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Firefox Gains Support for VP9 Video Codec
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."
You mean the non-standard APNG format that was invented by Mozilla and is pretty much only supported by them?
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 !
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I think you're confusing VP8 with VP9.
'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.