5 ms·
What the hell? It's sad that Google's corporate strategy is starting to override what's in the best interests of it's users. Web video is finally, after so ma
by dev_jim 16y ago
What the hell? It's sad that Google's corporate strategy is starting to override what's in the best interests of it's users. Web video is finally, after so many years, actually encoded in H.264. Who besides YouTube uses WebM or Ogg? I'll be going back to Safari if this happens.
- buro9 16y agoAn open solution isn't the best interest of the users? Surely this is just like Apple not supporting Flash in the hope that people go create HTML5 stuff which is open. Both companies have taken strategic and gutsy moves that will temporarily inconvenience users in the hope that long-term it pays of to both the companies and the users.
- dev_jim 16y ago> An open solution isn't the best interest of the users? An ubiquitous solution is in the best interests of users. My parents could care less about whether the video is encoded in H.264 or Ogg. They just want it to work on their iPad. > Surely this is just like Apple not supporting Flash in the hope that people go create HTML5 stuff which is open. It's not the same at all. Google, through YouTube and Chrome, helped make H.264 the defacto standard it is. Now they are trying to pull the rug out from under it. Apple never had support for Flash. Not to mention that Flash is a POS and doesn't work well on mobile devices anyways. > Both companies have taken strategic and gutsy moves that will temporarily inconvenience users in the hope that long-term it pays of to both the companies and the users. Long-term this isn't a game that Google wins. They've inconvenienced their users and the web will go on with H.264.
- gloob 16y ago<rant> "de facto standard" is a meaningless, self-contradictory phrase that really boils down to saying "But this is the way we've always done it!" Standards are not de facto. Standards are things created by standards bodies. The word has an actual meaning. Trying to twist it to mean "the way we do stuff now" (as your argument for h.264 does) or "the way I want to do stuff" (as many arguments for HTML5 (which doesn't have a standard yet) do) is intellectually dishonest. </rant>
- dev_jim 16y agoWhatever bro. WebM isn't and will never be a browser standard so I'm not sure what you're getting at. None of the codecs will as stated in the HTML5 Specification. If you don't think de facto standards are important then you are clueless about the history of the internet and technology in general.
- gloob 16y agoIn fairness, bro, I never mentioned WebM in the post you are replying to, nor did I suggest that "de facto standards" are irrelevant. I merely disagreed with your use of the phrase "de facto standard" in and of itself.
- jamesaguilar 16y ago"Standard" has more than one meaning. In the phrase "de facto standard" I think the meaning is more in the direction of "something considered by an authority or by general consent as a basis of comparison." Or to put it another way, standards bodies do not, as you seem to be implying, have a monopoly on the word "standard".
- gloob 16y agoFair enough. If we take the "popular acclamation" theory of standardization, here's how it breaks down: h.264: IE, Safari WebM: Chrome, Firefox 4 Streaming video with Flash: all of the above In which case the most standardy standard is "h.264 over Flash", with native h.264 and native WebM tied for second place.
- jamesaguilar 16y agoIf you look at it from the perspective of the provider, the standard is h.264 files on the server, and various avenues through which you can deliver it. Saying WebM is tied for second place is vastly overstating its proximity in popularity space to h.264.
- jarek 16y ago> My parents could care less about whether the video is encoded in H.264 or Ogg. They just want it to work on their iPad. Shame their iPad doesn't support Flash then...
- sid0 16y agoAn ubiquitous solution is in the best interests of users. My parents could care less about whether the video is encoded in H.264 or Ogg. They just want it to work on their iPad. Depends on how you look at "best interests". Another way to look at it is that it's in your parents' best interest to see for themselves what a closed platform entails, and to think twice before investing in one in the future.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- csears 16y agoI suspect they think forcing open standards is in the best long term interests of users, much the same way Apple has chosen to support HTML5 by shunning Flash. Also, keep in mind that use of the HTML5 <video> tag is quite limited at the moment. The impact is quite minimal. If Google didn't make a move like this, WebM might not take off the way it needs to to challenge the closed alternatives.
- itg 16y agoYet they don't remove flash. Wouldn't that also be in the best long term interest for users?
- jamesaguilar 16y agoOne they can get away with because nobody cares. The other would kill the browser immediately.
- sid0 16y agoThe other would kill the browser immediately. Firefox doesn't bundle Flash either, and that hasn't killed it.
- jamesaguilar 16y agoI guess I was assuming that the request was to remove flash entirely and prohibit its addition through plugins. If the question is bundle versus don't bundle, my answer is confusion at the difference in end result. It's not an apples to apples comparison because not bundling H.264 is essentially the same as making it entirely unavailable.
- blasdel 16y agoWith Chrome(ium) you can just replace the copy of the libavcodec dll/so, and it magically supports whatever codecs the new one is built with. For Firefox, you'd have to fork it along with Gecko and XULRunner.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]