9 ms·

Microsoft backs H.264.

61 points by dansingerman 16y ago

powrtoch 16y ago
Here's what I'm not clear on: why did we scrap the whole Ogg Theora thing in favor of WebM at all? Isn't Ogg actually unencumbered by lawsuit-fodder?
- JoachimSchipper 16y ago
  As I understand, Ogg Theora is an odd format (in a way that makes it exceptionally hard to implement in hardware, for instance) that doesn't perform very well.
- mcritz 16y ago
  Ogg (like mp4 or mov) is actually a container format that can have Theora or WebM compressed media inside.
  - robin_reala 16y ago
    WebM is a container format for VP8. Ogg can’t contain WebM but could contain VP8 as well.
- mgw 16y ago
  Theora is derived from VP3 which, as the name suggests, is a predecessor to VP8 which Google recently renamed to WebM. As such, VP3 is inferior to VP8 (WebM) and a huge step backwards from H.264. One could also say that as long as software patents exist, no codec can ever be unencumbered by lawsuit-fodder.
latch 16y ago
And they just released a Chrome plugin (like they recently did for firefox): http://blogs.msdn.com/b/interoperability/archive/2011/02/01/greater-interoperability-for-windows-customers-with-html5-video.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/interoperability/archive/2011/02/01/...
carson 16y ago
The link to the actual post referenced in the techcrunch article but not linked to: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2011/02/02/html5-and-web-video-questions-for-the-industry-from-the-community.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2011/02/02/html5-and-web-...
cgranade 16y ago
I get really tired of people saying that the patents on H.264 are a "red herring." How is open source software like Firefox supposed to use H.264 if they have to pay massive licensing fees? That enforcement thus far has been weak to non-existent doesn't imply that it will continue to be so in the future.
- DrJokepu 16y ago
  For example, by trying to use the codec that is provided by the underlying operating system. The latest versions of both Windows and OS X ship with a H264 codec.
  - cgranade 16y ago
    And what of Linux, and its variants like Android or MeeGo?
    - griftah 16y ago
      Android supports H.264.
      - DeusExMachina 16y ago
        I genuinely wonder if it will in the future. Does not the same reasons for pulling H264 from Chrome hold for the Android browser too?
        griftah 16y ago
        Carriers will put it back.
    - DrJokepu 16y ago
      Yes, Linux is a bit of a problem. In case of Android and MeeGo, the distributor or the manufacturer can deal with licensing issues and ship the device with a licensed codec. The real problem is non-commercial desktop distributions such as Debian or Fedora; it could still check for the presence of x264 or FFmpeg (with h264 support) on the system and use it if it's available, and defer the responsibility of licensing to the user or distributor.
pedanticfreak 16y ago
Until the W3C officially adopts a royalty free codec as part of the HTML standard, Google and Mozilla should assume HTML video is dead. They might as well make the <video> tag inoperable by default. Just parse it and ignore it. Of course, Google owns VP8. So they are pushing it so it might become a defacto standard that later gets officially adopted. Despite meeting the requirements to be part of the HTML spec, without the official backing of the W3C it is no different than any other out of spec extension to HTML.
- eli 16y ago
  Maybe this is a dumb question, but what difference does it make what's in the spec? People will pick the browser that plays the videos they want to see over the one that follows the spec every time.
  - pedanticfreak 16y ago
    http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/biz/2009/09/123_52401.html http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/biz/2009/09/123_52401.h... South Korea built vast infrastructure around IE6 and ActiveX. Just a year ago a full 60% of Korean traffic still came from IE6. Why? Because they relied heavily on features that were not in the spec that Microsoft deprecated and nobody else can or will implement. An extreme example. But it highlights the importance of sticking to specs that can be freely implemented by anyone. Five years from now when MPEGLA decides to throw down the crap hammer do you want to have to keep around old Safari binaries just for sites that migrated to h264 while the rest of the web moved on?
    - petsos 16y ago
      I don't think it is the same thing. Unlike ActiveX, video can be re-encoded (fairly easily I guess if you are going to use 2016 technology).
    - eli 16y ago
      That sounds like an argument for free and open formats in general more than an argument for strict obedience to the W3C, but I see your point. At the time those Korean sites were built, I'm guessing there was no spec nor open alternative to do what they were trying to do.
akmiller 16y ago
Of course Microsoft and Apple support H.264. They both stand to benefit: http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/AVC/Pages/Licensors.aspx http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/AVC/Pages/Licensors.aspx
- griftah 16y ago
  Of course Firefox and Opera support WebM. Revenues of Mozilla Foundation and Opera Software depend on Google.
  - nlogn 16y ago
    Firefox and Opera had chosen VP8 in favor of H.264 before Chrome did.
    - griftah 16y ago
      But not before Google.
  - akmiller 16y ago
    I agree with you as well, but I don't see why my point doesn't stand. I'm not saying I agree with one side or the other just that everyone has a stake in this game.
- msbarnett 16y ago
  Microsoft has stated in the past that they pay more into the Pool each year than they get out in payments for the patents they have in the Pool. I forget how many patents Microsoft has in the pool, but it's more than Apple, who only has one patent in there, which implies that Apple is getting even less money out than Microsoft. In other words, I doubt either company is directly making a profit on h.264 licensing payments.
vampirical 16y ago
Let me consult my list of companies which make money from being MPEG LA licensors: Apple Cisco Daewoo Dolby Fuijitsu HP Hitachi Philips LG Microsoft Mitsubishi NTT Panasonic Samsung Sharp Siemens Sony Ericsson Toshiba Reference: http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/AVC/Pages/Licensors.aspx http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/AVC/Pages/Licensors.aspx I am SHOCKED to hear that Microsoft would like to continue receiving royalties from all those H.264 license fees and doesn't give a toss about open standards.
- pacifika 16y ago
  "Microsoft pays into MPEG-LA about twice as much as it receives back for rights to H.264." http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2010/05/03/follow-up-on-html5-video-in-ie9.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2010/05/03/follow-up-on-h...
  - ZeroGravitas 16y ago
    So Microsoft gets a 50% discount on a tax that already benefits larger, incumbent companies by protecting them from up and coming competitors and it's incompatible with many open source and freeware business models used by competitors. And this is presented as if they're some kind of selfless saint for paying into this racket?
    - orangecat 16y ago
      Bingo. Microsoft and Apple support H.264 for the same reasons that Walmart supports minimum wage increases and Mattel supports extensive product testing regulations.
      - recoiledsnake 16y ago
        If you read Microsoft's blog post, Microsoft is not taking sides on this like every other player is. All they want is not to be liable for billions in damages if WebM is found infringing on some company's patents. They're supporting it via plugins if the user installs and are ready to bundle it with the OS if Google or someone else provides indemnification. They are relatively comfortable with H.264 because most of the major players are already in the pool and the standard has been around for a while, reducing chances of patent suits. The ball is in Google's court now. They and their supporters are all over the internet saying that WebM has been vetted for patent infringement etc. Now they need to tell us why their belief is not enough to indemnify distributors and end users.
tomlin 16y ago
> At first, they touted the maneuver as being all about supporting “open” formats. But if that’s the case, why not pull support for the Flash plug-in baked into every version of Chrome currently? This is the single shittiest argument I've ever heard, and continue to hear. 1) Adobe isn't charging browser makers royalty or licensing fees to use Flash. 2) Are we really going to pull the "all or nothing" argument with a bunch of programmers and developers who, maybe more than anyone, are constantly driven by the force known as evolution? Just because they haven't removed Flash today doesn't mean they won't in the future. The probability of Google dumping Flash in the next 5 years is likely, perhaps not high. Furthermore, YouTube's HTML5 implementation doesn't exactly come across as fear for HTML5 video. WebM needed to be here 5 years ago. H.264 should have been dumped before it got traction. Better late than never, no? Or in this case, off course - but constantly correcting.
- knowtheory 16y ago
  It is very frustrating to hear this constantly touted as hypocrisy. It is not. Users and developers are free to use any and all Flash components. Flash itself is a published standard (although proprietary). You can create alternative VMs largely w/o caveat (the only one i've heard raised was some DRM junk having to do with Flash Media Server, which no one should use anyway). There is no threat of patent licensing hovering over people who use Flash. That is not the case with H.264 encoding. Furthermore, it is obnoxious that Flash is always uncritically trotted out as the only example of proprietary components in Chrome. What about Java plugins? Anything you want to say about Flash you can say about Java applets. Please stop spreading FUD. Also, Google didn't own WebM 5 years ago. It's hardly sensible for criticizing them for not moving more quickly on the issue.
  - tomlin 16y ago
    > It's hardly sensible for criticizing them for not moving more quickly on the issue. I'm not criticizing Google. I realize there was a time where WebM was VP8. When I say WebM needed to be here 5 years ago, that's all I'm saying. No one company, standards body, org. is to blame. > There is no threat of patent licensing hovering over people who use Flash. That is not the case with H.264 encoding. Agreed. The individual user is not effected. The browser, and those who encode en masse for profit are exposed to potential pitfalls of the licensing. I'm not saying these royalties are debilitating or that the web will cripple into a video-less nothingness. What I am saying is: If we can replace something proprietary with something more open, that is a good thing. > Please stop spreading FUD. It really seems as though you're spreading FUD by ascertaining my opinions as allegiance to one camp or another. I'll admit I have a slight distaste for those who insist that H.264's penetration is reason alone to continue using it. Especially when I, up until a few years ago, was a lead Flash developer. Mainly due to Apple's insistence that Flash was the devil. I want you to see the ignorant, double-standard here. Flash and H.264 both have high penetration rates. Both are used extensively on the web and beyond. Yet only Flash must die? See how this is completely asinine? Instead of pointing a finger at Apple and declare them the enemy of my camp, I examined the situation for benefits instead of fear. Many thousand Flash developers will eventually hang up their tried-and-true tools in search for a better way. A more open, standards-abiding, creative community. If we (Flash developers) can do it, I'm sure H,264 blowhards can do the same.
contextfree 16y ago
The IE blog post in question (http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2011/02/02/html5-and-web-video-questions-for-the-industry-from-the-community.aspx#comments http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2011/02/02/html5-and-web-...) seems more interesting than the media stories suggest - here's what appears to be the most substantive paragraph: "Ultimately, Microsoft remains agnostic in terms of HTML5 video as long as there is clarity on the intellectual property issues. To make it clear that we are fully willing to participate in a resolution of these issues, Microsoft is willing to commit that we will never assert any patents on VP8 if Google will make a commitment to indemnify us and all other developers and customers who use VP8 in the future. We would only ask that we be able to use those patent rights if we are sued first by somebody else. If Google would prefer a patent pool approach, then we would also agree to join a patent pool for VP8 on reasonable licensing terms so long as Google joins the pool and is able to include all other major providers of playback software and devices." The question of indemnification seems pertinent to me, but I've only been superficially following this issue - maybe it's a red herring and Google has good reason not to offer indemnification etc. I'm curious to see the case for that.
- kenjackson 16y ago
  Indemnification is not likely, but MS asks for good reason. They probably suspect (or maybe knows) that WebM infringes on some patents. The patent pool, just as it does with H264, gets every player in the game to effectively commit to not assert patents. Good move by MS. And certainly shows that they're more willing to play than anyone else has demonstrated so far.
- megaman821 16y ago
  Microsoft has a really good point here. Google might be fine with phone manufactures getting sued over patent violations in Android, but that is not how Microsoft conducts business. If they included VP8 support in IE9, them and their partners can be sued for patent infringement, so the best they can due is work with Google to make a plugin. If Google offers indemnify over VP8, Microsoft can pass it along.
- nitrogen 16y ago
  Indemnification is unheard of in codecs. Microsoft and SMPTE don't indemnify users of VC-1. MPEG-LA doesn't indemnify users of H.264. Google offering indemnification for WebM would effectively be suicide. They'd be painting themselves with a giant target and taunting every money-grubbing patent troll in existence.
kenjackson 16y ago
The IE blog post, http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2011/02/02/html5-and-web-video-questions-for-the-industry-from-the-community.aspx#comments http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2011/02/02/html5-and-web-..., also mentioned something I'd never seen before. MS indemnifies Windows users for included software, which would include H264. And is probably an obvious reason why WebM isn't shipped as part of Windows (client and server). That'a s pretty big frickin deal. I thought indemnification was off the table, but reading this Google has at least got to say that end users of WebM are indemnified. I honestly don't think they are willing to take that risk given the patent state of WebM. http://download.microsoft.com/download/9/D/0/9D0A6265-A509-416C-80AE-BB6C0A9D1B99/IP%20Indemnification%20Policy.docx http://download.microsoft.com/download/9/D/0/9D0A6265-A509-4...
beej71 16y ago
> by turning their back on H.264, Google is ensuring that Flash will continue to remain the dominant force in web video for years to come Even if Google didn't support the video tag at all, people can still use IE and Safari, right? Its looking like H.264 is going to be the dominant codec, after all, so IE and Safari will support it. If you want it on another browser, you'll need a plugin, sorry. That could be Flash, or it could be something else. > but the issue here is that we need the HTML5 standard to fully support H.264, and that’s simply not going to happen without Google on board. No. The answer is no, with or without Google. It's a bad idea to have a per-unit fee for distributing a standards-compliant browser. Go ahead and buy it for the browser you're building--I'm fine with that--but don't make it a requirement. And to anyone who says, "$0.20 isn't that much", you must agree to back it in cash. If you say you'll personally cover the licensing fees for anyone who asks, well, then I'll reconsider.

61 points by dansingerman 16y ago

Here's what I'm not clear on: why did we scrap the whole Ogg Theora thing in favor of WebM at all? Isn't Ogg actually unencumbered by lawsuit-fodder?

JoachimSchipper 16y ago
As I understand, Ogg Theora is an odd format (in a way that makes it exceptionally hard to implement in hardware, for instance) that doesn't perform very well.
mcritz 16y ago
Ogg (like mp4 or mov) is actually a container format that can have Theora or WebM compressed media inside.
- robin_reala 16y ago
  WebM is a container format for VP8. Ogg can’t contain WebM but could contain VP8 as well.
mgw 16y ago
Theora is derived from VP3 which, as the name suggests, is a predecessor to VP8 which Google recently renamed to WebM. As such, VP3 is inferior to VP8 (WebM) and a huge step backwards from H.264. One could also say that as long as software patents exist, no codec can ever be unencumbered by lawsuit-fodder.

latch 16y ago

And they just released a Chrome plugin (like they recently did for firefox): http://blogs.msdn.com/b/interoperability/archive/2011/02/01/greater-interoperability-for-windows-customers-with-html5-video.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/interoperability/archive/2011/02/01/...

carson 16y ago

The link to the actual post referenced in the techcrunch article but not linked to: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2011/02/02/html5-and-web-video-questions-for-the-industry-from-the-community.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2011/02/02/html5-and-web-...

cgranade 16y ago

I get really tired of people saying that the patents on H.264 are a "red herring." How is open source software like Firefox supposed to use H.264 if they have to pay massive licensing fees? That enforcement thus far has been weak to non-existent doesn't imply that it will continue to be so in the future.

DrJokepu 16y ago
For example, by trying to use the codec that is provided by the underlying operating system. The latest versions of both Windows and OS X ship with a H264 codec.
- cgranade 16y ago
  And what of Linux, and its variants like Android or MeeGo?
  - griftah 16y ago
    Android supports H.264.
    - DeusExMachina 16y ago
      I genuinely wonder if it will in the future. Does not the same reasons for pulling H264 from Chrome hold for the Android browser too?
      - griftah 16y ago
        Carriers will put it back.
  - DrJokepu 16y ago
    Yes, Linux is a bit of a problem. In case of Android and MeeGo, the distributor or the manufacturer can deal with licensing issues and ship the device with a licensed codec. The real problem is non-commercial desktop distributions such as Debian or Fedora; it could still check for the presence of x264 or FFmpeg (with h264 support) on the system and use it if it's available, and defer the responsibility of licensing to the user or distributor.

pedanticfreak 16y ago

Until the W3C officially adopts a royalty free codec as part of the HTML standard, Google and Mozilla should assume HTML video is dead. They might as well make the <video> tag inoperable by default. Just parse it and ignore it. Of course, Google owns VP8. So they are pushing it so it might become a defacto standard that later gets officially adopted. Despite meeting the requirements to be part of the HTML spec, without the official backing of the W3C it is no different than any other out of spec extension to HTML.

eli 16y ago
Maybe this is a dumb question, but what difference does it make what's in the spec? People will pick the browser that plays the videos they want to see over the one that follows the spec every time.
- pedanticfreak 16y ago
  http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/biz/2009/09/123_52401.html http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/biz/2009/09/123_52401.h... South Korea built vast infrastructure around IE6 and ActiveX. Just a year ago a full 60% of Korean traffic still came from IE6. Why? Because they relied heavily on features that were not in the spec that Microsoft deprecated and nobody else can or will implement. An extreme example. But it highlights the importance of sticking to specs that can be freely implemented by anyone. Five years from now when MPEGLA decides to throw down the crap hammer do you want to have to keep around old Safari binaries just for sites that migrated to h264 while the rest of the web moved on?
  - petsos 16y ago
    I don't think it is the same thing. Unlike ActiveX, video can be re-encoded (fairly easily I guess if you are going to use 2016 technology).
  - eli 16y ago
    That sounds like an argument for free and open formats in general more than an argument for strict obedience to the W3C, but I see your point. At the time those Korean sites were built, I'm guessing there was no spec nor open alternative to do what they were trying to do.

akmiller 16y ago

Of course Microsoft and Apple support H.264. They both stand to benefit: http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/AVC/Pages/Licensors.aspx http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/AVC/Pages/Licensors.aspx

griftah 16y ago
Of course Firefox and Opera support WebM. Revenues of Mozilla Foundation and Opera Software depend on Google.
- nlogn 16y ago
  Firefox and Opera had chosen VP8 in favor of H.264 before Chrome did.
  - griftah 16y ago
    But not before Google.
- akmiller 16y ago
  I agree with you as well, but I don't see why my point doesn't stand. I'm not saying I agree with one side or the other just that everyone has a stake in this game.
msbarnett 16y ago
Microsoft has stated in the past that they pay more into the Pool each year than they get out in payments for the patents they have in the Pool. I forget how many patents Microsoft has in the pool, but it's more than Apple, who only has one patent in there, which implies that Apple is getting even less money out than Microsoft. In other words, I doubt either company is directly making a profit on h.264 licensing payments.

vampirical 16y ago

Let me consult my list of companies which make money from being MPEG LA licensors: Apple Cisco Daewoo Dolby Fuijitsu HP Hitachi Philips LG Microsoft Mitsubishi NTT Panasonic Samsung Sharp Siemens Sony Ericsson Toshiba Reference: http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/AVC/Pages/Licensors.aspx http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/AVC/Pages/Licensors.aspx I am SHOCKED to hear that Microsoft would like to continue receiving royalties from all those H.264 license fees and doesn't give a toss about open standards.

pacifika 16y ago
"Microsoft pays into MPEG-LA about twice as much as it receives back for rights to H.264." http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2010/05/03/follow-up-on-html5-video-in-ie9.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2010/05/03/follow-up-on-h...
- ZeroGravitas 16y ago
  So Microsoft gets a 50% discount on a tax that already benefits larger, incumbent companies by protecting them from up and coming competitors and it's incompatible with many open source and freeware business models used by competitors. And this is presented as if they're some kind of selfless saint for paying into this racket?
  - orangecat 16y ago
    Bingo. Microsoft and Apple support H.264 for the same reasons that Walmart supports minimum wage increases and Mattel supports extensive product testing regulations.
    - recoiledsnake 16y ago
      If you read Microsoft's blog post, Microsoft is not taking sides on this like every other player is. All they want is not to be liable for billions in damages if WebM is found infringing on some company's patents. They're supporting it via plugins if the user installs and are ready to bundle it with the OS if Google or someone else provides indemnification. They are relatively comfortable with H.264 because most of the major players are already in the pool and the standard has been around for a while, reducing chances of patent suits. The ball is in Google's court now. They and their supporters are all over the internet saying that WebM has been vetted for patent infringement etc. Now they need to tell us why their belief is not enough to indemnify distributors and end users.

tomlin 16y ago

> At first, they touted the maneuver as being all about supporting “open” formats. But if that’s the case, why not pull support for the Flash plug-in baked into every version of Chrome currently? This is the single shittiest argument I've ever heard, and continue to hear. 1) Adobe isn't charging browser makers royalty or licensing fees to use Flash. 2) Are we really going to pull the "all or nothing" argument with a bunch of programmers and developers who, maybe more than anyone, are constantly driven by the force known as evolution? Just because they haven't removed Flash today doesn't mean they won't in the future. The probability of Google dumping Flash in the next 5 years is likely, perhaps not high. Furthermore, YouTube's HTML5 implementation doesn't exactly come across as fear for HTML5 video. WebM needed to be here 5 years ago. H.264 should have been dumped before it got traction. Better late than never, no? Or in this case, off course - but constantly correcting.

knowtheory 16y ago
It is very frustrating to hear this constantly touted as hypocrisy. It is not. Users and developers are free to use any and all Flash components. Flash itself is a published standard (although proprietary). You can create alternative VMs largely w/o caveat (the only one i've heard raised was some DRM junk having to do with Flash Media Server, which no one should use anyway). There is no threat of patent licensing hovering over people who use Flash. That is not the case with H.264 encoding. Furthermore, it is obnoxious that Flash is always uncritically trotted out as the only example of proprietary components in Chrome. What about Java plugins? Anything you want to say about Flash you can say about Java applets. Please stop spreading FUD. Also, Google didn't own WebM 5 years ago. It's hardly sensible for criticizing them for not moving more quickly on the issue.
- tomlin 16y ago
  > It's hardly sensible for criticizing them for not moving more quickly on the issue. I'm not criticizing Google. I realize there was a time where WebM was VP8. When I say WebM needed to be here 5 years ago, that's all I'm saying. No one company, standards body, org. is to blame. > There is no threat of patent licensing hovering over people who use Flash. That is not the case with H.264 encoding. Agreed. The individual user is not effected. The browser, and those who encode en masse for profit are exposed to potential pitfalls of the licensing. I'm not saying these royalties are debilitating or that the web will cripple into a video-less nothingness. What I am saying is: If we can replace something proprietary with something more open, that is a good thing. > Please stop spreading FUD. It really seems as though you're spreading FUD by ascertaining my opinions as allegiance to one camp or another. I'll admit I have a slight distaste for those who insist that H.264's penetration is reason alone to continue using it. Especially when I, up until a few years ago, was a lead Flash developer. Mainly due to Apple's insistence that Flash was the devil. I want you to see the ignorant, double-standard here. Flash and H.264 both have high penetration rates. Both are used extensively on the web and beyond. Yet only Flash must die? See how this is completely asinine? Instead of pointing a finger at Apple and declare them the enemy of my camp, I examined the situation for benefits instead of fear. Many thousand Flash developers will eventually hang up their tried-and-true tools in search for a better way. A more open, standards-abiding, creative community. If we (Flash developers) can do it, I'm sure H,264 blowhards can do the same.

contextfree 16y ago

The IE blog post in question (http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2011/02/02/html5-and-web-video-questions-for-the-industry-from-the-community.aspx#comments http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2011/02/02/html5-and-web-...) seems more interesting than the media stories suggest - here's what appears to be the most substantive paragraph: "Ultimately, Microsoft remains agnostic in terms of HTML5 video as long as there is clarity on the intellectual property issues. To make it clear that we are fully willing to participate in a resolution of these issues, Microsoft is willing to commit that we will never assert any patents on VP8 if Google will make a commitment to indemnify us and all other developers and customers who use VP8 in the future. We would only ask that we be able to use those patent rights if we are sued first by somebody else. If Google would prefer a patent pool approach, then we would also agree to join a patent pool for VP8 on reasonable licensing terms so long as Google joins the pool and is able to include all other major providers of playback software and devices." The question of indemnification seems pertinent to me, but I've only been superficially following this issue - maybe it's a red herring and Google has good reason not to offer indemnification etc. I'm curious to see the case for that.

kenjackson 16y ago
Indemnification is not likely, but MS asks for good reason. They probably suspect (or maybe knows) that WebM infringes on some patents. The patent pool, just as it does with H264, gets every player in the game to effectively commit to not assert patents. Good move by MS. And certainly shows that they're more willing to play than anyone else has demonstrated so far.
megaman821 16y ago
Microsoft has a really good point here. Google might be fine with phone manufactures getting sued over patent violations in Android, but that is not how Microsoft conducts business. If they included VP8 support in IE9, them and their partners can be sued for patent infringement, so the best they can due is work with Google to make a plugin. If Google offers indemnify over VP8, Microsoft can pass it along.
nitrogen 16y ago
Indemnification is unheard of in codecs. Microsoft and SMPTE don't indemnify users of VC-1. MPEG-LA doesn't indemnify users of H.264. Google offering indemnification for WebM would effectively be suicide. They'd be painting themselves with a giant target and taunting every money-grubbing patent troll in existence.

kenjackson 16y ago

The IE blog post, http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2011/02/02/html5-and-web-video-questions-for-the-industry-from-the-community.aspx#comments http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2011/02/02/html5-and-web-..., also mentioned something I'd never seen before. MS indemnifies Windows users for included software, which would include H264. And is probably an obvious reason why WebM isn't shipped as part of Windows (client and server). That'a s pretty big frickin deal. I thought indemnification was off the table, but reading this Google has at least got to say that end users of WebM are indemnified. I honestly don't think they are willing to take that risk given the patent state of WebM. http://download.microsoft.com/download/9/D/0/9D0A6265-A509-416C-80AE-BB6C0A9D1B99/IP%20Indemnification%20Policy.docx http://download.microsoft.com/download/9/D/0/9D0A6265-A509-4...

beej71 16y ago

> by turning their back on H.264, Google is ensuring that Flash will continue to remain the dominant force in web video for years to come Even if Google didn't support the video tag at all, people can still use IE and Safari, right? Its looking like H.264 is going to be the dominant codec, after all, so IE and Safari will support it. If you want it on another browser, you'll need a plugin, sorry. That could be Flash, or it could be something else. > but the issue here is that we need the HTML5 standard to fully support H.264, and that’s simply not going to happen without Google on board. No. The answer is no, with or without Google. It's a bad idea to have a per-unit fee for distributing a standards-compliant browser. Go ahead and buy it for the browser you're building--I'm fine with that--but don't make it a requirement. And to anyone who says, "$0.20 isn't that much", you must agree to back it in cash. If you say you'll personally cover the licensing fees for anyone who asks, well, then I'll reconsider.