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Google To Push WebM With IE9, Safari Plugins
surveyork writes with this "new chapter in the browser wars: 'Google in a defense of its decision to pull H.264 from Chrome's HTML5 revealed that it will put out WebM plugins for Internet Explorer 9 and Safari. Expecting no official support from Apple or Microsoft, Google plans to develop extensions that would load its self-owned video codec. No timetable was given.' So Google gets started with their plan for world-wide WebM domination. They'll provide WebM plugins for the browsers of the H.264-only league, so in practice, all major browsers will have WebM support — one way or the other. Machiavellian move?"
Can you fix IE9's canvas implementation?
Thanks Google!
How sinister of them, trying to compete with a proprietary codec by releasing free plugins for other vendors' browsers to play their unencumbered format.
Look out Lex Luthor, Eric Schmidt is stealing your schtick.
Try not to take me more seriously than I take myself.
I guess as long as you don't mind eventually paying for the licenses or battling the patent trolls. Even though currently H.264 is available for 'free' (as in you don't have to pay for it), the current owners are not obligated to keep it that way. H.264 is not really free in the rms sense of the word.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
Something tells me that MS and Apple (and especially, Apple) will do all they can to break the plugin's functionality.
I have left slashdot and am now on Soylent News. FUCK YOU DICE.
Well, more good news for IE and Safari users. Not sure this makes too much sense though. Basically Google is removing a feature from their own browser, and then adding a new feature to their competitors. I guess that settles it, Google really believes that WebM is the superior codec, and is willing to destroy themselves to prove it. Most people are probably going to be happy using browsers that have both codecs, but hey, maybe there's some crazy Xanatos Gambit here that I'm just not seeing.
-mrxak
Onions Will Kill You
..Microsoft responds by releasing an H.264 plugin for Chrome
After all, we've seen how Silverlight has come to dominate the web.
#DeleteChrome
Developers should pay close attention to how Microsoft and Apple react to this, as the real test of support for their plugin API doesn't come until it's used to build something like this, which really doesn't align with their own strategic interests.
I dont feel like browsing my mayor much - sounds like an invasion of privacy.
So are they taking H.264 out of Android? Isn't this a half hearted effort if they don't?
Also, what are the hundreds of millions of existing devices that only support h.264 supposed to do with WebM?
Won't Chome and Opera also have plugins for H.264 ? Unless those are banned, this
doesn't seem very profound.
So lets recap:
* Mozilla and Google push for a video tag in HTML that is unencumbered by patents. Apple and Microsoft will not go along.
* Google acquires On2, and promotes it as an open standard, including promises to defend it in court.
* Google promises to release plugins that allow IE9 and Safari to decode their codec in the two browsers which won't support it natively. No one is forced to use their open standard, but it is now an option across all browsers that implement the video tag.
If buying a codec so you can open it, make it freely available to everyone, and defend it from patent attack is Machiavellian, than how would you describe Apple and Microsoft's work to make sure the only way to play a video is the use of a proprietary format?
All Mayor browsers will have WebM support? Darn it. We don't have a Mayor, just an Council Prefect.
it makes sense to not support what m$ is supporting(null).
All (two of them?) of the big power players keep the stranglehold on content distribution with their vast patent and copyright portfolios. And it further ramps up the hardware upgrade treadmill.
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
Why not take the easy way, and buy Microsoft and apple?
MPEG-LA isn't meant primarily to generate a profit, it's a collaboration of many patent holders who have pooled their patents to create a legal, high quality, open, widely supported video codec that they can all use, preventing a slew of inferior, proprietary incompatible video formats from each company. MPEG-LA, and their members, primarily want a codec that can be more or less used universally. It's not in their best interest to become "patent trolls" and sue people not making money off of their patents.
On the other hand, it's very much in their interest to sue large companies that are deliberately pissing in their pool, like Google.
As a consumer, H.264 is pretty much perfect. It essentially comes free with everything I own, costs me nothing to use on the web, is universally supported, and runs smoothly and sips power on all my devices. Of those, WebM only does the "costs me nothing to use on the web".
On paper, WebM is inferior technology. In theory, WebM's license is superior. But in actual, present reality, H.264 is really the best thing out there, and WebM is just not compelling enough to overturn the consumer apple cart in order to cater to the ideological whims of a small minority of consumers.
IIRC it also costs oodles for licensing for those making browsers, which in turn raises the costs of making a browser, which in turns hurts competition.
Will Google only use webm for YouTube, forcing me to use its plugin so I can watch silly videos? If I use Google's plug-in, will they track all my internet activity? While Google will provide support to other desktop browsers, will they use this as a wedge against iPhone/mobile safari? Make no mistake, this is very Machiavellian and sucks for users.
-- Flame me and I will happily flame you back. Bring it!
Actually, they are. MPEG-LA has said that H.264 will be permanently royalty free for Internet broadcast video. I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice, but my understanding is that they cannot retract that. They might even lose the rights to enforce their patents if they tried. (Again, you are insane if you rely on slashdot for legal advice, from me or anyone else.)
Now, a new party could come along and sue, but that is true for WebM or any other standard.
I would be shocked if Google goes to any great lengths to hunt down and exterminate H.264(especially since they now distribute and auto-update Flash, which has Adobe's H.264 support, albeit only within flash applets), though they will presumably auto-update by default, as Chrome always has, which will eliminate the older copies run by people who don't do anything to stop that from happening.
There are clear strategic reasons why Google would care about WebM vs. H.264 marketshare; but(unlike a DRM problem, where obsessively exterminating the few compromised nodes before they can leak plaintext versions is a constant activity), marketshare battles are about trying to move the mainstream in one direction or another, not about trying to twist the arms of a few percent of die-hards. Google would, one presumes, want to save the licensing money, and be able to say to web video outfits "Hey, look at the WebM vs. H.264 numbers..."; but they have nothing to gain by burning their geek PR by trying to snatch H.264 from the hands of those who are clinging on to it(nor, in the same vein, would I expect them to do anything if somebody were to release a Chrome plugin based on x.264).
>>>the current owners are not obligated to keep it that way
Have the MPEG raked us over the coals with MPEG1, MPEG2, JPEG, MP3, or AAC? Then why do you think they'll do it with MPEG4/h264?
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
> MPEG-LA isn't meant primarily to generate a profit...
Horseshit. It's purpose is to maximize the profits of the members.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
And there is the crux of the issue: Assuming a strong distinction between consumer and producer, there's no problem. But anyone astride the cusp between the two is vulnerable to fees that could stop them from distributing a popular video made with H.264. People have already testified here that once the license regime kicks in (for distribution above a certain number) they suddenly gain the interest of the licensing body and have no choice but to pay or to stop distributing the video.
The idea that video content is made solely for profit is the worm in the middle of this particular apple. And it's likely why Google, with their huge investment in Youtube, want to give their users an alternative.
Crumb's Corollary: Never bring a knife to a bun fight.
We learned an important and valuable lesson with MSIE and HTML. We learned that Microsoft's implementation of HTML/CSS is very, very broken. However, because at one time, the majority of users used MSIE, web developers needed to design their content primarily for MSIE. And since the majority of content was for MSIE, users mostly used MSIE. And because most users used MSIE, content was designed for MSIE... and so on and so on in that looping fashion.
So, with HTML5, we have a chance to start anew. We should ALL be adhering to the same standards so that everyone gets a fair shake. But already, there is positioning, posturing, claim staking and all manner of politics threatening the HTML5 fresh start.
Google wants a good cleam fresh start. Why? Because they are primarily content providers, that's why. Their stake is more closely aligned with the users of the internet as we share a common interest -- good, usable content, without irregularities or problems. Good for us; good for Google.
So Google, with this move, is trying to break the looping cycle I described above. If the most commonly supported format out there is WebM, the content creators will design for the most commonly supported format! It will not matter if browsers also support a second format, only that WebM is supported.
Now will Microsoft and even Apple play the "only MSIE/Safari is supported" game with their content? Most definitely. There is still room for the other players to spoil it for everyone else. But this is a pretty good strategy to get content creators to help break the cycle before it starts.
That only covers broadcasting, it doesn't cover the encoding or decoding of the stream. So, they're basically letting you stream the media for free as long as you use a licensed implementation on either end. Plus, they require you to have a license for each individual software product rather than a blanket license to cover the computer.
What, like this:
mp3 is not free..
http://mp3licensing.com/royalty/emd.html
h.264 is not free:
http://www.streaminglearningcenter.com/articles/h264-royalties-what-you-need-to-know.html
mpeg2 is not free:
http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/M2/Pages/Agreement.aspx
(how do I make a proper link here - without the whole url showing up?)
Waterfox - a Firefox fork with legacy extension support, security updates and better privacy by default.
The machiavellian move would have been NOT to release those plugins, and from one day to the next i.e. move Youtube to WebM, forcing Apple/Windows users to move to Chrome or Firefox if they want to see something embedded in most of internet content. If they want to push a internet standard, better that they provide free, updated, for every platform and browser, plugins to show them.
In the other hand, thats very different with what Microsoft did in almost everything they released as "open","standard","intended by web", in all its history, from html extensions to .net. I would say that Machiavelli ideas were almost Microsoftians, not the other direction around)
Has Nobody ever wondered why TV stations aren't broadcasting in h.264? There's something about them having to pay royalties for broadcasting in the format. I'm not sure what the fee schedule is for them, but I know it is a lot more expensive than the ATSC MPEG2 (in the USA) format they are using now.
Actually, they are. MPEG-LA has said that H.264 will be permanently royalty free [slashdot.org] for Internet broadcast video.
Use doesn't matter, we're talking encoders and decoders here.
That license costs like 10c per copy distributed, I'm sure that will work wonders for Firefox to turn back into Netscape/Opera and charge for their browser.
[If you want to argue that they should have used DirectShow/MediaFoundation on Windows, GStreamer/Xine on Linux and QuickTime on OS X for video so that wouldn't be a problem, I can buy that argument at least]
Now, a new party could come along and sue, but that is true for WebM or any other standard.
This is why the patent system sucks, if it didn't exist then H.264 wouldn't be patented. The fact that it does means that WebM and H.264 are both subject to submarine patents, IIRC we've already had some asshole outside of MPEG-LA suing people over H.264 so this just blows.
Google is exhibiting reckless behaviour because they think they're invincible, and it's all going to come back and bite them in the ass really soon:
1) Google "borrowing" Overture's ad-search business model, and paying them off not to sue them. I guess they got away with this one.
2) Google "borrowing" Sun's Java patented IP for use in Android/Dalvik with a Java-like language because they didn't want to pay for J2ME, not to mention the GPL code they slapped with an Apache license header. Oracle is fending to get payback, and I believe this case will be settled with Google either paying off Oracle with lots of money, or joining OpenJDK and paying license fees to Oracle.
3) GoogleTV, which is an attempt to serve ads over cable companies' signals. The cable companies are now blocking GoogleTV.
4) Google picking stupid fights with former partner Apple, including Android, NexusOne, Chrome and ChromeOS, leading Apple to develop iAd and go after HTC and others for patent infringement.
5) Google's end run around H.264's patents with a similar patent-encumbered codec simply to prop up Flash and screw up Apple serving H.264. Again, Apple is getting payback.
6) Google coming out with ChromeOS, Google Docs and corporate Google Mail. Microsoft hit back with Bing (although I don't see how this will succeed)
7) Google allying themselves with Adobe, having been a staunch supporter of web standards but now bundling Flash. If Flash won't cut it on mobile devices, as it still performs poorly on anything besides Windows and in 32 bit.
The day of reckoning is coming for Google because the world of computing is shifting away from the desktop at a rapid rate, and if Apple's iPad wins, then Google's ad revenue will dry up at the expense of iOS.
Let me be clear that I don't support software patents. Unfortunately, that's the way the game is played, this is accepted by all parties involved with large investments of capital made with an understanding of , and Google is trying to cheat. What goes around comes around, and Google is in for a rude awakening.
This space left intentionally blank.
At the moment, much of the content available in the HTML5 demo on YouTube seems to be only available in H.264. It seems strange that Google would serve content that Chrome can't play. It seems like they will almost certainly transcode all of their video to WebM. I wonder if they will continue to serve H.264 or if they'll cripple YouTube for IE and Safari users who don't have the plugin. If they're willing to develop those plugins, I would guess that they will make YouTube WebM only.
So if this is the future...where's my jet pack?
DivX HiQ already does cross-browser H.264 in MKV/MP4/MOV with MP3 and AAC support, and ASP in AVI/DivX.
http://labs.divx.com/node/14711
It also supports DXVA acceleration for H.264, and it's available on Mac too. It's still in beta and has its quirks but given the discussion I'm surprised it's not mentioned more :)
OGG is free.
...But few things support it (when compared to MPEG and H.264), and most people don't know what it is. If it weren't this way, you would have people calling "OGG Players" to Digital Audio Players instead of "MP3 players"! I dream with that day when people do that...
For the links: use "a href=" blah blah blah as you would do in a plain XHTML webpage. For me it always worked well. If you can't take it, then I suppose this thing of having to write in HTML is to keep noobs away and filter the geeks :)
http://gbl08ma.com
So.. I guess Chrome Frame was a success then? Strangely how the stats don't reflect that at all.
so let's see how the future will play out then...
On one side of the ring: H.264
* Solid native support on the default browser of Windows - IE9.
* Solid native support on the default browser of OSX - Safari.
* Solid support on the rest of the browsers via the ubiquitous (95%+) and well known by the public Flash player.
* Native support on mobiles.
* Formally approved standard by ISO and IEC
* Guaranteed free distribution on the web for free content, minor free for paid content.
* Vast amounts of existing H.264 content, widely used in video editing apps, broadcasting, recording motion cameras and so on.
On the other side of the ring: WebM
* No native support on the default browser of Windows - IE9.
* No native support on the default browser of OSX - Safari.
* Solid native support on the rest of the browsers.
* Spotty support on only some mobiles (don't expect it on Apple devices, Microsoft is on the fence).
* Not formally approved standard by anybody, just an open code dump at this point.
* Free to use, but questionable future if challenged by MPEG LA and others.
* Almost no existing WebM content, spotty or missing support in video editing apps, not used in broadcasting, not used in motion cameras and so on.
So uhmm, yeah, Google. I wish you guys good luck.
Actually yes, auto-update can be easily disabled and no, they do not have any control over what you do with your browser once it's on your PC. You PC isn't an iPhone and Chrome isn't Steam, so it can't automatically uninstall nor does Chrome tries to validate itself with Google in order to work, at least not without liborwell present. Also, lo and behold: http://www.oldapps.com/google_chrome.php Chrome since version 1.0.
This is incorrect. A codec can be installed that can encode/decode for a system. It's just that software makers don't want to give away their encoding to other companies, or often they are not general purpose codecs. Ahead's Nero is different in this, as I believe they have codecs they install that allow you to use the formats they pay form.
-]Phreak Out[-
How is it that it costs you nothing? Are you pirating it?
If you are using H.264 legally, you ARE paying for its licensing, even if indirectly, as part of the costs of the products you pay for that include it.
People like me that want to run computers more safely with 100% locally compiled source code are being locked out by the MPEG-LA. If they would allow me to use MPEG-LA legally based on freely downloaded source I compile, I would use it. Being as they do not allow that, I won't use it.
There is an alternative. If certain hardware makers (CPU or GPU or other) would make H.264 encoders/decoders in hardware, with an open interface to allow any software to use that hardware, that would work for me (then I'd be paying for H.264 licensing via my hardware purchase).
Until then, WebM, Dirac, OGG/Theora/Vorbis, FLAC, and such for my video and audio needs. If they (MPEG-LA) don't want me (someone who compiles their own source code) as a user, then I guess I won't be.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
MPEG-LA, and their members, primarily want a codec that can be more or less used universally.
That's easy to achieve. Release it under open, royalty-free terms for all uses (distributing, commercial and non-commercial streaming, encoding, decoding, etc) and you'll get universal use. That's what Google is doing. That's why WebM is already headed towards universal availability across all browsers.
Microsoft recognised this early which is why they made sure IE9 would make use of WebM if it was installed. Perhaps they'll even start distributing it with IE in the future.
I think you might be surprised what supports OGG. It never says it on the box or, when it comes to car stereos, on the faceplate, but sometimes it is there. My car stereo that supports USB plays ogg, and it surprised me when it worked because there is no information anywhere that it would. It's free so it simply gets put in, and maybe in some cases the bozos in management don't even know it.
Funny you provide those links because this is what I noticed immediately: "No license fee..... for entities with gross revenue less than $100,000." I also note that I did not pay a dime in license fees personally. Not for my MP3 Player, or when I encoded my CDs to AAC (MPEG4), or when I turn on my television (MPEG2), or downloaded VLC Player (MPEGS 1-4), and so on.
If I did pay any hidden fees in the price, it must have been extremely reasonable since my last DVD player cost just $20 and it has MPEG2 in it. And Blurays with MPEG4 codecs have now dropped to $50. So where's this "onerous" burden at?????
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
If the most commonly supported format out there is WebM, the content creators will design for the most commonly supported format!
A nice fantasy.
However you really gloss heavily over that "if", because when has ANY browser plugin been "the most commonly supported format".
Never mind that they can't distribute plugins for iOS devices, users of which consume enough video that they have forced the content providers into the position where h.264 is the de-facto standard for deploying video to the web today.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
OK, so it may eventually work in all browsers if everybody installs the plugins.
But how do you encode the stuff in the first place? I'm sure I can do it with ffmpeg, but what about the normal people who export videos?
They are used to Quicktime exports from Final Cut Pro, or through Compressor, or maybe MPEG Streamclip or Handbrake. If Quicktime doesn't support it, then the simple direct export from FCP, or using MPEG Streamclip will not work. I wonder how this problem will be addressed.
I thought WebM support in IE9 was as easy as installing it as a system codec. No browser plugin would be required. Am I wrong?
Clever signature text goes here.
The summary makes it out to be some kind of subtle plot on the part of Google. Nothing could be further from the truth.
In fact what Google is doing is plain as day. They are trying to convert the whole of the web over to WebM and VP8, formats they control. This gives them an advantage, I don't even really blame them for trying. In fact had they done this a few years later I'd be in support of it from the standpoint of trying to establish a more open video format/codec.
At the moment though, the industry is trying to get people behind HTML5 including the video tag. Googles premature move to try to get everyone behind VP8 means that no sane content provider or web site would support the video tag, since it's such a mess as to what browsers will support BY DEFAULT. You can build all the plugins you like, but you can't force people to install them and you certainly cannot deploy them to iOS devices.
So with this early move, Google has screwed over two groups. Those who wanted to see HTML5 video tag advanced, and those who wanted to push for a truly open codec. Yes, this move harms VP8 by insuring that most sites across the web will use Flash players, and following logically from that will only encode in h.264. After all, if you only need to encode once why would you bother with another format?
If they had waited to get the video tag established, for Chrome to gain even more marketshare (it has a really good momentum), to get solid hardware support lined up for VP8 playback/encoding (because people encode movies on devices too), and for Android to get a huge mass of devices in peoples hands. THEN at that point, Google could do what they are now, say that Android is not supporting h.264 and neither is Chrome - and basically force dual encoding on content providers, and eventually other browser and device makers (like Apple) might well convert to WebM.
See, the term "Machiavellian" implies a crafty and ruthless plan involving many prongs. I have outlined one such above. But what Google is doing now, is not Machiavellian in the slightest. It is the tantrum of a three-year old demanding that everyone use Googles codec NOW, users and HTML5 and content provider storage/encoding costs be damned.
I have backed Google many times in the past, said that basically they were a good company at heart. I still think they are but for the setback they have caused in forcing us all into a new dark age of flash players for video across the web - for that, I have dropped Chrome, and switched all my default search engines to Bing *shudder*. I think Google has somehow totally lost focus on what is good for the industry or the consumer, and are going totally now for what is good for Google and no-one else.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Am I the only one reading through these comments and really wishing he had a sarcasm detector?
if what you're saying is true, why didn't they just make it open, maybe with a foundation in charge of certifying different implementations ?
what do you mean by "pissing in their pool" ? do you mean competing ? is that a bed thing now ? or illegal ?
my take is the patent holder are out to make money. they can't really make it off of the consumer, client side, so they're reluctantly making it free as in beer, in order to safeguard their business-side revenue. and they may change their mind at any later date about the special terms under which x.264 is for now allowed to be used to for free in certain specific cases.
you're wrong to think that h.264 comes for free. your devices' manufacturers have had to pay royalties, which are reflected in the price you paid for the devices.
The Cloud - because you don't care if your apps and data are up in the air.
You guys cheer, but for Google, this is only a part of a bigger game: the platform battle. If Google loses the platform users access them through, which is currently mostly desktop browsing, their core business: ads (with search) may fizzle out very quickly.
Hence why their hurried entering into markets that are quite foreign to them, such as mobile (Android), browsers (Chrome) and, somehow, also video codecs (WebM). With their politically clumsy attempts at hedging bets that keep the platform available to them, they have managed to piss off all of their former corporate pals at Apple, Microsoft, Mozilla, MPEG LA etc. etc.
I know the apparent "openness" of their choices makes some of you guys feel warm and fuzzy, but make no mistake: no one else is amused. Google has been singled out by the big platform keepers for extermination: Google has to throw everything in this battle and win the platform, because if they lose to their former buddies, it's over.
Now, a new party could come along and sue, but that is true for WebM or any other standard.
Unless the patent was issued before WebM was opened, WebM is prior art. It is a safe bet that Google looked very carefully for patents that cover WebM before buying On2, and will fight any patent used against WebM. MPEG-LA's incentives are not the same.
I know. One example of this are the cheap Chinese MP3 players, known as S1 Mp3, some of which don't say anything but support OGG. I also have a multimedia box with DTV tuner and recorder which doesn't say anything about OGG, but supports it (at the end, it runs on Linux).
And there're many, many other devices and even softwares supporting OGG natively, without announcing it - mostly because most people don't know what OGG is and in what ways it is better (or worse, according to each one's opinion) than MP3 and MP4 with H.264.
http://gbl08ma.com
> MPEG-LA isn't meant primarily to generate a profit...
Horseshit. It's purpose is to maximize the profits of the members.
Do you care to provide any actual content to your statement, or do you think the word "horseshit" is enough to make your point?
The primary reason companies pool their patents together like this is to enable them to license products that otherwise would not be legal due to conflicting patents, and to prevent a glut of incompatible formats.
If you think Apple has joined the MPEG-LA in order to make money directly off of the patents, you're delusional. What they want is a codec that they can use across all their products, a codec that is able to be technologically superior due to not having to leave out features for lack of legal rights, a codec that other companies support so they can spec out chips that already support it and so that web sites will use it as the preferred format.
It's a rather pragmatic, and practical, solution to the problem that software patents create.
If you own a digital camera with video capability (how many don't?), the H.264 codec owners are not your friends. What's funny is that a lot of prosumer and low-end commercial cameras have this built in, meaning if you use the cameras for their announced purpose, you just might have a confrontation with the MPEG-LA people in your future. So transcode (Web-M, I suppose) before distributing. IMO, we as consumers are best off if H.264 dies and this time around, Google's efforts deserve our support.
Tech Public Policy stuff
Actually - bluray patent licensing costs Stick 100% on top of that for the retail mark-up, now how much of that $50 is licensing? AKA bluray driver would cost nearly half as much without the royalties. See also this.
Waterfox - a Firefox fork with legacy extension support, security updates and better privacy by default.
Have the MPEG raked us over the coals with MPEG1, MPEG2, JPEG, MP3, or AAC? Then why do you think they'll do it with MPEG4/h264?
Read the licenses in products that do MP3 encoding (iTunes for instance). Even with Apple paying a licensing fee, what you get isn't licensed for commercial use. MPEG2 video playback is something one normally didn't get for free either. Although there might be a license for s dedicated DVD player app, people had to pay for QuickTime Pro to get MPEG2 support.
If you read the licenses for any product you have that does encoding or decoding you'll see there are major issues. There are problems for both content and the related software. We need options that can be fully supported with totally free software (compatible with the GPL and free of any patent liability)
If we speak to each other using video, we don't want someone telling us we can only talk under their terms because they own the language. Our ability to create and distribute fully functional free software mustn't be held back by patents or other restrictions on data formats.
Sources, please.
Or if you are an astroturfer, the source of your "sponsorship" will do.
Tech Public Policy stuff
Absolute nonsense. If you create and give away content online, you don't have to pay a license. If you create and sell content online, you do. The fees are small enough that they are not a realistic barrier.
Also, you are 100% false in claiming that they choice is to "pay or stop distributing the video". They can re-encode in WebM, Theora, or some other codec, if such a choice were actually the case.
Care to dig up some references other than "people have already testified here"? Relying on your memory of what you read on a forum filled with anti-H.264/pro-Open Source posters like here requires a fair bit of skepticism on such a claim.
They'll provide WebM plugins for the browsers of the H.264-only league, so in practice, all mayor browsers will have WebM support –one way or the other. Machiavellian move?
No ... it's the reason we have plug-ins.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
How is it that it costs you nothing? Are you pirating it?
I never said it costs me nothing. I said it comes with everything I own for which a codec license makes sense. I also said I don't have to pay to view it on the web. Both are true statements.
If you are using H.264 legally, you ARE paying for its licensing, even if indirectly, as part of the costs of the products you pay for that include it.
No shit, sherlock. But I also have to pay, indirectly, for licensing of Photoshop and Mac OS X and Final Cut Pro and Windows and QuickBooks and loads of other software involved in the creation of video I consume on the web. So what? If H.264's licensing was onerous, that would be one thing, but it's not.
People like me that want to run computers more safely with 100% locally compiled source code are being locked out by the MPEG-LA. If they would allow me to use MPEG-LA legally based on freely downloaded source I compile, I would use it. Being as they do not allow that, I won't use it.
That's a problem you've chosen to take upon yourself, and very, very few people have joined you. Expecting--no, demanding--that the rest of us cater to your ideological choices is extremely arrogant.
There is an alternative. If certain hardware makers (CPU or GPU or other) would make H.264 encoders/decoders in hardware, with an open interface to allow any software to use that hardware, that would work for me (then I'd be paying for H.264 licensing via my hardware purchase).
Until then, WebM, Dirac, OGG/Theora/Vorbis, FLAC, and such for my video and audio needs. If they (MPEG-LA) don't want me (someone who compiles their own source code) as a user, then I guess I won't be.
And that's quite fine, but you need to be aware that this is result of your choices.
I hope to be able to count on old Google friendship to higher values (moral values, not economic) to bring some help to those afflicted by Adobe.
I hope:
a) requirements will be less gluttonous and will accept older but still perfectly working hardware (e.g., by not dropping acceleration when graphics RAM is small);
b) presenting similar performance in different OSes -- e.g., not being faster in Windows than Linux on the same hardware (apart from problems with drivers);
c) allow for user-tuned preferences instead of author-tuned ones: I'm fscking tired of having to choose low quality in Youtube videos (because I actually want them more fluid or for use in lower-spec h/w).
Welcome and thanks, Google!
Microsoft might be famous for its attempts to introduce subtle incompatibilities that diminish the functionality of competing software products. Apple is more straightforward, at least for its post-Macintosh hardware. It simply bans the offending program.
MPEG-LA, and their members, primarily want a codec that can be more or less used universally.
That's easy to achieve.
No, it's not easy to achieve. In spite of that difficulty, H.264 actually has achieved this.
Release it under open, royalty-free terms for all uses (distributing, commercial and non-commercial streaming, encoding, decoding, etc) and you'll get universal use.
Worked for Theora!
That's what Google is doing. That's why WebM is already headed towards universal availability across all browsers.
It's not as simple as you think it is. Google is going to have a hard time convincing everyone to switch over the WebM.
No matter what your opinion of it, H.264 is here to stay. Forever. H.264 will never, ever disappear. Nothing Google or anyone else can do will change this. It's an established format, like jpeg. Too much content exists for it to ever vanish.
Now, it can be supplanted. If Google wants WebM to supplant H.264, they have a really tough row to hoe. Simply releasing a codec as open source, and writing plugins is not sufficient.
Microsoft recognised this early which is why they made sure IE9 would make use of WebM if it was installed. Perhaps they'll even start distributing it with IE in the future.
They did no such thing, and will do no such thing.
If you intentionally wait to sue, and the defense can demonstrate this to a judge, you jeopardize the damages you can collect. See laches.
The devices you buy have the (small) price built in. But when you say "costs me nothing to use on the web" does that mean stuff you upload to YouTube or FaceBook? 'cause it isn't free for those guys to redistribute it.
if what you're saying is true, why didn't they just make it open, maybe with a foundation in charge of certifying different implementations ?
Why? What they're doing now is working just fine.
what do you mean by "pissing in their pool" ? do you mean competing ? is that a bed thing now ? or illegal ?
Illegal? WTF?
What I mean is that there is an already established, fairly licensed codec that is pretty much universally supported. By coming out with a new codec, Google is muddying the waters. Not a big deal on its own, but by removing H.264 from Chrome, they are taking a system that works just fine, and deliberately throwing a wrench into the works.
If they win, what benefit will I see as a consumer? I will end up with an inferior codec (WebM), and a bunch of hardware which can't play it efficiently, and a bunch of existing H.264 content. This means I will still have to have a license for H.264, so I don't even gain not needing that! And retail prices won't end up dropping by the $1 or whatever even if I could do without H.264.
my take is the patent holder are out to make money. they can't really make it off of the consumer, client side, so they're reluctantly making it free as in beer, in order to safeguard their business-side revenue. and they may change their mind at any later date about the special terms under which x.264 is for now allowed to be used to for free in certain specific cases.
FUD.
you're wrong to think that h.264 comes for free. your devices' manufacturers have had to pay royalties, which are reflected in the price you paid for the devices.
Not really. Prices end up on boundaries like $399. H.264 does not affect the price, it affects the profits.
But what I mean is that they don't pay it specifically. It's not a component, like a larger hard drive that the consumer adds on to their purchase. And consumers don't have to buy it from MPEG-LA. It comes with the product. You're right that the money to pay for it ultimately comes from the consumer, but so does everything. It's an academic point. We pay for AutoCAD used to design the product, we pay for the robots that mill the metal, we pay for the ships that carry the parts back and forth across the ocean, etc.
Bandwidth != usage. Netflix is not even in the top 100 of web sites. It uses lots of bandwidth because it is a video source.
The article is about a codec used by video sources. What is Netflix's ranking among web sites that are video sources? Where does it sit relative to YouTube, LiveVideo, Dailymotion, and the like?
Sorry, but I agree with John Hasler, its horseshit. The MPEG-LA is designed to control and maximize profits. And they use their size and power to prevent others from trying to rise against them. Things like this were mentioned here on /. months ago when it was pointed out about video recording camera's and all of them using x264. Try buying a video camera that doesn't use either x264 or mpeg2 video codecs. Every major video camera maker, and just about every minor one uses these codecs. So when you buy them, you have to pay the royalty fees. That would be what I would consider maximizing profits. There are other codecs that would work just as great and are flexible and free to use (like Googles own WebM as an example) but the owners of the other codecs don't have the muscle of MPEG-LA, so they get strangled out so the MPEG-LA, and only MPEG-LA, is profiting from digital video codec sales. It also gives the MPEG-LA power over how people use the videos they make. According to the licensing of x264, you will also need an additional license to use your digital video commercially, and since any video made with a digital video recording (becoming quite the norm with most people) that means that MPEG-LA yet again has their fingers in the pie for more money. It doesn't matter if you later transfer the video to a different codec that is free since at one point of the making of the video it was done in MPEG-LA's codec so they are entitled to their fee's. (While the MPEG-LA has stated that you don't need an extra license to shoot commercial video with h.264 cameras, that doesn't hold any weight since it says you do in the license agreement and in the eyes of the law, the license agreement is what the reality is).
Attention... all grammer nazi"s! Is they're anything; wrong with: my post,
Most recent Denon and Onkyo Home Theatre receivers with usb port support OGG and FLAC.
None. You know this, I know this, and Google knows this. This has nothing to do with doing the "best thing for the customer."
All this will do is prolong Flash's lifespan. Nobody's going to re-encode their existing video to WebM (except YouTube, which Google controls), and instead, they'll simply serve Chrome users with Flash-wrapped H.264.
That's right, FLASH-wrapped. Because Google, in an effort to "encourage open standards and innovation" is single-handedly propping up Adobe's proprietary platform, and starting a dick-measuring contest with an open standard that happens to not be "free". Never mind that their own proposed "free and open" format might not survive a court challenge on patent infringement.
usually its great to come to slashdot and see discussion as to how open solutions can better be put to use in web development projects. lately it just serves to remind me that the chances of shifting flash for video are slipping away. the complete opposite emotion to what i want to feel.
I just bought a USD150 digital camera from Sony (you know, that company that has plenty of patents in MPEG-LA) for Christmas that can also record videos in 720p, and it uses MJPEG codec for recording (H.264 isn't available as an option). So, I don't have to pay any royalty fees whatsoever. If Sony wants to maximize profits, why is then this Sony DSC-W350 doesn't record in H.264?
They did no such thing, and will do no such thing.
From the horse's mouth:
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2010/05/19/another-follow-up-on-html5-video-in-ie9.aspx
"In its HTML5 support, IE9 will support playback of H.264 video as well as VP8 video when the user has installed a VP8 codec on Windows."
It seems to me that as WebM support grows with more and more videos available in WebM and with new browser releases like Firefox 4, your objection to it just becomes less and less relevant. Don't be scared. Embrace WebM and be happy.
(how do I make a proper link here - without the whole url showing up?)
Psst: just use the standard html tag <a href="url">surrounding your comment words</a> in your comments.
Here's what I do:
Start services.msc with admin rights and Disable the "Google updater service." The sooner you do it, the better, since it Chrome checks at every boot and updates ultra-silently --none of that Mozilla courtesy.
MPEG-LA isn't meant primarily to generate a profit
Maximizing profit is a core goal of the MPEG-LA. From http://www.mpegla.com/main/Pages/About.aspx (emphasis mine):
"Our goal is to provide a service that brings all parties together so that technical innovations can be made widely available at a reasonable price. Utilizing our collaborative approach, we help make markets for intellectual property that maximize profits for intellectual property owners and make utilization of intellectual property affordable for manufacturers, consumers and other users."
I'm sorry but it just seems like you have no real idea what you're talking about.
If Google is as ruthless as I think they are, they're preparing the market for the day when YouTube supports WebM -only-.
Buy your next Linux PC at eightvirtues.com
The more things change, they more they stay the same. Once upon a time, we used to visit webpages and were told that we needed to download Real Player to view the content on the page. Then we needed QuickTime. Then we needed Flash. Now we are going to need WebM.
In the end, it doesn't matter what the browser vendors want to include with the browser. It will come down to the content providers and whether or not their content is compelling. If they are offering what consumers want, consumers will download whatever plugin they need. Downloading plugins is an established behavior.
The only group who will be affected by this at all are the developers. They have to make the choice as to what video encoding scheme they want to use for their applications. So developers out there, how many of you care? On one hand you know that if you go with H.264, all IE and Safari users (read 90%+ of computer users) will be able to view your content without downloading a plugin. You will miss out Chrome users (assuming nobody comes out with an H.264 plugin for Chrome). On the other hand, you can choose WebM and presumably avoid the spectre of maybe, possibly, one day (but not very likely) having to pay royalities on H.264. You end up with some portion of the 90% of the market who are willing to download a plugin. Which do you choose? Or more realistically, which one does your employer hoist on you?
Are you sure it uses MJPEG? According to the spec part in reviews 1 2 3 they all say that the Sony DSC-W350 encodes video only in MPEG-4 (which is also owned by MPEG-LA). Even Sonys website for the camera states (under Features) that it records video in MP4. It takes photo's in JPEG, but according to all 4 of these sites, its videos are in MPEG-4 format.
Attention... all grammer nazi"s! Is they're anything; wrong with: my post,
If you have any ads on your page, even if you are using using just ad words and you show that video it might be argued you are using it commercially. You just being an apologist because you bought a bunch of h.264 toys. You know we are right that h.264 could be dangerous.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
Sure it is. It is meant to generate profit by putting up a barrier to entry into that market. This limits competition which raises prices and of course profit.
I don't buy that to much content exists for it to vanish. Flash video basically died over night the only things in the old FLV format any more are OLD themselves and largely stuff nobody cares about, stuff people did care about got format shifted.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
Then you don't understand the horse, umm, Microsoft's statement.
"as well as VP8 video when the USER HAS INSTALLED a VP8 codec on Windows"
In other words, Microsoft is not going to prevent you from installing a plug-in to support the playback of video encoded in VP8. There is a big difference between Microsoft including support in the browser and you having to install a plug-in yourself.
Sweet, so part of the goal of the html5 video tag was to play videos without plugins like Flash. Now we'll need plugins to use the html5 video tag on some browsers! Oh yeah, now I'm sure Adobe is shaking!
how rude of google, to use the standard os method of updating their program, rather than bugging the user with a prompt he shouldn't know or care about!
fyi, most users won't update if given the choice because they're lazy. microsoft windows has suffered the worst of this apathy. android with its opt-in updates is probably just as bad.
I for one welcome our new open codec pushing overlords
But for the main suspects (Apple, MS, etc.), they are members of MPEG-LA *not* for the patent royalties, but for a codec which could otherwise not exist. Apple, especially, needs a high quality, industry standard codec. Almost every product they make benefits greatly from this. They make far more from the existence of the codec than they do from the royalties of their patents.
Certainly, the MPEG-LA exists to make a profit themselves, and there are also certainly members whose sole contribution are patents for which they simply want royalties, but specifically with regards to H.264 as it relates to computers and the Internet, the benefit of having H.264 exist is far greater than the royalties it generates. That's what I mean by not being primarily for profits.
I never said they don't desire profits, so bolding a part where they say they seek profits doesn't prove or disprove anything. What you have to show is that the profits are the primary motive for H.264's existence.
MP4 is the container, but the video in it uses MJPEG.
But I use Safari on OS X and Epiphany Trunk on Linux to surf and Chrome, but with this latest stunt I'll be moving away from Google. I occasionally use Firefox for certain extensions, but less and less all the time, especially with the iPad consumption.
Absolute nonsense. If you create and give away content online, you don't have to pay a license. If you create and sell content online, you do. The fees are small enough that they are not a realistic barrier.
Also, you are 100% false in claiming that they choice is to "pay or stop distributing the video". They can re-encode in WebM, Theora, or some other codec, if such a choice were actually the case.
Care to dig up some references other than "people have already testified here"? Relying on your memory of what you read on a forum filled with anti-H.264/pro-Open Source posters like here requires a fair bit of skepticism on such a claim.
Crumb's Corollary: Never bring a knife to a bun fight.
Try buying a video camera that doesn't use either x264 or mpeg2 video codecs. Every major video camera maker, and just about every minor one uses these codecs.
That's the whole point of creating a standard high quality codec. Would you rather Sony, Olympus, etc., all have their own incompatible formats? What's worse, is these formats would be limited in quality by lack of licensing of patents.
By pooling their patents, a codec which is legal, high quality, and universally supported is possible.
So when you buy them, you have to pay the royalty fees. That would be what I would consider maximizing profits.
How is the free choices of other, non-MPEG-LA members an example of MPEG-LA maximizing their profits?
Sony pays more to license H.264 than they receive in royalties from their licensing fees, by definition. So how is this Sony maximizing their profits? Wouldn't it be better to use their own, proprietary codec?
It would be more profitable, but it would not be better. They tried that with ATRAC and UMD and it didn't work. What *does* work is having an open format which is high quality and universally supported.
There are other codecs that would work just as great and are flexible and free to use (like Googles own WebM as an example) but the owners of the other codecs don't have the muscle of MPEG-LA, so they get strangled out so the MPEG-LA, and only MPEG-LA, is profiting from digital video codec sales.
Google can join MPEG-LA. And to assert that WebM would work "just as great" is absolute bullshit at this point in time. A standard that is widely supported is far superior to even a better format that is poorly supported. Doubly so when it comes to battery life of handheld devices. But WebM isn't even technologically better in any way. H.264 is superior. The *only* thing WebM has on H.264 is its licensing arrangement (and even that's dubious given the likelihood of it infringing upon MPEG-LA's patents).
It also gives the MPEG-LA power over how people use the videos they make. According to the licensing of x264, you will also need an additional license to use your digital video commercially, and since any video made with a digital video recording (becoming quite the norm with most people) that means that MPEG-LA yet again has their fingers in the pie for more money.
Big deal. If you are using your video commercially, you can pay for it. It's not expensive. Do you bitch about Photoshop because it costs money to use? It's a tool used in making your product. You pay for your tools, or you use other tools. H.264 is not an expensive tool.
It doesn't matter if you later transfer the video to a different codec that is free since at one point of the making of the video it was done in MPEG-LA's codec so they are entitled to their fee's. (While the MPEG-LA has stated that you don't need an extra license to shoot commercial video with h.264 cameras, that doesn't hold any weight since it says you do in the license agreement and in the eyes of the law, the license agreement is what the reality is).
FUD. Unless you can cite some lawsuits to this effect. Slashdot's shrill cry of "but they MIGHT!" is pure FUD. If you truly believe that MPEG-LA is trying to get H.264 into cameras as a trojan horse, then they will spring their trap and demand royalties left and right you are paranoid. Yes, it *can* happen, but it won't. Do you think Apple and Sony and MS are going to condone something like this?
Geeks like to bring up Unisys. That's an example of a pure inadvertent patent troll. They discovered their IP was being used, and they began suing over it. The effects of those lawsuits where extremely minimal, BTW. But one huge difference is that MPEG-LA knows how it's being used, and they have both stated publicly, and have a vested interest internally, of not doing this.
MPEG-4 is a codec, MP4 is a container.MPEG home page.
Attention... all grammer nazi"s! Is they're anything; wrong with: my post,
How about you prove your horse shit statement you got any signed affidavits from the likes of Microsoft saying they won't sue some open source project that implements H.264 if they get too big and threaten a cash cow for them? I seriously doubt it you basically pulled that statement out of your ass. There just a bunch of laid back pragmatists according to you while all of reality such as SCO vs. Novell and every other thing Microsoft has done to kill competition points to exactly the opposite. Apple is probably even worse than Microsoft historically they sue for far far less. You even get super excited about one of their products post some leaked pics on your blog they will sue you... give me a break! See below for proof of Microsoft's dirty tricks.
http://www.ecis.eu/documents/Finalversion_Consumerchoicepaper.pdf
It's be cool if someone made a website dedicated to devices that do support it stealthily.
-]Phreak Out[-
If you have any ads on your page, even if you are using using just ad words and you show that video it might be argued you are using it commercially.
No. The license only demands fees if you actually charge for individual works (such as how iTunes sells TV shows). Ads are perfectly fine.
You just being an apologist because you bought a bunch of h.264 toys.
No. I support it because it's superior. And it's not being an apologist if the thing you are supporting is superior in the manner in which you are supporting it.
You, on the other hand, are an apologist for the inferior WebM codec, simply because it's ideologically compatible with you. There is absolutely no way whatsoever in which WebM is superior to H.264 except in terms of licensing. You probably supported Theora with the same fervor and for the same reasons.
You know we are right that h.264 could be dangerous.
I never said otherwise. But "could be dangerous" is a shitty way to live life. It's *not* dangerous, and MPEG-LA has made statements to allay any fears of it becoming dangerous in the future, and the members of MPEG-LA have a strongly vested interest in H.264 not becoming dangerous.
WebM can be just as dangerous as H.264, and you and your fellow apologists (notice the context which makes this term proper) gloss over this. MPEG-LA has already claimed that WebM most likely infringes upon their patents. If you adopt it, you risk a danger that is actually likely and in MPEG-LA's interest, as opposed to an imaginary danger which makes no sense other than to provide a paranoia-induced boogie man for which to scare people into supporting inferior codecs, since telling them that "it's Open Source!" is insufficient to do so.
Microsoft recognised this early which is why they made sure IE9 would make use of WebM if it was installed. Perhaps they'll even start distributing it with IE in the future.
This is not an example of them "recognizing this [WebM heading towards universality]".
It seems to me that as WebM support grows with more and more videos available in WebM and with new browser releases like Firefox 4, your objection to it just becomes less and less relevant. Don't be scared. Embrace WebM and be happy.
I'm talking about reality right now. If WebM actually supplants H.264, of course I'll use it. But just because Google made it free, and is making a plugin for it, does not make this a foregone conclusion.
H.264 is firmly entrenched. I really don't give a shit if that spot were held by H.264 or WebM or any other open codec. But I see no reason or benefit to replacing it as a consumer.
On people's hard drives from their digital cameras.
I never said otherwise. I responded to the claim that MS sees WebM as becoming a universally supported codec.
If they want to promote the format, a browser plugin is a poor choice. The non-WebM browsers differ from the OSS browsers in that they leverage the host operating systems' media frameworks for video playback.
For OS X, they should provide a QuickTime codec plugin, and for Windows, a MediaPlayer codec plugin.
This will not only enable the browser to playback WebM content, but also permit all the software for either of those platforms to transcode to and from the WebM format. If they only provide a browser plugin, they are drastically short-changing the format itself. It's ignorant to believe that people are only using video in their browser.
If anyone recalls, a while ago Microsoft anounced an "H.264 plugin for Firefox" (http://news.slashdot.org/story/10/12/16/223237/Microsoft-Is-Releasing-an-H264-Plugin-For-Firefox) on Windows 7 that would add support for H.264 using Win7's H.264 built in services. Duplication by the comunity of said plugin in MacOS X, as well as in Linux should not be that dificult.
At some point in the near future, every single browser will have both codecs, one as a plugin, one native. (WebM will be native in Opera, Firefox and chrome, while H.264 will be supported via a plugin, the reverse situation for IE and Safari).
At that point, all this hoppla becomes moot. All content providers can concentrate in using the codec that is best for them in terms of quality, bandwidth, optinos, tools available and cost.
so, let the better codec win!
*** Suerte a todos y Feliz dia!
Try buying a video camera that doesn't use either x264 or mpeg2 video codecs. Every major video camera maker, and just about every minor one uses these codecs.
That's the whole point of creating a standard high quality codec. Would you rather Sony, Olympus, etc., all have their own incompatible formats? What's worse, is these formats would be limited in quality by lack of licensing of patents.
By pooling their patents, a codec which is legal, high quality, and universally supported is possible.
So when you buy them, you have to pay the royalty fees. That would be what I would consider maximizing profits.
How is the free choices of other, non-MPEG-LA members an example of MPEG-LA maximizing their profits?
Sony pays more to license H.264 than they receive in royalties from their licensing fees, by definition. So how is this Sony maximizing their profits? Wouldn't it be better to use their own, proprietary codec?
It would be more profitable, but it would not be better. They tried that with ATRAC and UMD and it didn't work. What *does* work is having an open format which is high quality and universally supported.
As I mentioned, it strangled out competition so that MPEG-LA, and ONLY MPEG-LA is profiting from this. It kills any form of competition which is never a good thing. It has been shown numerous times in numerous business fields. And what good does a free to use codec do? It allows people to use their videos and try to make money from their hard work without having to pay even more money on top of their investment of the tools they already paid for or worry about it being denied. If I made a for-profit movie that shows the downfalls of relying upon the MPEG-LA's licensed technologies and promote free to use ones, I'm likely to have the MPEG-LA want to figure out a legal way to refuse it which would cause me to lose time and money, a risk I shouldn't have to worry about. And there is always other problems. Without competition, a company won't bother to improve their products to the extent that it can be because that costs money.
There are other codecs that would work just as great and are flexible and free to use (like Googles own WebM as an example) but the owners of the other codecs don't have the muscle of MPEG-LA, so they get strangled out so the MPEG-LA, and only MPEG-LA, is profiting from digital video codec sales.
Google can join MPEG-LA. And to assert that WebM would work "just as great" is absolute bullshit at this point in time. A standard that is widely supported is far superior to even a better format that is poorly supported. Doubly so when it comes to battery life of handheld devices. But WebM isn't even technologically better in any way. H.264 is superior. The *only* thing WebM has on H.264 is its licensing arrangement (and even that's dubious given the likelihood of it infringing upon MPEG-LA's patents).
To start with, there is no real reason that Google should have to agree to MPEG-LA's rules if they don't want to. Nor is h.264 superior, as tests have shown that they are neck to neck (with WebM's code not being optimized). The only times h.264 was done better was went it was assisted by the GPU which isn't in most mobile devices. Now as WebM becomes more mature and optimized, it might very well be a more superior.
It also gives the MPEG-LA power over how people use the videos they make. According to the licensing of x264, you will also need an additional license to use your digital video commercially, and since any video made with a digital video recording (becoming quite the norm with most people) that means that MPEG-LA yet again has their fingers in the pie for more money.
Big deal. If you are using your video commerc
Attention... all grammer nazi"s! Is they're anything; wrong with: my post,
Did you know what MJPEG (Google/Bing 'Motion JPEG') is? A video codec too just like MPEG4. The video that camera has is in .mp4 container, MJPEG video and AAC audio. No MPEG4 AVC/ASP/MVC anywhere in it.
The funny thing is that in the case of both Microsoft and Apple is that a browser plugin is entirely unnecessary. Unlike Mozilla, Google and Opera, neither Microsoft nor Apple is making the politically motivated maneuver. Sure, Microsoft and Apple both only support h.264 through a decoder built right into the browser, but both also perform fallback to any installed codec. If you have a WebM codec installed, IE9 will play WebM without any additional browser support required. So, what exactly is Google pushing to accomplish, here? Get their name all over the browser? Peek at whatever videos the user is watching? It feels like a distraction. False goodwill. It'll probably work with this crowd.
In short, IE9 can already play WebM, and without a browser plugin. It can play Theora and plenty of other video formats too. Chrome can't, not unless it is either sanctioned by Google or you write something to hijack the behavior of the browser.
Mozilla's VP of Engineering On H.264
If 'Machiavellien' is intended as a faux German plural, it's almost funny.
The whole thing is entirely Machiavellien, including the MPAA's worst fear that if we ignore the boobirds among our ranks long enough to discover we *can* win this battle, they're completely screwed. Power is brittle in that way. From what I've read of Machiavelli, that was his thesis statement, and one of driving factors in why alliances are so fluid: everyone has their finger in the wind, all the time.
I don't understand why this battle is ultimately hard to win. It's an established fact that H.264 has dubious intimate hygiene (concerning licensing terms). Yeah, but she's a looker, and went to a slightly better dentist than her twin sister, who is captain of her field hockey team and a lemon twist decisively less attractive on her Facebook page.
Geek Time with Chris DiBona
What DiBona had to say about the visual difference is that there isn't much for mass streaming, except that VP8 streams better from the infrastructure perspective. I wasn't entirely sure what to make of that interview except that Chris is definitely a sharp guy. I think he's 80% a straight shooter and 20% shrewd reality distortion field.
The next time some wanker within earshot complains that their favorite H.264 feed isn't accessible I'll loudly explain that the president of the MPAA is currently fighting extradition to Sweden and we don't yet know how it will pan out, whereas VP8 has none of the same legal encumbrances.
Machiavellian? Yes.
And if anyone with a clue complains, I'll admit that, yes, it's technically a difference rape and legal encumbrance, and the problems with Paypal on one side are mirrored by the frequent glitches in the Vigpull account on the other.
Judge Deals Another Setback to Mass BitTorrent Lawsuits
I did know that. I also read the 3 reviews that mentioned that it encodes the video in MPEG-4 (I even made sure to mention that exactly) Only the Sony site says MP4 and thats why I seperated it from the other three and mentioned that it says MP4. The information from the 3 reviews:
The ZDNet view has it listed as "Digital Video Format MPEG-4"
CNet's review says "File format (still/video) JPEG/MPEG-4 (.MP4)"
And cameralabs.com review says (which is the most exact in phrasing) "All three video modes shoot at 30fps which is then encoding into MPEG-4 with AAC audio and wrapped in an MP4 file."
Attention... all grammer nazi"s! Is they're anything; wrong with: my post,
This is not an example of them "recognizing this [WebM heading towards universality]".
Really, then why offer support for it at all? IE9 supports two, and only two, video codecs for HTML5 video.
I'm talking about reality right now.
The reality right now is that all browsers support WebM natively or support it with an installed codec.
I really don't give a shit if that spot were held by H.264 or WebM or any other open codec. But I see no reason or benefit to replacing it as a consumer.
Then why waste so many words on it? I can appreciate that you're trying to "win", but you're losing. Spectacularly.
I find it amusing that you use apathy as an excuse. But fret not, consumer. We will make the decisions for you.
Think about this. Something like 80% of Google's revenue is from web advertising. In theory, all that would be required to kill Google would be for all browsers to include ad blockers by default and for them to be turned on. I'm not saying this is ever going to happen. I'm just illustrating how fragile their business model is.
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Well, the camera produced MJPEG videos, which makes me to have to transcode to H.264 so that I can play it on my Sony feature-phone (that happened to support H.,264 playback). This would need not happen if this camera actually take videos with MPEG4, right?
IIRC it also costs oodles for licensing for those making browsers, which in turn raises the costs of making a browser, which in turns hurts competition.
SUMMARY OF AVC/H.264 LICENSE TERMS
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...per Legal Entity are 0 - 100,000 units per year = no royalty (this threshold is available to one Legal Entity in an affiliated group); US $0.20 per unit after first 100,000 units each year; above 5 million units per year, royalty = US $0.10 per unit. The maximum annual royalty ("cap") for an Enterprise(commonly controlled Legal Entities) is...$6.5 million per year in 2011-15
The MPEG LA licensors are dominated by global giants in R&D and manufacturing. Think Cisco. JVC. Ericsson. Mitsubishi. NTT. Panasonic. Philips. Samsung. Toshiba.
The 940 H.264 licensees round out the list nicely.
The odds approach 1 in 1 that every piece of HD capable video hardware - every piece of hardware that supports data compressed video - in every market segment - supports H.264 out of the box.
There is no such thing as a studio production grade HD WebM camcorder.
No such thing as a WiFi WebM surveillance camera or mobile medical ultrasound scanner.
If the working mother can't monitor her nanny-cam in Chrome - then it is back to Windows 7 and Internet Explorer.
The geek is obsessed with the browser.
But Pandora and the Netflix client can be built into your HDTV. Your video game console. They support content protection. OnLive video gaming can be delivered and marketed the same way.
It is a more uncertain world for Google and AdSense.
But even more so for the geek.
Because the walled garden of the "app" and "app store" takes users away from the relatively open environment of the general-purpose PC. Because the new subscription service models "just work."
MPEG-4 isn't h.264. MPEG-4 is MPEG-4. Different codec from the same group. Would be why you would have to transcode it into h.264.
Attention... all grammer nazi"s! Is they're anything; wrong with: my post,
H.264 official name is MPEG-4 AVC. DivX/XviD/H.263 official name is MPEG-4 ASP. MVC official name is MPEG-4 MVC. In other words, H.264 is part of the MPEG-4 moniker, and is closely related to MPEG-4 ASP and also MPEG2 (used in DVD/Blu-ray etc.).
MJPEG (which the camera uses) is not MPEG-4. That camera doesn't seem to encode to MPEG-4 ASP in any way.
MJPEG isn't a part of MPEG-LA, yes. But everyone is still saying one thing, your saying another. I'm not sure what else to say. Even the Sonys own manual on page 27 says, and I'll quote "File format: Movies: MPEG-4 Visual" It says nothing about MJPEG or h.264.
Attention... all grammer nazi"s! Is they're anything; wrong with: my post,
Flash. The impetus for this whole thing.
You know what - that is actually a pretty excellent point. I would weakly point out, that Flash for a while wasn't even really a plugin though - it came default with most browsers. But now that's not true of Windows or OS X.
However, I would add one stronger counterpoint - the Highlander defense, as in : There Can be Only One. Can you realistically see a WebM plugin replacing Flash? How would that happen? You know Adobe would take measures to stop that, including taking VP8 support out of Flash if they thought it was a real threat.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Without an effort like this, the video tag would be dead in the water. Forever.
Wrong. The video tag was starting to see adoption, because all video has unified behind h.264, so it made the use of the video tag actually work across all browsers. There are multiple implementations today; I know because I use them.
Now there is no video codec standard, hence everyone will switch bac to Flash players because THAT is now the common denominator that can play the h.264 video that everyone is encoding and using. As for VP8, a codec I would like very much to see made common; that is now relegated to the same lofty position Ogg occupies in the audio scene.
Forgive me if I'm not enthralled at a decade more of using Flash players until either Google collapses (which is as likely as the Thundar the Barbarian scenario for the moon) or they come to their senses and add back h.264 support.
Or I suppose Chrome could falter and make the point moot, but I doubt that as well, it has too much traction and is really a pretty good browser otherwise.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Have you checked to see how much your comments have effected the value of google stock
There's no need. It will not affect Google at all.
Don't care, my having zero impact doesn't mean I have to be contributing to what I see as a practice harming consumers. Google doesn't know what I'm doing? Don't care. Because *I* know.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Just so you know, declaring yourself the winner didn't make it so.
MPEG-LA, and their members, primarily want a codec that can be more or less used universally.
No they don't. If they did, they would open up the patents on h.264. The way they're behaving at the moment makes them a cartel.
As a consumer, H.264 is pretty much perfect. It essentially comes free with everything I own, costs me nothing to use on the web [...]
Oh, come on. That's the usual lie. It's as if you say that the State taxing your food provider "costs you nothing". Only that now corporations are taxing your video provider (in the case of the State, it's at least supposed to do something for you in exchange).
I would be shocked if Google goes to any great lengths to hunt down and exterminate H.264
Shocked now, are you? (smile)
>MPEG-LA has already claimed that WebM most likely infringes upon their patents. If you adopt it, you risk a danger that is actually likely and in MPEG-LA's interest,
In other words if they lose in the marketplace against WebM they will try to win the courtroom with their stable of bullshit patents like "drawing to screen web-based device" and "putting data in framebuffer of mobile device"
Stop defending software patents as being legitimate concepts in a debate over formats. They're roadblocks society has long overgrown. Suggesting that we should align ourselves with the larger mafiosio because he has more guns is stupid, shortsighted, and shows you to be a MPEGLA shill even if that isn't your intention.
It's not a browser plugin in the same way as Flash, or that recent Microsoft thingy to play H.264 in Firefox. It's just codecs. Quote:
The HTML tag specification actually provides a capability known as canPlayType. Web developers use this capability to see which codecs are supported by the particular browser and it is completely transparent to them whether the codec was shipped natively in the browser or later installed by an end user. Safari and IE9 provide a way for users to install support for additional codecs via this capability. So basically web page developers still write their site based on the standards and all this “plug-in” does is add a capability to the browser in the context of what is permitted by the standard.
So basically it's just a QuickTime filter for Safari, and whatever IE uses (DirectShow?) for IE.
So open the video tag and make it easy for users and site providers to add codecs if they wish. Browser tries to play some content it doesn't understand and it says "this video cannot be played without installing a plugin, do you want to install a plugin?". There would be a trusted list of plugins.
Better yet, make the default behaviour to utilise the media frameworks in all desktop OSs to try and play the content. That's what the frameworks are there for in the first place. H264 codecs are easy to come by and chances are most users have them already, possibly have paid for them too with their OS licence.
In summary the browser doesn't have to implement a damned thing for H264 and even if it did, it's not the browser's job to play nanny. If browsers want to take the moral highground of what users can or cannot do, they can start by disabling plugins altogether.
Micro$hit has no leg to stand on getting upset about this. For a long time, Micro$hit has been adding their own security challenged .NetCrap plugins into Firefox without the user's permission. They even go to great lengths to prevent you from removing these plugins. Even when you do, the next time you update, you get the same junk installed. Google is now taking a page out or MicroShit's own play book. If Micro$hit can do this, why can't Google do it?
Quit playing Monopoly with Bill.
Linux - of the people, by the people, and for the people.
In other words if they lose in the marketplace against WebM they will try to win the courtroom with their stable of bullshit patents like "drawing to screen web-based device" and "putting data in framebuffer of mobile device"
Stop defending software patents as being legitimate concepts in a debate over formats. They're roadblocks society has long overgrown. Suggesting that we should align ourselves with the larger mafiosio because he has more guns is stupid, shortsighted, and shows you to be a MPEGLA shill even if that isn't your intention.
MPEG LA's patents in their majority describe very concrete and non-trivial math and algorithms aimed at making H.264 fast to encode, decode, while using minimum of bandwidth. It also describes a concrete format to describe these set of algorithms into a universal standard.
Your demand that H.264 represents an obvious matter such as "drawing to screen web-based device" and your cynical predisposition that you are owed this standard for free in all contexts possible is appalling.
The reason the world did not jump from zero to H.264, but had to continually go through MPEG 1, 2, 4 and the H.264 profiles is that it's a non-trivial amount of expert work which needs to be done and paid by someone. In return, VP8 represents the H.264 codec almost verbatim, but, mutilated to a point as to deliberately avoid the specific word of every significant patent MPEG LA has, for the purpose of using their work for free.
As a result VP8 produces inferior videos and defunds the MPEG LA consortium of experts from the money they need to further improve their set of standards, so that we can be stuck forever in the mediocrity of faux algorithm democracy you seem to be desperately clinging to.
What do you do to put food on the table, sir? Is it non-trivial enough so that some wise-ass won't come some day and claim your work for free because "he could've done it if he tried" and "it's for the benefit of all"? How exactly do you as a knowledge worker expect to feed your family if your very values demand that knowledge should be exclusively free, and therefore expertise and knowledge becomes worthless?
what the fuck.
Yes, VP8 is supposedly more open. However, thats just because no patent trolls have attacked it yet. Google could do much better by simply releasing an H.264 plugin for firefox/opera, and leave it at that. No one's tools would have to change, no one's content would need re-encoding, and the world could just get on with it.
I suspect this has more to do with sticking their fingers up to apple than anything else.
I don't think its going to get any traction, because joe end user doesn't care about patents they just want their content to work, and to continue to work. they're not going to re-encode everything that comes off their camera, they're just going to install flash, if their browser of choice doesn't support h.264 anymore.
Path of least resistance, and all....
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
H.264 official name is MPEG-4 AVC. DivX/XviD/H.263 official name is MPEG-4 ASP
This made me cringe slightly. H.264 is the official name for the CODEC from the ITU-T Video Coding Experts Group (VCEG). MPEG-4 AVC is the official name from the ISO/IEC Motion Picture Experts Group (MPEG).
H.263 is an earlier standard from VCEG which was (and still is) intended mainly for video conferencing. It is completely unrelated to any MPEG standards. The Sorensen Spark CODEC, used by QuickTime and Flash when they are not using H.264, is based on H.263.
DivX and XviD are both names of implementations of the MPEG-4 Part 2 CODEC.
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How do you fork something that was never released? Chromium (the open source core of Chrome) never supported H.264, because doing so in an open source project in a jurisdiction which permits software patents is legally impossible.
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Other than you asking the question?
I know Google-bashing is cool, and I don't condone their every action either, but really... They are providing a FLOSS codec, free of charge. Its predecessors predate H.264 and have patents of their own which is probably why MPEG LA did not move yet. They are most likely afraid of getting counter-sued. And Google extra went the extra mile of putting a major barb into the license of the WebM codec for anyone planning to do patent litigation. And don't get me started on how the MPEG LA barbed _their_ licenses...
Anyone who does not approve of what they are doing right now either has a hidden agenda or did not understand the underlying issues. Sorry if this sounds confrontational, but...
You use the html "a" tag to make a proper link.
Try buying a video camera that doesn't use either x264 or mpeg2 video codecs.
Something like this cheap one, but you're right that Panasonic is moving to avc, and obviously Sony use xdcam
But of course, h.264 is not superior to WebM. They are generally on par, with one or the other coming out on top with very slight difference depending on the type of measurement that is done. However, WebM does this while still having lots of room for improvement, plus the perfect storm of open source software: large corporate backers and many, many talented open source coders motivated by technical and philosophical reasons. I would bet WebM will beat h.264 handsomely in a couple of years in most technical tests you can throw at it.
Of course, that ignores the legal/philosophical aspect of the virtues of having an unencumbered codec. While MPEG-LA has the only interest of making as much money as possible, that kind of control is not possible with WebM and therefor it is a lot more attractive platform for using it in environments that do not want to be dragged into the swamp of licensing, for those who want to redistribute libraries and software including those libraries and ultimately for the pockets of end users.
The argument that you're trying to apply is the same as Microsoft touted with SCO and patents against Linux: a stupid scare tactic that eventually became an embarrasment for the very source perpetrating it.
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
It makes sense because google owns youtube, admittedly the largest video provider on the web today.
Once they turn distribution to WebM only content, if you want to watch videos, it ensures every browser can access it.
But google knows users are also producers, and logically bets they will want to use WebM for making their own videos available. They certainly expect to increase WebM dominance through their users that way.
However, WebM does this while still having lots of room for improvement
Room for improvement? Are you of the belief that VP8 is going to change? Absolutely nobody would put it in hardware if its not set in stone.
The facts of the matter are that VP8 is a software codec and its specific implementation may avoid other peoples patents, but any other implementation (such as into low powered hardware) may in fact stomp over someones patents anyways.
The beauty of the MPEG-LA patent pool is that they didnt just bring patents for a single implementation, but that they cover many methods of implementation so that anyone who goes ahead and implements it only has to deal with one entity.
Google does not have VP8 surrounded by permutations of implementation. The only free codec is the one compiled directly from Googles source code, and thats assuming that it too doesnt violate someones patents.
This is not the definition of "Free" that we are used to at all. VP8 is just a proprietary codec that happens to not have any known licensing fees.. in other words, "free" but not "Free"
If you live in the USA, UK, Europe, Australia, or most of the modern world where software patents are legally enforceable, then software patents are legitimate concepts in the debate. Your personal ideology notwithstanding, until the laws on software patents are changed they are most certainly relevant.
Remember when the phrase "Google it" meant to look something up on the web?
Now it seems to mean pushing forward with some experiment with a 50/50 chance of success.
As in "That chair is broken, but here's some duct tape, just Google it."
Sooner or later, the auto-update will break many peoples systems, maybe even making them unbootable.
This has already happened more than once. OS updates have done it relatively recently (Both Windows and Ubuntu in 2010) as well as one particular virus scanner...
Auto-updating is STUPID.
Don't bother trying to come up with reasonable arguments in this discussion. I tried it with the last topic on H264 vs. VP8, and it didn't work. Just reading the majority of the comments in this topic makes me cringe, to the point that I'm starting to wonder why I ever started liking FOSS in the first place, because the discussion on this issue seems to imply that FOSS has become mostly about 'OMG everything has to be free in beer' and how every piece of patented technology is supposedly so trivial it should be unpatentable.
It's really sad how apparently the most rabid FOSS supporters, the ones commenting here, prefer ripping off other people's work, reformatting it and taking features out so they can sell it as 'open' and 'free' just so said companies can keep pretending their mission to turn the world in one big ad-supported 'free as in beer' world of crippled crappy technology. And that this is somehow better for anyone, compared to paying up to a reasonable licensing scheme to use an advanced piece of technology created by others, which cost millions to develop, instead of re-inventing the wheel badly. The amount of FUD about the supposed intentions of the MPEG-LA and the hypothetical things that could happen that would make 'the web' somehow 'closed' or 'proprietary' or would somehow trick us all into getting raped by MPEG-LA would have been laughable if it wasn't so terribly sad.
Why would "Micro$hit" get upset about this? They programmed IE9 specifically so that the video and audio tags will play any video or audio file supported by the OS, including user-installed MediaPlayer codecs. Apple is actually doing the same with Safari.
In this case it is the other browsers that are making political decisions to restrict your choices. Chrome, Firefox and Opera will only play whatever they bake into their browser. They could offer the choice to the user, but doing so gets in their way of trying to dictate what the "standards" should be on the web, and Google would prefer that everyone be forced to standardized behind their proprietary format.
Oh, and PS, the only thing worse than being blatantly wrong is looking like a preteen boy spewing swearwords because he thinks it's cool.
Then why waste so many words on it? I can appreciate that you're trying to "win", but you're losing. Spectacularly.
Oh really, because the way I'm reading it, node 3 and the other few people who don't seem to blindly ride the Google 'free', Google 'open'-train are the only ones that actually seem to be able to formulate any substantial arguments in this discussion.
Meanwhile, people like yourself, are stuck at hypothesizing how MPEG-LA will rape you, how WebM is somehow less proprietary or closed than H264, how throwing away billions of dollars of vested interest in the most advanced video coding technology is a good thing, how WebM is supposedly 'on par' with H264 in terms of encoding quality (it isn't, read up on the analysis of actual experts like the people behind x264', how WebM is somehow going to 'take over' because it 'is open' and 'will be improved by the open-source community' while it is in fact a spec set in stone and completely controlled by Google, and last but not least, how advanced technology like h264 is apparantly not worth paying for, because ripping it off, crippling it and then giving it away 'for free' to support a strategy of turning everything into an ad-supported illusion of 'freedom' is the way to go.
I tend to have an open mind about software patents, the advantages and disadvantages of both FOSS and closed-source software, and the value of technological innovation, but the way the FOSS crowd is cheering for Google here really makes me sick, it seems like every last bit of rational thinking disappears as soon as someone breaks out the 'free' and 'open' aspect. Filtering out all the arguments in favor of WebM that are bollocks, really only a single argument remains: it's free as in beer (for now). It's free as in beer, and it's crap, so we should prefer it over 'good and paid for' because 'free as in beer' sounds so much like 'free as in speech'.
I never thought I'd ever say something like this, but the way you and your likewise-minded co-posters here are arguing genuinely makes me hope MPEG-LA will soon file and win some patent suits against WebM, just to show how narrowminded and short-sighted the arguments in favor of WebM are, everyone can continue enjoying the most advanced video coding technology in existence, and the MPEG-LA can continue working on making it even better with H265, without having to worry someone like Google will again rip them off and repackage their work as 'open' and 'free' software.
In a year, imagine Google has switched YouTube and Chrome entirely to VP8.
In a year, it's not likely that Apple will have introduced support for VP8 or any other WebM technologies in iOS. So to remain compatible with the YouTube app for iPhone, Google will likely keep AVC available, just not as the default. Then Google could silently switch YouTube to AVC by default, switch users of AVC-less browsers to the Flash Player front-end that it currently uses, and push an AVC-restoring update to Google Chrome (on the license that it appears to have already paid for) once its legal department has determined that a patent cease-and-desist makes credible claims. And it probably won't take a month to make this determination, as you appear to imply, because Google already runs Google Patent Search.
By the format in itself is not. It is 100% proprietary and full of patents.
Unlike H.264, the V8 video format is not a standard. It is 100% proprietary and Google owns some (not all) of the patents that rule the format.
So the going from a STANDARD to a PROPRIETARY video format is not an improvement. It is going from bad to worst.
WebM is not a format but a container that is a ripoff from Matroska (mkv).
Except you got your facts wrong - h.264 is also proprietary. Completely, 100% proprietary. As in over 1,000 patents proprietary, and a patent pool licensing scheme.
h.264 is encumbered. h.264 is proprietary.
-- Barbara
" WebM does this while still having lots of room for improvement, plus the perfect storm of open source software: large corporate backers and many, many talented open source coders motivated by technical and philosophical reasons. I would bet WebM will beat h.264 handsomely in a couple of years in most technical tests you can throw at it."
So what you are advocating is basically vaporware....
Since the flash plugin does h264 they will still be paying license fee for the embedded plugin. They won't save a nickel on license fees, as they are already long over the cap, and will always be if they offer anything in h264.
This is mafiosi tactics. Nothing like forcing you to pay more in terms of royalty fees to use a device which you ostensibly own if you want to use your own video commercially. In any other industry, this would be criminal. Can you imagine having to pay royalty fees if you want to use your car commercially? Basically the same damn thing!
You, on the other hand, are an apologist for the inferior WebM codec, simply because it's ideologically compatible with you.
Hell, yeah! Is there something wrong to base my decision to endorse Google based on moral reasoning? I stopped buying Nike shoes back in 90ies on moral reasoning. If I’d ever buy a diamond, I would make sure it isn’t a bloody one. Why would it be any difference with my video codec? I do my work with Corel Draw and make a fair amount of money with it. If Corel would try to pick a percentage of my profit, I’d ditch Draw. With is different, winner of this dispute gets a legal monopoly on web video for the rest of it’s life and I don’t want MPEG-LA racketeering video production business in that time, no matter how small fee are. Especially, when there is a choice with comparable performance.
I never said otherwise. But "could be dangerous" is a shitty way to live life.
So I’d have to make my decision based on lifestyles you approve of?
It's *not* dangerous, and MPEG-LA has made statements to allay any fears of it becoming dangerous in the future, and WebM can be just as dangerous as H.264, and you and your fellow apologists (notice the context which makes this term proper) gloss over this. MPEG-LA has already claimed that WebM most likely infringes upon their patents. If you adopt it, you risk a danger that is actually likely and in MPEG-LA's interest, as opposed to an imaginary danger ..
You compare a news statement of a paid spokesperson of MPEG-LA that there will be no further changes of licence terms against Google’s irrevocable release? You compare a lifetime of paying MPEG-LA against potential damages based on claims that are not proven in court? You may wanna google up term “risk management”. Or Bing it up, or whatever .....
>MPEG-LA has already claimed that WebM most likely infringes upon their patents. If you adopt it, you risk a danger that is actually likely and in MPEG-LA's interest,
In other words if they lose in the marketplace against WebM they will try to win the courtroom with their stable of bullshit patents like "drawing to screen web-based device" and "putting data in framebuffer of mobile device"
H.264 is technologically superior to WebM. You're the one already using patents against them. If it weren't for patents, you'd support it.
Stop defending software patents as being legitimate concepts in a debate over formats.
I'm not. I'm stating that they exist and that their existence can and does have legal implications.
They're roadblocks society has long overgrown. Suggesting that we should align ourselves with the larger mafiosio because he has more guns is stupid, shortsighted, and shows you to be a MPEGLA shill even if that isn't your intention.
Stop building up strawmen. I'm not suggesting we should align with MPEG-LA at all. I'm saying we should use H.264, because it is high quality, already widely supported, and reasonably licensed. You're the one being irrational. You're choosing an inferior, unused format simply based on ideology, calling anyone who disagrees with you, anyone who looks at reality and makes an actual rational choice, a "stupid, short-shighted shill".
IE9 includes video tag support.
Firefox included video tag support, and Microsoft made a plugin that allowed it to work with h.264 video.
Opera is kind of the odd man out here but then, that's Opera.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
You've summed the situation up quite well. I don't post here expecting to win an argument, just to provide a rational point of view based on how the world actually is. Somebody has to.
You, on the other hand, are an apologist for the inferior WebM codec, simply because it's ideologically compatible with you.
Hell, yeah! Is there something wrong to base my decision to endorse Google based on moral reasoning?
Yes, there is, if you expect the rest of the world to follow you and choose inferior products based on something they don't give half a shit about, specifically Open Source or avoiding patents.
I stopped buying Nike shoes back in 90ies on moral reasoning. If I’d ever buy a diamond, I would make sure it isn’t a bloody one. Why would it be any difference with my video codec?
Because you've gone off the deep end if you are comparing sweat shops and blood diamond mines, with paying a company for a superior product.
I do my work with Corel Draw and make a fair amount of money with it. If Corel would try to pick a percentage of my profit, I’d ditch Draw. With is different, winner of this dispute gets a legal monopoly on web video for the rest of it’s life and I don’t want MPEG-LA racketeering video production business in that time, no matter how small fee are. Especially, when there is a choice with comparable performance.
Then you understand the value in paying for the tools you use. WebM is *not* comparable with H.264. It is technologically inferior, but at least in the same class, so that's a better situation than it was with the last geek darling Theora (which belies your assertion that "comparable performance" is all that important). But H.264 is widely used and widely supported. Until WebM is hardware accelerated in the vast majority of handhelds, and is natively supported in Windows and Mac OS X, and is common on the web, it makes sense to talk about adding it to the HTML5 <video> tag, or even going further and completely replacing H.264 with it.
I never said otherwise. But "could be dangerous" is a shitty way to live life.
So I’d have to make my decision based on lifestyles you approve of?
No, you can make any choice you want. You're the one expecting everyone else to follow along with your ideologically based decisions. Everyone already uses a perfectly fantastic codec. You're the one asking the world to switch. You're projecting.
It's *not* dangerous, and MPEG-LA has made statements to allay any fears of it becoming dangerous in the future, and WebM can be just as dangerous as H.264, and you and your fellow apologists (notice the context which makes this term proper) gloss over this. MPEG-LA has already claimed that WebM most likely infringes upon their patents. If you adopt it, you risk a danger that is actually likely and in MPEG-LA's interest, as opposed to an imaginary danger ..
You compare a news statement of a paid spokesperson of MPEG-LA that there will be no further changes of licence terms against Google’s irrevocable release?
If you read what I wrote, you'll realize I did no such thing.
You compare a lifetime of paying MPEG-LA against potential damages based on claims that are not proven in court? You may wanna google up term “risk management”. Or Bing it up, or whatever .....
Patents expire, and MPEG-LA is not asking much. If they were, there would be real and proper pressure to replace H.264. But they aren't. They've been around for a long time and don't have a history of being onerous. Their existence relies on promoting technology, not choking the life out of it.
You should check the very careful wording in their own description of the license.
Let's start with basics: if you want to see actual license terms, you have to ask pretty-please will they send you a hardcopy. A unique, one-off artifact sent specifically to you.
When most companies offer a summary of a license, they include language like "while this description is believed to be a fair summary of the terms of the agreement, in the event of any discrepancy the text of the actual license must prevail".
MPEG-LA says its description "may not be relied upon for any purpose." Full stop.
You could call noticing that perhaps-excessive paranoia on my part, or wording it that way perhaps-excessive paranoia on theirs. It's worth considering.
So let's look at the details. I don't care about the viewer-pays scenarios, let's look at the ad- or donation- or plain old volunteer-supported scenarios.
For TV, if they're going to charge at all, they're going to charge either a one-time fee of $2,500 per encoder or recurring fees that start at $2,500/yr until you start getting into millions of reachable viewers. Very reasonable for even an indie TV station or the like.
No royalties at all on videos 12 minutes or less.
For service over the capital-I Internet, if viewers pay no fee (and if there's some unavoidable and ~no more than nominal~ fee they say they can probably arrange to treat that as no fee) to receive the video, there's no license fee either.
That last is new as of about five months ago; for the first ~90% of their existence they explicitly intended to charge you fees even if you weren't charging your audience any. Good luck getting $2500 in ad revenue on your blog.
So why did it take them seven years to momentarily give up on the attempt? They explicitly state they're going to revisit this issue next round: they intend to charge for it if they think they can get away with it. Why would they even consider that? Do they really believe they deserve an extra special tip for so clearly showing us your zits?
Why does MPEG-LA not say, as Thomson does for MP3,
Google's taking a big hit to do what they're doing. It's true that H.264 currently has the best of the contending encoders, and probably the best hardware and industry support. It's difficult (not to say impossible) to believe they'd do this purely to kick MPEG-LA to the curb for this -- it's almost laughably low-grade moneygrubbing -- but that's certainly one effect of what they're doing, and there's not much else apparent in the license.
Except for one thing: mpla also say they might unilaterally eliminate their caps on yearly royalty payments.
Yeah. I have to believe Google might just be doing this just because a world in which they don't have to do business with these people is that much better than a world in which they do.
As always, all IMO. Insert "I think" everywhere grammatically possible.
... a fucking douchebag
But of course, h.264 is not superior to WebM. They are generally on par, with one or the other coming out on top with very slight difference depending on the type of measurement that is done.
No. Simply comparing the capabilities of the two codecs, H.264 is objectively superior. There is absolutely no room for difference of opinion here.
In terms of image quality at the same bitrates, they are in the same league (which is a very good thing), unlike Theora vs H.264, which had Slashdotters saying the exact same thing as you are now (that they are the same, minor differences, sometimes one wins, sometimes the other, all of which was outright false, but trumpeted over and over again as fact for no other reason than ideologically based wishful thinking).
However, WebM does this while still having lots of room for improvement, plus the perfect storm of open source software: large corporate backers and many, many talented open source coders motivated by technical and philosophical reasons. I would bet WebM will beat h.264 handsomely in a couple of years in most technical tests you can throw at it.
The exact same thing was said about Theora. Room for improvement, talented coders, open source license. I guess the one thing WebM adds is the big corporate backer...
This is called "vaporware". The, "it will be better!" argument is a lame Microsoft tactic. WebM is most definitely *not* better now. Don't expect an industry to turn on a dime over promises of improvement, especially when this promise is coming from the open source crowd.
Of course, that ignores the legal/philosophical aspect of the virtues of having an unencumbered codec.
As well it should. As an end user, I only care about actual, practical, objective benefits. The license is irrelevant as long as it is reasonable, and for 99+% of the people out there, H.264's license is reasonable.
While MPEG-LA has the only interest of making as much money as possible
While I don't subscribe to this notion of corporate motivation, I have to ask why you seem to think this is true for MPEG-LA, but not for Google? MPEG-LA has an interest in making sure that H.264 is widely used. Specifically, it has a motivation to keep its members happy, and its most high profile members have a greater interest in having H.264 widely used than they have in the revenue they will receive from royalties.
that kind of control is not possible with WebM and therefor it is a lot more attractive platform for using it in environments that do not want to be dragged into the swamp of licensing, for those who want to redistribute libraries and software including those libraries and ultimately for the pockets of end users.
MPEG-LA openly licenses H.264 to anyone who wants it. WebM is cheaper, but WebM is also not widely used, and is not compatible with any consumer camera or video player, and not hardware compatible with any device right now (which is critical for handhelds, important for notebooks, and even useful for desktops). The licensing fee for H.264 gives a lot of value to everyone involved. Cutting costs by going with the cheaper WebM is just not worth it. The few cents you might save by avoiding H.264 will create greater costs to you in terms of battery life and overall performance. And most consumers can't do away with their H.264 license anyway since it comes with their OS and their hardware, and they have H.264 encoded videos.
So what you are arguing for is to add a codec, without any actual benefit for doing so, and lots of downsides. I don't see why anyone thinks this is a good idea outside of ideological delusions.
The argument that you're trying to apply is the same as Microsoft touted with SCO and patents against Linux: a stupid scare tactic that eventually became an embarrasment for the very source perpetrating it.
An even more stu
It's a standard, not an open one. Or are you (and MPEG-LA) saying that I can make a browser that can render or encode video (e.g. when uploading a file) in h.264 and release under, say, GPL3 and they'll endorse it and accept it?
Because you may, but MPEG-LA won't.
Therefore it is not open for me to implement.
No, you'll be able to play WebM so no need for flash.
If Google is going all out to kill H.264, have they made sure previous versions of Chrome aren't available that have said support?
Whatever, modbombers.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.