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> In its HTML5 support, IE9 will support playback of H.264 video as well as VP8 video when the user has installed a VP8 codec on Windows. In other words it wil

by tvon 16y ago

> In its HTML5 support, IE9 will support playback of H.264 video as well as VP8 video when the user has installed a VP8 codec on Windows. In other words it will work just as well as any other codec that requires support to be installed?

kevingadd 16y ago
Previously you had to use Windows Media Player, Quicktime, etc. specifically to play back videos in IE. Now you will be able to use <video> and IE will look for video codecs (instead of browser plugins) to decode that video for you. A significant improvement.
- tvon 16y ago
  I was under the impression that any codec supported by the system (Quicktime or Windows Media Player) could be embedded/played, e.g. that while Apple wouldn't support Theora by default, it would work if you had the Theora codec installed for QT. Not sure where I got that from, it could well be very wrong. But still, if the user has to download something to support it, how is that better (or different) for the user than a plugin?
  - andrewf 16y ago
    It might be the same story as the H.264 codec. Most Windows 7 users have it in the base Windows install - no need to download a codec. But the MediaPlayer-less versions of Windows that the EU mandated MS produced don't ship with H.264. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/968211 http://support.microsoft.com/kb/968211
ZeroGravitas 16y ago
Just last week they announced that IE would only support the H.264 codec. They didn't get into details but it was clear that even if you had e.g. Theora installed they wouldn't use it for HTML5 video tags. This appears to be a partial reversal of that so that VP8 will be whitelisted and played as long as it's installed, but other random codecs won't. Which is probably a sensible security precaution.
- rbanffy 16y ago
  > Which is probably a sensible security precaution. Why not sandbox the video codec? It's not like it needs to even read more than a single given file. Heck. It's not like it even needs to read a file - it only needs a data-stream from where to read compressed frames and a callback pointer so that it can give them to whatever displays them.

by tvon 16y ago

kevingadd 16y ago

Previously you had to use Windows Media Player, Quicktime, etc. specifically to play back videos in IE. Now you will be able to use <video> and IE will look for video codecs (instead of browser plugins) to decode that video for you. A significant improvement.

tvon 16y ago
I was under the impression that any codec supported by the system (Quicktime or Windows Media Player) could be embedded/played, e.g. that while Apple wouldn't support Theora by default, it would work if you had the Theora codec installed for QT. Not sure where I got that from, it could well be very wrong. But still, if the user has to download something to support it, how is that better (or different) for the user than a plugin?
- andrewf 16y ago
  It might be the same story as the H.264 codec. Most Windows 7 users have it in the base Windows install - no need to download a codec. But the MediaPlayer-less versions of Windows that the EU mandated MS produced don't ship with H.264. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/968211 http://support.microsoft.com/kb/968211

ZeroGravitas 16y ago

Just last week they announced that IE would only support the H.264 codec. They didn't get into details but it was clear that even if you had e.g. Theora installed they wouldn't use it for HTML5 video tags. This appears to be a partial reversal of that so that VP8 will be whitelisted and played as long as it's installed, but other random codecs won't. Which is probably a sensible security precaution.

rbanffy 16y ago
> Which is probably a sensible security precaution. Why not sandbox the video codec? It's not like it needs to even read more than a single given file. Heck. It's not like it even needs to read a file - it only needs a data-stream from where to read compressed frames and a callback pointer so that it can give them to whatever displays them.