Firefox Gains Support for VP9 Video Codec

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Firefox Gains Support for VP9 Video Codec

Posted by Unknown on Monday December 9, 2013 @03:04PM from the death-to-mpeg dept.

An anonymous reader writes "With the latest Firefox nightly builds the VP9 video codec is enabled by default. VP9 is a step ahead of the open-source VP8 codec but up to now has only been supported by the Chrome browser. VP9 support will officially appear in Firefox 28."

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Happy Monday from The Golden Girls by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-09 15:06 · Score: -1

Thank you for being a friend
Traveled down the road and back again
Your heart is true, you're a pal and a cosmonaut.
And if you threw a party
Invited everyone you knew
You would see the biggest gift would be from me
And the card attached would say, thank you for being a friend.
1. Re:Happy Monday from The Golden Girls by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-09 15:58 · Score: 0, Offtopic
  
  Thank you. I don't think 'cosmonaut' is the right word, though. The Golden Girls were in America, so it was probably astronaut.
2. Re:Happy Monday from The Golden Girls by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-09 16:02 · Score: -1
  
  Thank you for being a friend
  Traveled down the road and back again
  Your heart is true, you're a pal and a astronaut.
  And if you threw a party
  Invited everyone you knew
  You would see the biggest gift would be from me
  And the card attached would say, thank you for being a friend.
3. Re:Happy Monday from The Golden Girls by PNutts · 2013-12-09 16:03 · Score: -1, Offtopic
  
  confidant
4. Re:Happy Monday from The Golden Girls by Chrisq · 2013-12-09 20:32 · Score: 1
  
  confidant
  I'm fairly confidant thanks
5. Re:Happy Monday from The Golden Girls by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-10 03:06 · Score: 1
  
  You're probably one of those people that uses then when you should than and vice versa.
  PNutts was correct in using confidant and, afaik, those are the correct lyrics to the Golden Girls theme song. I'm fairly confident that's how it should be.
  But, than again, your right, should of kept mah mouth shut.
4 years later by jfdavis668 · 2013-12-09 15:11 · Score: 1

Someone encodes something in VP9 that I actually want to watch.
1. Re:4 years later by Cryacin · 2013-12-09 15:19 · Score: 1
  
  The world is safe for another 4 years...
  
  --
  Science advances one funeral at a time- Max Planck
2. Re:4 years later by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-09 15:23 · Score: 0
  
  Someone encodes something in VP9 that I actually want to watch.
  ... on a browser I'm going to use.
3. Re:4 years later by Tough+Love · 2013-12-09 16:30 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Perhaps Youtube is something you want to watch. But riddle me this: what is it about open source video codecs that brings out the trolls?
  
  --
  When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
4. Re:4 years later by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-09 16:34 · Score: -1
  
  Perhaps Youtube is not something you want to watch. But riddle me this: why are you such a neck-beard douche bag? Go back to your tentacle porn and pedophile hentai.
5. Re:4 years later by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-09 18:08 · Score: -1
  
  Dear god you are a dickhead.
6. Re:4 years later by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-09 18:11 · Score: 0
  
  VP9 isn't even GPU accelerated and h.265 is higher quality.
7. Re:4 years later by rsmith-mac · 2013-12-09 20:39 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  This is just my $0.02, but if the trolls are anything like some of the rest of us, I have to assume it's because we're tired of the constant promotion of second-rate codecs that put ideology ahead of technical concerns.
  Patent-free video codecs are the ultimate case of NIH syndrome. The major patent free video codecs (Theora, VP8, etc) are largely attempts to recreate/modify existing MPEG video codecs to get around the patents of the aforementioned original MPEG codec.The end results are codecs that aren't appreciably novel compared to the MPEG codec they're going up against, and at the same time it's not even clear (from a legal perspective) whether these codecs really are patent-free, or if they're infringing on the MPEG-LA's patents anyhow. Which is not an attempt to inject FUD into any of this, it's just that there haven't been sufficient legal challenges, and in the meantime it's questionable that these codecs can be so very similar to the MPEG codecs and somehow not fall under the associated patents.
  At the same time the fact that these codecs are being pushed opposite the existing MPEG codecs only fractures the market and slows the adoption of new video technologies. We end up with Mozilla and Google flailing around with alternative codecs rather than buckling down and doing what's necessary to secure the rights to use the MPEG codecs in the first place, only finally doing the right thing after they've exhausted every other option. Web browsers should have fully supported H.264 years ago.
  It's the codec equivalent of generic colas. Yeah, they're similar, but they're not the same and they're not what most of us are after. And in the meantime it quickly gets tiring of being told how we're doing it wrong by buying the more expensive product. There are certain things in life that are worth paying for, and a good/novel video codec is one of those things.
  Which isn't to slag the patent free codec guys entirely. The video codecs have struggled, but the audio codecs have been outstanding. Opus is a roaring success, which I credit both to the development structure for the codec - involving many parties like the IETF early on while clearly shooting for novel/new audio codec - and the technical capabilities of the engineers who designed the codec.
8. Re:4 years later by Tough+Love · 2013-12-09 20:52 · Score: -1, Troll
  
  What makes you think VP9 is a second rate codec, can you quantify that?
  If not, guess what that makes you.
  
  --
  When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
9. Re:4 years later by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-09 21:27 · Score: 0
  
  Ahh, a known FOSS zealot calling others out for trolling. Delicious irony! Let me explain it to you. Open source video codecs are shit. The quality is shit, the encoding/decoding speed is shit, the hardware/software support is shit. But, because "Open Source" is the top priority for Stallmanites like you, that supersedes all other aspects of a video codec... for you. For the rest of us, proprietary codecs deliver higher quality, speed, and wide support. For most end users, it's free. For content providers, it's worth the price.
  That's not to imply all codecs are shit. Vorbis and Opus are great examples of audio compression that I actually use. I don't give a shit about it being FOSS or not. It actually delivers better quality than their proprietary counterparts. However, lossy video compression codes are more complex, hence the reason why toejam chewing faggots like you can't deliver the goods. All you really have is webm, and that itself was a discarded proprietary codec that was given away because it was obsolete.
10. Re:4 years later by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-09 21:31 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  https://xiph.org/daala/
11. Re:4 years later by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-09 21:48 · Score: 0
  
  What a loser.
12. Re:4 years later by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-09 22:10 · Score: 0
  
  It's the mud-slinging campaign of big media.
13. Re:4 years later by SuricouRaven · 2013-12-09 22:27 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  'Securing the rights' is not that simple. In the case of a single corporate vendor, it's just a matter of negotiating payment: Microsoft or Apple hands over the money in return for the appropriate license, no problem. For open-source browsers it's a lot more difficult because there is the issue of project forking and customisation.
  The Mozilla foundation could perhaps negotiate a cut-rate or even free license, yes. That's doable. But then what happens when someone else decides they would like to adapt Firefox? Now they can't, because they don't have permission to use those patented parts. It breaks the open-source development model: The code may be free, but you can't legally do much with it unless the MPEG LA grants permission, and they aren't going to give a free license to every five-employee company, let alone hobbyists and home users, and especially when many users are commercial. Plus that's only for the major browsers - are all the many obscure ones supposed to go begging for a free license and sublicensing (hah!) rights too? The only way out of this would be for the MPEG LA to simply relinquish all patent rights entirely, and that's not going to happen.
14. Re:4 years later by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-09 22:28 · Score: -1
  
  You obviously have very little experience working with compressed video, but it doesn't matter. The entire world could compare VP9 and H264/H265 side by side and the only people who would say VP9 is better are FOSStards like you. As it was stated elsewhere several times, you care about ideology first. On behalf of the rest of us around the world and beyond: Fuck your ideology.
15. Re:4 years later by Goaway · 2013-12-09 23:18 · Score: 1
  
  Well, neither is h.265 at the moment, nor is it even supported at all in any browser, so for once VP9 does have the advantage there.
16. Re:4 years later by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-09 23:44 · Score: 0
  
  Plus that's only for the major browsers - are all the many obscure ones supposed to go begging for a free license and sublicensing (hah!) rights too? The only way out of this would be for the MPEG LA to simply relinquish all patent rights entirely, and that's not going to happen.
  Or someone like Cisco commits to releasing H.264 builds that everyone can use. Yes, it relies on Cisco keeping to its commitment and, yes, it's a binary blob, but it is one alternative for licensed H.264 distribution that's being actively pursued. It is, of course, less useful without AAC but Brendan Eich seems to think there maybe some possibility of doing something similar with AAC. Some links:
  http://www.openh264.org/
  https://brendaneich.com/2013/10/ciscos-h-264-good-news/
  http://xiphmont.livejournal.com/61927.html
17. Re:4 years later by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-10 00:41 · Score: 1
  
  If it's binary only, it's worthless. Not all of us use x86 computers. If we had access to the source and unrestricted distribution freedom, we will take care of ourselves and tinker with the software to work for us.
18. Re:4 years later by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-10 00:47 · Score: 0
  
  Cool story bro, world class rebuttal there.
19. Re:4 years later by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-10 00:52 · Score: 0
  
  If you can teach us how to give every open source project unlimited distribution rights for h264 technology, we'd love to hear it. If you can't, then we cannot legally use h264 in our projects in a few countries of earth. It's far more sensible to support the technology where we know that is friendly to our community, even if it is technically inferior. That technical inferiority can be tolerated while a highly probably lawsuit regarding video patents cannot be tolerated.
20. Re:4 years later by BitZtream · 2013-12-10 02:15 · Score: 0
  
  The Mozilla foundation could perhaps negotiate a cut-rate or even free license, yes. That's doable. But then what happens when someone else decides they would like to adapt Firefox?
  What people such as yourself don't get is something very simple.
  You get what you pay for. If you want to take the easy way out and fork Firefox to get a web browser, thats fine. If you want a web browser with video support, well, too bad, you're going to have to pay. Thats just life.
  They don't have to grant you a 'free' license, you can pay for it JUST LIKE EVERYONE ELSE.
  Your problem is that you want to be able to take all features for free and are unwilling to accept that not everyone in the world wants to make their money by selling your browsing habits. You're just like the GPL, you think the 'free' (by your definition of free) has to infect everything it touches in order for the product to have any value.
  Your viewpoint is ridiculously narrow sided and selfish. Fortunately, Mozilla doesn't want to cease to exist completely, so they'll also ignore your silliness as well.
  
  --
  Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
21. Re:4 years later by jfdavis668 · 2013-12-10 02:25 · Score: 1
  
  I would love to use a new codec. I am sick and tired of installing Adobe flash on Linux machines. My issue is that major players don't update. So much of the video content I need is on Youtube. It seems to be the go to place for companies to post their instructional videos. Even educational videos are either on Youtube or posted in obsolete software. I am amazed at how many are still in Quicktime and RealPlayer formats. I am being sarcastic since people keep promising me better and faster video codecs, and no one gets around to using them for years.
22. Re:4 years later by JDG1980 · 2013-12-10 02:27 · Score: 1
  
  The Mozilla foundation could perhaps negotiate a cut-rate or even free license, yes. That's doable. But then what happens when someone else decides they would like to adapt Firefox? Now they can't, because they don't have permission to use those patented parts. It breaks the open-source development model: The code may be free, but you can't legally do much with it unless the MPEG LA grants permission, and they aren't going to give a free license to every five-employee company, let alone hobbyists and home users, and especially when many users are commercial. Plus that's only for the major browsers - are all the many obscure ones supposed to go begging for a free license and sublicensing (hah!) rights too? The only way out of this would be for the MPEG LA to simply relinquish all patent rights entirely, and that's not going to happen.
  The browser itself doesn't need to perform the patented decoding steps. All of that can be offloaded to hardware on any modern video card or SoC. The browser just gets the H.264 stream, sends it to the hardware decoder via the appropriate API (DXVA, VAAPI, or whatever), and gets the frame data back. All the patented stuff is done by a black box for which the manufacturer has already paid the requisite royalties.
  Anyway, this may become irrelevant if the Supreme Court rules software patents invalid in the upcoming case. I'm thinking the ruling will probably be made on narrower grounds, but we can still keep our fingers crossed...
23. Re:4 years later by rjstanford · 2013-12-10 02:48 · Score: 1
  
  If you can teach us how to give every open source project unlimited distribution rights for h264 technology, we'd love to hear it. If you can't, then we cannot legally use h264 in our projects in a few countries of earth. It's far more sensible to support the technology where we know that is friendly to our community, even if it is technically inferior. That technical inferiority can be tolerated while a highly probably lawsuit regarding video patents cannot be tolerated.
  Except that we don't know that its friendly - as others have pointed out, the odds of such a similar codec being patent-unencumbered are slim to none. That's part of why the patent was granted though; at the time it was both novel and meaningful, if it was simple to innovate something like this then VP9 would be notably different yet just as effective.
  
  --
  You're special forces then? That's great! I just love your olympics!
24. Re:4 years later by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-10 03:05 · Score: 0
  
  ideology ahead of technical concerns.
  But what if the ideology of patent driven innovation prevents the user from having any kind of codecs at all? Patent-free technology were always about enabling and protecting access to said technology. The (legal) alternative is no video at all for lots and lots of people as video codecs are not like medicine.
25. Re:4 years later by thue · 2013-12-10 03:29 · Score: 1
  
  > At the same time the fact that these codecs are being pushed opposite the existing MPEG codecs only fractures the market and slows the adoption of new video technologies. We end up with Mozilla and Google flailing around with alternative codecs rather than buckling down and doing what's necessary to secure the rights to use the MPEG codecs in the first place, only finally doing the right thing after they've exhausted every other option. Web browsers should have fully supported H.264 years ago.
  It is not just a license to decode video in the browser. People should also have to be able to generate content for the web without asking permission, so everybody also need to have a free license to encode H.265.
26. Re:4 years later by tlhIngan · 2013-12-10 03:56 · Score: 1
  
  Someone encodes something in VP9 that I actually want to watch.
  Actually, next-gen codec fights are on NOW.
  The war of VP8/h.264 is lost. Get over it, move on and try to get in the next gen. Whether it's h.265 or VP9 or some other codec, it's not decided yet.
  The time to move is NOW to get VP9 spec all complete (not a code based spec like VP8, but a proper spec that details everything on paper - "read the code" is NOT a valid solution here) and everywhere.
  Get demonstrations working and ready. Get on working groups for next-gen formats (including MPEG, SMPTE etc) to promote and push VP9. Even pursue it on next-gen Blu-Ray formats.
  Even get hardware guys involved making available royalty free hardware accelerated encode and decode blocks so it can be incorporated "for free".
  The VP9 fight is starting, and it would be silly to concentrated on lost fights (h.264/VP8) when the playfield is completely level again and waiting for entrants.
27. Re:4 years later by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-10 04:07 · Score: 0
  
  Cool story bro, world class rebuttal there.
  by Tough Love (215404) on Tuesday December 10, 2013 @07:47AM
28. Re:4 years later by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-10 04:33 · Score: 0
  
  These people only think in terms of how much money they can save in terms of bandwidth and storage costs, and any other form of benefit is at best a remote nice-to-have. It's the same as the people pushing for WebP, an unstable mess of a technology, purely on the grounds that they will save money on bandwidth and storage costs.
  You have to realize that people have become very good at slinging bullshit to hide their true motivations and intentions, because honesty isn't as important in the modern world as saving money.
29. Re:4 years later by KingMotley · 2013-12-10 05:54 · Score: 1
  
  Just use the VLC (http://www.videolan.org/) plugin or Aplayer (http://aplayer.open.xunlei.com/) plugin for IE and you are all set. The Aplayer even does hardware acceleration if available.
30. Re:4 years later by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-10 05:56 · Score: 0
  
  The major patent free video codecs (Theora, VP8, etc) are largely attempts to recreate/modify existing MPEG video codecs to get around the patents of the aforementioned original MPEG codec.
  Theora is based on VP3, which was developed by On2 and released in 2001. VP3 was based on various novel ideas developed by On2.
  
  The end results are codecs that aren't appreciably novel compared to the MPEG codec they're going up against
  On2/Google hold patents on their work around the VP series of codecs, and thus have novel developments that are part of those codecs but are not part of MPEG.
  
  at the same time it's not even clear (from a legal perspective) whether these codecs really are patent-free, or if they're infringing on the MPEG-LA's patents anyhow
  The MPEG-LA have abandoned their claims against VP8. What you need to ask now is, does MPEG infringe on patents that are held by a third party who is not a member of MPEG-LA?
  
  ...in the meantime it's questionable that these codecs can be so very similar to the MPEG codecs and somehow not fall under the associated patents.
  Only by you, and people like you, which constantly trot out the same tired old FUD about patents. To be crystal clear:
  
  1. On2 filed their own patents as they developed the VP series of codecs.
  2. On2 were never an MPEG-LA member and thus no cross-licensing agreement exists between On2/Google and MPEG-LA.
  3. If VP8 & VP9 are not "sufficiently different" to MPEG, then MPEG was just as at risk of infringing a Google held patents than VP8 or VP9 was to infringe on a MPEG-LA patent.
  4. Third party non-MPEG-LA members may additionally hold patents which mat apply to MPEG and/or VP8 or VP9. No amount of MPEG-LA licenses or promises from Google will cover your liability should someone sue you for infringing such a patent.
  5. MPEG-LA spent a good year trying to build a patent pool against VP8. They got nowhere. The MPEG-LA & Google reached an agreement in May which settled this once and for all: MPEG-LA could not build a patent pool, will give up efforts to build a patent pool, and have granted a license to Google for a handful of patents held by MPEG-LA members.
  6. The license granted to Google by MPEG-LA allows Google to sub-license those patents, which they happily do. So if you use VP8, you're covered by the same patent license that Google has from the MPEG-LA.
  
  The patents situation, of which there wasn't much of one in the first place, has been settled for a long time, The only gray areas apply just as equally to MPEG than they do to VP8 & VP9. So perhaps you can move on, now.
31. Re:4 years later by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-10 05:59 · Score: 0
  
  There are certain things in life that are worth paying for, and a good/novel video codec is one of those things.
  Easy to say when you're not the one paying for it, spending hours maintaining the videos, integrating the codec, encoding the video, etc.
32. Re:4 years later by KingMotley · 2013-12-10 06:02 · Score: 2
  
  VP9 doesn't compete with h.265, it is 6% larger than h.264 and 112% larger than h.265. That's not even a competition.
33. Re:4 years later by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-10 06:05 · Score: 0
  
  Citing a codec that isn't even in alpha yet doesn't really mean anything.
34. Re:4 years later by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-10 06:37 · Score: 0
  
  The company behind the h.265 reminds of SCO and Microsoft and Intel while they did develop good products they don't understand today's free market! Because if h.265 does not fail h.266 could very well unless you are a boomer you may not understand!
35. Re:4 years later by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-10 07:07 · Score: 0
  
  You get what you pay for. If you want to take the easy way out and fork Firefox to get a web browser, thats fine. If you want a web browser with video support, well, too bad, you're going to have to pay. Thats just life.
  I don't understand your hostility toward free software here.
  If Firefox can get free software video (a free and open and no royalties standard) with VP9, why shouldn't they do it?
  You present a false choice: pay and get video, or don't pay and don't get video. There is another option, don't pay but get video; this implies a free format like VP9 but you haven't given us any reason why that should be a problem.
  Your viewpoint is ridiculously narrow sided and selfish. Fortunately, Mozilla doesn't want to cease to exist completely, so they'll also ignore your silliness as well.
  -1, Flamebait.
  I want VP9 in Firefox and Chrome so that Wikipedia and other free sites can post video in a free format. If you have a problem with this idea, please explain the problem rather than just flaming.
36. Re:4 years later by steveha · 2013-12-10 07:44 · Score: 1
  
  we're tired of the constant promotion of second-rate codecs that put ideology ahead of technical concerns.
  You say "ideology" as if it were just a difference of opinion. Free, open-source software under a free license cannot use patent-encumbered technology. It doesn't matter how good the technology is if you can't use it.
  it's not even clear (from a legal perspective) whether these codecs really are patent-free
  Actually, you are mistaken on this point. MPEG-LA spent over a year trying to put together a patent pool with which to extract royalties on VP8, and didn't find anything. Then Google gave them some money to go away, and Google has a legal document saying that MPEG-LA will not sue over VP8.
  Now, I'm not a lawyer and this isn't legal advice, but it sure looks clear to me: if MPEG-LA couldn't find anything in a year of looking, and signed a legal release on top of that, then there's no danger that VP8 infringes on an MPEG-LA patent. And even less danger that there is some third party out there with a mysterious unknown patent that could swoop in out of the blue to cause trouble (likely for both MPEG-LA and VP8 if it did happen).
  At the same time the fact that these codecs are being pushed opposite the existing MPEG codecs only fractures the market and slows the adoption of new video technologies. We end up with Mozilla and Google flailing around with alternative codecs rather than buckling down and doing what's necessary to secure the rights to use the MPEG codecs in the first place, only finally doing the right thing after they've exhausted every other option. Web browsers should have fully supported H.264 years ago.
  This is an interesting claim. As far as I can tell, H.264 has not had its adoption slowed even a little bit by VP8 or VP9... could you provide a reference, please?
  Google owns and runs YouTube. Do you think Google should shackle themselves to a technology that they don't own, such that they would have no recourse if the licensing authority were to jack the rates up? I think that the business justification for Google spending $100 million to buy On2 and then just give away the technology was to give YouTube a way out if H.264 became rapaciously expensive.
  Just as Vorbis never displaced MP3 or AAC, VP8/VP9 may never displace H.264, but if the threat they pose keeps the H.264 license fees from skyrocketing, then those projects were worth doing from Google's perspective.
  And, while you may not care about the free software projects such as Debian, I personally think it's good if completely free projects have video formats they can use.
  For that matter, I think it's good if completely commercial projects have free video formats they can use. Remember the brouhaha a few years ago where someone read the license for a new video camera, and it appeared that MPEG-LA was going to demand royalties on any video shot with that camera? MPEG-LA "clarified" its position and said that the legal language of the license doesn't mean what laymen think it means... but my understanding of patent law is that MPEG-LA could decide to impose any license they want on new cameras using H.264. I want a camera that uses nothing but free software internally so that I just don't need to worry that anyone has any sort of legal claim for royalties on video I shot with it.
  Opus is a roaring success
  And I'm hoping that Daala will be an equally roaring success.
  
  --
  lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
37. Re:4 years later by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-10 08:22 · Score: 0
  
  Not at the moment, but h.265 is guaranteed to have support and hardware acceleration. VP9 may have it in Android based mobile devices, but most people don't enjoy watching movies on tiny screens.
38. Re:4 years later by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-10 09:19 · Score: 1
  
  It's an open source project. You have access to the source. You can't distribute binaries due to the patent licensing around H.264. That's what Cisco is doing for you, absorbing that cost. Maybe try reading the links. It will help you.
39. Re:4 years later by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-10 09:37 · Score: 0
  
  As it was stated elsewhere several times, you care about ideology first.
  Which is precisely why FOSS is in the poor state that it currently is, instead of focusing on what people want out of a computing device they focus solely on the ideological aspect with the misguided attitude that if they can convince people to accept that ideology then those people will use whatever product conforms to it even when the user experience is terrible.
  If people are going to go to the effort to take up a cause then for the general populace that cause is most likely *not* going to be Free Software. Free Software needs to be good and free, at the moment for the most part it is only the latter and the advocates just complain that people are stupid for not wanting to ditch good proprietary software in favor of poor free software, the answer is obviously to make good free software that actually appeals to the general populace and stop blaming everybody else for not wanting to be a free software idealist.
40. Re:4 years later by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-10 13:59 · Score: 0
  
  There is a difference in implications when Theora/VP9 accidentally infringes in some software patents and then somebody else actually uses H264 technology without permission. With Theora and VP9, the community will fix every claim to infringement by doing something different or removing the idea from the codec. The same can't be said for people explicitly using H264 without a permit.
41. Re:4 years later by rjstanford · 2013-12-12 03:08 · Score: 1
  
  "Removing the idea from the codec" doesn't actually work unless you're happy breaking every saved file out there whenever there's a potential legal hiccup. Not sure that'd go over real well.
  
  --
  You're special forces then? That's great! I just love your olympics!
42. Re:4 years later by OdinOdin_ · 2013-12-15 04:07 · Score: 1
  
  Better codecs are not required, most people consider standard TV good enough, DVD great and Blueray overkill. Many places are getting home Internet upgrades from 24MBit to 100MBit. Portable and general storage mediums are cheaper and more dense per Gb.
  We only have to wait another 10 or so years for the MPEG patents to expire (yeah right, I'm sure the standards will be in perpetual patent, as they phase in some new minor changes, when the 30 year old codec is great for use today). So in the grand scheme of things of paying for these "much needed" expensive codecs, forget it. I don't need them today when the alternatives are good enough, the population of the world will get them all for free in a few short years anyway as the patents "should" be expiring. If they don't expire then it is time to go to war on that basis and rewrite the laws (this will happen).
Animated PNG by fizzer06 · 2013-12-09 15:16 · Score: 0, Offtopic

Off topic, but Firefox supports animated PNG files, IE 11 and the latest Chrome do not.
1. Re:Animated PNG by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-09 15:28 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  You mean the non-standard APNG format that was invented by Mozilla and is pretty much only supported by them?
2. Re:Animated PNG by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-09 15:29 · Score: 0
  
  IE supports WebGL.
3. Re:Animated PNG by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-09 15:30 · Score: 1
  
  Same can be said for a lot of features.
  Right now Chrome is in the lead at http://html5test.com/results/desktop.html
4. Re:Animated PNG by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-09 15:58 · Score: 0
  
  Better yet, the standard MNG format that was thrown out by Mozilla for being "too bloated", and look at where Firefox is today.
5. Re:Animated PNG by haruchai · 2013-12-09 16:00 · Score: 0, Troll
  
  Lack of 3rd-party support never stopped M$ & others from implementing anything so why should Mozilla give a damn.
  GIF has been too limited for a very long time and MNG is too complex and far less support than APNG despite being around longer.
  
  --
  Pain is merely failure leaving the body
6. Re:Animated PNG by chromaexcursion · 2013-12-09 16:22 · Score: 2
  
  Microsoft, over 1$ Billion in to invest.
  need I say more?
  
  I don't agree with this position, or advocate it. But, one must accept.
7. Re:Animated PNG by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-09 16:27 · Score: 1
  
  The ironic part about that is Paint Shop Pro 5's support for MNG files back in 1998 in a notsobloated fashion... what the hell went wrong that made that format "too bloated" to use?
8. Re:Animated PNG by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-09 16:29 · Score: 1
  
  To be fair, as Mozilla catch up they're finding a lot of little bugs and quirks with the specs that Chrome apparently didn't care about when they were implementing these things. HTML5Test doesn't test for implementation quality, just the basic presence of the feature.
9. Re:Animated PNG by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-09 17:03 · Score: 0
  
  DEATH TO MNG!
10. Re:Animated PNG by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-09 18:11 · Score: 0
  
  Lack of 3rd-party support never stopped M$ & others from implementing anything so why should Mozilla give a damn.
  yeah why should anybody worry about the repercussions of implementing non-standard stuff, i mean MS did it so that must make ok amirite?
11. Re:Animated PNG by Goaway · 2013-12-09 23:21 · Score: 1
  
  And Chrome supports animated WebP files, which can do the same things as APNG, and more on top, such as lossy animated images. It also compresses better in lossless mode than PNG.
12. Re:Animated PNG by higuita · 2013-12-10 02:23 · Score: 2
  
  MNG is complex, it can encode the video/animated image in many, many ways, several of then useless for browsers/web, being so complex is hard to use and had no real usage (like all new formats)... and no fallback mechanism... but the MNG people agree to release a subset of MNG for browsers, simpler and with about 5 main encodings/compressions combinations and build plugins for other browsers. Yet then firefox devs reject it again, saying the lib uses too much space (about 200KB IIRC)... basically they simply didn't like the main guy behind the MNG format, nor the technology (NIH "Syndrome"), still saying it was too complex format (video is complex always) and as lame excuse broke the PNG to add the same stupid hack they had done in gif: append new images in the end of a static picture to fake a animation.
  PNG group didn't like the idea, PNG it's a STILL image format, pointing that the animated image format equivalent to PNG is the MNG. So Mozilla team still uses APNG for animated images internally in firefox, and the APNG is ignored and unsupported almost elsewhere . Mozilla team still ignores MNG and now prefers to bet on the HTML5 for the future animated image support
  MNG is complex, as it allows one to use several compressions methods, it can add alpha to any channel, it can use multiple codecs. It tried to cover all future possible usages and upgrades. But the web subset was "simple" enough to cover both simple image animations (to replace gifs) to small video clips. Compared with APNG, where it only loops by the existent images at different speeds and supported transparency, this format is very simple, but also bigger, not as smooth and not very good at video. Due the lack of a decent web video format, flash slowly took that market and only now, ~10 years later we have finally video support build in in the browser.
  
  --
  Higuita
13. Re:Animated PNG by Ark42 · 2013-12-10 07:28 · Score: 1
  
  And yet Chrome still can't do CSS3 gradients right..... http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=41756#c71
  
  --
  Morphing Software
14. Re:Animated PNG by haruchai · 2013-12-10 12:48 · Score: 1
  
  Some standards don't work or at too much trouble ( X.500?). MNG got barely any support and GIF is old and limited so Mozilla stepped-up and created something that is smaller, simpler, backward compatible and now widely supported.
  Nothing wrong with that. But there's always Adobe Flash, which must be ok, amirite?
  
  --
  Pain is merely failure leaving the body
YouTube by tepples · 2013-12-09 15:31 · Score: 2, Insightful

Once both Firefox and Chrome support VP9, YouTube's HTML5 player will probably be using VP9 to save your bandwidth, especially when viewers like you turn on 720p or higher resolution.
1. Re:YouTube by epyT-R · 2013-12-09 15:39 · Score: 1, Flamebait
  
  h264 compresses better. Using vp9 for the same feed will waste bandwidth.
2. Re:YouTube by tepples · 2013-12-09 15:46 · Score: 1
  
  I thought VP8 was somewhere between H.264 baseline and H.264 main in rate/distortion terms and VP9 was on par with H.265. Correct me if I'm wrong though.
3. Re:YouTube by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-09 15:59 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  nope, vp9 is based mostly on h264 minus certain areas that fall upon patents which makes it almost as good but worse. In exchange, you don't get into the royalty minefield that was in question for a while back.
  vp9 was great to force mpeg-la hand into making h264 royalty free indefinitely (at least for streaming) but it really serves little purpose now since that hand also served to stifle vp9 growth which is basically based off the premise of a royalty free h264 codec.
4. Re:YouTube by epyT-R · 2013-12-09 16:41 · Score: 2
  
  It's close, but h264 encoders are more mature, faster, and h264 is handled by accelerated playback devices. VP9 is fine if all you're doing is watching it in a browser or in vlc...and have a beefy cpu for HD.
5. Re:YouTube by gl4ss · 2013-12-09 16:46 · Score: 2
  
  ...yet it still rerererebbuffffeeeeeers better with flash.
  it's a common complaint nowadays how shitty chrome with html5 video is at buffering the vids. and the fucking piece of shit doesn't buffer fully now so if you don't have enough bw -or google doesn't have- then you're shit out of luck to view anything without pauses every 30 secs - because it will not buffer the video to the end when you have it on pause!
  
  --
  world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
6. Re:YouTube by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-09 18:01 · Score: 0
  
  The problem is not w/ the encoders, it's with the native graphic card decoders, which won't exist.
7. Re:YouTube by roca · 2013-12-09 20:56 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  I think you're confusing VP8 with VP9.
8. Re:YouTube by Elbart · 2013-12-09 23:39 · Score: 1
  
  Just like Youtube immediately switched to VP8/WebM?
9. Re:YouTube by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-10 00:37 · Score: 0
  
  It shouldn't be too hard to write some sort of system to exploit hardware h264 decoders to get them to work with VP9, VP8 and Theora.
10. Re:YouTube by FithisUX · 2013-12-10 01:16 · Score: 1
  
  Native graphic card decoder is an inflexible design. OpenCL is a flexible standard. You can accelerate new codecs on it. You don't have to wait for a new card. And in principle it means one less proprietary driver. Please stop this graphics card argument argument. The GFX thing is anti-competitive. Actually it should be a math-coprocessor. The display should be handled by another device, eg a framebuffer card that interfaces to and reports capabilites of the monitors. Something like USB/Firewire/Soundblaster extension card. The co-processor is just another device sitting on the bus which could accelerate opengl,openal or openvg or you could not buy it but instead rely on the CPU to do the hard work. But you could still interface to the monitor in standards compliant manner.
11. Re:YouTube by Eskarel · 2013-12-10 02:22 · Score: 1
  
  It might be inflexible design, but it works really really well. A general purpose chip like the one you propose would be several orders of magnitude more expensive, use significantly more power and would probably still deliver inferior results.
12. Re:YouTube by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-10 03:40 · Score: 0
  
  and the fucking piece of shit doesn't buffer fully now so if you don't have enough bw -or google doesn't have- then you're shit out of luck to view anything without pauses every 30 secs - because it will not buffer the video to the end when you have it on pause!
  You can get the old buffering behaviour back* with YouTube Center, in any of its forms (addon for various browsers, userscript). That, along with custom video sizing settings, are the entire reason I use it, in fact.
  The caveat here is that lately, YouTube keeps changing rapidly, which means things may (will?) break if you aren't building the development version from git. Still worth it, though.
  * I've not tested if it works on html5 videos as well as flash, YMMV.
13. Re:YouTube by tepples · 2013-12-10 04:57 · Score: 1
  
  YouTube did switch to WebM on players that support it, so long as the partner or copyright claimant didn't choose monetization settings that require Flash Player.
14. Re:YouTube by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-10 11:15 · Score: 0
  
  You can work around that with YouTube Center. I've linked to the Firefox version of YouTube Center but it's available for various browsers.
Open source does not mean no patents by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-09 15:35 · Score: 0, Informative

VP9 is tainted by licensing agreements with MPEG LA. Google could change its licensing scheme at any moment as well.
VP9 vs x264 by Taco+Cowboy · 2013-12-09 15:58 · Score: 5, Informative

Disclaimer: I am not the author of the following pdf
http://iphome.hhi.de/marpe/download/Performance_HEVC_VP9_X264_PCS_2013_preprint.pdf
According to the above pdf

"x264 encoder achieves an average gain of 6.2% in terms of BD-BR savings compared to VP9

--
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
1. Re:VP9 vs x264 by SuricouRaven · 2013-12-09 21:54 · Score: 1
  
  I think that's less to do with the video standard than the very impressive quality of x264. It's taken years of tweaking to get it working so well.
Content? by chromaexcursion · 2013-12-09 16:14 · Score: -1, Redundant

H.265 will have a royalty free decoder. It may have one, but I haven't noticed the spec finalized.
Professional video will be done in H.265.

OK, it's nice to have a royalty free encoder. BUT, where's the content.
This is great for the amateur video crowd.
br> Sorry folks, I could care less. .
1. Re:Content? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-09 19:29 · Score: 0
  
  How much less could you care?
2. Re:Content? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-10 07:04 · Score: 0
  
  Just don't price h.265 out of the Professional market or google win codec market in software and hardware!
never heard of VP8 or VP9 by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-09 16:23 · Score: 0

do people use them? Just asking. I've seen lots of DIVX, xvid, MOV, wmv, 3GP, MKV and MP4 files. thanks for posting the link though.
1. Re:never heard of VP8 or VP9 by SeaFox · 2013-12-09 17:53 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  Well half of the acronyms/abbreviations you just rattled off are container formats and VP8/9 are video codecs, so you're comparing a fruit salad to an apple, so to speak. You mentioned Matroska (MKV) and that very well could contain VP9 video, but I think you're more likely to find VP8/9 in a file ending in .webm as h264/Hi10P are more likely to be packaged in an MKV file.
2. Re:never heard of VP8 or VP9 by 93+Escort+Wagon · 2013-12-09 17:53 · Score: 0
  
  These are the codecs Firefox points to when they want to pretend it doesn't matter they still don't support the codec pretty much everyone in the real world actually uses.
  Meanwhile, Chrome apparently still supports h.264 - they've somehow never gotten around to removing support for it.
  
  --
  #DeleteChrome
3. Re:never heard of VP8 or VP9 by Cochonou · 2013-12-09 18:37 · Score: 0
  
  It took a long time and quite a lot of resistance, but Firefox finally supports h264 playback through the operating system codecs.
4. Re:never heard of VP8 or VP9 by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-09 19:16 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  Well half of the acronyms/abbreviations you just rattled off are container formats and VP8/9 are video codecs, so you're comparing a fruit salad to an apple, so to speak.
  Slashdot pedant says: more like he's comparing a salad bowl to a fruit salad.
5. Re:never heard of VP8 or VP9 by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-09 19:33 · Score: 0
  
  Mozilla says Firefox will support H.264, but it doesn't.
  Google says Chrome won't support H.264, but it does.
  MS says IE'll support whatever the OS supports; so e.g. H.264 is built into Windows 7 but not Windows XP.
  Apple say: no compromises, Safari will support H.264 and only H.264.
6. Re:never heard of VP8 or VP9 by Goaway · 2013-12-09 23:23 · Score: 1
  
  Note that .webm is just a subset of MKV.
7. Re:never heard of VP8 or VP9 by Elbart · 2013-12-09 23:41 · Score: 1
  
  Mozilla says Firefox will support H.264, but it doesn't.
  It does.
8. Re:never heard of VP8 or VP9 by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-10 00:27 · Score: 1
  
  Well half of the acronyms/abbreviations you just rattled off are container formats and VP8/9 are video codecs, so you're comparing a fruit salad to an apple, so to speak.
  Slashdot pedant says: more like he's comparing a salad bowl to a fruit salad.
  No, a true pedant would say: more like comparing a salad bowl (container) to the apple and pears (audio and video codecs). The fruit salad is the mix of codecs (audio + video) that is selected for that specific media file and put into the salad bowl.
9. Re:never heard of VP8 or VP9 by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-10 02:34 · Score: 0
  
  FINALLY
  I never understood who the dumb fucks were that were against this idea. They should be removed from the development team for being blithering morons.
10. Re:never heard of VP8 or VP9 by rjstanford · 2013-12-10 02:58 · Score: 1
  
  As it should be. Having video codecs in the applications themselves makes no more sense than the old days of having printer, sound and video drivers shipped with everything.
  
  --
  You're special forces then? That's great! I just love your olympics!
11. Re:never heard of VP8 or VP9 by KingMotley · 2013-12-10 06:06 · Score: 1
  
  All current browsers currently support h.264 (IE, Firefox, Chrome, Safari).
So this bloatware is why FF has become ... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-09 16:52 · Score: -1

.... barely usable since last update.
I sometimes have to hit the reload 5 to 10 times before it actually starts opening a webpage. And is not new websites. It is the same websites I visit on a constant basis (including Slashdot).
1. Re:So this bloatware is why FF has become ... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-09 19:24 · Score: 0
  
  Call your ISP, not the Mozilla Foundation.
2. Re:So this bloatware is why FF has become ... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-09 19:28 · Score: 0
  
  Maybe it's your interweb connection. Never have i had problems like those unless i've had a bad connection.
3. Re:So this bloatware is why FF has become ... by jellomizer · 2013-12-10 02:16 · Score: 1
  
  Which is very ironic because Firefox popularity came from the fact that it was a small light weight browser.
  Then they kept on adding crap to it, so it is nearly as bloated as IE is. While Chrome has been taking the lime light as the small lightweight browser.
  
  --
  If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
tainted? mpeg said you can use it, no patent worry by raymorris · 2013-12-09 17:20 · Score: 4, Informative

How exactly is it tainted? Mpeg LA agreed you can use it and not worry about their patents. How is THAT a problem?
Fyi, no, they can't change the license in a way that creates problems for using the codec. It's called "promissory estoppel". Basically, it means that once they promise to let you use it freely, that stops them from suing anyone.
MPEG LA patents running out by Animats · 2013-12-09 18:13 · Score: 3, Interesting

Most of the remaining MPEG LA patents that matter run out in Q1 2014. They have others, but most of them are on features added to MPEG-4 late, ones that aren't needed in a browser's decoder, such as interlace support and decoding of images with errors.
1. Re:MPEG LA patents running out by steveha · 2013-12-09 19:36 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  Most of the remaining MPEG LA patents that matter run out in Q1 2014.
  That sounds great, but could you please provide a reference or two to support it?
  The sources I have seen suggest that it will be after 2020 before all the patents that affect even MPEG-2 will be gone. For example: this kuro5hin article lists 2023 as the year the last MPEG-2 patent runs out. And this page lists 2027 as the year the last H.264 patents run out.
  If I'm understanding you correctly, you are saying that the most essential patents are running out, so it should be possible to make a patent-free coder and decoder that would cover a usable subset of the MPEG standards?
  Do you predict that a patent-free MPEG-2 decoder capable of playing DVDs would be possible within a year?
  
  --
  lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
2. Re:MPEG LA patents running out by Animats · 2013-12-10 08:32 · Score: 1
  
  Do you predict that a patent-free MPEG-2 decoder capable of playing DVDs would be possible within a year?
  No, DVDs use some of the newer MPEG 4 features. But online video doesn't need all that stuff. Youtube, Netflix, etc. are probably within the base MP4 spec, for which the patents have mostly expired.
3. Re:MPEG LA patents running out by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-10 11:44 · Score: 0
  
  No, DVDs use some of the newer MPEG 4 features
  That's news to me. Which features in particular?
4. Re:MPEG LA patents running out by Animats · 2013-12-10 13:41 · Score: 2
  
  could you please provide a reference or two to support it?
  Here's a list compiled in 2011.. The last of the "orginal 27" patents expires on March 28, 2014. MPEG-LA has later patents, but maybe you don't need the technology they cover, or can attack those patents.
Re:tainted? mpeg said you can use it, no patent wo by Telvin_3d · 2013-12-09 18:36 · Score: 1

Yeah, but why would you? It's a slightly less efficient implementation of h264 with no hardware support.
You mean since this morning? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-09 18:56 · Score: 0

This story is about the latest nightly build of Firefox, so just click the "Reset Firefox" button in about:support and STFU.
1. Re:You mean since this morning? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-10 01:33 · Score: 0
  
  This is something that FF team should put more effort to. How much of the FF-is-bloated-and-slow -complains are caused by incompatible profiles? New features (or removals of existing ones) do not benefit user, if their upgrades simply make browser slower and more unstable one upgrade a time.
That's great by DrXym · 2013-12-09 21:12 · Score: 1

It's too bad that virtually 99% of sites will be using H264 AVC and AAC.
1. Re:That's great by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-10 00:47 · Score: 0
  
  Unless maybe they force this on Android somehow making millions of people see either VP9 content or no content at all.
2. Re:That's great by Waraqa · 2013-12-10 00:58 · Score: 2
  
  It's too bad that virtually 99% of sites will be using H264 AVC and AAC.
  In spite of that, a leading video website such as youtube could affect the web more than all of these sites, especially if google refuses to add support for H.265 in Android and Chrome.
3. Re:That's great by BitZtream · 2013-12-10 02:20 · Score: 1
  
  Yea, they'd totally drop support for the codec decoded in hardware, in favor of using a codec that has no hardware decode support even on their own devices ... yea, that'll be a great idea.
  
  --
  Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
4. Re:That's great by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-10 03:39 · Score: 0
  
  Durrr DuRRRR
5. Re:That's great by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-10 05:01 · Score: 0
  
  It's too bad that virtually 99% of sites will be using H264 AVC and AAC.
  In spite of that, a leading video website such as youtube could affect the web more than all of these sites, especially if google refuses to add support for H.265 in Android and Chrome.
  If they did, the handset makers would add it in anyway.
Re:tainted? mpeg said you can use it, no patent wo by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-09 22:21 · Score: 0

It's a slightly less efficient implementation of h264 with no hardware support.
That's assuming you're using h264's baseline profile.
Re:tainted? mpeg said you can use it, no patent wo by Goaway · 2013-12-09 23:22 · Score: 1

You are confusing it with VP8.
competition by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-10 00:19 · Score: 0

This is just my $0.02, but if the trolls are anything like some of the rest of us, I have to assume it's because we're tired of the constant promotion of second-rate codecs that put ideology ahead of technical concerns.
Who else is going to keep the patent trolls of the MPEG LA honest?
As long as there's a semi-viable second choice available that's available it will force more reasonable conditions from the lawyers.
And as another commenter noted [1], the difference is about 6.2%, which isn't exactly atrocious IMHO.
[1] http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=4536585&cid=45647357
1. Re:competition by Eskarel · 2013-12-10 02:26 · Score: 2
  
  It's not atrocious, but hardware support for H.264 is ubiquitous. Even the shittiest mobile devices have had it built in for years. You'd be hard pressed to justify a switch even if VP9 was 6.2% better, let alone 6.2% worse.
Re:tainted? mpeg said you can use it, no patent wo by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-10 00:22 · Score: 1

How exactly is it tainted? Mpeg LA agreed you can use it and not worry about their patents. How is THAT a problem?
Do you remember GIF, and why PNG was invented?
Or Eolas? Or the folks that Newegg is currently fighting?
Re:tainted? mpeg said you can use it, no patent wo by twocows · 2013-12-10 02:56 · Score: 2

How does that relate at all to what GP said? Newegg isn't fighting people that promised they wouldn't sue over patents. Quite the contrary, since they're fighting people who are suing over patents. I don't know about the rest of your examples, but I'm guessing they're similar, in which case they are completely irrelevant to what GP said.
Programmable pixel shaders by tepples · 2013-12-10 05:02 · Score: 1

The general-purpose chip has already existed since graphics cards switched from fixed-function pixel shaders to programmable pixel shaders. If a pixel shader can compute bump mapping and SSAO, it can compute motion reconstruction and IDCT.
The NSA loves this. by steelfood · 2013-12-10 05:08 · Score: 1

The greater the complexity in a system, the greater points of failure. All this movement of processing onto the client just leads to more client side security holes. HTML5 is so complex, there are so many potential points of attack, it is the NSA's wet dream to have all browsers compete on implementing it fully. If Firefox 17 had 0-days that the NSA could use to attack TOR (yeah yeah, it was the FBI, I completely believe that it wasn't a crumb the NSA gave them), I imagine a fully HTML5 compliant Firefox XX will have enough 0-days out there to keep the NSA stringing the FBI along for another century or two. (As as aside, the NSA, on the other hand, has taken a wholistic approach to breaking encryption; they record everything and figure once they manage to get a quantum computer working in about 5-10 years, they'll be able to decrypt all of it in one shot.)
Where can one find a browser that just displays marked up, laid out content that implement the latest security protocols these days?

--
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
VP9 is very good but it's still slow by Virtucon · 2013-12-10 07:10 · Score: 1

It's great for the viewer because you have more detail in less bandwidth (smaller footprint) but it's a bitch at encoding and is slower than mp4,H264 or H265 in encoding speed. VP8 is still a good alternative as well since it's more mature and has wider support.

--
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
Whooo ... by Chrisq · 2013-12-10 22:36 · Score: 1

... oooshhh
Re: by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-10 23:44 · Score: 0

The idea of "standards" in image formats is moot, because W3C takes hands-off approach to the issue. They said: "use whatever the hell formats you want, we don't care". So of all anti-APNG arguments I heard, that one is especially weak.
Re: by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-10 23:58 · Score: 0

If lossless WebP is so good, then why in filesize comparisons gif2webp loses in to gif2apng basically every time?
Re: by Goaway · 2013-12-11 11:10 · Score: 1

Probably because APNG has blending for sub-frames while WebP doesn't. For single-frame images, WebP is going to win. I wonder if they will change their minds and add that at some point.