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Mozilla, Microsoft, Amazon, Google, and Others Form 'Alliance For Open Media'

Posted by Soulskill on from the one-codec-to-rule-them-all dept.

BrianFagioli tips news that Mozilla, Microsoft, Google, Cisco, Intel, Amazon, and Netflix are teaming up to create the Alliance for Open Media, "an open-source project that will develop next-generation media formats, codecs and technologies in the public interest." Several of these companies have been working on this problem alone: Mozilla started Daala, Google has VP9 and VP10, and Cisco just recently announced Thor. Amazon and Netflix, of course, are major suppliers of online video streaming, so they have a vested interested in royalty-free codecs. They're inviting others to join them — the more technology and patents they get on their side, the less likely they'll run into the issues that Microsoft's VC-1 and Google's VP8 struggled with. "The Alliance will operate under W3C patent rules and release code under an Apache 2.0 license. This means all Alliance participants are waiving royalties both for the codec implementation and for any patents on the codec itself."

3 of 99 comments (clear)

  1. No Apple by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    As much as the industry needs open codecs, if Apple refuses to support whatever they create (like the last three or four similar projects), this project is likely to be stillborn.

    1. Re:No Apple by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      You got what 98% or more of the desktop browser makers by usage in this club? Plus you have YouTube and Netflix on board for providing content. Even if no one else adopts this, it is enough to be both used and supported. The biggest hurdle is ensuring that it is at least as good as what is out there.

      The barrier is hardware support. Google thought that web dominance was enough, but without hardware support VP9 is a non-starter for providers (I work for a fairly major global video service, we would love to adopt open formats. But we need most mobile devices to have hardware decode. And Google has been very inept at this. Hope this alliance is better at it.

  2. Re:Mozilla by roca · · Score: 4, Interesting

    We have Daala, which (unlike VP8/9 and Thor) is radically different technology to H.264/H.265. That's very valuable because it steers away from the patent minefield. Also, our codec developers are among the best.