Microsoft Makes Chrome Play H.264 Video

nk497 writes "Chrome users will be able to play H.264 video — thanks to Microsoft. The software giant today unveiled the Windows Media Player HTML5 Extension for Chrome, which will let users of the Google browser play H.264 video after it was dropped from Chrome over licensing issues. 'At Microsoft we respect that Windows customers want the best experience of the web including the ability to enjoy the widest range of content available on the internet in H.264 format,' said Claudio Caldato, Microsoft interoperability program manager."

Comments

Memory Leak

[Utopia]

Microsoft's H.264 addon for Firefox has a bad memory leak.
See http://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/971988-memory-leak-in-html5-extension-for-windows-media-player-firefox-add-on/

So this might be bad for Chrome.

Re:And Yet, No Ogg Theora in IE

[Anonymous Coward]

Theora is also quite useful, given that the Wikimedia projects only accept free formats. You're not going to be able to upload your video in H.264 there, and they're a big enough player for this to actually matter.

Re:Downright evil

[A beautiful mind]

Bullshit. Let me break it down:

Patent risk from submarine patents: neither h.264 nor WebM offers any protection from it.

Patent risk from MPEG-LA for h.264: significant, as it can decide to raise prices / start charging for content at any time. Bait and switch is their strategy.

Patent risk from Google for WebM: none, they offered irrevocable indemnification:

Google hereby grants to you a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive, no-charge, royalty-free, irrevocable ⦠patent license to [infringe VP8 patents owned by Google].

Re:Priorities

[MHolmesIV]

Yes. Microsoft is a patent holder in the H.264 patent pool.