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This is a weak article. > It's called bait and switch. Not really. If anything, it's the eventual use of market power for profiteering. > But it would become

by cletus 16y ago

This is a weak article. > It's called bait and switch. Not really. If anything, it's the eventual use of market power for profiteering. > But it would become another closed de facto standard, just like IE6. Huh? IE6 is a browser not a standard. > This is comparing apples and oranges. Flash is a plugin, This is splitting hairs and a straw man. The user does not care or typically doesn't differentiate between something that's part of the browser and something that is a bundled plug-in. The user experience is basically the same. So any argument using a criteria about building in a proprietary and closed standard to the browser versus bundling a proprietary and closed plug-in is at somewhere between fatuous and disingenuous. > If you want to do any kind of video on the web, you don't have a choice. Flash is needed. WRONG. Bizarrely wrong in fact since we're arguing about the HTML5 container for video and supported codecs. Flash isn't involved. This isn't vapourware either. Modern browsers already support it. > it is much more likely that an open format will prevail in the end. If there are two dominant standards, sites will be faced with a choice: double-encode everything or pick one. Many have already picked H.264. What's more likely? Double-encoding or simply delivering H.264 to Chrome via a Flash (rather than HTML5) container? If anything, this move prolongs the existence of Flash. > Just because a format is widespread offline does not mean that it is suitable for use on the web. Is the author really suggesting H.264 a) isn't widespread on the Web and/or b) isn't suitable for use on the Web? Really? > In other words: The processing will always be there, and instead of re-processing to a slightly more compressed H.264 file for online play, it can be converted to an open format. If the author thinks this move will displace H.264 they are sadly mistaken. For one, the license fees for using H.264 are negligible for the largest players. For another, there is an enormous installed base of devices with hardware H.264 decoding. Hundreds of millions in fact, most notably the various Apple iDevices. These provide a compelling use for the continued use of H.264 in the long term. > As already explained, videos are typically re-encoded or processed in some way anyway. Yes but double the processing and double the storage are real issues. > Notice the word "plugin". It means that we're basically removing HTML5 video, and returning to plugins. All the benefits of native video disappear just like that What benefits are those exactly? At least for now the user experience, HTML5 video is still playing catch up to Flash video in terms of user experience. > If I am not mistaken, the share of open standards based browsers is growing at the expense of Internet Explorer. Worst case for IE is still about ~50%. That still makes it the single largest browser. Chrome's share exceeds Safari's (AFAIK) but the latter is still significant and I can't imagine it getting WebM support anytime soon. Apple are very much wedded to H.264 support by virtue of their devices if nothing else (anecdote: I played 6 hours of video on a plane on my iPad using 10% of the battery). > it is H.264 which takes away choice. By definition, not giving someone a choice takes away choices. All of the arguments for this move seem to be focused on the long term. That's fine but in the short term it will unarguably cause users and sites headaches. > I also find it puzzling that Google is being accused of giving users fewer choices, while Microsoft and Apple aren't even mentioned. Hold yourself to a higher standard (and, more importantly, preach those standards to others) and you will be the recipient of greater scrutiny. At best, the author's argument descends to "two wrongs make a right". Note: I'm saying arguing in favour of Flash. In fact, I consider the lack of Flash on my iDevices to be a feature rather than a limitation. Ironically this moves will likely prolong Flash and slow the adoption of HTML5 as a result.

jawee 16y ago
> But it would become another closed de facto standard, just like IE6. Huh? IE6 is a browser not a standard. Well, neither can H.264 be a standard, it is a non-free codec for video. The key was de facto.. Internet Explorer 6, at the peak of its dominance, became the standard that many web developers developed for. Even though it wasn't a standard, when it had over 90% of the market, it was often the only browser that was developed for and other browsers were locked out or suffered. Browsers like Opera spoofed as IE by default, Netscape had quirks to behave similar to IE in some respects... It's saying that everyone who wasn't on H.264 would suffer or be forced to conform, as was the case with IE6 for some time.
- cletus 16y ago
  > Well, neither can H.264 be a standard Let's not split hairs. Browser != data format. I can see the point you're arguing (or at least what the author is trying to argue, whether or not it's your opinion as well). But it's at best a stretch. In the IE6 "glory" days, it wasn't just a case that Websites wouldn't be made to work for other browsers (meaning they were never tested or, if they were, it was beyond scope to fix). It was worse than that. Sites would deliberately look at the user agent and simply not work if it was a non-IE browser. This still happens. I still come across sites that not only warn you they're optimized for IE and FF (ie proceed at your own "risk" when using Chrome). Some go further and simply won't work if you try and use Chrome. It's thankfully rare but it still happens. Anyway, the point here is the IE6 displayed HTML/CSS content differently than other browsers and had JS differences too. It took effort to make things cross-browser and it was (and arguably still is) a big deal. So the stretch of comparing H.264 to IE6 is twofold: 1. We're talking about the entire Web vs the narrow context of Web-based videol so it's a question of scope; and 2. Converting video from one format to another can be automated. Converting a site designed for IE6 to work on other browsers cannot. So not only aren't the problems analogous but the author is engaging in scaremongering to try and equate H.264 with the (stipulated) horrors of IE6.
  - lukeschlather 16y ago
    >2. Converting video from one format to another can be automated. Converting a site designed for IE6 to work on other browsers cannot. Sure it can. You run it through IE6 and print to an image format of your choice. >1. We're talking about the entire Web vs the narrow context of Web-based videol so it's a question of scope; and Yes, and thanks to the narrower scope it's not as big a deal to convert between video formats, but there's still going to be a marked loss of quality. >So not only aren't the problems analogous but the author is engaging in scaremongering to try and equate H.264 with the (stipulated) horrors of IE6. Viewing a website designed specifically for IE6 is likely to cause similar loss of fidelity to viewing a video transcoded from VP8 to H.264, or vice versa. >Let's not split hairs. Browser != data format. The data format in question is the HTML accepted by IE6. That data format actually works fairly well with modern web browsers, much like VP8 decoders will likely be bundled with H.264 encoders once the patents run out and H.264 can properly be called an open standard.

by cletus 16y ago

jawee 16y ago

> But it would become another closed de facto standard, just like IE6. Huh? IE6 is a browser not a standard. Well, neither can H.264 be a standard, it is a non-free codec for video. The key was de facto.. Internet Explorer 6, at the peak of its dominance, became the standard that many web developers developed for. Even though it wasn't a standard, when it had over 90% of the market, it was often the only browser that was developed for and other browsers were locked out or suffered. Browsers like Opera spoofed as IE by default, Netscape had quirks to behave similar to IE in some respects... It's saying that everyone who wasn't on H.264 would suffer or be forced to conform, as was the case with IE6 for some time.

cletus 16y ago
> Well, neither can H.264 be a standard Let's not split hairs. Browser != data format. I can see the point you're arguing (or at least what the author is trying to argue, whether or not it's your opinion as well). But it's at best a stretch. In the IE6 "glory" days, it wasn't just a case that Websites wouldn't be made to work for other browsers (meaning they were never tested or, if they were, it was beyond scope to fix). It was worse than that. Sites would deliberately look at the user agent and simply not work if it was a non-IE browser. This still happens. I still come across sites that not only warn you they're optimized for IE and FF (ie proceed at your own "risk" when using Chrome). Some go further and simply won't work if you try and use Chrome. It's thankfully rare but it still happens. Anyway, the point here is the IE6 displayed HTML/CSS content differently than other browsers and had JS differences too. It took effort to make things cross-browser and it was (and arguably still is) a big deal. So the stretch of comparing H.264 to IE6 is twofold: 1. We're talking about the entire Web vs the narrow context of Web-based videol so it's a question of scope; and 2. Converting video from one format to another can be automated. Converting a site designed for IE6 to work on other browsers cannot. So not only aren't the problems analogous but the author is engaging in scaremongering to try and equate H.264 with the (stipulated) horrors of IE6.
- lukeschlather 16y ago
  >2. Converting video from one format to another can be automated. Converting a site designed for IE6 to work on other browsers cannot. Sure it can. You run it through IE6 and print to an image format of your choice. >1. We're talking about the entire Web vs the narrow context of Web-based videol so it's a question of scope; and Yes, and thanks to the narrower scope it's not as big a deal to convert between video formats, but there's still going to be a marked loss of quality. >So not only aren't the problems analogous but the author is engaging in scaremongering to try and equate H.264 with the (stipulated) horrors of IE6. Viewing a website designed specifically for IE6 is likely to cause similar loss of fidelity to viewing a video transcoded from VP8 to H.264, or vice versa. >Let's not split hairs. Browser != data format. The data format in question is the HTML accepted by IE6. That data format actually works fairly well with modern web browsers, much like VP8 decoders will likely be bundled with H.264 encoders once the patents run out and H.264 can properly be called an open standard.