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What I don't understand is how Chrome can remove h.264 (which is widely used) because they want 'openness', while at the same time shipping a browser (Chrome) w
by danudey 16y ago
What I don't understand is how Chrome can remove h.264 (which is widely used) because they want 'openness', while at the same time shipping a browser (Chrome) where you cannot remove Flash (which continues to support H.264). It seems here that keeping H.264 support and dropping Flash would be more in the name of openness.
(Edit: bane points out that you can disable Flash in Chrome. My original point still stands, but my wording was misleading.)
As with most things Google does, I don't see this as being in the interest of 'openness' at all. I feel more like what they really want is a format that they can control and add features to (such as, for example, embedded advertising).
In the end, Google is a business, and its business is ads. Everything Google does is about either delivering ads to people (Google Mail), making sure it's their ads that are delivered (YouTube), or about making sure they don't get locked out of a market (Android).
So here's my question: where's the money here? It's obviously far more expensive at this point to use WebM than H.264, so what financial motivation is there for them to push the WebM codec this hard this fast?
- bane 16y agowhile at the same time shipping a browser (Chrome) where you cannot remove Flash (which continues to support H.264) You can turn off flash in Chrome about:plugins
- lovskogen 16y agoFlash is fading away, and should be kept for legacy reasons for a while. But not dropping h.264 now would make for another proprietary decade on the web.
- DannoHung 16y agoI think a proprietary video codec is significantly less open-threatening than a proprietary runtime. For one thing, the codec will eventually lose its patent protections. The runtime will continue to evolve at the platform owner's discretion. Regardless of how you feel about h.264 in general though, the decision to not support h.264 video in the browser through the video tag means that Flash is going to be sticking around just so we can watch videos. An incredible victory for openness!
- lovskogen 16y agoBut the runtime will fade away. This is Google making a fresh start for the years to come. Shouldn't that start be with a open codec instead of a closed one? The de facto standard for serving <video> today is making a h.246, WebM, a OGG and a FLV (for fallback). Look at videoJS. So it doesn't mean Flash for video is sticking around.
- andrewf 16y agoSurely the defacto standard is h.264 with FLV for fallback. Can anyone name a single site with significant traffic cother than Google/Youtube who are doing WebM or Ogg?
- chopsueyar 16y agoFLV is a container format, not a codec.
- lovskogen 16y agoIt's a great method for start using HTML5 <video>, cross platform - http://videojs.com/ http://videojs.com/
- vetinari 16y agoWikipedia.
- bad_user 16y agoData outlives code. Right now as a software developer you have the option of not using Flash. Depending on your constraints, that may be a difficult choice to make, but it's a choice nonetheless: HTML5 is getting more popular, the JVM was always capable and popular enough for many scenarios, and there's also Silverlight. But choosing another codec for your multiple TB (and growing) of video you want to serve on the web? You've got no choice but H.264, as anything else would cost you dearly. And I'm pretty sure you don't know how software patents work. Companies apply for the same patents with different wording all the time. And there will also come a time when H.264 will not be enough, with MPEGLA in their infinite resourcefulness offering an easy upgrade to the next version under "reasonable" terms. By the time the standard will be patents free, H.264 will be as relevant as GIF is today.