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10 Questions for John Gruber Regarding H.264, WebM

165 points by DavidAdams 16y ago

Anechoic 16y ago
"Are you aware of the fact that On2 released VP3 before H.264 was released (2000 vs. 2003), and that therefore, the MPEG-LA most likely infringes on On2 (now owned by Google) patents?" That does not follow at all. edit: I should say that it only follows if the patents in the patent pool apply exclusively/specifically to H.264.
- raganwald 16y ago
  Your point is excellent. The thing to remember is that when two systems each have patents, it's a false dichotomy to ask which set of patents trump the other. It's entirely possible that VP3 infringes on MPEG-LA patents _and_ H.264 infringes on On2/Google patents. The chronology of the two is nearly irrelevant.
  - ergo98 16y ago
    >The thing to remember is that when two systems each have patents, it's a false dichotomy to ask which set of patents trump the other. Where is the false dichotomy? The current talking point on the h264 versus WebM war is that WebM is a patent landmine, while your back is covered with h264. There is some sort of broad belief that h264 is a universal got-your-back patent defense, and that is simply ludicrous.
    - po 16y ago
      The false dichotomy is exactly as he said: that one or the other has to be infringing on the other. As to your point, h264 has been on the market for a while now and is implemented by some seriously deep pockets. If you were the captain of the submarine patent ship, you would probably have fired the torpedos by now. If you're a new company, you'll feel pretty safe standing with Apple and all of the other MPEG licensees who have a vested interest in fighting. This is not the case with WebM.
- kenjackson 16y ago
  I should say that it only follows if the patents in the patent pool apply exclusively/specifically to H.264. And they don't. For example, "Method for processing decoded picture blocks in a block-based method of picture coding" was filed in '96 and granted in '99, and is part of the H264 patent pool. There's a long list that goes like this. MPEG-LA actually goes through great effort to show how each specific claim in the patent maps to a specific section in the spec: http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/avc/Documents/avcCrossRefChart.pdf http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/avc/Documents/avcCrossRe...
Samuel_Michon 16y ago
"# 10 [...] If Apple were to switch to WebM and drop H.264 tomorrow, would you then herald it as a great move?" I bet it would help, but I don't see Apple doing that anytime soon. Currently, Apple uses PowerVR and nVidia chips for hardware decoding in iDevices and Macs, and those companies have already shown interest in building chips that offer WebM support. But Apple would have to find some way to support WebM hardware decoding on current devices, something like a Rosetta layer for video playback. If Apple were to only include full support on new devices, it would feel the wrath of the entire tech press, not to mention organizations like Consumer Reports and Greenpeace. Apple only risks that kind of bad press when it's about a technology they've authored themselves.
- raganwald 16y ago
  I though that question was disingenuous. Gruber's big support was for Apple dropping Flash and supporting H.264. It's dangerous to argue about being "less" or "more" open, but I'm going out on a limb and saying that going from Flash to HTML5+H.264 is moving in the correct direction. Moving from HTML5+H.264 to HTML5+WebM, or perhaps to supporting both, wouldn't be inconsistent with the switch from Flash to HTML5+H.264 they made with iOS.
- WiseWeasel 16y ago
  I doubt Consumer Reports or the tech media would have much to gripe about WebM hardware decoding support being added to new iDevices, since there is no compelling WebM-exclusive content to which current device owners would be deprived access, (we'll leave Greenpeace out of this, as it's often difficult to rationalize their behavior). There is little risk to Apple's reputation with their customers by hedging their bets and including WebM support; only potential increased component costs, less optimal power consumption and patent litigation. On the latter, I'd estimate the risk that the MPEG LA would go after an MPEG 4 licensee (and member of the MPEG organization) for violating the patents they have already licensed to be fairly slim; one might expect them to focus more on non-MPEG-licensed vendors distributing WebM decoders and encoders. So if the power usage and component costs are reasonable, there should be little obstacle for Apple.
  - 16y ago
Entlin 16y ago
With mobile being more important in the long run than desktops, and Android gaining ever more importance over the iPhone, we just need Google adopting their open codecs in both Android hardware and YouTube, and it's game over for h.264.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- fleitz 16y ago
  Yes, most definitely, I mean who would want to cater to a giant install base of people who you know actually buy software and are willing to pay a premium for UX. Google cant put hardware into most Android devices because they don't make them. Heck, you can barely upgrade your Android software on most carriers/devices. Google should first figure out how to prevent carries/manufactures from installing crapware on their handsets.
  - vetinari 16y ago
    Well, the upcoming generation of mobile chipsets supports VP8. Tegra 2, for example, supports both decoding and encoding of VP8.
    - ZeroGravitas 16y ago
      I hadn't heard that (and thought I'd been paying attention), so if anyone else was doubting vetinari, here's a link: http://www.nvidia.com/object/tegra-2.html http://www.nvidia.com/object/tegra-2.html Claims decode for Theora, VP8 and Vorbis, as well as encode and videoconference for VP8. Basically every Android tablet at CES was Tegra 2 (I think it's the reference platform for Honeycomb) as well as a few of the high-end phones e.g. Motorola Atrix
tptacek 16y ago
First, these aren't 10 questions for John Gruber; it's 5 questions, with one of them phrased slightly differently 5 times, and another phrased two different ways. Second, virtually all of these questions take as an axiom that H.264 is IP-encumbered and WebM/VP8 isn't. Technical analyses (by people who have actually implemented H.264 and are familiar with the patents) suggests that that simply isn't the case. That the author of this article thinks that VP3's release prior to H.264 might invalidate any part of the H.264 patent pool suggests that he may not be at all familiar with the patents in play. Similarly, support for a "known patent troll" isn't germane to the debate if that patent troll is in the mix one way or the other, which appears to be the case. Third, the fact that the H.264 patent pool hasn't been brought to bear on On2 tells us nothing at all about how successful H.264 would be against WebM; it's not at all unlikely that MPEG-LA sees nothing worth suing in Xiph/On2, and if that's the case, it is surely a different situation once Google pushes adoption. Fourth, an "open pledge of support" for WebM from chip manufacturers is worth exactly nothing to the people who have spent many many hundreds of millions of dollars on mobile devices with hardware-accelerated H.264. One can reasonably argue that those people don't matter, but they can't with a straight face suggest that a "pledge of support" in any way mitigates the problem. There's nothing wrong with this post as a contribution to the WebM/H.264 Apple/Google debate. But one gets the sense that the author sees it as some sort of devastating argument. I'm not sure he realizes that handwaving around "known patent trolls" and "decades of threats by MPEG-LA" and "is it because said codec isn't promoted by Apple", he's actually making a fairly weak sounding argument. He sounds emotional. I'm gonna go with the analysis of the guy who said his B-frame implementation gave x264 the project's single greatest encoding quality improvement over the guy who thinks the release date of VP3 determines which patents encumber VP8, thanks.
- antimatter15 16y ago
  By "people who have actually implemented h.264 and are familiar with patents", I assume you mean Jason Garrett-Glaser from his x264dev blog ( http://x264dev.multimedia.cx/archives/377 http://x264dev.multimedia.cx/archives/377 ). There aren't any patents explicitly mentioned, just that vp8 "feels" a lot like h.264. In that post, there was only one reference to a specific feature, the intra prediction, which was updated with "Update: spatial intra prediction apparently dates back to Nokia’s MVC H.26L proposal, from around ~2000. It’s possible that Google believes that this is sufficient prior art to invalidate existing patents — which is not at all unreasonable!". The idea that VP3's prior release making AVC infringing is pretty stupid.
antimatter15 16y ago
The argument with the licensing fees for Mozilla to implement h.264 is probably a non-issue, and it doesn't do justice to frame it as such. The Mozilla Corporation does have a revenue stream (largely from Google) and MPEG-LA would probably be willing to allow Mozilla to license without paying the fees given their pivotal role in the fate of the de-facto standard. Operating systems often provide h.264 decoder APIs, like in QuickTime and Windows Media Player that they could use to circumvent the licensing fees. Mozilla is doing it entirely out of ideology (and sticks to their ideology much more than Google usually does).
- jarek 16y ago
  Cool. How about licensing fees for Opera? For any other browser maker?
  - Samuel_Michon 16y ago
    Why would Opera get a special deal? It's not like they make an open source browser. It seems misplaced to give handouts to a publicly traded company, with offices in ten countries, and who receive $80 million in revenues a year.
    - jarek 16y ago
      But that's exactly the point. You can give Mozilla special treatment, but that only underlines the fact browser makers will have to pay unless you specifically exempt them.
  - vetinari 16y ago
    And for anyone, who will use Gecko/Xul-runner as a basis for their product?
- mnutt 16y ago
  Mozilla has said [0] that they could pay the $5M/year but they won't because 1) it means content producers have to pay money to obtain licenses and more importantly 2) other people cannot create mozilla forks without licensing h264 themselves. [0] http://shaver.off.net/diary/2010/01/23/html5-video-and-codecs/ http://shaver.off.net/diary/2010/01/23/html5-video-and-codec...
seiji 16y ago
To get clarity of thought on the debate, go back and read http://x264dev.multimedia.cx/archives/377 http://x264dev.multimedia.cx/archives/377 Everybody seems to be crying "but hardware support is coming soon!" without seeing it's difficult: "The unfortunate problem with this is that it’s a nightmare for hardware implementations, greatly increasing memory bandwidth requirements." It comes down to WebM/VP8 being inferior (in specification and implementation) to an existing widely deployed (in bits and gates) codec. Feel free to argue the fallacies of the osnews questions if your time is worth nothing.
- antimatter15 16y ago
  Does anyone else feel it's weird that there's only one blog that everyone happens to link to whenever something related to vp8 springs up? It's been half a year, you would think there are independently arrived analyses by now. Most people could probably agree that taking everything that John Gruber says as the truth without any other sources is a bad idea, but that's exactly the landscape of evidence presented for/against vp8. Thankfully, Dark Shikari's writeup is great, but there really needs to be more evidence.
  - jarek 16y ago
    It is weird, in that I'd have expected the MPEG LA to produce or cause to be produced more FUD against VP8 by now.
  - seiji 16y ago
    It's strange everybody points to the same source, but it's not unusual there is only one source. Break it down: How many codec developers do you know? How many of those people do open source implementation comparisons? How many of those write it up? How many of those write it up intelligently for public consumption?
    - jwr 16y ago
      Also, there are probably many people (myself included) who are familiar with implementation details of video codecs, but after reading Jason's articles decide that he basically said everything there was to be said.
roc 16y ago
Maybe I missed it, but I don't recall Gruber taking issue with the webM move, in and of itself. I read his posts as just being part of his continued critique of Google's pitching itself and its various business decisions as "open" and/or "good". I mean that's been the recurring theme on that site re: corporate Google for years now. He's not throwing darts when Google does something in their own best interests. He's throwing darts when Google tries to spin those moves as being moves made in the interests of users, 'open development', free puppies and hugs for everyone, etc.
- jarek 16y ago
  Yes and he also takes issue when Apple slightly improves a technology that's been available for years and markets it as "revolutionary." Come on. It's marketing. Too many black kettles and pots to count. edit: second paragraph of parent post has been slightly edited since I posted this. Originally it only mentioned "open" without users, puppies, and hugs.
  - roc 16y ago
    Saying "We're the best" is qualitatively different than saying "We're the good guys".
    - danudey 16y ago
      And outside of poorly-written movies, the 'bad guys' never think they're bad guys. They always have reasons for what they do, and whether those reasons make sense to us or not, it's enough for them. Likewise, a lot of 'bad guys' lie because they think it's in everyone's best interests. For example, telling the public that there are WMDs in Iraq - it's a lie, but Saddam Hussein is dangerous so we need to lie to people so they'll support us, because otherwise they just won't understand. I feel the same way about Google. They spend a lot of their time trying to convince people they're the good guys, except that, like any corporation, they're wholly self-serving. I find it less than difficult to imagine them having reasons that make them feel like the good guys, while those reasons would make us feel like they're the bad guys. In this case, they're trying to cram WebM down everyone's throats, supposedly because it's better for us. They're doing so by removing support for de-facto standards in their browser, and talking up a lot of rhetoric about free and open standards, but what they're really doing is trying to move from a format that a consortium controls to a format that they control. Until they submit WebM to a standards body, I can't believe that this is all for our benefit.
tomlin 16y ago
It's doubtful Gruber will address this, as it would be a bit like hammering a square (logic) into a circle (Apple). My personal fav: If Apple were to switch to WebM and drop H.264 tomorrow, would you then herald it as a great move? Most likely. PowerPC to Intel, anyone?
- redrobot5050 16y ago
  Apple supported PowerPC for 2 years after the transition. Ignoring that fact, well said.
  - danudey 16y ago
    And PowerPC content (applications) worked fine on Intel Machines for years (and still does if you install Rosetta). The same couldn't be said if Apple dropped support for H.264. Old content would cease to work immediately.
    - redrobot5050 16y ago
      Well, you could use VLC or an application that does not rely on system codecs or quicktime, but you are exactly right.
- guywithabike 16y ago
  Apple moved away from PowerPC because it was increasingly becoming a vastly inferior technology. h.264 is not a vastly inferior technology.
ZeroGravitas 16y ago
11. Why are you quoting random conspiracy theory Slashdot comments to support your take on H.264 vs. WebM? http://daringfireball.net/linked/2011/01/12/slashdot-comment http://daringfireball.net/linked/2011/01/12/slashdot-comment
- foljs 16y ago
  Because they contain a nice argument? Duh!
danh 16y ago
The author seems to want to frame Google's WebM move as a question of Good vs. Evil (as does Gruber btw.), which is not very helpful. As with most everything, there are both costs and benefits. The main benefit is that Google's move may reduce the risk that the MPEG consortium goes crazy in the future, and starts to charge every possible user, causing havoc in the process. The main cost is more certain: a huge inconvenience for content producers that were hoping to get away with going H.264 only, causing havoc in the process. The interesting question is the usual one: is the benefit worth the cost?
- rahoulb 16y ago
  I don't think Gruber is framing it as "good vs evil". More - "why are you dropping support for H264 on grounds of openness but not dropping support for Flash (and MP3 and AAC) on those same grounds?"
dev_jim 16y ago
Gruber's post wasn't about being a proponent of H.264. It was asking why Google was being so hypocritical with (1) Flash still bundled in Chrome and (2-3) their flagship support of H.264 with Android and YouTube. It's one thing to be a proponent of the open web. However, it is just amazing the length people will go to in this "debate" to justify Google's hypocrisy. This is a corporate strategy move aimed at controlling the market and jamming up Apple and it's hundreds of millions of devices that play H.264. Gimme a break.
- tolmasky 16y ago
  These scenarios are just not analogous so there's no way to be hypocritical or not hypocritical. On the one hand you have Flash, which has been around for ages and you can't just take it out without breaking a lot of the web. If someone found an open way to render Flash (like if Flash Gordon somehow got good enough to do it), I guarantee you that Google would remove Flash. They would much prefer this to having to bend over backwards to render it in a different process and blah blah blah. The only reason Apple was able to remove Flash was because they entered the mobile landscape, where having a browser that couldn't render Flash still rendered more of the "real web" than most competing mobile browsers at the time. However, you don't see them dropping support for it in Safari (and not including the plugin on some macs is not dropping support). If you couldn't run flash at all on a Mac, ever, it would be disastrous. H.264 on the other hand is a brand new technology, there is still time to make the right move before we end up in the same position as we are with Flash today: everyone wanting it gone but it not being easy to remove it (similar to the GIF situation as well). On top of that Google controls the biggest video supplier of the web, thus they have the additional ability to make the transition less painful.
  - dev_jim 16y ago
    > On the one hand you have Flash, which has been around for ages and you can't just take it out without breaking a lot of the web. Google does not need to bake Flash into Chrome. Somehow browsers have survived a decade without the need. Google's stance is bullshit corporate strategy. You bending over backwards to justify it is just comical. > If you couldn't run flash at all on a Mac, ever, it would be disastrous. For Adobe. It's not going to affect anyone's purchase of a Macbook just as it didn't affect anyone's purchase of an iPad. > H.264 on the other hand is a brand new technology Wrong. H.264 has been around for 7 years. It has hardware decoders in nearly every mobile device. It encodes 2/3 (and probably more now) of the web's video. It's used by almost every single major content provider. It is WebM that is the new technology. Released 8 months ago to be precise. No hardware support yet (sorry, releasing VHDL designs doesn't count), almost zero content support, etc, etc. This isn't even close. > there is still time to make the right move before we end up in the same position as we are with Flash today: everyone wanting it gone but it not being easy to remove it Except no one wants H.264 gone. It's a high quality standard supported by devices everywhere. > (similar to the GIF situation as well) The GIF situation turned out fine. Thanks for the great counterexample to your logic.
watty 16y ago
Ugh, I'm so sick of seeing arguments to or from Gruber. He's like a constant Apple soap opear. Google is a business and they're allowed to make decisions. Switching to WebM saves them money, pushes their codec, and their users (Chrome) lose ZERO functionality. Google obviously feels that this switch is beneficial to them and their users in the long run. If you disagree, don't use Chrome.
- guywithabike 16y ago
  Those who forced you to click the link have been sacked.
risotto 16y ago
The only problem I see is the iPhone and iPad. All other browsers are open enough to get native support or have a plugin. Android phones will have support. Who knows or cares what happens on WP7... Google is taking a stand. It is annoying that Google is removing existing support for h264. It will be annoying if Apple is completely against adding a software WebM decoder for current gen iOS devices, and ignore hardware solutions on next gen ones. But both companies are free to do whatever. I also think this will have negligible impact in the real world. Youtube will always work on whatever. Content providers can just upload stuff there if they don't want to manage multiple formats themselves.
RyanMcGreal 16y ago
I may feel more sympathetic to the author of these questions, but they are ultimately just as rhetorical and passive-aggressive as Gruber's - i.e. not a particularly useful contribution to the debate.

165 points by DavidAdams 16y ago

"Are you aware of the fact that On2 released VP3 before H.264 was released (2000 vs. 2003), and that therefore, the MPEG-LA most likely infringes on On2 (now owned by Google) patents?" That does not follow at all. edit: I should say that it only follows if the patents in the patent pool apply exclusively/specifically to H.264.

raganwald 16y ago
Your point is excellent. The thing to remember is that when two systems each have patents, it's a false dichotomy to ask which set of patents trump the other. It's entirely possible that VP3 infringes on MPEG-LA patents _and_ H.264 infringes on On2/Google patents. The chronology of the two is nearly irrelevant.
- ergo98 16y ago
  >The thing to remember is that when two systems each have patents, it's a false dichotomy to ask which set of patents trump the other. Where is the false dichotomy? The current talking point on the h264 versus WebM war is that WebM is a patent landmine, while your back is covered with h264. There is some sort of broad belief that h264 is a universal got-your-back patent defense, and that is simply ludicrous.
  - po 16y ago
    The false dichotomy is exactly as he said: that one or the other has to be infringing on the other. As to your point, h264 has been on the market for a while now and is implemented by some seriously deep pockets. If you were the captain of the submarine patent ship, you would probably have fired the torpedos by now. If you're a new company, you'll feel pretty safe standing with Apple and all of the other MPEG licensees who have a vested interest in fighting. This is not the case with WebM.
kenjackson 16y ago
I should say that it only follows if the patents in the patent pool apply exclusively/specifically to H.264. And they don't. For example, "Method for processing decoded picture blocks in a block-based method of picture coding" was filed in '96 and granted in '99, and is part of the H264 patent pool. There's a long list that goes like this. MPEG-LA actually goes through great effort to show how each specific claim in the patent maps to a specific section in the spec: http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/avc/Documents/avcCrossRefChart.pdf http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/avc/Documents/avcCrossRe...

Samuel_Michon 16y ago

"# 10 [...] If Apple were to switch to WebM and drop H.264 tomorrow, would you then herald it as a great move?" I bet it would help, but I don't see Apple doing that anytime soon. Currently, Apple uses PowerVR and nVidia chips for hardware decoding in iDevices and Macs, and those companies have already shown interest in building chips that offer WebM support. But Apple would have to find some way to support WebM hardware decoding on current devices, something like a Rosetta layer for video playback. If Apple were to only include full support on new devices, it would feel the wrath of the entire tech press, not to mention organizations like Consumer Reports and Greenpeace. Apple only risks that kind of bad press when it's about a technology they've authored themselves.

raganwald 16y ago
I though that question was disingenuous. Gruber's big support was for Apple dropping Flash and supporting H.264. It's dangerous to argue about being "less" or "more" open, but I'm going out on a limb and saying that going from Flash to HTML5+H.264 is moving in the correct direction. Moving from HTML5+H.264 to HTML5+WebM, or perhaps to supporting both, wouldn't be inconsistent with the switch from Flash to HTML5+H.264 they made with iOS.
WiseWeasel 16y ago
I doubt Consumer Reports or the tech media would have much to gripe about WebM hardware decoding support being added to new iDevices, since there is no compelling WebM-exclusive content to which current device owners would be deprived access, (we'll leave Greenpeace out of this, as it's often difficult to rationalize their behavior). There is little risk to Apple's reputation with their customers by hedging their bets and including WebM support; only potential increased component costs, less optimal power consumption and patent litigation. On the latter, I'd estimate the risk that the MPEG LA would go after an MPEG 4 licensee (and member of the MPEG organization) for violating the patents they have already licensed to be fairly slim; one might expect them to focus more on non-MPEG-licensed vendors distributing WebM decoders and encoders. So if the power usage and component costs are reasonable, there should be little obstacle for Apple.
- 16y ago

Entlin 16y ago

With mobile being more important in the long run than desktops, and Android gaining ever more importance over the iPhone, we just need Google adopting their open codecs in both Android hardware and YouTube, and it's game over for h.264.

deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
fleitz 16y ago
Yes, most definitely, I mean who would want to cater to a giant install base of people who you know actually buy software and are willing to pay a premium for UX. Google cant put hardware into most Android devices because they don't make them. Heck, you can barely upgrade your Android software on most carriers/devices. Google should first figure out how to prevent carries/manufactures from installing crapware on their handsets.
- vetinari 16y ago
  Well, the upcoming generation of mobile chipsets supports VP8. Tegra 2, for example, supports both decoding and encoding of VP8.
  - ZeroGravitas 16y ago
    I hadn't heard that (and thought I'd been paying attention), so if anyone else was doubting vetinari, here's a link: http://www.nvidia.com/object/tegra-2.html http://www.nvidia.com/object/tegra-2.html Claims decode for Theora, VP8 and Vorbis, as well as encode and videoconference for VP8. Basically every Android tablet at CES was Tegra 2 (I think it's the reference platform for Honeycomb) as well as a few of the high-end phones e.g. Motorola Atrix

tptacek 16y ago

First, these aren't 10 questions for John Gruber; it's 5 questions, with one of them phrased slightly differently 5 times, and another phrased two different ways. Second, virtually all of these questions take as an axiom that H.264 is IP-encumbered and WebM/VP8 isn't. Technical analyses (by people who have actually implemented H.264 and are familiar with the patents) suggests that that simply isn't the case. That the author of this article thinks that VP3's release prior to H.264 might invalidate any part of the H.264 patent pool suggests that he may not be at all familiar with the patents in play. Similarly, support for a "known patent troll" isn't germane to the debate if that patent troll is in the mix one way or the other, which appears to be the case. Third, the fact that the H.264 patent pool hasn't been brought to bear on On2 tells us nothing at all about how successful H.264 would be against WebM; it's not at all unlikely that MPEG-LA sees nothing worth suing in Xiph/On2, and if that's the case, it is surely a different situation once Google pushes adoption. Fourth, an "open pledge of support" for WebM from chip manufacturers is worth exactly nothing to the people who have spent many many hundreds of millions of dollars on mobile devices with hardware-accelerated H.264. One can reasonably argue that those people don't matter, but they can't with a straight face suggest that a "pledge of support" in any way mitigates the problem. There's nothing wrong with this post as a contribution to the WebM/H.264 Apple/Google debate. But one gets the sense that the author sees it as some sort of devastating argument. I'm not sure he realizes that handwaving around "known patent trolls" and "decades of threats by MPEG-LA" and "is it because said codec isn't promoted by Apple", he's actually making a fairly weak sounding argument. He sounds emotional. I'm gonna go with the analysis of the guy who said his B-frame implementation gave x264 the project's single greatest encoding quality improvement over the guy who thinks the release date of VP3 determines which patents encumber VP8, thanks.

antimatter15 16y ago
By "people who have actually implemented h.264 and are familiar with patents", I assume you mean Jason Garrett-Glaser from his x264dev blog ( http://x264dev.multimedia.cx/archives/377 http://x264dev.multimedia.cx/archives/377 ). There aren't any patents explicitly mentioned, just that vp8 "feels" a lot like h.264. In that post, there was only one reference to a specific feature, the intra prediction, which was updated with "Update: spatial intra prediction apparently dates back to Nokia’s MVC H.26L proposal, from around ~2000. It’s possible that Google believes that this is sufficient prior art to invalidate existing patents — which is not at all unreasonable!". The idea that VP3's prior release making AVC infringing is pretty stupid.

antimatter15 16y ago

The argument with the licensing fees for Mozilla to implement h.264 is probably a non-issue, and it doesn't do justice to frame it as such. The Mozilla Corporation does have a revenue stream (largely from Google) and MPEG-LA would probably be willing to allow Mozilla to license without paying the fees given their pivotal role in the fate of the de-facto standard. Operating systems often provide h.264 decoder APIs, like in QuickTime and Windows Media Player that they could use to circumvent the licensing fees. Mozilla is doing it entirely out of ideology (and sticks to their ideology much more than Google usually does).

jarek 16y ago
Cool. How about licensing fees for Opera? For any other browser maker?
- Samuel_Michon 16y ago
  Why would Opera get a special deal? It's not like they make an open source browser. It seems misplaced to give handouts to a publicly traded company, with offices in ten countries, and who receive $80 million in revenues a year.
  - jarek 16y ago
    But that's exactly the point. You can give Mozilla special treatment, but that only underlines the fact browser makers will have to pay unless you specifically exempt them.
- vetinari 16y ago
  And for anyone, who will use Gecko/Xul-runner as a basis for their product?
mnutt 16y ago
Mozilla has said [0] that they could pay the $5M/year but they won't because 1) it means content producers have to pay money to obtain licenses and more importantly 2) other people cannot create mozilla forks without licensing h264 themselves. [0] http://shaver.off.net/diary/2010/01/23/html5-video-and-codecs/ http://shaver.off.net/diary/2010/01/23/html5-video-and-codec...

seiji 16y ago

To get clarity of thought on the debate, go back and read http://x264dev.multimedia.cx/archives/377 http://x264dev.multimedia.cx/archives/377 Everybody seems to be crying "but hardware support is coming soon!" without seeing it's difficult: "The unfortunate problem with this is that it’s a nightmare for hardware implementations, greatly increasing memory bandwidth requirements." It comes down to WebM/VP8 being inferior (in specification and implementation) to an existing widely deployed (in bits and gates) codec. Feel free to argue the fallacies of the osnews questions if your time is worth nothing.

antimatter15 16y ago
Does anyone else feel it's weird that there's only one blog that everyone happens to link to whenever something related to vp8 springs up? It's been half a year, you would think there are independently arrived analyses by now. Most people could probably agree that taking everything that John Gruber says as the truth without any other sources is a bad idea, but that's exactly the landscape of evidence presented for/against vp8. Thankfully, Dark Shikari's writeup is great, but there really needs to be more evidence.
- jarek 16y ago
  It is weird, in that I'd have expected the MPEG LA to produce or cause to be produced more FUD against VP8 by now.
- seiji 16y ago
  It's strange everybody points to the same source, but it's not unusual there is only one source. Break it down: How many codec developers do you know? How many of those people do open source implementation comparisons? How many of those write it up? How many of those write it up intelligently for public consumption?
  - jwr 16y ago
    Also, there are probably many people (myself included) who are familiar with implementation details of video codecs, but after reading Jason's articles decide that he basically said everything there was to be said.

roc 16y ago

Maybe I missed it, but I don't recall Gruber taking issue with the webM move, in and of itself. I read his posts as just being part of his continued critique of Google's pitching itself and its various business decisions as "open" and/or "good". I mean that's been the recurring theme on that site re: corporate Google for years now. He's not throwing darts when Google does something in their own best interests. He's throwing darts when Google tries to spin those moves as being moves made in the interests of users, 'open development', free puppies and hugs for everyone, etc.

jarek 16y ago
Yes and he also takes issue when Apple slightly improves a technology that's been available for years and markets it as "revolutionary." Come on. It's marketing. Too many black kettles and pots to count. edit: second paragraph of parent post has been slightly edited since I posted this. Originally it only mentioned "open" without users, puppies, and hugs.
- roc 16y ago
  Saying "We're the best" is qualitatively different than saying "We're the good guys".
  - danudey 16y ago
    And outside of poorly-written movies, the 'bad guys' never think they're bad guys. They always have reasons for what they do, and whether those reasons make sense to us or not, it's enough for them. Likewise, a lot of 'bad guys' lie because they think it's in everyone's best interests. For example, telling the public that there are WMDs in Iraq - it's a lie, but Saddam Hussein is dangerous so we need to lie to people so they'll support us, because otherwise they just won't understand. I feel the same way about Google. They spend a lot of their time trying to convince people they're the good guys, except that, like any corporation, they're wholly self-serving. I find it less than difficult to imagine them having reasons that make them feel like the good guys, while those reasons would make us feel like they're the bad guys. In this case, they're trying to cram WebM down everyone's throats, supposedly because it's better for us. They're doing so by removing support for de-facto standards in their browser, and talking up a lot of rhetoric about free and open standards, but what they're really doing is trying to move from a format that a consortium controls to a format that they control. Until they submit WebM to a standards body, I can't believe that this is all for our benefit.

tomlin 16y ago

It's doubtful Gruber will address this, as it would be a bit like hammering a square (logic) into a circle (Apple). My personal fav: If Apple were to switch to WebM and drop H.264 tomorrow, would you then herald it as a great move? Most likely. PowerPC to Intel, anyone?

redrobot5050 16y ago
Apple supported PowerPC for 2 years after the transition. Ignoring that fact, well said.
- danudey 16y ago
  And PowerPC content (applications) worked fine on Intel Machines for years (and still does if you install Rosetta). The same couldn't be said if Apple dropped support for H.264. Old content would cease to work immediately.
  - redrobot5050 16y ago
    Well, you could use VLC or an application that does not rely on system codecs or quicktime, but you are exactly right.
guywithabike 16y ago
Apple moved away from PowerPC because it was increasingly becoming a vastly inferior technology. h.264 is not a vastly inferior technology.

ZeroGravitas 16y ago

11. Why are you quoting random conspiracy theory Slashdot comments to support your take on H.264 vs. WebM? http://daringfireball.net/linked/2011/01/12/slashdot-comment http://daringfireball.net/linked/2011/01/12/slashdot-comment

foljs 16y ago
Because they contain a nice argument? Duh!

danh 16y ago

The author seems to want to frame Google's WebM move as a question of Good vs. Evil (as does Gruber btw.), which is not very helpful. As with most everything, there are both costs and benefits. The main benefit is that Google's move may reduce the risk that the MPEG consortium goes crazy in the future, and starts to charge every possible user, causing havoc in the process. The main cost is more certain: a huge inconvenience for content producers that were hoping to get away with going H.264 only, causing havoc in the process. The interesting question is the usual one: is the benefit worth the cost?

rahoulb 16y ago
I don't think Gruber is framing it as "good vs evil". More - "why are you dropping support for H264 on grounds of openness but not dropping support for Flash (and MP3 and AAC) on those same grounds?"

dev_jim 16y ago

Gruber's post wasn't about being a proponent of H.264. It was asking why Google was being so hypocritical with (1) Flash still bundled in Chrome and (2-3) their flagship support of H.264 with Android and YouTube. It's one thing to be a proponent of the open web. However, it is just amazing the length people will go to in this "debate" to justify Google's hypocrisy. This is a corporate strategy move aimed at controlling the market and jamming up Apple and it's hundreds of millions of devices that play H.264. Gimme a break.

tolmasky 16y ago
These scenarios are just not analogous so there's no way to be hypocritical or not hypocritical. On the one hand you have Flash, which has been around for ages and you can't just take it out without breaking a lot of the web. If someone found an open way to render Flash (like if Flash Gordon somehow got good enough to do it), I guarantee you that Google would remove Flash. They would much prefer this to having to bend over backwards to render it in a different process and blah blah blah. The only reason Apple was able to remove Flash was because they entered the mobile landscape, where having a browser that couldn't render Flash still rendered more of the "real web" than most competing mobile browsers at the time. However, you don't see them dropping support for it in Safari (and not including the plugin on some macs is not dropping support). If you couldn't run flash at all on a Mac, ever, it would be disastrous. H.264 on the other hand is a brand new technology, there is still time to make the right move before we end up in the same position as we are with Flash today: everyone wanting it gone but it not being easy to remove it (similar to the GIF situation as well). On top of that Google controls the biggest video supplier of the web, thus they have the additional ability to make the transition less painful.
- dev_jim 16y ago
  > On the one hand you have Flash, which has been around for ages and you can't just take it out without breaking a lot of the web. Google does not need to bake Flash into Chrome. Somehow browsers have survived a decade without the need. Google's stance is bullshit corporate strategy. You bending over backwards to justify it is just comical. > If you couldn't run flash at all on a Mac, ever, it would be disastrous. For Adobe. It's not going to affect anyone's purchase of a Macbook just as it didn't affect anyone's purchase of an iPad. > H.264 on the other hand is a brand new technology Wrong. H.264 has been around for 7 years. It has hardware decoders in nearly every mobile device. It encodes 2/3 (and probably more now) of the web's video. It's used by almost every single major content provider. It is WebM that is the new technology. Released 8 months ago to be precise. No hardware support yet (sorry, releasing VHDL designs doesn't count), almost zero content support, etc, etc. This isn't even close. > there is still time to make the right move before we end up in the same position as we are with Flash today: everyone wanting it gone but it not being easy to remove it Except no one wants H.264 gone. It's a high quality standard supported by devices everywhere. > (similar to the GIF situation as well) The GIF situation turned out fine. Thanks for the great counterexample to your logic.

watty 16y ago

Ugh, I'm so sick of seeing arguments to or from Gruber. He's like a constant Apple soap opear. Google is a business and they're allowed to make decisions. Switching to WebM saves them money, pushes their codec, and their users (Chrome) lose ZERO functionality. Google obviously feels that this switch is beneficial to them and their users in the long run. If you disagree, don't use Chrome.

guywithabike 16y ago
Those who forced you to click the link have been sacked.

risotto 16y ago

The only problem I see is the iPhone and iPad. All other browsers are open enough to get native support or have a plugin. Android phones will have support. Who knows or cares what happens on WP7... Google is taking a stand. It is annoying that Google is removing existing support for h264. It will be annoying if Apple is completely against adding a software WebM decoder for current gen iOS devices, and ignore hardware solutions on next gen ones. But both companies are free to do whatever. I also think this will have negligible impact in the real world. Youtube will always work on whatever. Content providers can just upload stuff there if they don't want to manage multiple formats themselves.

RyanMcGreal 16y ago

I may feel more sympathetic to the author of these questions, but they are ultimately just as rhetorical and passive-aggressive as Gruber's - i.e. not a particularly useful contribution to the debate.