9 ms·

Yeah, I cringed when reading this. The whole 'good guys' routine with Cisco, Google, Mozilla stepping up to fight the evil 'malcorp' for justice was pretty emba

Yeah, I cringed when reading this. The whole 'good guys' routine with Cisco, Google, Mozilla stepping up to fight the evil 'malcorp' for justice was pretty embarrassing. I'm all for a 'de facto' standardisation around a royalty free codec, which is what we get with AV1, but lets not pretend that these companies are doing this for any altruistic reasons. Everything is moving to streaming, and video usage will only keep growing, so for these huge companies, having what is increasingly a core part of their business in the financial hands of third parties is an extremely unattractive position. Google was already dead set on leaving this dependency, and now when they started work on their third generation codec (VP10) many other companies started to get the message, prompted in a large part no doubt by the HEVC patent fiasco, which now has resulted in AV1. >AV1 has a really slow encoder, so until that has changed Well, optimization has likely only recently started in earnest, given that the bitstream was frozen this summer. Personally I'm more interested in the RAV1e AV1 encoder in the works from Xiph than I am in the 'official' one.

lewiscollard 8y ago
> The whole 'good guys' routine with Cisco, Google, Mozilla stepping up to fight the evil 'malcorp' for justice was pretty embarrassing. Yep. If anyone wants to know what Google and Mozilla would do in the face of corporations closing off the Internet, you can look at what they _actually did_ with Encrypted Media Extensions.
- shawnz 8y ago
  EME was made to discourage the creation of proprietary systems for adding DRM, not to appease corporations.
  - beaconstudios 8y ago
    so DRM is OK as long as it's enclosed within a standardised protocol?
    - detaro 8y ago
      EME is the better option if you believe DRM is going to happen one way or the other: it can be contained and ideally used cross-platform, not just on blessed end-devices. EME is bad if you believe DRM would die/be less common if no standard existed.
      - beaconstudios 8y ago
        from an economic perspective, I'd rather DRM be as expensive to utilise as possible. A world where media conglomerates have to spend money keeping their DRM up-to-date on every new end-user device is one where they may be more likely to think about the cost/benefit of alternative options.
        davrosthedalek 8y ago
        They will only keep it up-to-date on those with enough market share. No Linux. Maybe Mac. For the slightly smaller players, on mobile, maybe only Iphone, or Iphone + Flagship Android.
        beaconstudios 8y ago
        which when added up provides a viable market segment for a company that does not insist on DRM. Especially as the mobile device market continues to fragment.
        pas 8y ago
        Mozilla decided that providing this feature serves their users better than not providing it. Especially that users can turn it off. ( https://mat.tl/disable-eme-in-chrome-and-firefox.html https://mat.tl/disable-eme-in-chrome-and-firefox.html ) Firefox was forced by Chrome, and Chrome in turn was probably forced by trying to remain a viable platform instead of Netflix et al. simply providing their own desktop apps. (Though I'm only guessing, if you have direct knowledge of the what and why, please do share.)
  - cyphar 8y ago
    DRM is fundamentally proprietary. Just because the container around it is defined in a standard does not in any way discourage the creation of proprietary systems -- it by definition facilitates them (and therefore appeases corporations that produce DRM content). The whole "DRM will happen one way or another, EME is better" is only an acceptable argument if you don't have an issue with DRM (because then you can argue that EME is "nicer" than non-EME because EME is a "standard form" of DRM). Making it frustrating for people to access DRM content results in a distrust of DRM vendors and a general dislike of DRM -- which is (in my view) a positive outcome. Facilitating DRM in a way that makes it much easier for people to view it is not a neutral position in a world where "DRM is inevitable".

lewiscollard 8y ago

> The whole 'good guys' routine with Cisco, Google, Mozilla stepping up to fight the evil 'malcorp' for justice was pretty embarrassing. Yep. If anyone wants to know what Google and Mozilla would do in the face of corporations closing off the Internet, you can look at what they _actually did_ with Encrypted Media Extensions.

shawnz 8y ago
EME was made to discourage the creation of proprietary systems for adding DRM, not to appease corporations.
- beaconstudios 8y ago
  so DRM is OK as long as it's enclosed within a standardised protocol?
  - detaro 8y ago
    EME is the better option if you believe DRM is going to happen one way or the other: it can be contained and ideally used cross-platform, not just on blessed end-devices. EME is bad if you believe DRM would die/be less common if no standard existed.
    - beaconstudios 8y ago
      from an economic perspective, I'd rather DRM be as expensive to utilise as possible. A world where media conglomerates have to spend money keeping their DRM up-to-date on every new end-user device is one where they may be more likely to think about the cost/benefit of alternative options.
      - davrosthedalek 8y ago
        They will only keep it up-to-date on those with enough market share. No Linux. Maybe Mac. For the slightly smaller players, on mobile, maybe only Iphone, or Iphone + Flagship Android.
        beaconstudios 8y ago
        which when added up provides a viable market segment for a company that does not insist on DRM. Especially as the mobile device market continues to fragment.
        pas 8y ago
        Mozilla decided that providing this feature serves their users better than not providing it. Especially that users can turn it off. ( https://mat.tl/disable-eme-in-chrome-and-firefox.html https://mat.tl/disable-eme-in-chrome-and-firefox.html ) Firefox was forced by Chrome, and Chrome in turn was probably forced by trying to remain a viable platform instead of Netflix et al. simply providing their own desktop apps. (Though I'm only guessing, if you have direct knowledge of the what and why, please do share.)
- cyphar 8y ago
  DRM is fundamentally proprietary. Just because the container around it is defined in a standard does not in any way discourage the creation of proprietary systems -- it by definition facilitates them (and therefore appeases corporations that produce DRM content). The whole "DRM will happen one way or another, EME is better" is only an acceptable argument if you don't have an issue with DRM (because then you can argue that EME is "nicer" than non-EME because EME is a "standard form" of DRM). Making it frustrating for people to access DRM content results in a distrust of DRM vendors and a general dislike of DRM -- which is (in my view) a positive outcome. Facilitating DRM in a way that makes it much easier for people to view it is not a neutral position in a world where "DRM is inevitable".