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> Unfortunately that dream has failed to pan out. Instead of proprietary plugins, the web ended up with proprietary video codecs, which has created a split in b

by azakai 14y ago

> Unfortunately that dream has failed to pan out. Instead of proprietary plugins, the web ended up with proprietary video codecs, which has created a split in browser support for HTML5 video. Firefox and Opera support the open Ogg and WebM codecs, while Safari and Internet Explorer supported H.264. Funny, it looks like a major browser was left out there (in fact the #1 browser in usage according to some metrics). The article is pretty good overall, but is missing a key piece that is important to understand the background.

mccr8 14y ago
Yeah, from the "related" links at the bottom you can see this article from January 2011 entitled "Google Dropping H.264 Codec from Chrome Browser" ( http://www.webmonkey.com/2011/01/google-dropping-h-264-codec-from-chrome-browser/ http://www.webmonkey.com/2011/01/google-dropping-h-264-codec... ), which has still yet to come to pass.
- cpeterso 14y ago
  Has anyone submitted a Chromium patch to remove H.264 support? I would be curious to see the code reviewer's feedback on the patch. :)
  - ZeroGravitas 14y ago
    As far as I'm aware Chromium has never supported H.264.
mtgx 14y ago
I blame Google for this, too. They should've made Youtube play on WebM by default, with a fallback to Flash in browsers that don't support it. That would've forced the others to adopt WebM.
- Scaevolus 14y ago
  Forcing an inferior codec on users for political reasons is unreasonable. Have you tried watching 720p WebM compared to 720p H264? The difference is jarring.
  - icebraining 14y ago
    I watched the Amazing Spiderman trailer[1] in 720p in both formats - using youtube-dl - and I honestly couldn't tell the difference. The webM file is ~16% larger, though. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atCfTRMyjGU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atCfTRMyjGU
- av500 14y ago
  Well, Google even decided to bundle Flash into Chrome, so Flash is far from just being a "fallback" solution to them.

by azakai 14y ago

mccr8 14y ago

Yeah, from the "related" links at the bottom you can see this article from January 2011 entitled "Google Dropping H.264 Codec from Chrome Browser" ( http://www.webmonkey.com/2011/01/google-dropping-h-264-codec-from-chrome-browser/ http://www.webmonkey.com/2011/01/google-dropping-h-264-codec... ), which has still yet to come to pass.

cpeterso 14y ago
Has anyone submitted a Chromium patch to remove H.264 support? I would be curious to see the code reviewer's feedback on the patch. :)
- ZeroGravitas 14y ago
  As far as I'm aware Chromium has never supported H.264.

mtgx 14y ago

I blame Google for this, too. They should've made Youtube play on WebM by default, with a fallback to Flash in browsers that don't support it. That would've forced the others to adopt WebM.

Scaevolus 14y ago
Forcing an inferior codec on users for political reasons is unreasonable. Have you tried watching 720p WebM compared to 720p H264? The difference is jarring.
- icebraining 14y ago
  I watched the Amazing Spiderman trailer[1] in 720p in both formats - using youtube-dl - and I honestly couldn't tell the difference. The webM file is ~16% larger, though. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atCfTRMyjGU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atCfTRMyjGU
av500 14y ago
Well, Google even decided to bundle Flash into Chrome, so Flash is far from just being a "fallback" solution to them.