"Royalty free" seems like a red herring. I'm not familiar with MPEG2-TS in particular, but Chrome already happily plays H.264 on macOS, plus there is an explici

"Royalty free" seems like a red herring. I'm not familiar with MPEG2-TS in particular, but Chrome already happily plays H.264 on macOS, plus there is an explicit exception in H.264 license for non-paid (including ad-supported) content. I don't see how implementing HLS would increase Google's licensing cost in any way. I appreciate the free software position. It seems MPEG-DASH is indeed better suited for it, though maybe only slightly [1]. (Regardless, turns out Apple did not release anything as copyleft this year, so maybe it's better that free software purists could not have watched the video?) The case for "encumbered" options is simple: it's what's decoded in hardware, for users who prefer their device to last the entire video. [1] http://www.streamingmedia.com/Articles/News/Online-Video-News/MPEG-LA-Announces-MPEG-DASH-Patent-Portfolio-License-114873.aspx http://www.streamingmedia.com/Articles/News/Online-Video-New...