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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 ubiq

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.
- cdeutsch 16y ago
  I'll repeat my question, which browsers stopped rendering GIFs when it became an issue? I'm all for WebM. Let me know when consumers can use it and until then it's in your user's best interest to support H.264 because that's what the content I want to watch today is encoded in.
  - flyosity 16y ago
    Well the Android browser still can't render animated GIFs. There's a joke in here somewhere.
    - darrenkopp 16y ago
      probably on an old version of android. browser on my android phone does animated gifs fine
      - trezor 16y ago
        Seconding this. I'm running 2.2 and it seems any application (for instance Google reader) coming across a animated GIF, gets just that: An animated GIF.
- tertius 16y ago
  Well put. If h.264 compatibility is left usable in Chrome then there is no reason to switch.
- tzs 16y ago
  WebM has zero chance of replacing h264 as the dominant video standard. The time it would take to do that is longer than the remaining lifetime on the h264 patents, and once the patents expire there is no reason for anyone to use WebM.
  - jarek 16y ago
    Really? You're guaranteeing zero chance of any event happening in IT until 2028? 17 years from now? In the same industry in which 17 years ago it was 1994 and Yahoo! wasn't called Yahoo! yet? In the same web space in which 6 years ago it was early 2005 and Youtube wasn't created yet? May I borrow your crystal ball for a couple of minutes, please?
bane 16y ago
Why does it double your encoding cost? Support the majority of the market first, then the minority if you can squeeze it in in your cost structure. iOS devices are the minority devices, they naturally come second. Supporting some single or low double digit market share at the expense of the vaster share doesn't make any sense. It's like owning a fuel station that only offers electricity and hydrogen and then complaining that it'll increase your costs to stock regular old petrol and diesel.

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.

cdeutsch 16y ago
I'll repeat my question, which browsers stopped rendering GIFs when it became an issue? I'm all for WebM. Let me know when consumers can use it and until then it's in your user's best interest to support H.264 because that's what the content I want to watch today is encoded in.
- flyosity 16y ago
  Well the Android browser still can't render animated GIFs. There's a joke in here somewhere.
  - darrenkopp 16y ago
    probably on an old version of android. browser on my android phone does animated gifs fine
    - trezor 16y ago
      Seconding this. I'm running 2.2 and it seems any application (for instance Google reader) coming across a animated GIF, gets just that: An animated GIF.
tertius 16y ago
Well put. If h.264 compatibility is left usable in Chrome then there is no reason to switch.
tzs 16y ago
WebM has zero chance of replacing h264 as the dominant video standard. The time it would take to do that is longer than the remaining lifetime on the h264 patents, and once the patents expire there is no reason for anyone to use WebM.
- jarek 16y ago
  Really? You're guaranteeing zero chance of any event happening in IT until 2028? 17 years from now? In the same industry in which 17 years ago it was 1994 and Yahoo! wasn't called Yahoo! yet? In the same web space in which 6 years ago it was early 2005 and Youtube wasn't created yet? May I borrow your crystal ball for a couple of minutes, please?

bane 16y ago

Why does it double your encoding cost? Support the majority of the market first, then the minority if you can squeeze it in in your cost structure. iOS devices are the minority devices, they naturally come second. Supporting some single or low double digit market share at the expense of the vaster share doesn't make any sense. It's like owning a fuel station that only offers electricity and hydrogen and then complaining that it'll increase your costs to stock regular old petrol and diesel.