaks you need).
Google most likely realise this, which is why they make their money from offering services.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
Software companies are scared of free (as in no cost) software, because they realise that if they have to face competition, eventually it will force prices down to nothing
Free software is a myth. It doesn't exist. Someone is always paying. For Linux, for example, where the vast majority of contributions happens from paid developers, the customers of the companies dedicating resources to Linux are paying. One way or another.
The fact that you are not paying for the privilege of running Linux doesn't mean it is free, it just means that you are a leech and that some other poor slob is carrying you.
If left to a free market, software would become a business where no money can be made
This is actually pure rubbish. The cost of software today is so high that specialized business have to thrive in the market.
development would be done by companies using it to aid other lines of business
Ah, to be young and dumb again. Sorry, but it used to be like that. Universities didn't teach software development, they taught maths. Software was only developed as a side-business to sell hardware or services. Nobody made money out of software. Tell you what: You don't want that back. It makes for poor software made by people who have no concept of what the end-user wants or needs. It is an unsustainable model, and it will send us back to the 1970s software quality wise. Want proof? Three words. "Linux Desktop Software". I am a big fan of Linux. I use it personally and professionaly almost everywhere. For all the software that exists on multiple platforms (GUI oriented software) it is always a nightmare to use on Linux compared to any of the other platforms. There is one Unix with a decent interface and that is OSX.
Google most likely realise this, which is why they make their money from offering services.
And that is just clueless. Google makes money selling your personal data to advertisers, not from offering services. I don't even think Google has a professional services arm at all.
This is my point:
Microsoft and Apple do not support a gratis standard, and have chosen H.264 as the only one they will support. If everyone already supported one of the gratis standards, I would agree with you, this might be a bad move.
Google's move is intended to help force Microsoft, Apple, other browsers(the large ones of whom have already), the handset manufacturers to standardize on WebM. It's better for the internet if everyone supports a gratis standard, and optionally also supports paid ones.
Once everyone supports WebM (or theora, or some other non-royalty baring standard), I believe Google might add H.264 support back into Chrome.
It's not about removing support for patented codecs, it's about forcing the inclusion of free ones.
Graits standards should be mandatory, paid ones optional, both on the producing and consuming side. That is my point, and I believe that is the goal of the action Google is taking.
Blessed are the pessimists, for they have made backups.
No, there's Safari too
No grounds to sue, so all there's left is crying about it.
The three laws of thermodynamics:(1) You can't win. (2) You can't break even. (3) You can't even quit.
>>>Can you please pay the Licensing fees then for everyone?
You can't afford the MPEG's 10-20 cents extra per iPod? That is a shame. (shrug). Well *I* can't afford to spend several hundred dollars to buy new iPods, iPads, and other Gadgets that can play this NEW WebM codec. I think MY reason (save almost a thousand dollars) is more compelling then your reason (save 10 pennies).
Hundreds of dollars >>>>> 0.1 dollars.
I side with me.
If that makes me an ass, so be it.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
>>>>>Explorer 5. That's what I run on my Mac G4 (400 Mhz). Yeah it sucks. But I can't run any of the currently-supported OSes like 10.4 or 10.5, due to Apple restrictions. So I can't use Safari as an alternative.
>>
>>I seriously suggest you try running Chrome 9, Firefox 4 or IE9 under Win7, on a P2-400 with 512MB RAM
Windows 7 works fine.
Windows XP also works fine, and WILL run Firefox 4 or Chrome 9.
See Microsoft (and others) support machines as old as my Mac G4.
Why can't Apple??? Heck they don't even support four-year-old machines.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
Microsoft ... have chosen H.264 as the only one they will support
BZZT! WRONG!
I believe Google might add H.264 support back into Chrome
People also believe virgins can give birth to sons of imaginary etheral entities and that clinically dead people can be arisen just by magical mumbling. That doens't make it a rational belief. Google is removing support for H.264 to kill it as a distribution codec. No more, no less.
Graits standards should be mandatory
A business as an individual should be free to operate within the law. "Should be mandatory" is something that Kim Il Jung and Joseph Stalin likes but that has somehow fallen out of favor among the thinking population.
I would never presume to say anything about what Google should and should not do, but I can analyze their motives.
I believe that is the goal of the action Google is taking
Google cares about ruling the world according to the book of Google and about selling your personal information to as many advertisers as they can. They don't give a flying dung pile about Gratis or Free.
>>>You have to get on your knees and beg permission (and pay) to implement H.264.
False, false, false.
The non-profit MPEG gives their codecs away
for free to anyone earning less than $500,000.
I don't have to pay.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
Europe, Japan, Australia all embraced AM Stereo, set a single standard, and it boomed throughout the 80s and 90s. Meanwhile in the USA it flopped because consumers were confused which of 3 AMS codecs to purchase. It died.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
>>>This clearly is an interesting experiment in competition, which will have more support? Google or MS?
I like the nonprofit MPEG group. - They've done a lot of good work these last 25 years (MPEG1, MPEG2, MP3, JPEG, MPEG4, AAC, HE-AAC), and I don't see any reason to stop using their specifications. I especially love those most-recent specs which let me send video to my friend who's stuck on dialup, or listen to FM-quality radio at only 14kbit/s.
As for microsoft or google, I could care less.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
P.S.
I just don't see any compelling reason to switch to a new codec when every iPod, iPad, iGadget, TV I own already uses MPEG4's H264. It makes as little sense to me as deciding to move from MP3 to Snogg Vorbis. I'd rather just stick with the current standard.
Oh and yes Firefox, Opera, et cetera support MPEG4 video, via the Flash support.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
Microsoft ... have chosen H.264 as the only one they will support
BZZT! WRONG!
[Citation needed] Everything I've read says they will support H.264, and also allow whatever you want to install otherwise. Defaults matter.
I believe Google might add H.264 support back into Chrome
People also believe virgins can give birth to sons of imaginary etheral entities and that clinically dead people can be arisen just by magical mumbling. That doens't make it a rational belief. Google is removing support for H.264 to kill it as a distribution codec. No more, no less.
My opinion, your opinion. Both are rational. Mine happens to be supported: http://blog.chromium.org/2011/01/more-about-chrome-html-video-codec.html But thanks for the insults anyway.
Graits standards should be mandatory
A business as an individual should be free to operate within .the law. "Should be mandatory" is something that Kim Il Jung and Joseph Stalin likes but that has somehow fallen out of favor among the thinking population.
I would never presume to say anything about what Google should and should not do, but I can analyze their motives.
So sorry. "Ideally, for the benefit of future innovation, gratis standards should be incentivised in the present market." You like that wording better? Creating an incentive for WebM adoption is exactly what Google has done.
I believe that is the goal of the action Google is taking
Google cares about ruling the world according to the book of Google and about selling your personal information to as many advertisers as they can. They don't give a flying dung pile about Gratis or Free.
They claim to. Their stated reasons lines up 100% with my guesses. Strange that... http://blog.chromium.org/2011/01/more-about-chrome-html-video-codec.html
You're allowed to be sceptical, but you could try to be less of a dick about it.
Blessed are the pessimists, for they have made backups.
>>>only if you make more than x amount of money, do you have to pay a very reasonable royalty fee..... unless you think MPEG-LA are codec fascists who are only out to screw everyone..... [MPEG4/h264] is an open-source codec that's freely available for non-profit use.
>>>
I want to hug you.
FINALLY someone on slashdot displays some THINKING ability instead of trying to worship Oope-source WEBM as if it was a religion, and MPEG was the devil incarnate. THANK YOU for finally posting a rational argument. (But sadly you'll probably be modded "troll" in order to shut you up).
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Anybody who's ever tried setting Word's dictionary to anything but "Microsoft English" will appreciate the hypocrisy.
Do you see what I did there?
Defaults matter
No, they do not. IE will use the codecs on your PC, as it should. M$ is doing the right thing here. The whole purpose of having a generic way of installing codecs and other supporting functionality in an OS is for applications to make use of them. Google saying they will specifically include support for a particular codec is about as sane as having every single application ship with its own graphics and sound drivers.
Mine happens to be supported
What the article you are quoting actually says is that Google will continue to support H.264 through Flash (not a huge surprise). This makes sense for Google and supports what I and others have been saying: Google is primarily concerned how to gather as much of your personal info as possible and share this with Google advertisers. Flash gives them much better tools in this regard than does the <video> tag.
Creating an incentive for WebM adoption is exactly what Google has done
or, they have ensured that Flash will be the main mode of delivering video in the future. That would be consistent with their goals of making money off of your personal information, and it is in line with what Google says in the link you used.
They claim to... lines up 100%
You read what you read, and I read this: H.264 plays an important role in video and the vast majority of the H.264 videos on the web today are viewed in plug-ins such as Flash and Silverlight. These plug-ins are and will continue to be supported in Chrome
In other words -
the vast majority of professional content producers use H.264, and they are going to continue to to so. If we encourage H.264 content distributed using the <video> tag, we will not be able to layer advertising onto that video, and therefore we'll lose ad money. We will therefore only support H.264 in plugins where we can add advertising content and sell your personal information.
you could try to be less of a dick about it
I could. I might even try.