Slashdot Mirror
Mozilla Considers H264 After WebM Fails To Gain Traction
HerculesMO writes with word that "Looks as though Mozilla is considering using H264, one step closer to unification of a single protocol for video encoding. It's a big deal for HTML5 traction, but it still leaves Google holding onto WebM." The article, though a bit harsh on Ogg Theora, offers an interesting look at the way standards are chosen (and adopted by the browser makers).
Web standards, racism and hybrid cards?
Word has it that you can't run Flash on the iPhone, either.
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
As discussed many times before, h264 is an open standard, which means anybody can implement it and there's no compentitive advantage / disadvantage by locking people out of the market. like frand patents (cough cough, motorola!). Of course, it's not open source, and anybody who makes money from h264 (over a certain revenue threshold) has to pay a licensing fee. Are there any precedents for this? How about 3g, lte, etc. It seems fair to me and a logical choice for firefox.
fP
I remember seeing lots of little Real-encoded videos on websites back in the day... whatever happened to them?
Excellent! Another card in Microsoft's FUD-deck.
Soon Linux will be, depending on context, "that operating system that can't play videos on the web and doesn't support standards", or "that operating system where everyone infringes patents, so it would be crazy to use it in a business".
Yes, you already posted the story about this in March. Which is the same month when the linked article is from. Good to see timithy is still at the top of his game!
Even if Apple is blamed to be a big h264 pusher
they choose parts of MPEG 2 for Http Live Streaming,
maybe Apple made the good patent decisions?
Will HLS become free before the other solutions?
*ducks*
Dupe:
http://news.slashdot.org/story/12/03/13/2027215/mozilla-debates-supporting-h264-in-firefox-via-system-codecs
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/12/03/20/1742209/mozilla-to-support-h264
Old news:
March 13th, 2012 -> This particular blog's story is March 16th, 2012 -> Today is April 26th, 2012
Vanity link:
It's a link to AppleInsider--why on earth would AppleInsider be a novel or interesting source about internal Mozilla strategy?
Dear editors: wake the hell up.
Mozilla wouldn't even have to taint itself by supporting it. Just hook the video tag to the media framework in the host OS - Quicktime, DirectShow, gstreamer etc. and invoke the default h264 codec if its present and suitable or point the user at a way to obtain it if it isn't. They could still ship Theora with the browser if they wanted.
Ogg Theora and WebM are no better in quality than MPEG3 (i.e. halfway between crappy MPEG2 and the newer MPEG4).
I wish ATSC used MPEG4 cause I'm tired of seeing blocks/mosquitos on my television screen. Oh well... the ATSC arrived too soon (1998).
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
There is an open source implementation of h.264. It's called jm and is available at http://iphome.hhi.de/suehring/tml/ - and I recall it is also the reference implementation
Syllable you need to have patent licence to use it but that doesn't stop an open source implementation
The fact that one company owns the license to this technology and makes no guarantees to _not_ increase licensing costs means that once h.264 support is the be-all end-all solution to web video, this one company has a monopoly on the sole video technology that drives the web. Most people running windows/mac have probably indirectly paid for licensing fees for h.264 multiple times. Nice racket they've got there and nobody is complaining, yet.
Here's a pretty good article:
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/bott/a-closer-look-at-the-costs-and-fine-print-of-h264-licenses/2884
from the article:
To use and distribute H.264, browser and OS vendors, hardware manufacturers, and publishers who charge for content must pay significant royalties—with no guarantee the fees won’t increase in the future. To companies like Google, the license fees may not be material, but to the next great video startup and those in emerging markets these fees stifle innovation. []
The justification for WebM is that it would allow people to freely share videos using your own infrastructure without charge and without additional cost.
It's not about the consequence for the consumer, it's about the chilling effect it has on free culture.
It has HUGE consequences. Mozilla knew that, that's why they tried to play hardball.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
O.G.G. has had it's day.
Does anyone even use V.O.R.B.I.S. anymore? MP3 has long overtaken it. I can't see T.H.E.O.R.A. gaining traction when even Google hasn't managed to push WebM.
This story is from last month, and was widely covered by Streaming Media and others. It was probably posted to /. at that time, too.
Non-troll question: Is there actually an open-source codec which equals or even surpasses H264 in quality? I find it hard to believe the math is so arcane and long-winded that nobody can beat it in quality for a given file size and compress/decompress speed.
Why OpalCalc is the best Windows calc
They should have done that from the beginning.
Are they planning on doing the same with mp3 for audio? Every device I could name that can play mp4 movies can also play mp3s. I have my doubts that ogg is going to gain any more traction than webm did. I'd be fine with aac as long as something gets standardized.
Quicktime isn't a codec, really.
.qt, .mov
Quicktime movies.
It's a codec, your post is like saying "WMV isn't a codec, Windows Media Player can play any codec you have a plugin for." The software and the codec have a similar name.
You don't understand what you're talking about. Codecs are not the same thing as file extensions. .mov files are container files. They can contain media encoded with a variety of codecs, the vast majority of which have nothing to do with Apple. There is no "QuickTime codec" the way there are Windows Media codecs.
Back when Apple was viciously proprietary about the spread of their QT codec...
And what supposed codec would that be? The only QuickTime codec Apple really developed was the first one, which even Apple never really used. The codecs Apple has endorsed for quicktime lately are MPEG-4 Part 2, and most recently H.264, neither of which is owned by Apple.
I still don't understand why it has to be an either/or for people. That's like saying browsers need to "choose between PNG, JPG, and GIF. They must all agree on a single format and disregard the rest".
The real solution is for all browsers to support about 3-4 different codecs to choose from. And let developers decide on what to use. So Apple and Microsoft, you need to support WebM, and Mozilla, you need to support h264. Let the people decide on what to use! Don't limit them!
Seriously. VLC et al have freedom to write their x264, becaise they are based in France. Why can't they just make Mozilla Corp Europe (like FSFE) to be legally responsible (under sane jurisdiction)?
TFA is not worth your time. He says all sorts of outrageous stuff as if it were fact: apparently he knows exactly what Google was collectively thinking when it introduced WebM, for example.
And the ending is sort of surreal. Hooray! The patent-encrusted H.264 has defeated the challenge by the free and open software! Here are my wrists; there's still room for a couple more handcuffs, put them on! (Eh, probably not a fair summary, but about as fair as his treatment of Google.)
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
As an end user, every video I rip is encoded in h264. Why ? Because every off the shelf device for playing video supports h264. Every device that includes a browser that supports video supports h264. No other protocol has as much widespread support at this point, particularly webm which has hardly any. Why would I want to give myself a headache trying to support a codec that has already lost the war ? I've seen claims divx is better than webm is better than h264 because blah, but when it comes right down to it, h264 already handles HD video and the ratio of file size vs quality isn't bad. I can watch it straight from any device I have without needing to switch, be it my xbox, ps3 , smart tv, or PC. As someone said before, If you want to look at who's winning, just look at the torrent sites. I've yet to see on webm encoded video.
mozilla turned down webp and hates webm... they've never been a fan of open source technologies, ironically
they've been one of its biggest opponents, other than MS
Vorbis is an excellent audio codec. VP8 isn't as good as h.264, but it does the job for low res vids I use xVid for alot of my higher RES vids. H.264 also has tons of hardware support, VP8 could possibly match h.264 with that kinda support.
Someone sees sense. Use whatever codecs are available on the host platform. h.264 is ubiquitous a the moment, but there is no point tying us into a standard current in 2012, when hardware inevitably moves forward.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
By 2015 H.264 won't be free no more
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Codecs ? And plugins ? I mean INSTALLABLE a/v decoders ? What does video decoding have to do with hypertext markup language ? And why should Mozilla, Google or Froogle decide on what I encode the videos on my page with ?