7 ms·

Google shows once more that they are visionary company with long-term outlook and an outlook on business that allows them to invest in things that benefit every

by kjksf 16y ago

Google shows once more that they are visionary company with long-term outlook and an outlook on business that allows them to invest in things that benefit everybody and not just them. Video on the web is popular hence it's important. It's also the only part of the web where the de-facto standard (h264) is owned by a commercial entity which has a grip on the technology not through continuous technological excellence but by a patent grab. It's a huge disaster waiting to happen. It has happened in the past (see gif patent and the money grab that ensued). It's naive to think that mpeg la consortium is not aware of how much money they could possibly make by starting to enforce their licensing. And when they do, that will be bad for everyone creating and publishing video on the web. Web video on the web is currently living on a good will of commercial entity who might just think of it as freemium model: make them dependent on your product until they can't use an alternative and then make them pay. Google (along with Mozilla) should be commended for spending millions of dollars to decrease the probability of such a disaster happening. Even if WebM doesn't surpass h264 it might just be enough insurance to make mpeg la not start a money grab in fear of loosing completely to WebM. We need a free standard for video on the web, just like we have them for everything else, and Google is spending considerable resources to make it happen. As to Gruber: he has no credibility asking Google tough questions. His pro-Apple and anti-Google biases are bigger than iceberg that sank titanic. More important question is: when will Apple and Microsoft start helping us avoid future video disaster on the web? And where is Gruber asking "who is happy about this" when Apple continuously censors App Store and refuses to allow developer publish apps that users want to use? When Apple is more interested in their petty vendetta against Adobe than in what they users want. Etc. If you want to ask tough questions, then ask them, just not selectively.

ot 16y ago
> [...] the de-facto standard (h264) is owned by a commercial entity which has a grip on the technology not through continuous technological excellence but by a patent grab. Who? > It's naive to think that mpeg la consortium is not aware of how much money they could possibly make by starting to enforce their licensing. From Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.264/MPEG-4_AVC#Patent_licensing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.264/MPEG-4_AVC#Patent_licensi...): On August 26, 2010 MPEG LA announced that H.264 encoded internet video that is free to end users will never be charged for royalties.
- jarek 16y ago
  That's okay, they'll still rake it in when browser makers and hardware manufacturers pay for /their/ H.264 license.
- jbri 16y ago
  Right. Because end users are the only people who matter, and it's not like the MPEG-LA could start charging ridiculous fees to anyone who, I don't know, wants to build a decoder from source or something. Oh wait...
- true_religion 16y ago
  The next line reads: > All other royalties will remain in place such as the royalties for products that decode and encode H.264 video.[12] The license terms are updated in 5-year blocks.[13] Secondly 'end users' by their definition doesn't include content creators who distribute or encode video. The consortium is going after the supply side, not the demand side. To me, this is a good idea because suppliers are typically large or at least static entities that can easily be identified, and charged. Trying to catch end-users is a fools errand, and makes one a target for hatred ala the RIAA.
  - bryanlarsen 16y ago
    Suppliers are also people who take videos of their kids and post them on the internet.
    - jarek 16y ago
      The people taking videos of their kids won't be doing H.264. Their videocams and/or their Youtubes will be doing the encoding, and their browsers will be doing the decoding. In both cases, larger organizations which are easier to bill.
      - bzbarsky 16y ago
        Your videocamera's license for H.264, if you actually read it, is likely quite restrictive. If you use it to film a video, post the video on youtube, and get any revenue from the ads on the resulting youtube page, you're in violation of the license terms, for example, for every single video camera I've seen.
svlla 16y ago
sounds like you think WebM is not patent encumbered. that's actually an open question. the only thing Google has done is sent users back into Adobe's arms for h.264 playback.
- jbri 16y ago
  Do you feel that WebM is patent encumbered? Can you point to any pre-existing patents that you feel it is covered by?
  - svlla 16y ago
    Do you feel that Google is going to get companies to make hardware decoders for WebM? Can you point to any statement from Google, given that WebM is similar to H.264, that explains how WebM manages to avoid all H.264-related patents and/or will indemnify users from patent claims?
    - drivebyacct2 16y ago
      Hardware decoders already exist for VP8.
      - app 16y ago
        Are there any you can buy today? I honestly don't know of any. EDIT: Thanks, I guess the answer is no...
        drivebyacct2 16y ago
        First Google result. :) Cheers: http://blog.webmproject.org/2011/01/availability-of-webm-vp8-video-hardware.html http://blog.webmproject.org/2011/01/availability-of-webm-vp8...
    - kjksf 16y ago
      Question about hardware: http://blog.webmproject.org/2011/01/availability-of-webm-vp8-video-hardware.html http://blog.webmproject.org/2011/01/availability-of-webm-vp8..., http://mashable.com/2010/05/19/vp8-webm-support/ http://mashable.com/2010/05/19/vp8-webm-support/ Your patent FUD: any software can be potentially sued for patent infringement. You can't prove the opposite. See Oracle vs. Google on Java patents and a number of other examples. Pointing that out about WebM software specifically is not insightful. You can make the exact "but can you prove it doesn't infringe patents" statements about any software product. There are, however, reasons to believe that WebM does indeed avoids patents. 1. It's a technology that has been created and commercially licensed by On2 for years. In all those years no one sued On2. 2. On2 licensees (including Adobe) were confident enough about the technology being patent-free to pay good money for the license. 3. Google, presumably, is not stupid and didn't pay hundreds of millions of dollars without doing a technology evaluation, including potential patent issues. 4. Even if someone sues WebM, Google has a better chance than most to defend it. So while no one can ever satisfy people demanding impossible proof of WebM being safe from patent threats, there are very good reasons to believe it is indeed safe.
naner 16y ago
It's also the only part of the web where the de-facto standard (h264) is owned by a commercial entity Flash is still used for video more than H.264 both for historical reasons and because it has some (albeit rudimentary) content protection. Goolge is supporting/promoting Flash in Chrome. Ostensibly for security reasons, but it is not an easy move to explain. Google is dropping H.264 in their browser for strategic reasons.
- knorby 16y ago
  The rudimentary copy protection of Flash/Silverlight can't be overlooked with this decision. I can't imagine the likes of Hulu or Netflix to ever seriously think that they would be allowed to support a HTML5 player. Only the likes of Youtube and Vimeo will seriously have to think about this issue in the short-term.
- sitmack 16y ago
  Everyone had to have two copies of video anyway. One for firefox (WebM only) and H.264 for iOS devices. The only thing this has done is shift the sizes of the pie. And for the better. LET THERE BE PIE!
jbrennan 16y ago
I realize Gruber is very pro-Apple, but this article makes no mention of them. In fact, it seems this article is solely in terms of Google (and just slightly Adobe, and a few content providers). Imagine, if you will, this was written by someone who wasn't pro-Apple. Does it not all ring entirely just as true?
- astrodust 16y ago
  Gruber is very pro a lot of things, but Apple fits in well with what he's championing in life. If he comes across as biased it's that he's enthusiastic about the same things Apple embraces. If you switched the byline to someone else, like John Dvorak, and showed this to people they might have trouble refuting it once their ad-homeneim attack option is gone.
  - Daishiman 16y ago
    No, he comes off as biased because whenever Apple flip-flops in an opinion Gruber is always standing by to defend them, even when the switch is, by all standards, incoherent. Four years ago Apple was all about claiming UI superiority through consistency. Now it's "old". If Apple had had tighter supervision on iOS UIs I'm sure Gruber would have never said what he did. This is but one example among many.
  - jasonlotito 16y ago
    My problem is that Gruber is being hypocritical. Apple apparently can decide what to support in their browser and on their devices, but Google is required to support things in their browser based on other's demands?
DavidSJ 16y ago
As to Gruber: he has no credibility asking Google tough questions. Why do you need credibility to ask questions?
- randall 16y ago
  And furthermore, content creators are going to be asking these exact same questions.
  - jrockway 16y ago
    I'm a content creator. The question I had before is, "why should I pay money for a fucking video format". Now the answer is, "you shouldn't". Hating Google is pretty low on my todo list.
    - moxiemk1 16y ago
      Video formats are extremely complex and require huge amounts of expertise to make. With your logic, why should I pay money for content? So far, it seems to be impossible to prevent ripping and transcoding, so maybe the answer would be "you shouldn't".
      - nitrogen 16y ago
        Actually, AIUI a lot of the concepts in modern codecs have been tossed around academia for quite a long time. See this highly informative and empowering video: http://xiph.org/video/vid1.shtml http://xiph.org/video/vid1.shtml
      - pornel 16y ago
        > Video formats are extremely complex and require huge amounts of expertise to make. And yet, we have volunteers with knowledge who are constrained by patents (I'm sure x264 guys could come up with an awesome codec, and Theora team could do much better if they weren't limited to technology they got patents for), And we have companies willing to support development of codecs (BBC Dirac, Google) which, again, are constrained by patents.
cdeutsch 16y ago
How does it benefit me right now? As a person who deals in video on the web, they want to instantly double my cost to encode video by fragmenting the near ubiquity H.264 currently offers. As an iOS device and xBox owner they want to obsolete my hardware. As a Chrome user, they want to force me to use the crappy Flash player to view H.264 content. I don't understand why they can't promote and improve WebM and maintain H.264 compatibility. Which browsers stopped rendering GIFs when it became an issue?
- jarek 16y ago
  > How does it benefit me right now? The same way iOS not having Flash benefitted you right when you bought it: it doesn't, but in the long term it'll be a good thing.
- kjksf 16y ago
  This is a short term thinking. Let's go back and time, say before December 24, 1994. A time when GIF is used for majority of graphics on the web and PNG is just a blimp. You would have used exactly the same reasoning to say that GIF is just fine, PNG doesn't benefit you right now and PNG supporters just want to force unnecessary work to convert GIFs to PNGs. And then on December 24, 1994 "Unisys stated that they expected all major commercial on-line information services companies employing the LZW patent to license the technology from Unisys at a reasonable rate, but that they would not require licensing, or fees to be paid, for non-commercial, non-profit GIF-based applications, including those for use on the on-line services". And then "In August 1999, Unisys changed the details of their licensing practice, announcing the option for owners of Billboard and Intra net Web sites to obtain licenses on payment of a one-time license fee of $5000 or $7500.[18] Such licenses were not required for website owners or other GIF users who had used licensed software to generate GIFs." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphics_Interchange_Format#Unisys_and_LZW_patent_enforcement http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphics_Interchange_Format#Uni... Before Unisys decided to start enforcing the patent, everything was fine with using GIF and there was no need to do the work. But after they did decide to start enforcing it, potentially every person using GIF to publish images on the web was liable for GIF licensing fees. Web luckily survived that one without major disruption and after the fact PNG is now the standard used. WebM is a defensive weapon to make sure that the history won't repeat itself, this time with video format. The tactic used by Google is risky but on the other hand if no one takes a stand, we will never get rid of h264 as de-facto dominant standard and we'll get a GIF-like money grab. You have just told us that you're only interested in short-term convenience even if it'll cost you big time in the future. That's understandable and most people will act exactly the same. Which is why the only way to replace proprietary h264 with an open, royalty-free technology is to make it inconvenient for people to use h264 and more convenient to use WebM. Google is doing exactly that.
jvdh 16y ago
The main point of Grubers' criticism is that Google is being hypocritical by dropping H.264, but still keeping Flash. If Google would really be visionaries with such great long-term outlooks, then why would they allow Flash, which is owned by a single company which has shown time and again that they can not handle that product responsibly? Granted, Google is currently making every effort to sandbox the Flash player as tightly as possible. But they are still shipping Chrome with it.
isleyaardvark 16y ago
> And where is Gruber asking "who is happy about this" when Apple continuously censors App Store and refuses to allow developer publish apps that users want to use? Gruber has consistently been highly critical about Apple's App Store policies: http://daringfireball.net/2008/09/app_store_exclusion http://daringfireball.net/2008/09/app_store_exclusion http://daringfireball.net/linked/2010/04/16/scratch http://daringfireball.net/linked/2010/04/16/scratch http://daringfireball.net/linked/2010/04/16/app-store-rejection-fiore http://daringfireball.net/linked/2010/04/16/app-store-reject... http://daringfireball.net/linked/2009/09/29/isinglepayer http://daringfireball.net/linked/2009/09/29/isinglepayer ...to name just a few. I don't know how you could read his work and not realize that. And I really get sick of people making these sort of snide and outright false comments about Gruber.

by kjksf 16y ago

ot 16y ago

> [...] the de-facto standard (h264) is owned by a commercial entity which has a grip on the technology not through continuous technological excellence but by a patent grab. Who? > It's naive to think that mpeg la consortium is not aware of how much money they could possibly make by starting to enforce their licensing. From Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.264/MPEG-4_AVC#Patent_licensing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.264/MPEG-4_AVC#Patent_licensi...): On August 26, 2010 MPEG LA announced that H.264 encoded internet video that is free to end users will never be charged for royalties.

jarek 16y ago
That's okay, they'll still rake it in when browser makers and hardware manufacturers pay for /their/ H.264 license.
jbri 16y ago
Right. Because end users are the only people who matter, and it's not like the MPEG-LA could start charging ridiculous fees to anyone who, I don't know, wants to build a decoder from source or something. Oh wait...
true_religion 16y ago
The next line reads: > All other royalties will remain in place such as the royalties for products that decode and encode H.264 video.[12] The license terms are updated in 5-year blocks.[13] Secondly 'end users' by their definition doesn't include content creators who distribute or encode video. The consortium is going after the supply side, not the demand side. To me, this is a good idea because suppliers are typically large or at least static entities that can easily be identified, and charged. Trying to catch end-users is a fools errand, and makes one a target for hatred ala the RIAA.
- bryanlarsen 16y ago
  Suppliers are also people who take videos of their kids and post them on the internet.
  - jarek 16y ago
    The people taking videos of their kids won't be doing H.264. Their videocams and/or their Youtubes will be doing the encoding, and their browsers will be doing the decoding. In both cases, larger organizations which are easier to bill.
    - bzbarsky 16y ago
      Your videocamera's license for H.264, if you actually read it, is likely quite restrictive. If you use it to film a video, post the video on youtube, and get any revenue from the ads on the resulting youtube page, you're in violation of the license terms, for example, for every single video camera I've seen.

svlla 16y ago

sounds like you think WebM is not patent encumbered. that's actually an open question. the only thing Google has done is sent users back into Adobe's arms for h.264 playback.

jbri 16y ago
Do you feel that WebM is patent encumbered? Can you point to any pre-existing patents that you feel it is covered by?
- svlla 16y ago
  Do you feel that Google is going to get companies to make hardware decoders for WebM? Can you point to any statement from Google, given that WebM is similar to H.264, that explains how WebM manages to avoid all H.264-related patents and/or will indemnify users from patent claims?
  - drivebyacct2 16y ago
    Hardware decoders already exist for VP8.
    - app 16y ago
      Are there any you can buy today? I honestly don't know of any. EDIT: Thanks, I guess the answer is no...
      - drivebyacct2 16y ago
        First Google result. :) Cheers: http://blog.webmproject.org/2011/01/availability-of-webm-vp8-video-hardware.html http://blog.webmproject.org/2011/01/availability-of-webm-vp8...
  - kjksf 16y ago
    Question about hardware: http://blog.webmproject.org/2011/01/availability-of-webm-vp8-video-hardware.html http://blog.webmproject.org/2011/01/availability-of-webm-vp8..., http://mashable.com/2010/05/19/vp8-webm-support/ http://mashable.com/2010/05/19/vp8-webm-support/ Your patent FUD: any software can be potentially sued for patent infringement. You can't prove the opposite. See Oracle vs. Google on Java patents and a number of other examples. Pointing that out about WebM software specifically is not insightful. You can make the exact "but can you prove it doesn't infringe patents" statements about any software product. There are, however, reasons to believe that WebM does indeed avoids patents. 1. It's a technology that has been created and commercially licensed by On2 for years. In all those years no one sued On2. 2. On2 licensees (including Adobe) were confident enough about the technology being patent-free to pay good money for the license. 3. Google, presumably, is not stupid and didn't pay hundreds of millions of dollars without doing a technology evaluation, including potential patent issues. 4. Even if someone sues WebM, Google has a better chance than most to defend it. So while no one can ever satisfy people demanding impossible proof of WebM being safe from patent threats, there are very good reasons to believe it is indeed safe.

naner 16y ago

It's also the only part of the web where the de-facto standard (h264) is owned by a commercial entity Flash is still used for video more than H.264 both for historical reasons and because it has some (albeit rudimentary) content protection. Goolge is supporting/promoting Flash in Chrome. Ostensibly for security reasons, but it is not an easy move to explain. Google is dropping H.264 in their browser for strategic reasons.

knorby 16y ago
The rudimentary copy protection of Flash/Silverlight can't be overlooked with this decision. I can't imagine the likes of Hulu or Netflix to ever seriously think that they would be allowed to support a HTML5 player. Only the likes of Youtube and Vimeo will seriously have to think about this issue in the short-term.
sitmack 16y ago
Everyone had to have two copies of video anyway. One for firefox (WebM only) and H.264 for iOS devices. The only thing this has done is shift the sizes of the pie. And for the better. LET THERE BE PIE!

jbrennan 16y ago

I realize Gruber is very pro-Apple, but this article makes no mention of them. In fact, it seems this article is solely in terms of Google (and just slightly Adobe, and a few content providers). Imagine, if you will, this was written by someone who wasn't pro-Apple. Does it not all ring entirely just as true?

astrodust 16y ago
Gruber is very pro a lot of things, but Apple fits in well with what he's championing in life. If he comes across as biased it's that he's enthusiastic about the same things Apple embraces. If you switched the byline to someone else, like John Dvorak, and showed this to people they might have trouble refuting it once their ad-homeneim attack option is gone.
- Daishiman 16y ago
  No, he comes off as biased because whenever Apple flip-flops in an opinion Gruber is always standing by to defend them, even when the switch is, by all standards, incoherent. Four years ago Apple was all about claiming UI superiority through consistency. Now it's "old". If Apple had had tighter supervision on iOS UIs I'm sure Gruber would have never said what he did. This is but one example among many.
- jasonlotito 16y ago
  My problem is that Gruber is being hypocritical. Apple apparently can decide what to support in their browser and on their devices, but Google is required to support things in their browser based on other's demands?

DavidSJ 16y ago

As to Gruber: he has no credibility asking Google tough questions. Why do you need credibility to ask questions?

randall 16y ago
And furthermore, content creators are going to be asking these exact same questions.
- jrockway 16y ago
  I'm a content creator. The question I had before is, "why should I pay money for a fucking video format". Now the answer is, "you shouldn't". Hating Google is pretty low on my todo list.
  - moxiemk1 16y ago
    Video formats are extremely complex and require huge amounts of expertise to make. With your logic, why should I pay money for content? So far, it seems to be impossible to prevent ripping and transcoding, so maybe the answer would be "you shouldn't".
    - nitrogen 16y ago
      Actually, AIUI a lot of the concepts in modern codecs have been tossed around academia for quite a long time. See this highly informative and empowering video: http://xiph.org/video/vid1.shtml http://xiph.org/video/vid1.shtml
    - pornel 16y ago
      > Video formats are extremely complex and require huge amounts of expertise to make. And yet, we have volunteers with knowledge who are constrained by patents (I'm sure x264 guys could come up with an awesome codec, and Theora team could do much better if they weren't limited to technology they got patents for), And we have companies willing to support development of codecs (BBC Dirac, Google) which, again, are constrained by patents.

cdeutsch 16y ago

How does it benefit me right now? As a person who deals in video on the web, they want to instantly double my cost to encode video by fragmenting the near ubiquity H.264 currently offers. As an iOS device and xBox owner they want to obsolete my hardware. As a Chrome user, they want to force me to use the crappy Flash player to view H.264 content. I don't understand why they can't promote and improve WebM and maintain H.264 compatibility. Which browsers stopped rendering GIFs when it became an issue?

jarek 16y ago
> How does it benefit me right now? The same way iOS not having Flash benefitted you right when you bought it: it doesn't, but in the long term it'll be a good thing.
kjksf 16y ago
This is a short term thinking. Let's go back and time, say before December 24, 1994. A time when GIF is used for majority of graphics on the web and PNG is just a blimp. You would have used exactly the same reasoning to say that GIF is just fine, PNG doesn't benefit you right now and PNG supporters just want to force unnecessary work to convert GIFs to PNGs. And then on December 24, 1994 "Unisys stated that they expected all major commercial on-line information services companies employing the LZW patent to license the technology from Unisys at a reasonable rate, but that they would not require licensing, or fees to be paid, for non-commercial, non-profit GIF-based applications, including those for use on the on-line services". And then "In August 1999, Unisys changed the details of their licensing practice, announcing the option for owners of Billboard and Intra net Web sites to obtain licenses on payment of a one-time license fee of $5000 or $7500.[18] Such licenses were not required for website owners or other GIF users who had used licensed software to generate GIFs." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphics_Interchange_Format#Unisys_and_LZW_patent_enforcement http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphics_Interchange_Format#Uni... Before Unisys decided to start enforcing the patent, everything was fine with using GIF and there was no need to do the work. But after they did decide to start enforcing it, potentially every person using GIF to publish images on the web was liable for GIF licensing fees. Web luckily survived that one without major disruption and after the fact PNG is now the standard used. WebM is a defensive weapon to make sure that the history won't repeat itself, this time with video format. The tactic used by Google is risky but on the other hand if no one takes a stand, we will never get rid of h264 as de-facto dominant standard and we'll get a GIF-like money grab. You have just told us that you're only interested in short-term convenience even if it'll cost you big time in the future. That's understandable and most people will act exactly the same. Which is why the only way to replace proprietary h264 with an open, royalty-free technology is to make it inconvenient for people to use h264 and more convenient to use WebM. Google is doing exactly that.

jvdh 16y ago

The main point of Grubers' criticism is that Google is being hypocritical by dropping H.264, but still keeping Flash. If Google would really be visionaries with such great long-term outlooks, then why would they allow Flash, which is owned by a single company which has shown time and again that they can not handle that product responsibly? Granted, Google is currently making every effort to sandbox the Flash player as tightly as possible. But they are still shipping Chrome with it.

isleyaardvark 16y ago

> And where is Gruber asking "who is happy about this" when Apple continuously censors App Store and refuses to allow developer publish apps that users want to use? Gruber has consistently been highly critical about Apple's App Store policies: http://daringfireball.net/2008/09/app_store_exclusion http://daringfireball.net/2008/09/app_store_exclusion http://daringfireball.net/linked/2010/04/16/scratch http://daringfireball.net/linked/2010/04/16/scratch http://daringfireball.net/linked/2010/04/16/app-store-rejection-fiore http://daringfireball.net/linked/2010/04/16/app-store-reject... http://daringfireball.net/linked/2009/09/29/isinglepayer http://daringfireball.net/linked/2009/09/29/isinglepayer ...to name just a few. I don't know how you could read his work and not realize that. And I really get sick of people making these sort of snide and outright false comments about Gruber.