9 ms·

Firefox will support H264 and MP3 decoding with OS codecs

127 points by gcp 15y ago

avar 15y ago
So they're now just using OS codecs which is exactly what they refused to do when they made a big fuss about H264 patents a while back?
- joelhaasnoot 15y ago
  This is on Android initially. Cheaper android devices (anything less than ~ 200 dollars) don't ship with H264 decoders built it, nor does Cyanogenmod. You have to install something off the Market, which is hard since they're often chipset/ARM version specific...
- gcp 15y ago
  To me this looks like a capitulation, probably brought on by the following factors: * Chrome was supposed to drop H264 support a >1 year ago in favor of WebM. It never happened. * The spread of H264 video wasn't slowed down by Mozilla's stance. * Firefox users were effectively forced to install Flash (a far more closed solution) to view videos. * The split in HTML5 video support (Firefox and Opera being the lone holdouts with no H264 support) weakened HTML5 compared to alternatives. * Flash is going away on Mobile devices, which mean that Firefox Mobile users had no way to view videos. This is why it's going into B2G + Android first.
  - cheatercheater 15y ago
    You don't remember what the original argumentation was. Firefox is free, Mozilla can't afford the patent licensing, that's all. If you own a h.264 license and want to use it with your software, feel free. By buying a phone or windows 7 you get the license to use a h.264 codec. Microsoft already brought support to Firefox ( http://www.osnews.com/story/24137/Microsoft_Brings_H264_to_Firefox_on_Windows_7 http://www.osnews.com/story/24137/Microsoft_Brings_H264_to_F... ), now it's happening on Android. It's one thing to promote open standards - that's great and Firefox is doing that with WebM - but it's another thing to completely disregard existing capabilities and put the user back in the stone age of the internet.
    - gcp 15y ago
      You don't remember what the original argumentation was. Firefox is free, Mozilla can't afford the patent licensing, that's all. This is still entirely true (note that "afford" in the above should be read in the "free license" context, not monetary). For the same reason, Chromium has no H264 support. Patented codecs don't mix well with free software. They took a stance here based on their philosophy, that much should have been obvious. The reasons not to do it with system codecs before are enumerated here: http://shaver.off.net/diary/2010/01/23/html5-video-and-codecs/ http://shaver.off.net/diary/2010/01/23/html5-video-and-codec... Most of them still apply, but are simply less important 2 years later. The Windows XP thing was even brought up in the original discussion thread. put the user back in the stone age of the internet I would say that's essentially what the current patent legislation is doing. Worth fighting against.
    - huxley 15y ago
      Firefox may be free, but Mozilla is not poor. Their foundation received about $120 million last year. In their most recent negotiation with Google, it was reported that Mozilla would receive $1 billion over the next 3 years from search engine fees.[1] [1] http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2398046,00.asp http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2398046,00.asp
      - gcp 15y ago
        They can probably afford to pay the license for themselves, but Firefox is "libre" software, licensed (among others) under the GPL. If Firefox requires an H264 license to be usable, it's not a real open source project any more.
        huxley 15y ago
        Mozilla certainly have the ability, but I agree that for principle's sake they shouldn't license it. I would modify what you've said, software can be open source and be totally laden with patents, but free software (especially GPLv3) probably can't. Continuing my argument: Claiming Mozilla are poor as the GP did is a bad argument. Claiming that the software can't be re-distributed is a slightly less bad argument, but only for larger distributions. The pool sets certain payment stages. If your distribution of the codec has fewer than 100,000 users there is no license fee payable at all. Also ,the license fee for h.264 is capped at $6.5 million, so Firefox can distribute it to anyone and any smaller project (less than 100,000 users) can distribute it as well. It's the mid-sized redistributions that can have trouble, because they will lack Mozilla's money but have larger user bases that might trigger the fees.
  - nextparadigms 15y ago
    It could've been slowed down a lot if Google made Youtube in WebM by default by now. But they didn't, and that's probably because they don't think it's ready yet. Too bad. They might've missed their chance, or they will miss it if they don't do it very soon.
    - ugh 15y ago
      How was Google supposed to do that? Flash (still) doesn’t support WebM, so there wouldn’t be any fallback. Google surely isn’t arrogant enough to make YouTube videos not accessible to more than half of the browsers out there. There was and still is no realistic way for Google to switch to WebM. Not exclusively. (Yes, they can also encode their videos in WebM but h.264 versions are always necessary.)
      - wahnfrieden 15y ago
        You really think YouTube only stores and delivers single encodings of each video? They would just deliver a different encoding for Flash.
        ugh 15y ago
        Exactly my point. That format would be h.264. And nothing changes. Switching to WebM is pointless if all other browsers still can get h.264. That way you can’t change anything.
      - gcp 15y ago
        There was and still is no realistic way for Google to switch to WebM. YouTube, no. Chrome, obviously YES. Firefox and Opera did and still do it. Their failure to use Chrome to push WebM means they killed off their own format. Tells you something about their priorities.
  - mbrubeck 15y ago
    Also: * Adobe announced two years ago that Flash would support WebM, but it never happened. (And since then they have stopped updating Flash for mobile platforms, and for non-Chrome browsers on Linux.)
  - azakai 15y ago
    > * Chrome was supposed to drop H264 support a >1 year ago in favor of WebM. It never happened. This is pivotal. A big part of why WebM looked like it could win was Chrome's announced support for it and the dropping of H.264. It looks like Chrome has backtracked on that - over a year passed, no follow through on Chrome's promise to remove H.264 - so it is forcing Mozilla to reconsider it's position. Does anyone know more about Chrome's current stance?
- icebraining 15y ago
  They made their position. Obviously, no one except them (and possibly Opera) cares enough about the problems they pointed out with h.264. There's no point is fighting a lost battle and lose most of their user-base over it.
- carmen 15y ago
  mozplugger has long played every media format ever by hooking into system ffmpeg/mplayer tooling, on firefox/iceweasel. likewise most minimalist webkit wrapers (midori, surf) just seem to use gstreamer/ffmpeg too, which has clean-roomed free support of even nasty old codecs like realvideo. arguing over what is officialy 'shipped' when the browser supports plugins, Xembed and so on is kind of a pointless tempest in a teapot
AndrewDucker 15y ago
Just to be clear - this is on Android, at least to start with. Whether it gets opened up to work with Windows later is an open question.
Stratego 15y ago
A lovely way to admit being wrong while still remaining slightly user-hostile.
- icebraining 15y ago
  Wrong in what?
  - Joeboy 15y ago
    Wrong about thinking they could do the right thing and get away with it?
tacokakos 15y ago
Stratego > So true :)
chrisfarms 15y ago
> For the desktop, this could be problematic. While Windows 7 does provide access to an already installed and licensed h.264 codec, Windows XP does not. If we simply enable system codecs where available, how will Web developers know when they can and cannot count on system codecs? Isn't the whole point of the <source> tag to solve this very issue?
- fpgeek 15y ago
  <source> lets you serve different formats of the same audio/video object to accommodate the different formats your users may need. However, <source> doesn't do anything to help you figure out which formats you need to serve to cover your user base, which is the problem being referenced here, I believe.
  - gcp 15y ago
    In theory (only) this doesn't help web designers much, as they still need to keep supporting the same formats. In practice, web designers already seem to use H264 exclusively, so at the very least Firefox users won't have to install Flash to see videos.
    - fpgeek 15y ago
      Ironically, I've been pretty happy that Firefox on Android has been raising a video-viewing Intent, since I like the option to use one of my locally-installed video players. I hope they'll keep an option to do that even after they've integrated support for system codecs.
Fice 15y ago
This will surely help MPEG LA make their encumbered codec a standard for publishing video on the web. I would rather use a browser that does not support non-free codecs.
- Maxious 15y ago
  For h264 to be enabled in Firefox, you must already be using a mobile device or in the future an operating system that (financially and technically) supports non-free codecs.
- ugh 15y ago
  Make?! Are you serious? It already is. Currently Firefox is just using Flash to play h.264 videos, not OS codecs. There is little practical difference between those two things. This was always about booting h.264 from its position as the standard for publishing video on the web.
- tomjen3 15y ago
  Is that really such an issue? For a highly published patent like that I am sure some prior art can be found, if necessary.
  - streptomycin 15y ago
    If it were so simple, someone would have done it already. In reality, you're talking about a massively expensive legal battle with an uncertain outcome.
- pwthornton 15y ago
  Is there a remotely modern video codec that isn't encumbered? Just because it is offered up as free software or open source doesn't mean that someone else's patent doesn't already cover it. I have no faith that WebM is non-encumbered. The real issue is our patent system, not codecs.
  - Fice 15y ago
    The patent system is so that almost every non-trivial software can be considered encumbered. Yet the chances of being sued successfully are different. Why will MPEG LA need to push their codec if they could profit from selling patent licenses to WebM users? I suspect that the real motivation of the H.264 supporters is that the patent encumbered codec will allow content providers and proprietary software vendors to control who is allowed to produce video playback software (at least, they could make it impossible for free software to support the codec), and impose mandatory content protection. That will make the content industry giants closer to their ultimate goal of eliminating all the culture they do not control.
paulrouget 15y ago
No. There is no plan to support H264. Seriously - there is not decision been taken here. This is just a discussion about gecko on Android, and the implication for Desktop. Saying "Firefox will support H264 and MP3 decoding with OS codecs" is just speculation. Edit: to be clear: I am saying that there's no plan to support H264 on Firefox Desktop.
- gcp 15y ago
  Saying "Firefox will support H264 and MP3 decoding with OS codecs" is just speculation. Quoting directly from the link: Initially this will be enabled on Gonk (B2G). In a few weeks we will add support for Android as well. We will support encoding any video/audio format that is supported by existing decoders present on the system, including H.264 and MP3. Of course it's possible that the bug doesn't land. But calling this speculation? Please.
  - paulrouget 15y ago
    I was talking about Firefox Desktop.
    - gcp 15y ago
      It would be an interesting position for Mozilla to take, to capitulate on this issue on Mozilla's very own platform (B2G) and the fastest growing mobile platform Mozilla is currently active on (Android), yet not do so on the platform where the largest current userbase lies. I do not see what benefits it could have.
      - paulrouget 15y ago
        I agree. Kinda of an uncomfortable position here. Let's see how this evolves.
- joeybaker 15y ago
  If there's a workable solution for supporting codecs in gecko via a system license, why not use the same method on the desktop? Why fragment the engine?
pkmays 15y ago
I wonder how hostile people will be once the H.264 patents expire. (Remember GIF hate?) It will happen within most of our lifetimes.
- gcp 15y ago
  MP3 will go there first.
  - tomjen3 15y ago
    Not necessarily. High profile patents can always be made to expire, there is surely some prior art stashed somewhere. And if that fails, Google can always buy a couple of senators to fix it.
- Scaevolus 15y ago
  They won't all expire until around the end of 2017, according to this: http://www.tunequest.org/a-big-list-of-mp3-patents/20070226/ http://www.tunequest.org/a-big-list-of-mp3-patents/20070226/
  - magicalist 15y ago
    wait, did the grandparent originally say something about MP3? h264's last patent will expire in november 2027 (or september 2028, but I think there's some technicality that makes that one not count) according to http://scratchpad.wikia.com/wiki/MPEG_patent_lists#H.264_patents http://scratchpad.wikia.com/wiki/MPEG_patent_lists#H.264_pat... That's a really long time from now.
- ZeroGravitas 15y ago
  I would expect the hostility to rise towards the end as you realise that you're still locked in to a format that is no longer technically competitive and people start dropping support for it in ways that inconvenience you and force you onto an unnecessary upgrade treadmill e.g. see current state of mpeg-2 support and the near future for Xvid/MPEG4.
sho_hn 15y ago
From the article: "There is really no justification to stop our users from using system decoders already on the device" Mozilla just spent two years telling everyone that they were not going to do this, and posting justifications as for why not. To me this is a serious blow to their credibility. Examples: http://robert.ocallahan.org/2009/06/directshow-and-platform-media_23.html http://robert.ocallahan.org/2009/06/directshow-and-platform-... http://robert.ocallahan.org/2010/01/video-freedom-and-mozilla_23.html http://robert.ocallahan.org/2010/01/video-freedom-and-mozill... ("Mozilla should pick up and use H.264 codecs that are already installed on the user's system.")
- paulrouget 15y ago
  Not an article, a post in a forum. One person opinion != Mozilla opinion
  - sho_hn 15y ago
    Aye, but the person in question is a high-ranking Mozilla employee, and his "opinion" is presented in a very done-deal sort of way. (As for "article", that was just me using a generic term for the context of a HN thead.)
    - RandallBrown 15y ago
      Did you miss the post by the CEO that said basically the exact opposite?
      - sho_hn 15y ago
        I don't see a post by Gary Kovacs. Link? (If you mean the prominent Asa Dotzler, he's neither the CEO nor is he saying the "opposite" in my book.)
        RandallBrown 15y ago
        whoops.
Aissen 15y ago
2 years ago, while working at a SoC vendor, they were explicitely taking into account WebM support for their next generations of chips: not having hardware decoding for a major web codec would be a great failure: with Google + Mozilla + Opera we could see almost 1 billion users affected by this. This is a make or break to have design wins. A SoC lifecycle can take 5 years to materialize in customer shipping hardware. Yet Mozilla is giving up before collecting the fruit of their previous policy (no system codec). That's a shame.
- gcp 15y ago
  What good is WebM support in the SoC, or what effect does it have, if there is zero content out there using it anyway? If WebM video would be popular by any measure, this wouldn't have happened. Note that there are SoC already out there that support VP8/WebM. As far as I know Tegra 2 is one of them. What does it change? Nothing. All those chips support H264 as well. So H264 is what content producers use.
  - Aissen 15y ago
    There is content. Youtube has started pushing html5+webm videos to modern webrowsers without flash installed. This includes Android 4.0+.
- azakai 15y ago
  > Yet Mozilla is giving up before collecting the fruit of their previous policy (no system codec). The bigger issues are that * Google never followed through on its declaration it would remove H.264 from Chrome, which would have made almost 50% of browsers that don't support H.264. * Flash never followed through on its declaration it would include WebM, which would have enabled WebM in IE and Safari and made it possible for YouTube to go WebM-only (on desktop). Mozilla using system H.264 codecs on mobile (not even desktop) doesn't matter at all compared to those.
ZeroGravitas 15y ago
If they're going to do this, they should still not support AAC in html5 audio tags, even if they support it in video tags when bundled with H.264. With MP3 and Vorbis (with Opus a potential new entrant) you already have wide compatibility (everyone that supports AAC supports mp3 too) and top quality covered and mp3 patents expire a lot sooner than AAC. Ubuntu also has a free (as in beer) mp3 decoder available. I'm all for pragmatism, but there's still utility and principle in avoiding unnecessary reliance on patented codecs where possible.

127 points by gcp 15y ago

avar 15y ago

So they're now just using OS codecs which is exactly what they refused to do when they made a big fuss about H264 patents a while back?

joelhaasnoot 15y ago
This is on Android initially. Cheaper android devices (anything less than ~ 200 dollars) don't ship with H264 decoders built it, nor does Cyanogenmod. You have to install something off the Market, which is hard since they're often chipset/ARM version specific...
gcp 15y ago
To me this looks like a capitulation, probably brought on by the following factors: * Chrome was supposed to drop H264 support a >1 year ago in favor of WebM. It never happened. * The spread of H264 video wasn't slowed down by Mozilla's stance. * Firefox users were effectively forced to install Flash (a far more closed solution) to view videos. * The split in HTML5 video support (Firefox and Opera being the lone holdouts with no H264 support) weakened HTML5 compared to alternatives. * Flash is going away on Mobile devices, which mean that Firefox Mobile users had no way to view videos. This is why it's going into B2G + Android first.
- cheatercheater 15y ago
  You don't remember what the original argumentation was. Firefox is free, Mozilla can't afford the patent licensing, that's all. If you own a h.264 license and want to use it with your software, feel free. By buying a phone or windows 7 you get the license to use a h.264 codec. Microsoft already brought support to Firefox ( http://www.osnews.com/story/24137/Microsoft_Brings_H264_to_Firefox_on_Windows_7 http://www.osnews.com/story/24137/Microsoft_Brings_H264_to_F... ), now it's happening on Android. It's one thing to promote open standards - that's great and Firefox is doing that with WebM - but it's another thing to completely disregard existing capabilities and put the user back in the stone age of the internet.
  - gcp 15y ago
    You don't remember what the original argumentation was. Firefox is free, Mozilla can't afford the patent licensing, that's all. This is still entirely true (note that "afford" in the above should be read in the "free license" context, not monetary). For the same reason, Chromium has no H264 support. Patented codecs don't mix well with free software. They took a stance here based on their philosophy, that much should have been obvious. The reasons not to do it with system codecs before are enumerated here: http://shaver.off.net/diary/2010/01/23/html5-video-and-codecs/ http://shaver.off.net/diary/2010/01/23/html5-video-and-codec... Most of them still apply, but are simply less important 2 years later. The Windows XP thing was even brought up in the original discussion thread. put the user back in the stone age of the internet I would say that's essentially what the current patent legislation is doing. Worth fighting against.
  - huxley 15y ago
    Firefox may be free, but Mozilla is not poor. Their foundation received about $120 million last year. In their most recent negotiation with Google, it was reported that Mozilla would receive $1 billion over the next 3 years from search engine fees.[1] [1] http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2398046,00.asp http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2398046,00.asp
    - gcp 15y ago
      They can probably afford to pay the license for themselves, but Firefox is "libre" software, licensed (among others) under the GPL. If Firefox requires an H264 license to be usable, it's not a real open source project any more.
      - huxley 15y ago
        Mozilla certainly have the ability, but I agree that for principle's sake they shouldn't license it. I would modify what you've said, software can be open source and be totally laden with patents, but free software (especially GPLv3) probably can't. Continuing my argument: Claiming Mozilla are poor as the GP did is a bad argument. Claiming that the software can't be re-distributed is a slightly less bad argument, but only for larger distributions. The pool sets certain payment stages. If your distribution of the codec has fewer than 100,000 users there is no license fee payable at all. Also ,the license fee for h.264 is capped at $6.5 million, so Firefox can distribute it to anyone and any smaller project (less than 100,000 users) can distribute it as well. It's the mid-sized redistributions that can have trouble, because they will lack Mozilla's money but have larger user bases that might trigger the fees.
- nextparadigms 15y ago
  It could've been slowed down a lot if Google made Youtube in WebM by default by now. But they didn't, and that's probably because they don't think it's ready yet. Too bad. They might've missed their chance, or they will miss it if they don't do it very soon.
  - ugh 15y ago
    How was Google supposed to do that? Flash (still) doesn’t support WebM, so there wouldn’t be any fallback. Google surely isn’t arrogant enough to make YouTube videos not accessible to more than half of the browsers out there. There was and still is no realistic way for Google to switch to WebM. Not exclusively. (Yes, they can also encode their videos in WebM but h.264 versions are always necessary.)
    - wahnfrieden 15y ago
      You really think YouTube only stores and delivers single encodings of each video? They would just deliver a different encoding for Flash.
      - ugh 15y ago
        Exactly my point. That format would be h.264. And nothing changes. Switching to WebM is pointless if all other browsers still can get h.264. That way you can’t change anything.
    - gcp 15y ago
      There was and still is no realistic way for Google to switch to WebM. YouTube, no. Chrome, obviously YES. Firefox and Opera did and still do it. Their failure to use Chrome to push WebM means they killed off their own format. Tells you something about their priorities.
- mbrubeck 15y ago
  Also: * Adobe announced two years ago that Flash would support WebM, but it never happened. (And since then they have stopped updating Flash for mobile platforms, and for non-Chrome browsers on Linux.)
- azakai 15y ago
  > * Chrome was supposed to drop H264 support a >1 year ago in favor of WebM. It never happened. This is pivotal. A big part of why WebM looked like it could win was Chrome's announced support for it and the dropping of H.264. It looks like Chrome has backtracked on that - over a year passed, no follow through on Chrome's promise to remove H.264 - so it is forcing Mozilla to reconsider it's position. Does anyone know more about Chrome's current stance?
icebraining 15y ago
They made their position. Obviously, no one except them (and possibly Opera) cares enough about the problems they pointed out with h.264. There's no point is fighting a lost battle and lose most of their user-base over it.
carmen 15y ago
mozplugger has long played every media format ever by hooking into system ffmpeg/mplayer tooling, on firefox/iceweasel. likewise most minimalist webkit wrapers (midori, surf) just seem to use gstreamer/ffmpeg too, which has clean-roomed free support of even nasty old codecs like realvideo. arguing over what is officialy 'shipped' when the browser supports plugins, Xembed and so on is kind of a pointless tempest in a teapot

AndrewDucker 15y ago

Just to be clear - this is on Android, at least to start with. Whether it gets opened up to work with Windows later is an open question.

Stratego 15y ago

A lovely way to admit being wrong while still remaining slightly user-hostile.

icebraining 15y ago
Wrong in what?
- Joeboy 15y ago
  Wrong about thinking they could do the right thing and get away with it?

tacokakos 15y ago

Stratego > So true :)

chrisfarms 15y ago

> For the desktop, this could be problematic. While Windows 7 does provide access to an already installed and licensed h.264 codec, Windows XP does not. If we simply enable system codecs where available, how will Web developers know when they can and cannot count on system codecs? Isn't the whole point of the <source> tag to solve this very issue?

fpgeek 15y ago
<source> lets you serve different formats of the same audio/video object to accommodate the different formats your users may need. However, <source> doesn't do anything to help you figure out which formats you need to serve to cover your user base, which is the problem being referenced here, I believe.
- gcp 15y ago
  In theory (only) this doesn't help web designers much, as they still need to keep supporting the same formats. In practice, web designers already seem to use H264 exclusively, so at the very least Firefox users won't have to install Flash to see videos.
  - fpgeek 15y ago
    Ironically, I've been pretty happy that Firefox on Android has been raising a video-viewing Intent, since I like the option to use one of my locally-installed video players. I hope they'll keep an option to do that even after they've integrated support for system codecs.

Fice 15y ago

This will surely help MPEG LA make their encumbered codec a standard for publishing video on the web. I would rather use a browser that does not support non-free codecs.

Maxious 15y ago
For h264 to be enabled in Firefox, you must already be using a mobile device or in the future an operating system that (financially and technically) supports non-free codecs.
ugh 15y ago
Make?! Are you serious? It already is. Currently Firefox is just using Flash to play h.264 videos, not OS codecs. There is little practical difference between those two things. This was always about booting h.264 from its position as the standard for publishing video on the web.
tomjen3 15y ago
Is that really such an issue? For a highly published patent like that I am sure some prior art can be found, if necessary.
- streptomycin 15y ago
  If it were so simple, someone would have done it already. In reality, you're talking about a massively expensive legal battle with an uncertain outcome.
pwthornton 15y ago
Is there a remotely modern video codec that isn't encumbered? Just because it is offered up as free software or open source doesn't mean that someone else's patent doesn't already cover it. I have no faith that WebM is non-encumbered. The real issue is our patent system, not codecs.
- Fice 15y ago
  The patent system is so that almost every non-trivial software can be considered encumbered. Yet the chances of being sued successfully are different. Why will MPEG LA need to push their codec if they could profit from selling patent licenses to WebM users? I suspect that the real motivation of the H.264 supporters is that the patent encumbered codec will allow content providers and proprietary software vendors to control who is allowed to produce video playback software (at least, they could make it impossible for free software to support the codec), and impose mandatory content protection. That will make the content industry giants closer to their ultimate goal of eliminating all the culture they do not control.

paulrouget 15y ago

No. There is no plan to support H264. Seriously - there is not decision been taken here. This is just a discussion about gecko on Android, and the implication for Desktop. Saying "Firefox will support H264 and MP3 decoding with OS codecs" is just speculation. Edit: to be clear: I am saying that there's no plan to support H264 on Firefox Desktop.

gcp 15y ago
Saying "Firefox will support H264 and MP3 decoding with OS codecs" is just speculation. Quoting directly from the link: Initially this will be enabled on Gonk (B2G). In a few weeks we will add support for Android as well. We will support encoding any video/audio format that is supported by existing decoders present on the system, including H.264 and MP3. Of course it's possible that the bug doesn't land. But calling this speculation? Please.
- paulrouget 15y ago
  I was talking about Firefox Desktop.
  - gcp 15y ago
    It would be an interesting position for Mozilla to take, to capitulate on this issue on Mozilla's very own platform (B2G) and the fastest growing mobile platform Mozilla is currently active on (Android), yet not do so on the platform where the largest current userbase lies. I do not see what benefits it could have.
    - paulrouget 15y ago
      I agree. Kinda of an uncomfortable position here. Let's see how this evolves.
joeybaker 15y ago
If there's a workable solution for supporting codecs in gecko via a system license, why not use the same method on the desktop? Why fragment the engine?

pkmays 15y ago

I wonder how hostile people will be once the H.264 patents expire. (Remember GIF hate?) It will happen within most of our lifetimes.

gcp 15y ago
MP3 will go there first.
- tomjen3 15y ago
  Not necessarily. High profile patents can always be made to expire, there is surely some prior art stashed somewhere. And if that fails, Google can always buy a couple of senators to fix it.
Scaevolus 15y ago
They won't all expire until around the end of 2017, according to this: http://www.tunequest.org/a-big-list-of-mp3-patents/20070226/ http://www.tunequest.org/a-big-list-of-mp3-patents/20070226/
- magicalist 15y ago
  wait, did the grandparent originally say something about MP3? h264's last patent will expire in november 2027 (or september 2028, but I think there's some technicality that makes that one not count) according to http://scratchpad.wikia.com/wiki/MPEG_patent_lists#H.264_patents http://scratchpad.wikia.com/wiki/MPEG_patent_lists#H.264_pat... That's a really long time from now.
ZeroGravitas 15y ago
I would expect the hostility to rise towards the end as you realise that you're still locked in to a format that is no longer technically competitive and people start dropping support for it in ways that inconvenience you and force you onto an unnecessary upgrade treadmill e.g. see current state of mpeg-2 support and the near future for Xvid/MPEG4.

sho_hn 15y ago

From the article: "There is really no justification to stop our users from using system decoders already on the device" Mozilla just spent two years telling everyone that they were not going to do this, and posting justifications as for why not. To me this is a serious blow to their credibility. Examples: http://robert.ocallahan.org/2009/06/directshow-and-platform-media_23.html http://robert.ocallahan.org/2009/06/directshow-and-platform-... http://robert.ocallahan.org/2010/01/video-freedom-and-mozilla_23.html http://robert.ocallahan.org/2010/01/video-freedom-and-mozill... ("Mozilla should pick up and use H.264 codecs that are already installed on the user's system.")

paulrouget 15y ago
Not an article, a post in a forum. One person opinion != Mozilla opinion
- sho_hn 15y ago
  Aye, but the person in question is a high-ranking Mozilla employee, and his "opinion" is presented in a very done-deal sort of way. (As for "article", that was just me using a generic term for the context of a HN thead.)
  - RandallBrown 15y ago
    Did you miss the post by the CEO that said basically the exact opposite?
    - sho_hn 15y ago
      I don't see a post by Gary Kovacs. Link? (If you mean the prominent Asa Dotzler, he's neither the CEO nor is he saying the "opposite" in my book.)
      - RandallBrown 15y ago
        whoops.

Aissen 15y ago

2 years ago, while working at a SoC vendor, they were explicitely taking into account WebM support for their next generations of chips: not having hardware decoding for a major web codec would be a great failure: with Google + Mozilla + Opera we could see almost 1 billion users affected by this. This is a make or break to have design wins. A SoC lifecycle can take 5 years to materialize in customer shipping hardware. Yet Mozilla is giving up before collecting the fruit of their previous policy (no system codec). That's a shame.

gcp 15y ago
What good is WebM support in the SoC, or what effect does it have, if there is zero content out there using it anyway? If WebM video would be popular by any measure, this wouldn't have happened. Note that there are SoC already out there that support VP8/WebM. As far as I know Tegra 2 is one of them. What does it change? Nothing. All those chips support H264 as well. So H264 is what content producers use.
- Aissen 15y ago
  There is content. Youtube has started pushing html5+webm videos to modern webrowsers without flash installed. This includes Android 4.0+.
azakai 15y ago
> Yet Mozilla is giving up before collecting the fruit of their previous policy (no system codec). The bigger issues are that * Google never followed through on its declaration it would remove H.264 from Chrome, which would have made almost 50% of browsers that don't support H.264. * Flash never followed through on its declaration it would include WebM, which would have enabled WebM in IE and Safari and made it possible for YouTube to go WebM-only (on desktop). Mozilla using system H.264 codecs on mobile (not even desktop) doesn't matter at all compared to those.

ZeroGravitas 15y ago

If they're going to do this, they should still not support AAC in html5 audio tags, even if they support it in video tags when bundled with H.264. With MP3 and Vorbis (with Opus a potential new entrant) you already have wide compatibility (everyone that supports AAC supports mp3 too) and top quality covered and mp3 patents expire a lot sooner than AAC. Ubuntu also has a free (as in beer) mp3 decoder available. I'm all for pragmatism, but there's still utility and principle in avoiding unnecessary reliance on patented codecs where possible.