5 ms·

This is great news. There will now be a de facto standard codec for HTML5 video!

by macinjosh 14y ago

lucian1900 14y ago
Except it'll be the wrong one, sadly.
- ramy_d 14y ago
  Exactly, this news is hardly any good, it's just convenient.
  - glhaynes 14y ago
    For the vast majority of people with any stake in video on the web, convenient is good.
    - cpeterso 14y ago
      I hope content publishers will find publishing HTML5 video convenient enough to drop Flash. Once publishers are all on board the HTML5 video train, they have the opportunity to experiment with new (and unencumbered) codecs without affecting their user experience.
      - rimantas 14y ago
        Lots of video will be played on mobile devices, so any codecs without hardware support is very likely to affect user experience in a noticeable way.
        vetinari 14y ago
        Is is very difficult to find any HW without VP8 support. Android mandates it since 2.3, so since then the SoCs used in mobile devices support it. Only Apple does not support it for political reasons. Just like they never supported Vorbis.
- streptomycin 14y ago
  On the plus side, the situation is much less dire than it was back when Mozilla first made the argument against H.264. WebM is a serious alternative, and if MPEG LA tries anything funny, people will be able to switch.
  - meatmanek 14y ago
    Unfortunately, WebM isn't _really_ a serious alternative. It's a fine codec and produces great quality video in a similar filesize to H.264, but it's not supported on the majority of mobile devices. H.264 is also what many consumer video cameras produce, like iPhones and most DSLRs. Pragmatically, I'm happy that all the major browsers (with the exception of Opera) will now support one common codec, even if it's patent-encumbered.
    - streptomycin 14y ago
      Depends on the threshold for calling something "serious". It's far more serious than any alternative before WebM, that's for sure. No competing format will ever be an instant drop in replacement for an entrenched format, but there is a continuum of scenarios below that.
- jfb 14y ago
  From certain political points of view, absolutely. From a image quality point of view, not hardly.
- acdha 14y ago
  The wrong choice is Flash. H.264 vs. WebM is a far more nuanced tradeoff – widespread support and higher-quality implementations versus [hopefully] freedom from patents. Either way, the web wins if there's more <video> and less <embed> depending on an opaque binary blob from a single vendor with a track record of platform neglect.
  - lucian1900 14y ago
    Sure, but it could've been so much better, with almost no extra effort. In the end, we have the worse of two options for absolutely no gain.
    - anonymfus 14y ago
      In the end patents will expire. 15 years left.
      - wtetzner 14y ago
        And that's one of the biggest problems with software patents. In 15 years, we'll likely be using a different codec (or, at least I would hope we'd make some progress in that amount of time).
        protomyth 14y ago
        Probably sooner, H.265 is next on the list http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Efficiency_Video_Coding http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Efficiency_Video_Coding http://www.h265.net http://www.h265.net
    - acdha 14y ago
      You say "no extra effort", as if widespread platform support, hardware acceleration, more than one high-quality implementation, significant support by authoring software, and direct-to-format hardware capture would happen for free. Avoiding royalties would be nice - although it's almost certain we'd still have lawsuits absent patent reform - but as a business decision that's a LOT to give up. I really think Mozilla did the web a disservice. They should have implemented platform codec support immediately and added other formats so content vendors could adopt HTML5 video independent of the codec wars

This is great news. There will now be a de facto standard codec for HTML5 video!

lucian1900 14y ago

Except it'll be the wrong one, sadly.

ramy_d 14y ago
Exactly, this news is hardly any good, it's just convenient.
- glhaynes 14y ago
  For the vast majority of people with any stake in video on the web, convenient is good.
  - cpeterso 14y ago
    I hope content publishers will find publishing HTML5 video convenient enough to drop Flash. Once publishers are all on board the HTML5 video train, they have the opportunity to experiment with new (and unencumbered) codecs without affecting their user experience.
    - rimantas 14y ago
      Lots of video will be played on mobile devices, so any codecs without hardware support is very likely to affect user experience in a noticeable way.
      - vetinari 14y ago
        Is is very difficult to find any HW without VP8 support. Android mandates it since 2.3, so since then the SoCs used in mobile devices support it. Only Apple does not support it for political reasons. Just like they never supported Vorbis.
streptomycin 14y ago
On the plus side, the situation is much less dire than it was back when Mozilla first made the argument against H.264. WebM is a serious alternative, and if MPEG LA tries anything funny, people will be able to switch.
- meatmanek 14y ago
  Unfortunately, WebM isn't _really_ a serious alternative. It's a fine codec and produces great quality video in a similar filesize to H.264, but it's not supported on the majority of mobile devices. H.264 is also what many consumer video cameras produce, like iPhones and most DSLRs. Pragmatically, I'm happy that all the major browsers (with the exception of Opera) will now support one common codec, even if it's patent-encumbered.
  - streptomycin 14y ago
    Depends on the threshold for calling something "serious". It's far more serious than any alternative before WebM, that's for sure. No competing format will ever be an instant drop in replacement for an entrenched format, but there is a continuum of scenarios below that.
jfb 14y ago
From certain political points of view, absolutely. From a image quality point of view, not hardly.
acdha 14y ago
The wrong choice is Flash. H.264 vs. WebM is a far more nuanced tradeoff – widespread support and higher-quality implementations versus [hopefully] freedom from patents. Either way, the web wins if there's more <video> and less <embed> depending on an opaque binary blob from a single vendor with a track record of platform neglect.
- lucian1900 14y ago
  Sure, but it could've been so much better, with almost no extra effort. In the end, we have the worse of two options for absolutely no gain.
  - anonymfus 14y ago
    In the end patents will expire. 15 years left.
    - wtetzner 14y ago
      And that's one of the biggest problems with software patents. In 15 years, we'll likely be using a different codec (or, at least I would hope we'd make some progress in that amount of time).
      - protomyth 14y ago
        Probably sooner, H.265 is next on the list http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Efficiency_Video_Coding http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Efficiency_Video_Coding http://www.h265.net http://www.h265.net
  - acdha 14y ago
    You say "no extra effort", as if widespread platform support, hardware acceleration, more than one high-quality implementation, significant support by authoring software, and direct-to-format hardware capture would happen for free. Avoiding royalties would be nice - although it's almost certain we'd still have lawsuits absent patent reform - but as a business decision that's a LOT to give up. I really think Mozilla did the web a disservice. They should have implemented platform codec support immediately and added other formats so content vendors could adopt HTML5 video independent of the codec wars