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This just doesn't make any sense. They still need to transcode to H.264 for Mobile Safari, Safari (using Youtube's HTML5 mode) and soon IE9 too; none of these h

by davej 16y ago

This just doesn't make any sense. They still need to transcode to H.264 for Mobile Safari, Safari (using Youtube's HTML5 mode) and soon IE9 too; none of these have announced plans to support WebM. Not to mention the fact that the flash videos are generally H.264 wrapped in Flash. If they wanted to cut storage costs then they'd be better off dropping support for WebM. Also, I'd imagine that the storage cost for Youtube doesn't come close to their bandwidth costs.

zdw 16y ago
Exactly - I don't think they'd deprecate every hardware accelerated platform they already have (tens if not hundresds of millions of phone/computer/settop units shipped) for something with no shipping (only promised) hardware support.
TomOfTTB 16y ago
I think Google's playing the long game here. So they won't switch tomorrow but they'll try to make WebM the defacto standard by getting everyone but Apple on board. Then they'll leverage the open nature of the codec and its new found market dominance to force Apple's hand. This is the same strategy Apple's using against Flash by only supporting HTML5 and to my eyes it's working.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- davej 16y ago
  Apple's reasons for not supporting Flash on their mobile platform are primarily performance reasons. It's not only Apple that isn't supporting WebM by the way, IE9 won't support it (unless you have a VP8 codec installed). In fact, the only browsers that currently support WebM in their latest stable versions are Chrome and Opera. Remember that flash doesn't support WebM yet either. WebM might well become more popular than H.264 for web video in the next couple of years and I wouldn't be all that surprised if Apple supported WebM in their next Safari release. But… I'd still be very surprised if YouTube stopped encoding videos into H.264 in this decade.
  - Xuzz 16y ago
    Apple's primary reason for not supporting Flash is that there is not a "Browser Plugin Store", there is an "App Store", and Flash is decidedly not an "app".
  - clark-kent 16y ago
    Mozilla is also supporting it. Upcoming Firefox versions will support WebM. Even IE9 will support WebM with HTML5 when the codec is installed locally on windows.
    - danudey 16y ago
      As will Safari on Mac (it supports theora if a codec is installed).
  - cpeterso 16y ago
    > Apple's reasons for not supporting Flash on their mobile platform are primarily performance reasons. But Apple also wants to protect its monopoly for iOS app developers and App Store distribution. The Flash plugin would allow application developers to write cross-platform apps and bypass the App Store.

by davej 16y ago

zdw 16y ago

Exactly - I don't think they'd deprecate every hardware accelerated platform they already have (tens if not hundresds of millions of phone/computer/settop units shipped) for something with no shipping (only promised) hardware support.

TomOfTTB 16y ago

I think Google's playing the long game here. So they won't switch tomorrow but they'll try to make WebM the defacto standard by getting everyone but Apple on board. Then they'll leverage the open nature of the codec and its new found market dominance to force Apple's hand. This is the same strategy Apple's using against Flash by only supporting HTML5 and to my eyes it's working.

deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
davej 16y ago
Apple's reasons for not supporting Flash on their mobile platform are primarily performance reasons. It's not only Apple that isn't supporting WebM by the way, IE9 won't support it (unless you have a VP8 codec installed). In fact, the only browsers that currently support WebM in their latest stable versions are Chrome and Opera. Remember that flash doesn't support WebM yet either. WebM might well become more popular than H.264 for web video in the next couple of years and I wouldn't be all that surprised if Apple supported WebM in their next Safari release. But… I'd still be very surprised if YouTube stopped encoding videos into H.264 in this decade.
- Xuzz 16y ago
  Apple's primary reason for not supporting Flash is that there is not a "Browser Plugin Store", there is an "App Store", and Flash is decidedly not an "app".
- clark-kent 16y ago
  Mozilla is also supporting it. Upcoming Firefox versions will support WebM. Even IE9 will support WebM with HTML5 when the codec is installed locally on windows.
  - danudey 16y ago
    As will Safari on Mac (it supports theora if a codec is installed).
- cpeterso 16y ago
  > Apple's reasons for not supporting Flash on their mobile platform are primarily performance reasons. But Apple also wants to protect its monopoly for iOS app developers and App Store distribution. The Flash plugin would allow application developers to write cross-platform apps and bypass the App Store.