3 ms·

"However, I sincerely doubt that's a very common case, and, as above, you don't have to switch to WebM if you don't want to. H.264 decoders still work." And th

"However, I sincerely doubt that's a very common case, and, as above, you don't have to switch to WebM if you don't want to. H.264 decoders still work." And thus, your entire argument in favor of WebM falls flat on its face. H.264 decoders not just "still work" but they are also the only way to get video to mobile devices at this time. So unless you want to ignore all mobile devices, you’ll at least not want to drop H.264 altogether, and maintaining two entire video catalogues at the same time is so very much not an attractive proposition when the alternative is maintaining only a single video catalogue—likely what everyone is doing right now as it is.

cookiecaper 16y ago
Why is H.264 the only way to get video to mobile devices? Can your mobile computers not make the computations necessary to decode video encoded in a codec not natively decoded by hardware? Software decoding is not impossible or even rare -- it's the common case except for a handful of codecs on a handful of devices. So, why is it not possible for an iPhone or Nexus S to decode WebM?
- chc 16y ago
  Because Apple almost completely controls the iOS platform, and they will not allow you to write a new codec for their browser.
  - rmc 16y ago
    If WebM takes off Apple will have to add support. Otherwise the ipad will be "that thing that doesn't play videos"
- tomlin 16y ago
  cookiecaper, you are my new fav HNer. I have an iPhone and other H.264 rendering devices, too. It sucks to know that WebM might be a problem. But I'm not so sure worrying about my phone purchase warrants this baffling cry of nonsense about Google dropping H.264. Flash is installed everywhere, providing video, interactive content and millions of web experiences - but Steve says its gotta go. Fine, I concede that a proprietary sandtrap that encapsulates 90% of the interactive content on the web is probably a crappy thing. So why the hate on Google for dropping royalty-laden H.264? Isn't this the same proprietary lip-stick-on-a-pig bullshit argument that Adobe was shooting around about Flash when Steve Jobs declared it the enemy of battery life? It would be different if every single browser supported H.264 and Google was pulling the carpet out from under everyone. But that isn't the case.

cookiecaper 16y ago

Why is H.264 the only way to get video to mobile devices? Can your mobile computers not make the computations necessary to decode video encoded in a codec not natively decoded by hardware? Software decoding is not impossible or even rare -- it's the common case except for a handful of codecs on a handful of devices. So, why is it not possible for an iPhone or Nexus S to decode WebM?

chc 16y ago
Because Apple almost completely controls the iOS platform, and they will not allow you to write a new codec for their browser.
- rmc 16y ago
  If WebM takes off Apple will have to add support. Otherwise the ipad will be "that thing that doesn't play videos"
tomlin 16y ago
cookiecaper, you are my new fav HNer. I have an iPhone and other H.264 rendering devices, too. It sucks to know that WebM might be a problem. But I'm not so sure worrying about my phone purchase warrants this baffling cry of nonsense about Google dropping H.264. Flash is installed everywhere, providing video, interactive content and millions of web experiences - but Steve says its gotta go. Fine, I concede that a proprietary sandtrap that encapsulates 90% of the interactive content on the web is probably a crappy thing. So why the hate on Google for dropping royalty-laden H.264? Isn't this the same proprietary lip-stick-on-a-pig bullshit argument that Adobe was shooting around about Flash when Steve Jobs declared it the enemy of battery life? It would be different if every single browser supported H.264 and Google was pulling the carpet out from under everyone. But that isn't the case.