Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Offers H.264 Plug-in For Google Chrome
Apparently Firefox was just the beginning: Pigskin-Referee writes "Microsoft has released a Windows Media Player HTML5 Extension for Chrome so as to enable H.264-encoded video on HTML5 by using built-in capabilities available on Windows 7. As you may recall, less than two months ago, Microsoft released the HTML5 Extension for Windows Media Player Firefox Plug-in with the same goal in mind. Even though Firefox and Chrome are big competitors to Microsoft's own Internet Explorer, the software giant has decided Windows 7 users should be able to play back H.264 video even if they aren't using IE9. Here's the current state of HTML5 video: Microsoft and Apple are betting on H.264, while Firefox, Chrome, and Opera are rooting for WebM. Google was actually in favor of both H.264 and WebM up until earlier this month, when the search giant decided to drop H.264 support completely, even though the former is widely used and the latter is not. The company also announced that it would release WebM plugins for Internet Explorer 9 and Safari. Although IE9 supports H.264, excluding all other codecs, Microsoft is making an exception for WebM, as long as the user installs the corresponding codec, and is helping Google ensure the plug-in works properly."
Something strange has been going on at Redmond, WA lately. And I like it. It seems like a reversal of roles for Google to be reducing end-user choice and Microsoft to be making up for it.
It looks like it's just a NSAPI plugin, with a content script that converts video tags to object tags for all mp4, wmv, mp4v, and m4v files, and uses Windows Media Player to handle them. It's a bit of a misnomer to say it's HTML5; basically it converts the HTML5 back to HTML4.
The best part is that it looks like the plugin can be invoked manually through an object tag, no video tag required. Now all three browsers (IE, Firefox w/a Microsoft addon, Chrome) can have WMP invoked at will, unsandboxed (Plugins aren't sandboxed by Chrome since most wouldn't work correctly, the one exception being a modified Flash). Great.
Architecturally speaking, my understanding is that Microsoft's plugin simply exposes the (already bought and paid for) h.264 decoder that they ship with Windows 7. It doesn't remove the patent issues with h.264 in a broader sense; but Google and Chrome remain completely separate from any h.264-decoder-related code. Even if Google were to start shipping the plugin by default, on Windows Chrome installs, my understanding is that that still wouldn't expose them to any h.264 MPEG-LA trouble: they'd just be shipping a component that plugs into the decoder library available in Windows(Still using Directshow or a descendant thereof, I assume?).
While, personally, I would prefer to avoid patent encumbrances as much as possible, there is actually a very good 'realpolitik' (and even arguably architectural) argument to be made in favor of this approach. While the ideal would be a single, patent-unencumbered, codec, this seems less than likely at present. Since the FOSS browsers cannot ship the encumbered codecs, and some of the commercial ones don't want to, they could simply ship a mechanism for handing the problem off to the platform's native codec system, possibly along with a matching implementation of their open codec of choice, and let the OS deal with it. Windows, OSX, and Linux all have viable candidates with which to interface, and doing so makes any patent issues Not Their Problem.
Yes, they could do that, but that would guarantee continuation of the current situation, where Linux users privately infringe patents, and everybody else running a business that needs to use H.264 has to pay royalties. Google and Mozilla are for whatever reason trying to rid the world of this indirect tax by pushing a free alternative, and we should celebrate this instead of questioning the short-term sacrifices they are making to accomplish this.
I love how with some people, everything MS does has to be bad, no matter what. Give users more choice? Booo!!!!
This is a good thing. Choice is good. This doesn't render html5 as useless, as it just gives their users more choice.
I see lots of people saying this, but it's not true. This is designed to indirectly combat choice. Not the choice of what codec to use on the client side, but the choice of accessing the web from completely unencumbered operating systems, with no flash and no patented codecs, or from mobile devices that don't have flash support, or whose manufacturers haven't paid to include the H.264 codec on the device. This is the kind of choice that matters: people on the client side don't care about choosing what codec is used, they care about choosing the devices or operating systems they want to use. A codec that is free from patent royalties is easier to support in free operating systems, browsers, and in mobile devices, where the OS is included out of the box, and the device maker would otherwise need to pay royalties.
Microsoft can still claim to be supporting choice, because they're helping web developers have the choice to use a patent encumbered codec. The use of this codec helps reduce consumer choice in what devices and operating systems they can use.
What is each company's interest in supporting either side? Microsoft recognizes that anything that is good for alternative operating systems and devices is bad for their Windows monopoly, which is why they are pro-H.264. I'm not sure what Apple's motivation is, but maybe it's similarly because all of their devices and software support H.264, and they want to retain a competitive advantage, however small. Google wants the web to be an open standard, because it's what their applications use, and Mozilla can't properly support H.264 without compromising their attempt to offer a free web browser that works just as well on every platform they support.
If there's going to be a war, let's pick the one that can produce the best quality
Are you willing to buy everyone in the developed world a licensed encoder and a licensed decoder?
What do you use that isn't "patent-encumbered"? Your computer is chock full of patents, as is everything else computer-related (except maybe an Arduino). Do you use Linux? Do you use Flash on Linux? Do you have x264 or VLC installed?
What kind of car do you drive? Do you have a TV? Microwave? Electric shaver? Normal disposable razor? What kind of pens and pencils do you use? Do you ever listen to the radio? MP3 player?
Sure, you are a hypocrite, but I really don't have too much of a problem with that. Nor do I have a problem with you trying to lead an ascetically "pure" life. I *do*, however, have a huge problem with you trying to fuck over everyone else, demanding they live their lives by your ideology. If you don't want to take part in modern society, by all means, whatever floats your boat.
Google is behaving like any other company. Do you really think they've dropped h.264 because they love open formats? No, it's a strategic move with the ultimate goal of making more money - either through search, through monetizing your personal data, or both.
If they were being altruistic, they'd have dropped Flash support and mp3 support at the same time. Heck, to really be pure they'd need to drop gif and jpeg as well. No, they dropped h.264 because right now their browser is trending upward, and they see a way to grab an edge versus both Apple and Microsoft.
#DeleteChrome
You talk about what "benefit us from a consumers perspective" but many are completely unwilling to entertain the thought that H.264 does, in fact, benefit us greatly from a consumers perspective.
Its already in most devices, its qualitatively better than VP8, and all the R&D for those decoder chips are way ahead of any VP8 implementation (there is still no VP8 hardware implementation) and even video card manufacturers have spent more than a little money developing accelerated H.264 on their GPU's
This idea that we should do that all again, but this time for VP8, and pretending that it wont cost us all (we consumers) something is completely laughable. Wouldnt it be better if all that R&D money from all those individual companies making chips and software and so on, were spent making H.264 more cost-efficient (one example would be using less power, another would be using less materialsin the case of manufacturing) to encode, decode, manufacture, etc?
Football analogy: VP8 is still on the 20 yard line in its own game, while H.264 already scored a touchdown and is currently going for the extra point.
Now where exactly do we see FireFox's VP8 implementation 5 years from now? Does anybody believe that Mozilla will spend lots of money developing a hardware accelerated implementation for any platform and shove that into the source tree? Would they even accept such a thing if someone else developed it for them? They probably wouldn't do that either, as then they would have to maintain two VP8 codecs... So basically FireFox will never have hardware accelerated VP8, right? They wont use that nice system codec, after all.
Why should consumers kowtow to the limitations of FOSS? Thats what we are really talking about, isnt it? FireFox can't ship an H.264 codec and so-forth, and Google wants its own codec to win, so everyone must suffer a little bit? Seriously... I think its arrogant and selfish to fuck everyone over in the name of FOSS.
"His name was James Damore."