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The biggest part of the 'rage' towards Google over the drop of Chrome's native ability to use H.264 in the <video> tag, is that Google is trying to spin as its

The biggest part of the 'rage' towards Google over the drop of Chrome's native ability to use H.264 in the <video> tag, is that Google is trying to spin as its for the benefit of innovation. Which is not the case. Flash has been great, but it's not needed for the distribution of video content, and the fact that WebM is a lawsuit waiting to happen does not help either. Great article though!

zaphar 16y ago
H.264 could also be considered a lawsuit waiting to happen. Who knows who out there has a patent it infringes? Maybe the webm folks have a few patents it violates?
- mikeryan 16y ago
  H.264 could also be considered a lawsuit waiting to happen It could be and its been challenged at least once in the past (however Qualcomm lost that challenge), but though its not free, its patent restrictions are pretty clear and tested. It is 7 years old. While stranger things have happened, its very unlikely that as a licensee of H.264 you are going to be sued. WebM's status is not as clear, sometimes you choose the devil you know.
TechNewb 16y ago
YouTube in HTML5 is an amazing experience through the YouTube5 Safari extension from Connor McKay. H.264, through YouTube, on Safari. For the low low price of free: http://www.verticalforest.com/2010/10/27/youtube5-version-2/ http://www.verticalforest.com/2010/10/27/youtube5-version-2/ Best YouTube user experience ever, auto loads the highest quality every time, and downloads faster. This is the way YouTube should be!
ZeroGravitas 16y ago
Has HTML5 been used to deliver any valuable content on desktop machines? And by "valuable" I mean terrible Hollywoood movies or trashy TV Shows. I was under the impression that they all used Flash and Silverlight because then they could implement DRM. They don't need to do that on iOS devices, because the whole platform is DRM'd. For example BBC iPlayer is HTML5 to iOS, but Flash to Mac OS X. They've announced that all the other mobile devices will be served via Flash. People that want to post videos of their cat dancing or a backyard physics experiment on the other hand, have totally different needs, like the ability to post it in their subscriber only cat physics forum without worrying about licence fees.

zaphar 16y ago

H.264 could also be considered a lawsuit waiting to happen. Who knows who out there has a patent it infringes? Maybe the webm folks have a few patents it violates?

mikeryan 16y ago
H.264 could also be considered a lawsuit waiting to happen It could be and its been challenged at least once in the past (however Qualcomm lost that challenge), but though its not free, its patent restrictions are pretty clear and tested. It is 7 years old. While stranger things have happened, its very unlikely that as a licensee of H.264 you are going to be sued. WebM's status is not as clear, sometimes you choose the devil you know.

TechNewb 16y ago

YouTube in HTML5 is an amazing experience through the YouTube5 Safari extension from Connor McKay. H.264, through YouTube, on Safari. For the low low price of free: http://www.verticalforest.com/2010/10/27/youtube5-version-2/ http://www.verticalforest.com/2010/10/27/youtube5-version-2/ Best YouTube user experience ever, auto loads the highest quality every time, and downloads faster. This is the way YouTube should be!

ZeroGravitas 16y ago

Has HTML5 been used to deliver any valuable content on desktop machines? And by "valuable" I mean terrible Hollywoood movies or trashy TV Shows. I was under the impression that they all used Flash and Silverlight because then they could implement DRM. They don't need to do that on iOS devices, because the whole platform is DRM'd. For example BBC iPlayer is HTML5 to iOS, but Flash to Mac OS X. They've announced that all the other mobile devices will be served via Flash. People that want to post videos of their cat dancing or a backyard physics experiment on the other hand, have totally different needs, like the ability to post it in their subscriber only cat physics forum without worrying about licence fees.