5 ms·

For now, we can assume that HTML5 video = h.264, since that's what the iDevices play.

by WiseWeasel 16y ago

rmc 16y ago
Yes that's a fair assumption for the moment. It'll be interesting to see what happens with WebM
- buster 16y ago
  Why reencode to WebM when the rest of the world can play flash. Based on your "assumptions" it comes down to flash video for 99% of users vs html5+h264 for iDevices.. All in all it is just really sad that the major companies weren't able to agree on one common video format for html5 (thanks, Microsoft and Apple!). What's the future now? Flash for Windows Phone, html5/h264 for iPhone, html5/webm for chrome and android, html5/ogg for firefox and i think opera should just go for html5/avi+intel indeo, maybe nokia could do html5/animated gif. (the sarcasm ends here, btw.)
  - patrickaljord 16y ago
    Both Opera and Firefox support WebM.
    - buster 16y ago
      That was sarcasm, btw ;) My point is that thanks to Microsoft and Apple (who are both getting money from licensing H.264) we have no consistent video format and we will never have. MS and Apple will never support ogg or webm and Firefox will never support H.264 (which is the only decision they could have made from their point of view). The dream of one consistent standard for the web that was HTML5 has been destroyed by some greedy corporations once again.
      - rmc 16y ago
        What makes you think Microsoft and Apple won't support WebM? My hope is that WebM takes off and becomes really popular. Then they would be fools to not support it.
        buster 16y ago
        Not fools. But companies. They get license fees for H.264. That's all management will need to know. They will tell us how there is no hardware acceleration and how H.264 has superior quality, when in reality they only want the money. The goal is that the defacto standard for web video becomes H.264. Imagine the income: When H.264 replaces all flash videos, they can leech money out of every device that plays those and everyone that makes those. That's PCs, tablets, phones, TVs and much more which equals a large amount of money. That's why i said, it's a shame that there was no decision for one video codec in HTML5. They (the w3c/whatwg) should've went with "screw you all, the video codec is ogg(or webm). If your browsers don't support it they are not HTML5 compliant." Instead they went with "ok, fine. Everyone can do whatever he wants", willingly accepting that the bigger companies will go for the money decision and lock-out of competition. IE is still big enough to make the situation really bad. MS will go the way of supporting other codecs through the windows API. But those codecs need to be installed, degrading them to 2nd class citizens and big video publishers will have to go the route of H.264 to not scare customers away with installing some non-default codec. The irony: In the end, the better choice will be to atleast support flash videos, because flash is available almost everywhere, whereas the alternative is a much more fragmented HTML5 standard. In the end, this decision may have disrupted the goal to replace flash video with HTML5.

For now, we can assume that HTML5 video = h.264, since that's what the iDevices play.

rmc 16y ago

Yes that's a fair assumption for the moment. It'll be interesting to see what happens with WebM

buster 16y ago
Why reencode to WebM when the rest of the world can play flash. Based on your "assumptions" it comes down to flash video for 99% of users vs html5+h264 for iDevices.. All in all it is just really sad that the major companies weren't able to agree on one common video format for html5 (thanks, Microsoft and Apple!). What's the future now? Flash for Windows Phone, html5/h264 for iPhone, html5/webm for chrome and android, html5/ogg for firefox and i think opera should just go for html5/avi+intel indeo, maybe nokia could do html5/animated gif. (the sarcasm ends here, btw.)
- patrickaljord 16y ago
  Both Opera and Firefox support WebM.
  - buster 16y ago
    That was sarcasm, btw ;) My point is that thanks to Microsoft and Apple (who are both getting money from licensing H.264) we have no consistent video format and we will never have. MS and Apple will never support ogg or webm and Firefox will never support H.264 (which is the only decision they could have made from their point of view). The dream of one consistent standard for the web that was HTML5 has been destroyed by some greedy corporations once again.
    - rmc 16y ago
      What makes you think Microsoft and Apple won't support WebM? My hope is that WebM takes off and becomes really popular. Then they would be fools to not support it.
      - buster 16y ago
        Not fools. But companies. They get license fees for H.264. That's all management will need to know. They will tell us how there is no hardware acceleration and how H.264 has superior quality, when in reality they only want the money. The goal is that the defacto standard for web video becomes H.264. Imagine the income: When H.264 replaces all flash videos, they can leech money out of every device that plays those and everyone that makes those. That's PCs, tablets, phones, TVs and much more which equals a large amount of money. That's why i said, it's a shame that there was no decision for one video codec in HTML5. They (the w3c/whatwg) should've went with "screw you all, the video codec is ogg(or webm). If your browsers don't support it they are not HTML5 compliant." Instead they went with "ok, fine. Everyone can do whatever he wants", willingly accepting that the bigger companies will go for the money decision and lock-out of competition. IE is still big enough to make the situation really bad. MS will go the way of supporting other codecs through the windows API. But those codecs need to be installed, degrading them to 2nd class citizens and big video publishers will have to go the route of H.264 to not scare customers away with installing some non-default codec. The irony: In the end, the better choice will be to atleast support flash videos, because flash is available almost everywhere, whereas the alternative is a much more fragmented HTML5 standard. In the end, this decision may have disrupted the goal to replace flash video with HTML5.