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FSF Announces Support For WebM
An anonymous reader writes "The Free Software Foundation has signed up as a supporter of the WebM Project. They write, 'Last week, Google announced that it plans to remove support for the H.264 video codec from its browsers, in favor of the WebM codec that they recently made free. Since then, there's been a lot of discussion about how this change will affect the Web going forward, as HTML5 standards like the video tag mature. We applaud Google for this change; it's a positive step for free software, its users, and everyone who uses the Web.' The FSF's PlayOgg campaign will be revamped to become PlayFreedom."
One more stamp of approval you can ad to the list when presenting to your superiors.
Chill out. We're all on the same side here. Wouldn't you, as a video host, much rather have to worry about supporting two open, royalty-free formats than several closed ones?
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The FSF seems particularly misguided or unaware of the larger context it is working in. Google's position on WebM, realistically, means that Flash's dominance on the web is going to be prolonged. After all, it's not likely anybody is going to seriously adopt WebM while Google continues to support Flash.
So, while theoretically the FSF should be about freedom of the user and the community, the actual implication of their stance is to bolster proprietary formats (Adobe Flash) and monopolistic control of the internet (Google).
... and then they built the supercollider.
Sorry to break this to you, but the only people who care what the FSF gives their stamp of approval to are the neckbeards who are already converts to the FSF's message.
This is why PlayOgg was useless, and it's also why "PlayFreedom," in addition to being an awful, awful, nonsensical, completely pointless campaign name, will also be useless: they're preaching to the choir, and they have a tin ear for connecting with the general public - in other words, they suck at marketing, and if you want to win 'hearts and minds,' it's *all* about marketing.
It doesn't matter how this free / not free debate goes. One is a formal ISO standard, the other is whatever Google decides. How that makes H.264 somehow not open escapes me, but...
If I'm engineering a hardware codec, I want the standard that's set down in stone, just like my design is going to be (well, silicon, but you know what I mean).
Wouldn't you, as a video host, much rather have to worry about supporting two open, royalty-free formats than several closed ones?
Which two formats are you referring to here?
... and then they built the supercollider.
Ogg Theora and WebM—the two being discussed.
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As a video host, I won't do this. I'll leave my video in H.264 format, and serve it up via flash to the browsers that don't want to support H.264 playback via the HTML5 video tag.
The only thing that started breaking Flash's stranglehold was Apple's decision to say "NO FLASH on our iOS devices." Why? Because the bulk of "video hosts" don't give a shit about "openness," they give a shit about "how many people can watch my video," and the iOS devices represented an affluent demographic that video hosts *wanted* watching their video. So they figured out how to serve up their video without Flash.
And now, Google is saying "Let's have a standards war," which basically means nobody will invest in any recoding until the dust settles, which means they've just given Flash another 5 year lease on life. The only people who will transcode to WebM are YouTube. In the meantime, everybody else will serve up H.264 wrapped in Flash, and H.264 via HTML5 video tags to any browser that is smart enough to support it.
Hooray for "openness," enjoy your crashy Chrome-and-Flash browsing experience on any site that's not YouTube.
The choir may be the WC3 over here at MIT. The FSF putting a stamp of approval on WebM helps allay one of the big hurdles for making it the HTML 5 video standard: questions of quality. While the average consumer may not care, if WebM gets baked into the standard, that would have a large effect on how we get video on the web (and how free it is).
The ______ Agenda
so where do i get a chip that plays webm?
it's open but a crap product without hardware support, awesome
Here's what we don't see. There is a battle going on, and it has nothing to do with which codec to use. The real battle is between Apple and Adobe. Apple wants to control everything on iOS (and everywhere else...can anyone say AppStore?), so Flash doesn't play so nice on those 64bit gizmos eh? Flash has embedded itself into the web because of video. Sooo...how do you beat Flash, in comes the MP4 wrapper for H.264 encodings (and Apple's on the patent bandwagon). Google is drawing a line firmly between them in many ways: Google Apps, Android, Chromium Tablet...and now they've closed the door on H.264 moving to WebM. Adobe will make the switch...why? Because f4v flopped, Flash Media Server bows down to MP4 encoding, which makes it an open target against Apple who doesn't support Flash on their cool little gizmos everyone buys. Hrmm...the real battle is over the mobile market and who dominates. Google is using their muscle to push open standards, which I for one will always vote for VS Apple's system (CoCoa, WebKit). We'll see who wins.
Hmm... I'd call GCC pretty successful...
Ogg Theora and WebM—the two being discussed.
As a video host, why would you want to support two different formats, neither of which is widely used or supported in hardware or software, over one format that is both ubiquitous and open? The goal of video hosts is for their videos to be viewed - not to languish in obscurity.
Also, I'm not sure where you're getting the idea that Ogg Theora is being discussed - this article is about WebM vs H.264. The person you were replying to was discussing the FSF's marketing techniques, not the potential for Ogg becoming a widespread video standard (which is nil).
... and then they built the supercollider.
Worse, the people who need to be excited about WebM (big corporate media) will actively be repulsed by the FSF's stamp of approval. The way these people think, open = free = piracy, and more open = more free = more piracy. They hear "FSF" and envision a large, bearded hippie with his middle finger raised in their direction.
Even ignoring that problem, unless Google is willing to stand behind it with indemnity from patent suits, those media giants going to see WebM as a giant target painted on their chests. Video compression is a patent minefield, and indemnity is pretty much an absolute requirement these days if you expect to be taken seriously. So now those media giants will see a large bearded hippie flipping them off, with a bomb strapped to his chest.
The FSF putting their stamp on it is just the final nail in WebM's coffin. Stick a fork in it. It's done. Google has really screwed the pooch on this one.
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It might just be late, but I have no idea how you are reaching this conclusion. Are you aware that Adobe is one of the companies that has pledged to support WebM?
Are you aware how many mobile devices today can only play h.264 when Flash is not present?
So Adobe is supporting VP8 playback in Flash, it means nothing - because anyone encoding video will say "if I encode in h.264 it will work in all browsers, across all devices". What is the incentive to also encode in WebM/VP8? There is none.
So as stated, what will happen is that web producers will go back to using crappy flash video players on the web for everyone except mobile users, who will get straight-up video without a horrible wrapper.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The original post was asking WHERE he get a chip that plays WebM, not WHEN. As there are not even any chips to be had WebM looks to have a very long and hard road ahead to gain any traction - even (or especially?) with Google pushing it.
The truth is that today if you encode in h.264 it will work in any browser. It will work on iOS devices with hardware accelleration. It will work in Mozilla and Chrome using the Flash player. It will work in Safari and IE directly.
Unless you shut off h.264 support in Flash WebM adoption is simply not going to happen. And Adobe has no interest in doing that, they like just fine how everyone has to come to them for video players now.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
How does the FSF giving a stamp of approval relate in any way, shape, or form to the quality of the codec? They're not video expert.
The real battle is between Apple and Adobe
That is true from the standpoint of Apple fighting for open technologies backed by large groups of companies (HTML5, h.264) where Adobe is fighting for maintaining control over the stronghold of Web Video, where they are the ones who provide players everyone needs to operate universally.
That's why Google, Apple and Microsoft were together in supporting the video tag. But then Google got greedy, and thought "Why can't I have Adobe's position"? So under the guise of being open, Google is pushing for a standard controlled by them.
The end effect is now the same standoff we had before, where neither Apple nor Adobe can get the upper hand. And that is a shame because when all three were standing together you could actually see a chance of Flash being booted off the internet.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
You probably want to do both because it would be a bad buisness decision to have all your eggs in one basket.
Both have potential legal/economic threats:
H264 is an open standard and if you pay your money you won't be sued by the patent pool.
The side effect is you are at the wims of mpegla who may increase the fees to use thair format in the future.
WebM is an open formaat with a licence on patents owned by google.
There are no licence fees on using the format but perhaps a risk on getting sued by mepgla.
Motherfucker! Mine is more open; no MINE is; no they BOTH are; no NEITHER one is; take THAT; BIFF, BANG, POW, SLAP. I have never seen so much bickering since the last time Democrats and Republicans were in the same room together. The world will end not with a bang, nor with a whimper - it will end with everybody savagely attacking each other over every single issue.
They hear "FSF" and envision a large, bearded hippie with his middle finger raised in their direction
Your post seemed more rant then substance, but this made me chuckle.
You are entitled to your own opinions, not your own facts.
The post I was responding to said that the two formats which should be supported are WebM and Ogg Theora. Not H.264.
... and then they built the supercollider.
Not to mention Google and everyone else seems to be missing the gigantic elephant standing over by the potted plants: Hardware acceleration. Pretty much ALL consumer mobile devices support H.264, along with just about every desktop, laptop, netbook, hell I've even seen cheapo DVD players at the Wally World with H.264 support. Now figure in the amount the OEMs have invested in all those H.264 chips, along with the fact that all those consumer devices will have to be chunked (great for the environment) thanks to WebM killing the battery, along with the fact that WebM brings nothing substantial to the table, not better file sizes, not better quality, pretty much the ONLY selling point is "free as in freedom man, yeah!" and even that isn't assured since Google refuses to indemnify users of WebM which opens OEMs to patent trolling, frankly I'd say it has about as much of a chance as Vorbis does of killing MP3 at this point.
If it would have come out 5 years ago I would have given it decent odds, but it is simply too late to the party. Like Vorbis found out if you wait too long so that both momentum and device support is firmly behind a standard, proprietary or not, trying to build any support is damned near impossible. I have a feeling this is gonna be Google's Vista, where they find out that they can't just get the market to jump on board simply by having the name Google. There are simply too many chips, too many websites supporting H.264, oh and did I mention a little thing known as iPad? or iPhone? Maybe Google has heard of those. If they think folks are gonna give up their iPads and iPhones just for Youtube they are in for a RUDE awakening. With H.264 any website developer can simply leave a "raw" H.264 for iDevice users and wrap it in a flash container for everyone else! Tada! everyone is supported. With WebM you are gonna kill battery life or have to toss all the devices supporting H.264 and for what? Youtube? It isn't like there aren't a bazillion other sites out there and if Youtube kills H.264 support I'm sure there will be a dozen new ones happy to take those viewers. The ship has sailed Google, the fat lady is down the street eating a sandwich.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Yep, MPEG-LA will raise the royalty by no more than 10% in every 5-year licensing period. This gives you a very easy-to-budget number.
I'd say it's almost a guarantee that MPEG-LA will be pursuing legal action if WebM looks like it's going to actually take off. Whether or not they can win remains to be seen, but expect years of back-and-forth in court all the same.
And if I'm a video producer, what do I do in the meantime? Pay my H.264 royalty fees, and wrap that video in Flash for the browsers that can't support H.264 via the HTML5 video tag.
The only site that will transcode its video to WebM is YouTube. And they may drag their feet on it for a while if they get slapped with a lawsuit, as well.
H264 decoding is a one time payment. If google decides to start fucking with webm licesning then we are fucked if we go to webm.
Otoh. The h264 codec is so encumbered with everyone else fighting it that open source developers are going to skate by and only hardware vendors are going to pay h264 costs. Software other than big names like adobe and apple are going to pay.
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
If you or your agent or exclusive licensee institute or order or agree to the institution of patent litigation against any entity (including a cross-claim or counterclaim in a lawsuit) alleging that this implementation of VP8 or any code incorporated within this implementation of VP8 constitutes direct or contributory patent infringement, or inducement of patent infringement, then any patent rights granted to you under this License for this implementation of VP8 shall terminate as of the date such litigation is filed.
http://www.webmproject.org/license/additional/
So the moment that somebody files a suit or have a valid claim you are in the same licensing pool bed as h.264 with the only difference that this format is controlled by a single company. And I really couldn't see anything going wrong that what... . And I always see the same link to a blog for a h.264 so it is automatically discarded as FUD but the matter of fact that it isn't the only source for that argument, even independent observers have stated that WebM may be not royalty free for long as it is unsure if it is not patent encumbered.
And being a webdeveloper that sometimes also deals with video I'm gonna burst a lot of bubbles. I will not be bothered by converting video anytime soon into WebM just for the simple fact that supporting Flash & h264 I can support the whole spectrum. Because it is free (for the time being ?) my software and hardware already supports h.264 so why should I care ? For that couple of cents that I pay more when buying videosoftware licenses ? That is a drop in a bucket... . Streaming is free (as long as your streams are free for consumers)
Question: What is stopping the device manifacturs from coming with a firmware patch to support WebM playback?
You can't patch in hardware acceleration. It's either there or it's not. In the case of WebM, it's not.
Which word in "hardware accelleration" do you not understand? If the on-chip parallel decoding lines aren't WebM compatible, a "firmware" patch isn't going to do a damn thing.
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
So why did we go for h264 then? When it came there was only MPEG2 hardware chips. In your line of thought no change should ever take place. Why buy TV when there is nothing on. That was the big question in the 40- and 50s. And There *are * hw chips for webm. And more is being produced. In 2 years you can bet every phone have it. Hopefully by then no one will even remember h264.
The codecs are similar. It might be possible to use some of the acceleration capabilities in some chips, but it still won't be as good as a chip designed for webm.
Can Google provide us, h264/mpeg sp accelerated device owners, such as less than a billion feature+ phone owners a software to play WebM?
There should also be some kind of remote chip attachment innovation as satellite boxes, dvr and like billion of devices won't accept "new software" as they do their job on hardware level.
Next, they should replace the satellites as entire industry adopted h264 a long time ago.
I have absolutely no idea which "deeper,evil" plan Apple has on this h264 debacle but let me say, I agree to SJobs and Apple on h264. Even Microsoft who is famous for re-inventing the wheel, didn't push their codec further and added h264 support. Ask them why, because it is superior to anything which is on market today and established. On hardware that is!
Because x264 is far more advanced - mpeg2 couldn't do HDTV without insane bitrates.
Google made Chrome x86 only before any other company on OS X land dared to post a non universal binary except Adobe who uses a lot of shared code between Win/OS X.
They didn't even bother to ship a Symbian player/demo/whatever. They could say "Youtube player, with WebM support" and release update to already established Youtube.
Of course, ARM CPU will choke to death when you get this marvelous idea of doing everything on CPU. Even a netbook with a tegra chipset will lose half of its promised battery life/performance as it will have to fallback to CPU.
The absolute comedy is, we are arguing about it while World's true media distribution giant (Apple) has no intention to re-invent the wheel and they agree to Microsoft on that. Apple has put considerable time&money to H264, it isn't like acquiring some unsuccessful codec company and release their stolen codec trusting to how big you are.
So basically MPEGLA is the 800 pound gorilla in the room and it would be less risky not to piss it off.
I think GP was referring more to various "oolitical" FSF campaigns, like the one against "tivoization", or against Win7. Which this one seems to be as well.
GCC is just a product, it's not like FSF specifically endorses it over proprietary options (rather than just generally saying "free software is better", which applies to all FOSS).
I don't think anybody really equates the FSF with piracy.
You're not up to date - apparently, if a country standardizes on FOSS in government, it "fails to build respect for intellectual property rights", and is considered by US businesses to be sufficient reason to put that country on the Special 301 report (which means that the country does not provide "adequate and effective" protection of US intellectual property rights).
Please realize some of you are talking about open STANDARD and others are talking about open CONTENT !!
No more discussion about wich is more "open", I can't take it anymore !
Worse, the people who need to be excited about WebM (big corporate media) will actively be repulsed by the FSF's stamp of approval.
...
The FSF putting their stamp on it is just the final nail in WebM's coffin. Stick a fork in it. It's done. Google has really screwed the pooch on this one.
Not true. I know that yer average Slashdot MS fanboy hates the FSF and the GPL with a passion, but they don't really represent reality.
Despite the FSF's political positions, boycotts, etc, these simply aren't the sort of thing that register on a corporation -- corporations don't care about anything that doesn't affect them, and these activities by the FSF, while intended to have some effect ... largely don't. Neither do they care about RMS's hairstyle; not only are they very unlikely to have noticed it, but it just doesn't matter to them, however much it infuriates some people on Slashdot.
The bulk of large companies will simply have no idea who the FSF is, so won't be influenced by the what the FSF thinks about webm (other than it being another entry in a list).
Companies who do know who the FSF will be largely those who have some technical connection with it -- I work for a (very) large company, and the FSF is thought of as "the place where gcc comes from" around here -- and will thus essentially have a productive relationship of some sort with them. These companies will, by and large, be positively influenced by any FSF recommendation of webm (if they notice), in the sense that "somebody we know about recommends webm".
We live, as we dream -- alone....
There are no 800 pound gorillas. Very obese gorillas held in captivity may top out at 600 lbs at most. A healthy, strong, alpha gorilla out in the wild would weigh no more than 350-400 lbs. 800 pound gorillas are pure fantasy.
Football Odds
I'd be keeping quite about support from the idealistic FSF cos its sort of a kiss of death. I mean lets not forget the roaring success their other golden boy, .ogg!
It seems more likely to me that is some kind of power play. They want to piss on Apple & Microsoft's parade by forcing them to dance to a tune played by Google. Google will be stewards of this codec and if it becomes a web standard they may force their competitors to support it (e.g. in their browsers & desktop / phone operating systems) or risk looking "non standard". It diminishes their competitors offerings just like supporting Flash in Android did.
Secondly, if Google have such an enormous ongoing investment in H264 then they must be paying a pretty penny to MPEG-LA and possibly a lot more when certain web moratoriums are up. I would not be surprised if they are waving this codec around to threaten MPEG-LA to either drop or modify their existing licensing agreement.
So I don't think Google are doing this for reasons for altruism and I don't believe they'll never support H264. WebM is just a stick and they may well do an about face when it serves its purpose.
What stops Google from total control?
This is a serious question.
Google owns both WebM and VP8 - their only licensing obligation is to keep some of the source viewable.
Google now defines how VP8 encoded and decoding works and the quality, etc.
Google defines what specific features and version of WebM and VP8 that Chrome will support.
No matter how 'open' WebM and VP8 are now, what Google says and what Google supports is now the 'standard' and will be the single controlling voice for all video on the web.
This is more power than any other company has tried to obtain.
What prevents Google from changing WebM so that in two years, it breaks compatibility with previous versions, rendering hardware absolete?
What prevents Google from defining the quality of the codecs used for their own purposes?
What prevents Google from getting this accepted by the world, and then adding in advertising data and decoders that report information back to Google?
I understand that WebM and VP8 are 'open', but if Google only supports what they want, they are the sole voice in the format and standard, as anything outside their 'supported' guidelines will fail to work in Chrome/Android/etc.
Right now, this looks like another Google project that uses the work of others and then takes control and sells it at a good thing because it was based in open software.
Even Microsoft with WMV turned it over to a standards body to oversee the format that ensures compatibility and consistency - something I don't see Google doing, and WMV is a closed format 'standard' aka VC1. At least we are assured that a VC1 encoded BluRay Disc will always play, as Microsoft can't monkey with VC1 and destroy compatibility or mess up quality, etc.
I am seriously looking for some good answers, as this has me a bit scared to the level of control Google is getting if people blindly accept this.
Not in a million years. You're talking new silicon.
Of course if Google ran banks of GPGPUs or Cell processors they could always change them to support WebM.
MPEG2 can do HDTV but it does it inefficiently. It takes about 2x the bitrate to subjectively match the output of H264. Space is at a premium for satellite / cable boxes so obviously this is a major impediment which is why HD and even some SD broadcasts are AVC depending where in the world you are. MPEG2 was used in some early Blu Ray discs probably because authoring tools H264 encoders weren't up to snuff at the time.
I think you've nailed it. Rather than push people to HTML 5 standards, site content providers will actually get pushed to using proprietary plugins. It will have the opposite effect than the one intended.
The video tag had a solid reason behind it, you didn't have to expend efforts working with annoying Flash video wrappers. But Google has gone and tossed that down the drain in favor of forcing a standard on the world at a time they lack the power to do so - and in the process KILLED open video on the web by bringing us all back to the dark ages of Flash video players everywhere.
How did Google kill open video? It's possible that WebM won't matter and therefore Google's action won't help to open video, but it won't kill it, because we never had any alternative for open video anyway.
Or did you see Ogg Theora as a serious contender? As part of the HTML 5 standard, is was dead already. It's h264 or WebM, and Google supporting an open format can only help open video.
I certainly appreciate Google's solidarity with the less wealthy players on the browser market.
As a video host I would be more concerned of the non-existence of hardware that supported those formats and did live transcoding. I would ultimately conclude that I can just stream H264 anyway by embedding a Flash plugin in the page. In other words it wouldn't change a thing other than make Flash more entrenched than it already is.
H264 is an open standard and if you pay your money you won't be sued by the patent pool.
If you need permission to use it, is it really open? I think that's the main point people seem to disagree on here.
I think you underestimate the size of YouTube. It's way bigger than all other video hosts put together. If a WebM browser gives you the best YouTube experience, that's what people will want. And with Firefox's sizable market share on the desktop, and Chrome's market share on smartphones, I'd say WebM cannot be ignored.
And if YouTube offers video in either HTML5+WebM or Flash+H264, iDevice users definitely have a problem.
Hardware acceleration means a wide range of things. It can mean implementing the entire algorithm in hardware - feed in an H.264 bitstream and get out decoded frames. It usually doesn't. Hardware makers are much more keen on code reuse than software makers, because bugs are much more expensive, and most hardware acceleration for video playback already needs to support multiple codecs (H.264, MPEG-4 ASP, MPEG-2).
In a typical device, 'hardware acceleration' for H.264 means two things:
The 'hardware decoder' is actually a software decoder that runs in the DSP and uses the specialised accelerator units. For something like VP8, it's relatively simple for to provide a firmware upgrade that adds a decoder using the existing hardware. For something like Dirac (which uses DWT instead of DCT, for example), it's much harder.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
> If you need permission to use it, is it really open? I think that's the main point people seem to disagree on here.
In the context "Open" means you are free to read the standard, inspect (and use) the source of the reference implementation and even implement and distribute your own implementation. However at some stage you will most likely have to pay a licence fee if you are distributing h264 encoded videos or a implementation of the h264 codec.
If there was never any chance of attracting a licensing fee then it would be "Free" (as in beer and as in possibly speech).
Cultist of the Average Middle-Aged Ones
Video compression is a patent minefield, and indemnity is pretty much an absolute requirement these days if you expect to be taken seriously.
MPEG-LA will not stand behind h.264 with indemnity from patent suits, so clearly your assertion is false and indemnity is not an "absolute requirement... if you expect to be taken seriously."
Pirate Party UK
PlayOgg had such a lilt to it.
H264 is an open standard and if you pay your money you won't be sued by the patent pool.
If you need permission to use it, is it really open? I think that's the main point people seem to disagree on here.
Yes -- this question really cuts to the heart of the issue for me. Personally, I object to describing a standard as "free and open" unless it is possible to write and distribute a GPL implementation in such a way that Linux distributions can safely package and include it. WebM is open (the specifications are available to anyone and anyone is permitted to implement them) and free (anyone can obtain a non-exclusive, perpetual, sub-licensable license to all of the necessary patents).
Pirate Party UK
Uhhhh..maybe you didn't get the memo but H.264 works in Firefox now thanks to MSFT.
Can this support be legally packaged and distributed by a Linux or BSD distribution? Does the plugin work on Mac OS X? No? So, no, h.264 does not work in Firefox, it works in Firefox on a single operating system distributed by a single company, maybe, if you install the right plugins.
On the other hand, WebM and Theora are going to be supported on every platform that Firefox runs on. That's a lot more valuable.
Pirate Party UK
Uhhhh..maybe you didn't get the memo but H.264 works in Firefox now thanks to MSFT. And while this plugin calls the native Windows 7 codec I'm sure it won't take long before a hacked one that just calls VLC or KLite DShow filters will be released which will take care of XP and Vista.
That just means that H.264 in Firefox is almost as well supported as WebM in IE. Almost, because it only works on Windows 7.
Sure, anyone can make plugins or extensions with whatever features they like for Firefox or other browsers, but that relies on people installing plugins (just like Flash does, incidentally). It doesn't support it out of the box.
I seriously doubt you'll see teh titties in WebM anytime soon....or well ever actually.
Why wouldn't they (or anyone else, for that matter) support WebM, if that's what they need to reach their viewers?
No, it's not.
The *only* reason anyone on the content delivery side of things has cared about HTML5 video is because Apple booted flash off of iOS.
As nice as it for everyone (and honestly, I'm a huge fan of open source and linux) the money market is not there for people to serve a third, completely separate version up to linux and max firefox users who have decided not to install flash.
Seriously, most practical linux users end up installing flash and something that will play x264 anyway, because that's the world we live in. Yes, it would be nice if they didn't have to worry about the fact that they might be violating patent laws... but they're still doing it.
So MS adding firefox support for HTML5 h.264 just means that pretty much anyone and everyone that advertisers care about are going to be getting things in h.264, or in a flash wrapper... there's just no incentive for anyone who isn't specifically a distributor of open source software.
It seems necessarty here to insert a reminder about what H.264 is and where it comes from:
H.264/MPEG-4 AVC is a block-oriented motion-compensation-based codec standard developed by the ITU-T Video Coding Experts Group (VCEG) together with the ISO/IEC Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG). It was the product of a partnership effort known as the Joint Video Team (JVT).
H.264 is perhaps best known as being one of the codec standards for Blu-ray Discs; all Blu-ray players must be able to decode H.264. It is also widely used by streaming internet sources, such as videos from Vimeo, YouTube and the iTunes Store, web software such as the Adobe Flash Player and Microsoft Silverlight, broadcast services for DVB and SBTVD, direct-broadcast satellite television services, cable television services, and real-time videoconferencing.
The H.264 video format has a very broad application range that covers all forms of digital compressed video from low bit-rate Internet streaming applications to HDTV broadcast and Digital Cinema applications with nearly lossless coding. With the use of H.264, bit rate savings of 50% or more are reported. For example, H.264 has been reported to give the same Digital Satellite TV quality as current MPEG-2 implementations with less than half the bitrate, with current MPEG-2 implementations working at around 3.5 Mbit/s and H.264 at only 1.5 Mbit/s.
The Digital Video Broadcast project (DVB) approved the use of H.264/AVC for broadcast television in late 2004.
The Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) standards body in the United States approved the use of H.264/AVC for broadcast television in July 2008, although the standard is not yet used for fixed ATSC broadcasts within the United States. It has also been approved for use with the more recent ATSC-M/H (Mobile/Handheld) standard, using the AVC and SVC portions of H.264.
The CCTV (Close Circuit TV) or Video Surveillance market has included the technology in many products. The introduction of H.264 to the video surveillance industry has meant the ability to stream high resolution at lower bit rates has substantially improved. H.264/MPEG-4 AVC, List of video services using H.264/MPEF-4_AVC
The implications for the global hardware manufactuer - the OEM - are clear:
Whatever the fate of WebM, you will be licensing H.264 and HVEC/H.265 across your entire product line. This is not a problem for companies the size of Mitsubishi Electric, Panasonic, Philips, JVC, Sony, or Samsung.
Not a problem for AMD, ARM, Apple, Intel, NVIDIA or Microsoft.
Google is the new kid on the block. HVEC should be final in about two or three years.
HEVC aims to substantially improve coding efficiency compared to AVC High Profile, i.e. reduce bitrate requirements by half with comparable image quality, probably at the expense of increased computational complexity. Depending on the application requirements, HEVC should be able to trade off computational complexity, compression rate, robustness to errors and processing delay time.
HEVC is targeted at next-generation HDTV displays and content capture systems which feature progressive scanned frame rates and display resolutions from QVGA (320x240) up to 1080p and Ultra HDTV (7680x4320), as well as improved picture quality in terms of noise level, color gamut and dynamic range. High Efficiency Video Coding
The implications for the content provider are also clear.
WebM is not a theatrical production codec.
It is not a theatrical, broadcast, cable or sattelite distribution codec. It does not support content protection.
The H.264 base Netflix client is baked into every HDTV set, video player and video game console sold in the U.S.
There are clients for th
Part of the problem with WebM is that it is so similar to H.264. I'd wager that if it is possible to "patch in" hardware support, it's also possible to sue Google for patent infringement. Which nobody is indemnified for.
Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
Your hardware woes are over, or will be in the near future.
Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
I saw your post and realized they should have called it WebpaM - I don't know what the acronym means, but it would read the same rotated 180 degrees (in the plane), or would read MapbeW backwards. :) At least, mostly sorta.
It's easier to be a result of the past, but more fun to be a cause of the future! http://www.spacefinancegroup.com/
I think you underestimate the size of YouTube. It's way bigger than all other video hosts put together. If a WebM browser gives you the best YouTube experience, that's what people will want. And with Firefox's sizable market share on the desktop, and Chrome's market share on smartphones, I'd say WebM cannot be ignored.
And if YouTube offers video in either HTML5+WebM or Flash+H264, iDevice users definitely have a problem.
Unless Firefox drops Flash and tomorrow all these h.264 decoding Android phones have that feature turned off, yeah, you can ignore WebM. And you seriously think YouTube is going to lock out iOS users, in the name of "openness" while still shipping Flash plugins with their desktop browsers? YouTube can't force the world to give up h.264, any more than Chrome can. PSST: Consumers care little about "open".
Which ones on that list have shipped hardware?
Video compression is a patent minefield, and indemnity is pretty much an absolute requirement these days if you expect to be taken seriously.
Alright then, name one format that does offer indemnity.
Here's some help: MPEG LA doesn't.
No problem is insoluble in all conceivable circumstances.
As a video host the concerns would be audience, quality, easy access to the tools and revenue. Cost is not an issue if the revenue covers it. Ideology is rarely a factor.
If I have an open standard without the tools to produce it, then it is nothing more than writing in a document. Content authoring tools needs to support producing things like WebM and Ogg, and I am yet to see anything available to Final Cut Pro or Adobe Premiere that will do that. If there is something that requires going to some obscure web site and requiring me to compile the tool, then it is not worth the time. If I am making money despite the H.264 tax then why would I want to make more effort than necessary, especially when the alternatives don't provide the quality expected.
Don't get me wrong, I am a big supported of open source, its just that sometimes you need to accept that what drives a business to make certain decisions is not ideologies, but rather the ability to reach the customers and bring in the money.
If you want you new video format standard to be taken seriously, then you need to make it easy to use in content creation and all mainstream video playback creation. If you don't do the work, then people aren't going to take the time or take you seriously.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
There are no 800 pound gorillas. Very obese gorillas held in captivity may top out at 600 lbs at most. A healthy, strong, alpha gorilla out in the wild would weigh no more than 350-400 lbs. 800 pound gorillas are pure fantasy.
Two men are flying in a hot air balloon and realise they are lost. They see a man on the ground, and shout down to him to him, "Can you tell us where we are?"
The man on the ground replies, "You're in a hot air balloon, two hundred and forty feet off the ground, heading due West."
One of the men in the balloon says to his companion: "That guy must be an actuary: his information is completely accurate, but entirely useless."
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Beats me. But it sure looks promising, don't you think?
Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
Your definition of "open standard" is wrong: consider the following:
So far I agree with you. However, in the U.S.A and Japan and other jurisdictions that believe in software patents, it would be illegal for me to sell or distribute this program, because someone might actually use it, and then they would have to pay MPEG-LA their patent license dues. :-)
So you may call it an "open standard" if it can be implemented, but I believe most people implement standards with the purpose of actually being allowed to also use the resulting computer program executable
To be, or not to be: isn't that quite logical, Slashdot Beta?
The thing you're forgetting here is that MS didn't add that functionality to Firefox. They made it available to Firefox. Just like the fact that Google made a proper rendering engine available for IE6 doesn't mean that everybody automatically uses it.
Over 20 Hardware vendors are working on WebM hardware acceleration right how, including Broadcom and Qualcomm.
Now figure in the amount the OEMs have invested in all those H.264 chips, along with the fact that all those consumer devices will have to be chunked (great for the environment) thanks to WebM killing the battery,
No, it means developers will have to support those devices until they fade out. Considering that most people replace their phone every 2-3 years anyway, that won't take too long. The only real problem here is if Apple refused to implement WebM even after hardware acceleration is available.
Three years ago, H.264 support on mobile devices was all but non-existent as well. There is no reason why WebM can't be just as widely distributed as H.264 in another three years if industry decides to support it. This isn't like Ogg Vorbis and Theora where the only supporters were FLOSS hobbyist. It is being supported by the biggest internet video company in the world, the biggest mobile chipset manufacturers in the world, the second and third biggest browsers in the world, and the second biggest (and fastest growing) mobile OS in the world. Hell even Flash is supporting it. Furthermore, unlike MP3->Vorbis transition, users won't have to do a thing to start using it; it will be entirely transparent to them.
Yes, it is possible that it won't succeed, but it is also very possible that it will, and if it does the web will be better off for. I don't understand the hostility that people have towards attempting to make things better, just because there is a chance it will fail.
I do think that the codec could be vulnerable to a patent battle. Unless Google are indemnifying WebM, you may well find that MPEG-LA or individual stakeholders pick particular sites to be the target of lawsuits.
Because nobody will bother as it gains them nothing since IOS doesn't support it? The future is mobile and it belongs to Apple, full stop. And this is from someone who doesn't own a single Apple device.
This is because Google shot themselves in the foot by refusing to put any standards on Android so now you have this big fragmented mess where in just my local Walmart you are looking at no less than 4 Droid versions and frankly more than 2/3rds of them are total shit. I'm already seeing the backlash working retail with people telling me how much they hate their Droid device and how they wish they got an iPhone/iPad, and it looks like I'm not the only one seeing that.
Then there is the matter of hardware acceleration which frankly just can't be "dropped in" via firmware on most devices, they just don't have the chip space for that big of a change. So you have a codec that 1.-doesn't work on IOS and probably never will, 2.-Can't have hardware support on a LARGE section of devices, whereas a combination of H.264 plus flash does and 3.-Thanks to Google torpedoing the HTML V5 tag (which was only gaining in the first place by Jobs killing flash on IOS) by pushing a niche codec that brings NOTHING to the table, not video quality nor file size nor support base, the simplest and cheapest solution for websites is to simply have a "raw" H.264 for IOS and anyone else who supports it and drop the very same file into a flash wrapper with ZERO re-encoding for those that don't (because even Linux has flash)
So I'm sorry, not gonna work, never gonna happen. Might have worked 5 years ago before everything had hardware support for the competition and folks fell in love with the iPhone,but now it has about as much chance as Vorbis taking control away from MP3. All this little stunt has done is make flash the defacto format for all those not on IOS because it is THE one thing all those not on IOS have in common. Just because a big corp pushes it doesn't mean it will get the public onboard, just ask MSFT about little things they tried like ohhhh...WMA, WMV, and Vista.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
The future is mobile and it belongs to Apple, full stop.
I don't know who told you that, but he's wrong. Android is growing much faster than iOS. Not to mention that lots of people still prefer keyboards and large screens. To do work, but also to watch video. The majority of video content is watched on desktop machines, and if it's up to the cellphone networks, it will remain that way. If when you're talking desktop, you simply cannot ignore Firefox, where H.264 just isn't an option.
Apple is certainly big and powerful, but they don't get to determine the future on their own, and are perfectly capable of shooting themselves in the foot, or, who knows, even seeing reason.
Then there is the matter of hardware acceleration which frankly just can't be "dropped in" via firmware on most devices, they just don't have the chip space for that big of a change.
Mobile hardware acelleration for video is pretty new anyway. I don't see why it would be any harder with WebM than with H.264. Plenty of hardware manufacturers (and software, for that matter) are already committed to supporting WebM.
Then the guy on the ground says "You must be a manager!" The guy in the balloon asks how he knows this. He says "You ask dumb questions while having no idea where you are, where you're going, or how you got there, but now somehow it is my fault."
I disagree, H.264 is an inferior codec due to the licensing schemes, that's a loss for users and people using the web. I'll go even further and state that you can't even download a properly licensed HTML5 video tag enabled ns-plugin for h.264 but you can for webm.
I think the worst part of that is that it was done previously and didn't really work.
The lack of appropriate licensing prevents them and having it built into the webbrowser is easier. Right now webm is supported by most browsers, and those that don't just require the codec to be installed in WMP or QuickTime. Compare this the other way around where it is not supported out of the box in most browsers and you can't even get a legitimately licensed h.264 downloadable plugin for the browsers that don't support it out of the box.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
I wish I had mod points!
"Liechtenstein is the world's largest producer of sausage casings, potassium storage units, and false teeth."
The rotation thing doesn't work. It would say WedqeM
All I want is a secure system where it's easy to do anything I want. Is that too much to ask ~~ Randall Munroe
How much does Firefox cost again? How much does an iOS device cost?
If you had the choice of marketing to 160 million people who are demonstrably willing to spend a premium on technology, or marketing to 400 million people whose reason for choosing the browser was "It's like, free, and more secure than IE," which would you go to more lengths to target? I bet you'd be surprised at how lucrative the "only 160 million person" demographic actually is for a lot of marketers.
Right you are :) That looks like it could be a domain name too. So, of course, I had to Google it. And, surprise surprise: It exists. - it's a website design company. Oh well, sigh.
It's easier to be a result of the past, but more fun to be a cause of the future! http://www.spacefinancegroup.com/
Not to mention the fact that Chrome supports MP3 and AAC in the audio tag. If they're dropping H.264 support to support openness, why are still supporting MP3 and AAC?
You can't patch in hardware acceleration. It's either there or it's not. In the case of WebM, it's not.
Nvidia's Tegra 2 SOC (the darling of CES 2011) has VP8/WebM hardware encode and decode built in.
God is imaginary
Nvidia has VP8 encode and decode in hardware.
God is imaginary
Chrome is a niche browser. WebM isn't going to become a web standard. H.264 already won that war.
I am getting really tired of arguments like the above, which are total nonsense.
The idea that the masses would just ditch YouTube because they have to install a plugin is nonsensical. It has so much content and such branding that it is simply not realistic, there is no current competitor to YouTube on the web. The closest thing, was Google Video!
If people have to do a one-time install of a plugin to watch YouTube in IE - they will.
Saying that people will ditch YouTube because they have to install a plugin, is like saying people will ditch their favorite cereal because you change the box art. It just IS NOT going to happen. You may lose a couple, gain a couple, but on the whole the impact will be immaterial.
How did Google kill open video? It's possible that WebM won't matter and therefore Google's action won't help to open video, but it won't kill it, because we never had any alternative for open video anyway.
The scenario that would have worked was Google helping to get the video tag widespread with h.264 as a base, in the meantime readying mobile hardware that could support WebM would be built up, and Chrome marketshare would continue to grow...
Then, in around four years, Google throws the switch. No Flash on Chrome, only WebM playback in video tag on Android. Now suddenly there are enough devices and browsers to make it compelling for producers to render to WebM.
I would say just like they are doing now, but they aren't dropping support for h.264 anywhere since Flash still supports it. So basically all they are doing now is killing the video tag in addition to making it hopeless that WebM will see wide adoption.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Why would Google produce video in both WebM and H.264?
Why not ask them - today YouTube does exactly that.
The likely way forward for YouTube is that they'll start transitioning to WebM and phase out H.264
They cannot because of IE and iOS marketshare.
perhaps just producing a low quality H.264 encode for the current crop devices that can only play H.264 with no hope of a software upgrade
Did you forget we are talking about YouTube? No-one will care.
What makes you think that Adobe won't add WebM support to Flash?
They will. What makes you think that matters? Again, producers will still put out video in h.264. Flash supports a lot of other codecs that are not commonly used.
iOS devices aren't all that important in the grand scheme of things.
You haven't looked at percentages for browsing video in mobile devices I take it.
If iOS devices "were not that important" it would not the be the case that MANY sites would have transitioned to feeding them h.264 video directly. They have. There are north of 90 million iPhones around now, probably more Touches, and nearly 17 million iPads that all see heavy use in browsing and watching video. Realistically content producers cannot ignore this.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Adobe: makes tools.
And Flash. Which needs Adobe's tools to develop for... you are right about Adobe being all about tools and utterly clueless about how they are trying to make sure people keep using Adobe tools. Things that are not Flash reduce the need for using Adobe tools in
production.
Google: doesn't care about money, or anything short-term, really.
BWA HA HA HA HA HA HA.
Any advertising firm cares very much about money and Google as done nothing recently showing any concern for the future of the industry, only the future growth of Google.
Apple: wants complete control over their own walled garden. They don't care what people do outside, but inside, they need to play by Apple's rules. Apple sells the Apple experience, and that does not include porn, third-party plugins, third-party dev tools, or anything that they consider too slow.
Except that web technologies that APPLE has pushed heavily are totally open!! OOPS.
There is really no good reason for them to not like WebM, other than the fact that they already invested a lot in H.264.
Except that mobile device experience with a non-hardware accelerated codec will suck, both in terms of performance and battery life. But companies can't possibly be doing something in a users best interests, impossible!
Mozilla: They're just not going to pay for H.264
Which is fine, there's no need to if they just let the video tag flow through to OS support.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
A codec couldn't be officially chosen before due to the objections of browser makers like Apple and Microsoft. What makes you think one would be now?
Aside from the fact that WebM is inferior in quality to H.264, H.264 is already the standard among content providers. This is the same old story--"openness" ideologues trying to force everyone to use something of lesser quality because it makes them feel good. Meanwhile, Chrome ships Flash and MP3/AAC support! So much for openness.
Nobody cares about Linux because at best you are looking at 3%, so in the big scheme of things it is right there with Amiga and OS/2 Warp, OSX users don't care because they have H.264 support which as I pointed out will be kept to keep from alienating those millions of iDevice users, and for the one that modded me down the Windows plugin calls the WMP API which means it WILL work on XP/Vista if your WMP supports H.264 (which many do, since all it takes is running into a DivX file that won't play for them to install a codec pack) so that covers a good 97% of the public when you figure in Windows + OSX+ iDevices.
So I'm sorry if it makes you unhappy, but maybe instead of yelling "free as in freedom!" and getting mad when everyone ignores you, maybe you should work on raising your numbers legitimately? Perhaps by demanding a hardware API and pushing for the community to rally behind a single distro instead of constantly reinventing the wheel? But frankly nobody cared what Apple wanted either until the iPod exploded onto the scene and now I predict with the iDevice they will make H.264 one of two standards (along with flash thanks to Google trying to start a format war) so if you want the public or manufacturers and website designers to care about your OS you REALLY need to work on your numbers friend. Hell last I checked the combo of Win98/Win2K had more users than you. With numbers that low nobody is gonna change policy simply because a codec doesn't fit your agenda, sorry.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
MPEG-LA doesn't actually produce any end products that are sold to those production houses, either. They license the right to implement the technology to other companies, who then in turn manufacture products, many of whom provide indemnity. More importantly, MPEG LA is the giant elephant in the room. They are so big and own so many patents in this space that no one would dare sue one of their licensees for fear of retribution. More to the point, if anyone is going to file a lawsuit over a video codec, odds are it would be MPEG LA doing the suing rather than being sued. Therefore, in terms of risk, licensing a codec from MPEG LA is much, much lower risk.
It's an apples and oranges comparison. You're arguing that customers will gladly buy unpasteurized orange juice because grocery stores sell unpasteurized apples.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Pretty much all of them if you buy from a manufacturer that offers it. Start with On2, the company that Google bought this codec from. Then move on to Microsoft. I'm pretty sure Broadcom's MPEG hardware provides indemnification. Heck, I doubt you'd have a very hard time finding at least one vendor that provides indemnification for almost every pro format.
The key difference between MPEG LA and Google is that Google is providing software, whereas MPEG LA is providing patent licenses to companies that make software and hardware. The two are not comparable.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Citation needed. But given that Broadcom doesn't even offer indemnification over their own codec, BV16, I wouldn't be too hopeful.
No problem is insoluble in all conceivable circumstances.
I tried to get citations, but the Internet is so clogged with people complaining about WebM and H.264 that any search for codecs and indemnification returns nothing but that....
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Didn't bother to read the link did you? Read it and see what I'm talking about which is retailers saying they have too much Android crap and the people don't want it anymore. And as for who is telling me that? customers that's who. You see the big FUBAR Google pulled with Android is this: By not putting any minimum specs for Android you have a market that is flooded with shitty droid devices. And this might surprise you but consumers don't know shit about hardware and all they know is the device they got with a little droid on the box sucks compared to their friends iPhone. Hell I've seen it with my own eyes where customers will pass up a Phenom II for a Phenom I because the Phenom I had bigger numbers and that is all they look at because they don't know shit about hardware.
But hell don't take my word for anything, read the link I posted or even do a search on "android retail backlash" and see for yourself. By not putting minimum standards Google has allowed so much garbage to carry the droid name that very quickly "Droid equals shit" is becoming a consensus in the minds of consumers. You see consumers don't give a shit about lock in, or "free as in freedom" or the right to hack, or any of that shit. What they want is a toaster with a screen, and the iDevices are just about as close to that as one can get. MSFT will pick up some share just by going "me too!" and aping everything Apple does because...well its worked in the past hasn't it? While the huge mounds of garbage Android devices (just in Walmart I'd say you're looking at an 80/20 split in complete shit to decent Android) means Android is getting a rep with the public as "the crap for those too poor for iPhone".
And finally as for why it is harder for WebM it is because the engineering work is already done for H.264 which makes it a sunk cost. All OEMs like Broadcom and ATI/NV have to do is crank the chips and cash the checks. This leaves WebM in a nasty catch-22 in that if it is easy to drop in it likely is running afoul of H.264 patents since they have virtually every step of the H.264 encode/decode process patented up the butt, and if it isn't then it will cost serious money and die space as you are having to add a codec that doesn't relate to any of the previous ones into support. But either way we shall see, I predict in less than a year WebM will be right about where FLAC and Vorbis is, with limited support and such a tiny niche nobody cares, whereas with Android I predict about another year of being the media darling followed by the fall, and in two years it'll be seen as the "cheapskate OS" that is strictly found on CCC (Cheapo Chinese Crap) whereas the expensive (which equals good in the mobile space) will be dominated by iDevices and either WinPhone 7 or possibly WebOS if HP plays the cards right.
But I can tell you that as a retailer the consumers are telling me horror stories about "That awful android that hangs and locks up and is NOTHING like iPhone!" and once you get a bad rep with the consumer it is damned near impossible to shake off. I probably get offered a "barely used!" Android phone twice a week because the ones being pushed now by the telecos suck ass, and the local Craigslist is so full of aPads it isn't even funny anymore. And of course all these people having horrible experiences are telling their family, their friends, their coworkers, their neighbors, etc. You just can't keep burning people like that and get away with it.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Mingw32 on Windows is horribly slow in getting developed beyond version 3.4.somethingorother. Also, it can't interoperate with Windows DLLs (made with MSVC) without some hackery. Ergo, it's not so common in Windows, though as others have mentioned, it's more popular than you might expect.
On the other hand, gcc is used on Macs (until recently, it was pretty much exclusive, but now it's lost ground to LLVM, of course), and there's a version for pretty much every embedded platform one would want to use. I think it's safe to say that it's at least one of the top two compilers around.
GCC is generally only used on platforms where MSVC isn't available
Pretty much every place except Windows, then...
Some of the very basic tests I once did show them (MSVC 9.0/Visual Studio 2008 and GCC 4.5-odd) running pretty much neck and neck, without much real advantage to either one or the other. It really comes down to compiler, code and the specific optimization flags one uses. Otherwise, they're both pretty much the same.
Here's someone else's benchmark, showing GCC and MSVC just about the same, and Intel's ICC about 20% or more faster. By your logic, ICC should be the world's favourite compiler, since it's a) the fastest, and b) available on all platforms.
The real world doesn't work like that, though - ICC has other problems...
You mean, apart from developing it?
It would be interesting to see the numbers, wouldn't it? By all accounts, Clang is just about able to compile a Linux kernel - it's going to take it a while to catch up to GCC, and that's after enough things compile with it.
But it's a good thing that it exists - competition is always good, even if only to keep the GCC team on their toes.
FSF these days is first and foremost a political and legal organization, not a software development shop. They do not work on GCC, other people do.
Stallman did personally write a lot of GCC, but it was many years ago - were you referring to that? I don't think it's reflective of the present "successes" of FSF. Can you name one of their campaigns or projects from the last, say, 10 years, which was successful?
Right now webm is supported by most browsers, and those that don't just require the codec to be installed in WMP or QuickTime.
What the hell are you talking about? What browser other than Chrome and possibly Firefox support WebM? Nothing I have installed on any of my computers, that's for sure. Chrome was nice, but now that it forces me to use Flash it's not. Firefox stopped being nice when the name was changed from "Phoenix."
And how can you go on to say "well it's in WMP or QT" right after saying "relying on the OS to provide codecs is a terrible idea!"?
Fair enough, but in that case, I'd point to GPL3 adoption; a 2009 article claims about 50% adoption, at least of active projects on Google Code. That's not bad, I think...
Remember, when you measure success or failure, don't think in binary terms - world domination is not necessary for success.
Seriously, don't get riled up over this Eric, drink a cold Pepsi or something.
Out of the box, you forgot Opera.
Sir, you twist my words. "Didn't really work" is not "terrible idea". It didn't really work because it wasn't orchestrated properly. Just look at the container hell between quicktime (mov / proprietary mp4-like container), windows media (wmv container, screwy mp4 container support), real player (rm container) and adobe flash (flv container) - while they all supported h.264 in their proprietary containers, you ended up with players that couldn't play each other's files and lets not forget the mass amounts of different audio codecs, subtitling support etc. That is not good for the web.
None of the proprietary non-sense above is part of h.264 (since it's just a video codec). Hence, no specific container, audio codec (which likely requires even further licensing), subtitling format defined which is what WebM defines too.
Because Safari relies on QuickTime for the video tag and IE relies on windows media for the video tag. Take a step back and note that in that segment, I am talking about the matter of general browser support in this scenario.
The fact the codec support is available for these players and the licensing is free means that adoption across pretty much the majority of browsers is easier than the other way around - where there is no magical ns-plugin that is properly licensed etc. available for the various browsers and platforms out there was the point I was getting at.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
Trolls are out to provoke people, not post "first".
I am not devoid of humor.
Seriously, don't get riled up over this Eric, drink a cold Pepsi or something.
Haha, okay. I forgot we're best friends and on a first name basis. I don't drink soda anymore, and I never drank Pepsi.
Out of the box, you forgot Opera.
No one cares about Opera except Slashdot. I'm not looking for some witty reply about its relevance. I just do not care.
[...] where there is no magical ns-plugin that is properly licensed etc. available for the various browsers and platforms out there was the point I was getting at.
Does it matter at all? As long as it works? You're telling me you've never ripped a DVD or something? None of that process is "proper." I'm guessing you're one of those ridiculous people that uses only software approved with the seal of RMS's beard.
For those of us living in the real world, the only thing this does at all is annoy the vast majority of the population. Most of us just do not care if you can put the GPL stamp-o-bullshit on the cover.
I didn't respond to the rest because I didn't feel it was worth reading in the first place.
It doesn't, hence the problem.
I'm typing on a Windows 7 system right now (screenshot evidence) and I buy a lot of commercial software as well use a lot of free opensource software, I consider myself platform agnostic and use what is best for the job. h.264's support in video tags is lacking and not as widely supported both legally and in practical uses, to me it is quite clear it is not better for a web video in practical, philosophical and even legal.
Yes, I mean after all, the lack of proper plugins to support the content in your favorite browser, who wouldn't get pissed off? I'm serious about the lack of h.264 plugin video tag support while the opposite exists across pretty much all major browsers that don't have it built in.
Whatever you say.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.