8 ms·

Agreed. I think this should be re-titled, "Ask Firefox for H264 support". With YouTube and Vimeo adopting h264 and not Ogg, I'd say I have a feeling I know how

Agreed. I think this should be re-titled, "Ask Firefox for H264 support". With YouTube and Vimeo adopting h264 and not Ogg, I'd say I have a feeling I know how this is going to end.

deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
JeremyBanks 17y ago
YouTube using H264 initially may just have been because they already have their videos H264-encoded, because that's what they use for the high-res content in their Flash player. They may also be selecting it because of Chrome's support, but I think it's too early to assume for sure that they don't have plans to support Ogg at some point. Supporting H264 <video> was just a matter of writing some front-end player code (which they already had from their HTML5 demo) and feeding it the same video file they gave the Flash player. Supporting Ogg, on the other hand, would require massive transcoding.
- slig 17y ago
  I thought that they did the encoding to H264 to make youtube iPhone-compatible.
  - quux 17y ago
    IIRC, the iPhone version is H.264, but at a lower bitrate, so they have 3-4 h.264 files per video: * 720p version for hdtv videos * 480p version for non hd web viewing * High bitrate version for iPhone streaming on wifi * Low bitrate version for iPhone streaming on 3g or edge.
kevingadd 17y ago
Is it going to end with Mozilla wasting millions of dollars on H264 patent licenses?
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
- ars 17y ago
  I have ffmpeg on my machine right now with H264 support. Have mozilla just use it. Mozilla does not need to distribute H264 support - just use what is already there. A similar library exists for windows.
  - kevingadd 17y ago
    That's an absurd suggestion. Mozilla can't just "pretend" that patents and licensing fees don't exist. FFMPEG gets away with it because they're not a commercial entity. Do you really think Google would have willfully paid to license H264 if they could 'just use ffmpeg' instead?
    - deleted 17y ago
      [deleted]
      - kevingadd 17y ago
        You're completely ignoring the licensing part of the problem. Google can use any library they want to decode H264 because they paid for a license. The problem is not the library, it is the license.
        jrockway 17y ago
        In the US, it would be copyright infringement for them to use a GPL'd decoder. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.264/MPEG-4_AVC#Patents_and_GNU_Free_Software_licenses http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.264/MPEG-4_AVC#Patents_and_GN... (I should say, "it is believed that...". Nobody really knows for sure.)
    - blasdel 17y ago
      Until W7, Microsoft didn't ship a decoder for H.264. Neither Microsoft nor Apple ship support for MPEG2 (you have to pay extra), and nobody supports Xvid. Yet Microsoft's Windows Media Player 'just uses ffmpeg' to play these formats when you have one of the many DirectShow packages installed, and has since the beginning. Apple's Quicktime does the same when you have Perian installed. Opera uses GStreamer for <video>, and does the same when you have gst-ffmpeg installed. Google is mostly paying for H.264 decoder licenses because they were already going to have to pay broadcaster-level encoder licenses.
felixc 17y ago
Firefox cannot ship with H.264 licenses, regardless of whether they can afford the cost or not. The GPL is incompatible with that idea. As a side note, I'm not sure why you want H.264 to become the de-facto standard, given that it would require you to pay licensing fees just to host your own videos.
drats 17y ago
But you can say this to anything open, "why not .doc support?" for example, there are benefits other than bitrates to open standards. Think video editing and re-mixing/quoting for academic and news purposes (fair use/fair dealing). Think of the open source voice recognition to subtitling that proprietary audio codecs, over vorbis, would prevent (vorbis actually saves you bandwidth vs a lot of the other audio codecs because it is better: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vorbis#Quality:_Codec_comparisons http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vorbis#Quality:_Codec_compariso...). Think of browser, service and device innovators who will be locked out of competition by the big guys. I thought this was a forum for hackers, dreamers and entrepreneurs, not for videophiles making rather picky distinctions (I really don't see what the big deal is, if you look at the ogg comparison page posted elsewhere on the thread there isn't much difference and it's clear this is mainly about Apple protecting their iTouch/iPhone/Quicktime/iMovie/Finalcut video stack from those who would disrupt the market with Google and MS along with Apple for the ride).
- senko 17y ago
  Your .doc example is a good one. Mozilla explicitly refusing to support both H264 and Theora (because they want to make a stand) is like OpenOffice refusing to read both doc and odt, because doc is proprietary format. I would prefer to see open, unpatented and free video codec used for the majority of web video. I applaud Mozilla for taking a stance. I don't applaud them taking a stance by limiting their users' freedom, instead of directly talking to Google, Vimeo and others and lobbying for the use of more open formats. Surely, a letter from Mozilla "hey guys, we really think you should support Theora too, let's meet and we'll tell you why we think it's very important" would have more effect than random blog articles & what amounts to blackmail?
sailormoon 17y ago
Agreed 100%. Mozilla has plenty of money from its Google ad revenue. They should just do the reasonable thing and license h264. It can't be THAT expensive. The alternative is the continued domination of Flash. Is that what they really want? Because that's what they're choosing to get. I admire their principles but in the end it's the outcome that matters.
- windsurfer 17y ago
  How do they license it for their derivatives?
  - sailormoon 17y ago
    I don't know, but c'mon, they're a $100m/yr foundation. They can find a way. Maybe a plugin or something.
- sailormoon 17y ago
  And they should support MP3 for HTML5 audio, too!
- vegai 17y ago
  Would H264 that mean the end of all non-major browsers?
  - ZeroGravitas 17y ago
    And all non-major video platforms, since you pay fees on that side too. You'll note the current drama is around two major video platforms who can easily meet the (capped) costs and probably don't want to encourage people to host their video elsewhere, or even host their own video themselves. There would be no Wordpress equivalent if putting text on the web was taxed.
    - jonknee 17y ago
      > There would be no Wordpress equivalent if putting text on the web was taxed. Ironically, there is VideoPress.
smcq 17y ago
As someone who hosts videos, I hope that you don't get control over the internets. Bandwidth is already expensive enough without having to pay licenses per-stream!

Agreed. I think this should be re-titled, "Ask Firefox for H264 support". With YouTube and Vimeo adopting h264 and not Ogg, I'd say I have a feeling I know how this is going to end.

deleted 17y ago

[deleted]

JeremyBanks 17y ago

YouTube using H264 initially may just have been because they already have their videos H264-encoded, because that's what they use for the high-res content in their Flash player. They may also be selecting it because of Chrome's support, but I think it's too early to assume for sure that they don't have plans to support Ogg at some point. Supporting H264 <video> was just a matter of writing some front-end player code (which they already had from their HTML5 demo) and feeding it the same video file they gave the Flash player. Supporting Ogg, on the other hand, would require massive transcoding.

slig 17y ago
I thought that they did the encoding to H264 to make youtube iPhone-compatible.
- quux 17y ago
  IIRC, the iPhone version is H.264, but at a lower bitrate, so they have 3-4 h.264 files per video: * 720p version for hdtv videos * 480p version for non hd web viewing * High bitrate version for iPhone streaming on wifi * Low bitrate version for iPhone streaming on 3g or edge.

kevingadd 17y ago

Is it going to end with Mozilla wasting millions of dollars on H264 patent licenses?

deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
ars 17y ago
I have ffmpeg on my machine right now with H264 support. Have mozilla just use it. Mozilla does not need to distribute H264 support - just use what is already there. A similar library exists for windows.
- kevingadd 17y ago
  That's an absurd suggestion. Mozilla can't just "pretend" that patents and licensing fees don't exist. FFMPEG gets away with it because they're not a commercial entity. Do you really think Google would have willfully paid to license H264 if they could 'just use ffmpeg' instead?
  - deleted 17y ago
    [deleted]
    - kevingadd 17y ago
      You're completely ignoring the licensing part of the problem. Google can use any library they want to decode H264 because they paid for a license. The problem is not the library, it is the license.
      - jrockway 17y ago
        In the US, it would be copyright infringement for them to use a GPL'd decoder. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.264/MPEG-4_AVC#Patents_and_GNU_Free_Software_licenses http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.264/MPEG-4_AVC#Patents_and_GN... (I should say, "it is believed that...". Nobody really knows for sure.)
  - blasdel 17y ago
    Until W7, Microsoft didn't ship a decoder for H.264. Neither Microsoft nor Apple ship support for MPEG2 (you have to pay extra), and nobody supports Xvid. Yet Microsoft's Windows Media Player 'just uses ffmpeg' to play these formats when you have one of the many DirectShow packages installed, and has since the beginning. Apple's Quicktime does the same when you have Perian installed. Opera uses GStreamer for <video>, and does the same when you have gst-ffmpeg installed. Google is mostly paying for H.264 decoder licenses because they were already going to have to pay broadcaster-level encoder licenses.

felixc 17y ago

Firefox cannot ship with H.264 licenses, regardless of whether they can afford the cost or not. The GPL is incompatible with that idea. As a side note, I'm not sure why you want H.264 to become the de-facto standard, given that it would require you to pay licensing fees just to host your own videos.

drats 17y ago

But you can say this to anything open, "why not .doc support?" for example, there are benefits other than bitrates to open standards. Think video editing and re-mixing/quoting for academic and news purposes (fair use/fair dealing). Think of the open source voice recognition to subtitling that proprietary audio codecs, over vorbis, would prevent (vorbis actually saves you bandwidth vs a lot of the other audio codecs because it is better: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vorbis#Quality:_Codec_comparisons http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vorbis#Quality:_Codec_compariso...). Think of browser, service and device innovators who will be locked out of competition by the big guys. I thought this was a forum for hackers, dreamers and entrepreneurs, not for videophiles making rather picky distinctions (I really don't see what the big deal is, if you look at the ogg comparison page posted elsewhere on the thread there isn't much difference and it's clear this is mainly about Apple protecting their iTouch/iPhone/Quicktime/iMovie/Finalcut video stack from those who would disrupt the market with Google and MS along with Apple for the ride).

senko 17y ago
Your .doc example is a good one. Mozilla explicitly refusing to support both H264 and Theora (because they want to make a stand) is like OpenOffice refusing to read both doc and odt, because doc is proprietary format. I would prefer to see open, unpatented and free video codec used for the majority of web video. I applaud Mozilla for taking a stance. I don't applaud them taking a stance by limiting their users' freedom, instead of directly talking to Google, Vimeo and others and lobbying for the use of more open formats. Surely, a letter from Mozilla "hey guys, we really think you should support Theora too, let's meet and we'll tell you why we think it's very important" would have more effect than random blog articles & what amounts to blackmail?

sailormoon 17y ago

Agreed 100%. Mozilla has plenty of money from its Google ad revenue. They should just do the reasonable thing and license h264. It can't be THAT expensive. The alternative is the continued domination of Flash. Is that what they really want? Because that's what they're choosing to get. I admire their principles but in the end it's the outcome that matters.

windsurfer 17y ago
How do they license it for their derivatives?
- sailormoon 17y ago
  I don't know, but c'mon, they're a $100m/yr foundation. They can find a way. Maybe a plugin or something.
sailormoon 17y ago
And they should support MP3 for HTML5 audio, too!
vegai 17y ago
Would H264 that mean the end of all non-major browsers?
- ZeroGravitas 17y ago
  And all non-major video platforms, since you pay fees on that side too. You'll note the current drama is around two major video platforms who can easily meet the (capped) costs and probably don't want to encourage people to host their video elsewhere, or even host their own video themselves. There would be no Wordpress equivalent if putting text on the web was taxed.
  - jonknee 17y ago
    > There would be no Wordpress equivalent if putting text on the web was taxed. Ironically, there is VideoPress.

smcq 17y ago

As someone who hosts videos, I hope that you don't get control over the internets. Bandwidth is already expensive enough without having to pay licenses per-stream!