Slashdot Mirror
Mozilla To Support H.264
suraj.sun writes with a followup to last week's news that Mozilla was thinking about reversing their stance on H.264 support. Mozilla chairman Mitchell Baker and CTO Brendan Eich have now both written blog posts explaining why they feel H.264 support is no longer optional. Eich wrote, "We will not require anyone to pay for Firefox. We will not burden our downstream source redistributors with royalty fees. We may have to continue to fall back on Flash on some desktop OSes. I’ll write more when I know more about desktop H.264, specifically on Windows XP. What I do know for certain is this: H.264 is absolutely required right now to compete on mobile. I do not believe that we can reject H.264 content in Firefox on Android or in B2G and survive the shift to mobile. Losing a battle is a bitter experience. I won’t sugar-coat this pill. But we must swallow it if we are to succeed in our mobile initiatives. Failure on mobile is too likely to consign Mozilla to decline and irrelevance." Baker added, "Our first approach at bringing open codecs to the Web has ended up at an impasse on mobile, but we’re not done yet. ... We'll find a way around this impasse."
better live to fight tomorrow, rather than become irrelevant
They have recently declined to pledge that they won't sue over standards essential patents like H.264, instead of demanding 2.5% of proceeds of devices(ad revenues in this case). Apple and Microsoft have pledged this.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2012/02/regulators-to-google-you-can-buy-motorola-but-we-still-dont-trust-you.ars
Interesting to see Google becoming the patent trolls over H.264 that it previously warned others over and recommended WebM.
This space for rent.
We currently use MPEG1, MPEG2, and JPEG in our browsers (and TVs) but the world has not collapsed, or our personal savings wiped out.
I don't see any problem with moving onward with MPEG4 audio and video (AACplusSBR)(h.264)(ATSC 2008).
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
It's critical, even with multi-core, if for no other reason than battery life.
What made it worse was Firefox really messed up when they did that crazy version numbers issue just to copy Google chrome as if the Version Number was the key to success. What that did was Show how desperate Firefox is, then their choice to snub their noses at valid complaints from business usage just made it worse.
So, Mozilla copying Google's version numbering scheme and release schedule made Firefox *worse* than Chrome? Okay, then...
They wanted a completely patent and royalty free standard. Now I can accept that is the preferable way to go but it wasn't very practical. The problem was nobody in the open and unpatented world wanted to get their shit together and develop a next gen video format in a timely fashion. So AVC got standardized and started to get implemented everywhere since it gives quite good quality/bit. Once it was huge and implemented in near everything, there was movement to create an open standard but too little, too late. When standards get entrenched, they get entrenched hard. GIFs are a great example, people still use them all over despite PNG being more or less in every way superior.
Well FF wanted to fight back against that and so said "No AVC evar!" They backed WebM, which had Google gotten done 3-5 years earlier, might have had a shot, but they are finding it just isn't feasible.
So AVC is what we have now, and probably will for a long, long time. When the next better standard comes out, it'll be hard to get people to switch because AVC is "good enough". We finally have a "good enough" video streaming solution, meaning it offer the kind of quality we want and can do so in bandwidth we have.
You are are becoming the minority.
The Mobile Smart Phone popularity is due to the face that you can bring it with you almost anywhere. Even an Ultra Portable Laptop has places where you would be looked at kinda funny if you took it with you, and the extra power of the laptop comes at a cost of battery life. A Smart Phone under moderate use gives you about 16 hours a day. A Laptop under that use gives you 3-5 hours. Also the Mobile Network is handy to get data when you are not near any other hot spots. Which does happen more often then you think. I got a smart phone figuring that it would be a fun toy... But I found it more useful then I thought.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Oh no! And I just spent my weekend encoding 100 TB of movies in H.265...
You should have went with h.266 and used the --backward-compatible flag.
#DeleteChrome
So, Mozilla copying Google's version numbering scheme and release schedule made Firefox *worse* than Chrome? Okay, then...
Actually yes. Version upgrades in chrome are transparent to the user. I don't care if chrome updates to version 324...I don't know even know what version of chrome I'm running.
When firefox updates, it make you go through a huge hassle of clicking approve on update boxes, checking to see if your extensions are broken, realizing half your extensions ARE broken, looking for new ones, etc. If they made their upgrades as transparent as chrome does, it wouldn't be a problem. But a rapid release schedule is a terrible idea when upgrading is a hassle.
It is true that firefox should try to work its way onto mobile devices. There was some talk about the alternative such as the Ogg formats that were not patent encumbered, one wonders if some sort of plugin for browsers like IE would have removed a barrier to adoption.
However, I think the idea that firefox will become irrelevant if they do not make their way onto mobile is dubious, because desktops will remain the primary means of computing, for many reasons. This is due to the fact that desktops are superior and a better value overall, mobile devices are only good in a niche usage when in a car on in a subway or out and about town. However, at home in the evening, mobile devices provide a drastistically worse usage characteristics and value than desktop. Do we really think that its a good idea to trade in your 20" screen, full sized keyboard and fast, memory expansive system for a 4" screen with a chiclet sized keyboard or some overpriced tablet that gives far less computing power and reliability than a desktop system? It seems absurd to me.
I do think that desktops will be used in conjunction with a mobile device, like a smart phone and or lap/netbook and that allowing these two to share data will be important (hello, remote desktop anyone).
Smart phones are a very specific usage niche, they only really make since when one is on the go, in their car, on a subway, or walking about town. This is a trade off because the mobile device provides much worse user experience and value than a desktop, which is only tolerable where portability is important. At home, in the den, the desktops strengths vastly excel over a mobile device, and in that place the mobile has absolutely no advantage. So, desktops will be used at home, few people want to do spread sheets, work on a collage paper, play a 3D game or such on some lousy mobile device.
Another fact is that since the mobile has a smaller display and different usage characteristics, the GUI is customized for that environment, however, the GUI that works well on a mobile, such as tabs, does not work very well on the desktop where full window system is very workable. So these two classes of computing device will have different UI designs.
It is true there has been growth in the smart phone sector. However, this should not be read as these becoming more popular than desktop, but that the mobile platform is unsaturated so far so that there is more room to growth. This growth as well is due to a technological tresh-hold that has been reached recently which has made smart phones viable for purposes. However, this is a business cyle, eventually mobile sales will fall of significantly, and i expect that mobile and desktop sales will eventually equalize as people have purchased both and enter more of a long term wear out replacement cycle on mobiles as with desktops.
As well, desktops are a better value in general for computing, providing higher speeds and more RAM for lower cost. They are also a general all in one computing device which can fill the role of DVR, Game console, office management, home management, communications and web browsing, telephone and video chat from home, and so on. Doing all of this with a desktop general purpose computer is a much, much better value than buying a bunch of seperate specific purpose computers like a wii or a tivo. It is far less wasteful becuse all of these devices have a general purpose computer and it makes sense to do all of these functions with a single general purpose computer rather than 3 seperate devices. As CPU speeds have increased and RAM has increased, a single desktop computer has enough resources that gaming, DVR, and office functions can all be done simultaneously. All of this results in desktops being able to multiple things for less cost making them a better value.
Mobile devices are a niche device and eventually sales of these will decline. Desktop sales will remain steady over time due to the much better value and better and more versatile usage characteristics.
So, Mozilla copying Google's version numbering scheme and release schedule made Firefox *worse* than Chrome? Okay, then...
Actually yes. Version upgrades in chrome are transparent to the user. I don't care if chrome updates to version 324...I don't know even know what version of chrome I'm running.
When firefox updates, it make you go through a huge hassle of clicking approve on update boxes, checking to see if your extensions are broken, realizing half your extensions ARE broken, looking for new ones, etc. If they made their upgrades as transparent as chrome does, it wouldn't be a problem. But a rapid release schedule is a terrible idea when upgrading is a hassle.
Many people aren't thrilled with the idea of silent updates, for sure, the hassle of updating past versions was horrible. Fortunately, it's pretty easy now, and I haven't had any add-ons break since v8 or so. v13 will bring silent updates.
I am pretty sure my mom uses her phone for web browsing more than she does her desktop. She always had a hatred for desktops, but she finds her slow, 2nd gen 2.1 crappy android phone rather likable for some reason.
moox. for a new generation.
Yup, that's exactly it, especially when it comes to mobile: just about any modern smartphone has at least some hardware acceleration for video decoding (and often encoding). It makes an enormous difference in terms of battery life. VP8 has made little or no headway into the hardware space (it's a chicken and egg thing - vendors won't put it on the chips if there's no demand for it, and there's no demand for it because it's not supported on the chips).
With just a tag? No, not possible. In combination with javascript? Very possible.
There are plenty of javascript libraries out there that might get you most of the way there, like this one here.
I'm really glad to see Mozilla making the pragmatic move. I understand it's ultimately a question of their own self interest; but in this case that dovetails nicely with what's best for their customers, in my opinion.
The best of all worlds would be for Google to continue development of WebM so it reaches quality parity with h.264. Right now I think it's harder for WebM to gain traction when most of the "pro" arguments are about licensing issues and gloss over any technical deficiencies.
#DeleteChrome
Firefox has become my webapp IDE these days. Firebug (and things that let me log to firebug from the server-side code) + SQLite manager + a variety of tools for mangling http requests and responses + a variety of tools for creating your own requests, all in one tabbed application. It's perfect!
Chrome has become my web browser though.
IT's like comparing Eclipse to say, Notepad. Eclipse is useful because of everything that it CAN do. Notepad is useful for everything that it can't do (and thus doesn't get in your way when you're not doing it).
I'm god, but it's a bit of a drag really...
Yes, because 60 kB/s mobile browsing sure is the future for the internet.
Excuse me, are you from the past? You realize that mobile devices are shipping right now that can get something like 44Mb/sec down? One of the guys in my office just demoed his new iPad on LTE getting 44/20Mb/sec. Even my iPhone on AT&T's crappy oversubscribed 3G network in San Francisco can regularly pull 1Mb.
no longer working for cnet
Is this satire?
Notice on Youtube the lower income looking people in a trailer typically we be on a phone commenting on showing a friend a song or video clip? Same is true with minorities who are statistically poorer.
Rich people own desktops and some offices. In places like India more people go on the web with phones than desktops. This trend will continue as costs go down. Phones will be the prefered method for teenage girls to communicate and use the web even if they have a computer at home for homework.
It is not a niche and there are probably more phones than desktops. In 3 years there will be more tablets and smart phones than laptops and desktops.
http://saveie6.com/
Key patents are also held by... actually, there's a list. A long one. Will all of them agree not to sue too?
By joining the pool, the ones on that list have put their patents under a common license. So as long as you buy a license from the pool, then yes, they have agreed not to sue you.
(That's no help against Google/Motorola, or patent trolls that aren't in the pool, however.)
But, yeah, firefox would be nicer if there was an _option_ to automatically download and install updates without nagging or getting in your way.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
I use mobile browsing once a month, and couldn't care less about it.
I use mobile browsing at least twenty or more times a day. I used to use minimo eight years ago on my PDA. Now that I use my smart phone regularly, I find myself still complaining in my internal dialogue about how ancient and clunky mobile Safari is compared to minimo. Mobile Safari wouldn't even allow animated gifs until a couple years ago!
You're funny.
A specialized part is always going to trump the "jack of all trades". That's rather the point of having the specialize part.
Claims of this kind are especially funny considering that ARM CPUs simply don't have the ability to deal with the vast bulk of video content already out there. That's why these SoCs have special GPUs to begin with.
An ARM would be dead in the water without special purpose silicon for video decoding.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Since the connections are streamed in chunks, Flash Media Server knows what media is currently playing and can't really be "hijacked" by the Flash client. It knows when the playing time is done and controls serving the next stream (interstitial ad, movie, whatever) to the client. The Flash client is basically a dumb terminal in this respect. [note: this is only regarding FMS when serving via RTMP streams]
Adobe makes some dumb mistakes, but they put a decent amount of effort into their DRM for media streaming (precisely to win over content companies). Of course it's possible that their encryption scheme could be hacked; I'd be a fool to say otherwise. But I'm quite certain it's not as easy as decompiling the SWF and finding an encryption key.
You're funny.
A specialized part is always going to trump the "jack of all trades". That's rather the point of having the specialize part.
Claims of this kind are especially funny considering that ARM CPUs simply don't have the ability to deal with the vast bulk of video content already out there. That's why these SoCs have special GPUs to begin with.
An ARM would be dead in the water without special purpose silicon for video decoding.
Not only is that not an axiomatic truth, a GPU is in no way a "specialized part" for decoding an MPEG stream.
We are working on a Java front end for Firefox mobile. Performance on devices that were marginal at running XUL Firefox mobile is much improved. There were a couple design decisions that made Firefox mobile slow to startup. First it was a testbed for Firefox multiprocess work. Secondly shipping as a full NDK app as complex as Firefox could not compete with Java app startup time due to library unpacking. This was exacerbated on phones that had a poor filesystem such as the Galaxy S.
If you want to give the Java native version a try it can be downloaded from http://nightly.mozilla.org/ It will require you to enable installing of non-market apps on your phone.
These people look deep within my soul and assign me a number based upon the order I joined. -Homer Simpson