6 ms·

People should really blame MS and Apple for only supporting their own video codec here. I am fully behind the decision of Mozilla, Opera, Google and others to s

by buster 16y ago

People should really blame MS and Apple for only supporting their own video codec here. I am fully behind the decision of Mozilla, Opera, Google and others to support open and patent unencumbered video formats. Can someone just look at the table at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML5_video http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML5_video and really tell me that this mess isn't the fault of MS and Apple in the first place? Ogg is ready to play a big role and WebM is catching up. The only blocking factor here is Internet Explorer and Safari, not Chrome.

mikeryan 16y ago
WebM is a relatively new entrant into the encoding field, Only getting opened up in the last 8 months. Ogg has always been a fairly significantly worse codec then H264. "Even the 1mbps Ogg Theora clips are not on par with the 468 kbps h264 clips."[1] Considering that MS and Apple have been working in video for a long time now they chose the codec with the best available experience for their users (who aren't the ones picking up the licensing fees). [1] http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2010/02/ogg-theora-vs-h264-head-to-head-comparisons.ars http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2010/02/ogg-theora-v...
- buster 16y ago
  I must say that the ogg video samples i have seen are not as good as the h.264 samples. But good enough for probably 90% of internet video. Anyway, i think WebM comes very close already (i actually don't see differences): http://www.quavlive.com/video_codec_comparison http://www.quavlive.com/video_codec_comparison Instead of embracing the patent encumbered codec we should be thankful for Google to actually buy a codec (VP8) and release it _for free_. I couldn't imagine this from any other company. Still many people just want their h.264 no matter what. It's bad for a free and open internet, that's my belief.
  - jarek 16y ago
    > Still many people just want their h.264 no matter what. Then they can use a browser whose creators decide to pay for the license.
- lukeschlather 16y ago
  Ogg is not a codec. (Seriously, I was unsure if the OP was talking about Ogg the container or Vorbis or Theora.)
  - mikeryan 16y ago
    yeah I know - neither is WebM, I'm just sticking with the idioms currently being used.
tzs 16y ago
> People should really blame MS and Apple for only supporting their own video codec here. H.264 is not Apple's codec, nor is it Microsoft's. Both of them have to license it, just like any random company off the street would. Apple does own one or two of the several hundred patents involved, so might get a very slight discount on their license. > I am fully behind the decision of Mozilla, Opera, Google and others to support open and patent unencumbered video formats. WebM is probably patent encumbered. We just don't know who owns the patents yet.
- minalecs 16y ago
  edit [removed no citation available]
  - webXL 16y ago
    Got a source for that? Nada @ http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/private/board.asp?privcapId=4458054 http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/private/bo...
    - buster 16y ago
      You mean http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/AVC/Pages/Licensors.aspx http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/AVC/Pages/Licensors.aspx ? That's the list of companies that license the codec to others and of course they get money for that. You do see Apple and Microsoft on the list, do you? What you don't see is Google, Mozilla, Opera and every other competitor..
    - webXL 16y ago
      So, buster, using your logic, if Pepsi uses an ad agency that Coke doesn't use, then Pepsi on that ad agency's board?
      - buster 16y ago
        According to my logic i can tell if a company is giving the right to license its product to others, that this company will most likely get money for it. Do you really think Mircrosoft is like "oh, well. MPEG-LA, we hand over the rights for our patens to you. Do as you wish with those patents and also please give the license fees to the other companies. But please don't give us money!"? ;) You do know that the MPEG-LAs purpose is to collect the rights to those patents from those companies (the licensors) and collects money from the licensees, redistributing it to the licensors. Now Apple and MS are on the list of licensors. And they don't get money, you say? And never will? sure... :)
scottbruin 16y ago
As others have said, it's not "their own video codec." Also, it's not clear that WebM is not patent-encumbered in some way. Secondly, Apple "picked" H.264 as a format nearly four years ago when they built the original iPhone with hardware decoding, before WebM existed and likely before some of the code for WebM was written. Third, whatwg tried to pick one single codec in 2009. Again, this was well before WebM existed in its current state. Back then, the two options were: 1) Ogg Theora 2) H.264 Read Ian Hickson's summary of the different browser vendors' positions from 2009: http://lists.whatwg.org/pipermail/whatwg-whatwg.org/2009-June/020620.html http://lists.whatwg.org/pipermail/whatwg-whatwg.org/2009-Jun... As you'll note, it boiled down to "we're okay with H.264 because we can afford it and want to support something now" vs. "it's too expensive and we'll wait." Microsoft was late to the game or apathetic. WebM was released by Google 7 months ago. Think about that! You expect a company like Apple whose business lies primarily in mobile devices that are capable of hardware decoding H.264 video to suddenly pivot and widely implement a codec released by a company that is increasingly competing with its core business and that has an unclear patent future and inferior technology. A table of the current state of implemented tech features is not the same as knowing the history behind these decisions.
- buster 16y ago
  Afaik, HTML5 is not finished yet. They could still settle for a codec, i guess? Will this happen? Not with all the money that is to be made out of license fees in the future. But nevertheless, it's the right move to drop support for H.264, imo. No single part of the internet as we know it should be "owned" by a few companies (see the very good comment about the GIF format at http://news.ycombinator.net/item?id=2094591 http://news.ycombinator.net/item?id=2094591 ). Why are so many against the proprietary Flash format but embrace the H.264 codec? Google even invested 133 million dollar to buy On2 and offer the world an alternative.
  - scottbruin 16y ago
    I'm not for or against either—that's why I wanted to step back and make sure we're talking about this in terms of the history of the issue. Sure, I have my preference for how I'd like to see things pan out as a developer who just managed a 6 month project deploying video to a large client base. > Why are so many against the proprietary Flash format but embrace the H.264 codec? This is the wrong question to me. A more apt comparison is to JPEG or GIF. Considering the work I just did, it's like comparing JPEG to Bitmap—of course I like JPEG better, and its licensing issues have been transparent to me as a developer and end-user. As a developer, I dislike Flash because: 1. it's slow on my computer 2. it requires another language for client-side development, 3. it breaks how the web "works" (open in new window, back button, etc.) 4. it costs me a developer money as opposed to the browser vendor If you look at the above list, the web going the way of H.264 has none of these problems. Personally, I'd like a single video format but wish that WebM had come along two years ago instead of causing another transition in video formats.

by buster 16y ago

mikeryan 16y ago

WebM is a relatively new entrant into the encoding field, Only getting opened up in the last 8 months. Ogg has always been a fairly significantly worse codec then H264. "Even the 1mbps Ogg Theora clips are not on par with the 468 kbps h264 clips."[1] Considering that MS and Apple have been working in video for a long time now they chose the codec with the best available experience for their users (who aren't the ones picking up the licensing fees). [1] http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2010/02/ogg-theora-vs-h264-head-to-head-comparisons.ars http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2010/02/ogg-theora-v...

buster 16y ago
I must say that the ogg video samples i have seen are not as good as the h.264 samples. But good enough for probably 90% of internet video. Anyway, i think WebM comes very close already (i actually don't see differences): http://www.quavlive.com/video_codec_comparison http://www.quavlive.com/video_codec_comparison Instead of embracing the patent encumbered codec we should be thankful for Google to actually buy a codec (VP8) and release it _for free_. I couldn't imagine this from any other company. Still many people just want their h.264 no matter what. It's bad for a free and open internet, that's my belief.
- jarek 16y ago
  > Still many people just want their h.264 no matter what. Then they can use a browser whose creators decide to pay for the license.
lukeschlather 16y ago
Ogg is not a codec. (Seriously, I was unsure if the OP was talking about Ogg the container or Vorbis or Theora.)
- mikeryan 16y ago
  yeah I know - neither is WebM, I'm just sticking with the idioms currently being used.

tzs 16y ago

> People should really blame MS and Apple for only supporting their own video codec here. H.264 is not Apple's codec, nor is it Microsoft's. Both of them have to license it, just like any random company off the street would. Apple does own one or two of the several hundred patents involved, so might get a very slight discount on their license. > I am fully behind the decision of Mozilla, Opera, Google and others to support open and patent unencumbered video formats. WebM is probably patent encumbered. We just don't know who owns the patents yet.

minalecs 16y ago
edit [removed no citation available]
- webXL 16y ago
  Got a source for that? Nada @ http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/private/board.asp?privcapId=4458054 http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/private/bo...
  - buster 16y ago
    You mean http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/AVC/Pages/Licensors.aspx http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/AVC/Pages/Licensors.aspx ? That's the list of companies that license the codec to others and of course they get money for that. You do see Apple and Microsoft on the list, do you? What you don't see is Google, Mozilla, Opera and every other competitor..
  - webXL 16y ago
    So, buster, using your logic, if Pepsi uses an ad agency that Coke doesn't use, then Pepsi on that ad agency's board?
    - buster 16y ago
      According to my logic i can tell if a company is giving the right to license its product to others, that this company will most likely get money for it. Do you really think Mircrosoft is like "oh, well. MPEG-LA, we hand over the rights for our patens to you. Do as you wish with those patents and also please give the license fees to the other companies. But please don't give us money!"? ;) You do know that the MPEG-LAs purpose is to collect the rights to those patents from those companies (the licensors) and collects money from the licensees, redistributing it to the licensors. Now Apple and MS are on the list of licensors. And they don't get money, you say? And never will? sure... :)

scottbruin 16y ago

As others have said, it's not "their own video codec." Also, it's not clear that WebM is not patent-encumbered in some way. Secondly, Apple "picked" H.264 as a format nearly four years ago when they built the original iPhone with hardware decoding, before WebM existed and likely before some of the code for WebM was written. Third, whatwg tried to pick one single codec in 2009. Again, this was well before WebM existed in its current state. Back then, the two options were: 1) Ogg Theora 2) H.264 Read Ian Hickson's summary of the different browser vendors' positions from 2009: http://lists.whatwg.org/pipermail/whatwg-whatwg.org/2009-June/020620.html http://lists.whatwg.org/pipermail/whatwg-whatwg.org/2009-Jun... As you'll note, it boiled down to "we're okay with H.264 because we can afford it and want to support something now" vs. "it's too expensive and we'll wait." Microsoft was late to the game or apathetic. WebM was released by Google 7 months ago. Think about that! You expect a company like Apple whose business lies primarily in mobile devices that are capable of hardware decoding H.264 video to suddenly pivot and widely implement a codec released by a company that is increasingly competing with its core business and that has an unclear patent future and inferior technology. A table of the current state of implemented tech features is not the same as knowing the history behind these decisions.

buster 16y ago
Afaik, HTML5 is not finished yet. They could still settle for a codec, i guess? Will this happen? Not with all the money that is to be made out of license fees in the future. But nevertheless, it's the right move to drop support for H.264, imo. No single part of the internet as we know it should be "owned" by a few companies (see the very good comment about the GIF format at http://news.ycombinator.net/item?id=2094591 http://news.ycombinator.net/item?id=2094591 ). Why are so many against the proprietary Flash format but embrace the H.264 codec? Google even invested 133 million dollar to buy On2 and offer the world an alternative.
- scottbruin 16y ago
  I'm not for or against either—that's why I wanted to step back and make sure we're talking about this in terms of the history of the issue. Sure, I have my preference for how I'd like to see things pan out as a developer who just managed a 6 month project deploying video to a large client base. > Why are so many against the proprietary Flash format but embrace the H.264 codec? This is the wrong question to me. A more apt comparison is to JPEG or GIF. Considering the work I just did, it's like comparing JPEG to Bitmap—of course I like JPEG better, and its licensing issues have been transparent to me as a developer and end-user. As a developer, I dislike Flash because: 1. it's slow on my computer 2. it requires another language for client-side development, 3. it breaks how the web "works" (open in new window, back button, etc.) 4. it costs me a developer money as opposed to the browser vendor If you look at the above list, the web going the way of H.264 has none of these problems. Personally, I'd like a single video format but wish that WebM had come along two years ago instead of causing another transition in video formats.