5 ms·

Google's VP9 web video codec enabled by default in upcoming Chrome

54 points by gizzlon 13y ago

reidrac 13y ago
See: http://www.youtube.com/html5 http://www.youtube.com/html5 Unfortunately the amount of videos encoded only with h.264 is still important and you can't avoid Flash if your browser/OS doesn't provide h.264. So yes, having open video formats and codecs available is great, but please Google... we need you to use them.
- ZeroGravitas 13y ago
  Are you talking about YouTube? They have everything in vp8. It's something to do with their ad delivery system that forces you back to Flash (and therefore H.264) for some videos.
  - reidrac 13y ago
    Read the notes: http://www.youtube.com/html5 http://www.youtube.com/html5 Not all videos are in webm format, you can add &webm=1 to any search URL. ie. Hacker News search: about 3,780,000 results, about 1,320,000 results with webm flag. In fact sometimes I get an an error like this: http://i.imgur.com/dBPICoM.png http://i.imgur.com/dBPICoM.png (using Chromium 25.0.1364.172 with no h.264 support) I don't know if this is because of ads or what. EDIT: typo
    - ZeroGravitas 13y ago
      They claimed to be encoding all new videos uploaded, and to have already processes up to 30% of their entire back-catalogue, and 99% of viewed videos about two years ago. So I'm guessing they're pretty much done by now. http://youtube-global.blogspot.co.uk/2011/04/mmm-mmm-good-youtube-videos-now-served.html#uds-search-results http://youtube-global.blogspot.co.uk/2011/04/mmm-mmm-good-yo... If I do a similar search to yours, the ones that disappear from the &webm=1 search are all presented to me with Flash, not with HTML5/H.264 but I believe if you embed them in another site you should get the HTML5/Webm version (not actually tested this, just read it as a workaround). You could also try searching for them on a Wii, since it's Youtube app uses Webm.
- mikevm 13y ago
  If only YouTube's HTML5 video player wasn't so buggy! I have tried switching to the HTML5 player a couple of times, but a few days later I'm back to flash.
ancarda 13y ago
>Google and its partners in the WebM project want to establish the codec as a royalty-free standard for HTML5 video and for web video calling using WebRTC. They could also remove, as they promised, h.264 support from Chrome. You know, that would help to push VP8/9 a lot.
- dan1234 13y ago
  Or would it push people back to h.264 supportive browsers once they find videos from xyz site don't play?
  - gtaylor 13y ago
    Yeah. I like and use Chrome, but Firefox is back to being pretty good as well. If Google were to do something so drastic as yanking H.264 support from Chrome, I would probably re-evaluate my choice. But that's the great thing here: This is an individual choice. I think Google has enough clout in Youtube to move us forward without pulling a Steve Jobs anti-Flash stunt. At the time, there were very few alternatives to iOS in quality, but at the present time we have plenty of good browsers. A "pull-the-plug" approach would alienate a good number of users, who could just pick up and go with Firefox, or Safari, or IE, or Opera. I like that they're gradually rolling this stuff out, trying to get hardware companies to add built-in decoding, etc. It won't happen overnight, they're playing the long game.
  - zimbatm 13y ago
    nitpick: it would still be playing in Flash
taylorbuley 13y ago
Theora/.ogg/Vorbis, VP8 & now VP9/webm, H.264... Just as we were starting to finally get resolution around a "standard" Codec for web video -- namely, Firefox recently capitulating on H.264, paving the way for professional video on the web -- Google Chrome comes to make life difficult anew. I understand that Google has more skin in the web video game than anyone (viz YouTube), but for the rest of the web this pushes HTML5 video even further out on product timelines.
- wmf 13y ago
  Just use H.264 which is still supported in Chrome.
- ernesth 13y ago
  So firefox supporting a new codec is a good thing but chrome supporting a new codec is a bad thing?
- zimbatm 13y ago
  The MPEG-LA is for profit and they will be asking for more licensing fees once their domination is complete. Trading freedom for convenience is probably not a good thing on the longer term.
  - buster 13y ago
    This. The point is that a "standard" should not be ruled by licenses and patents!
- jmillikin 13y ago
  There will never be a single standard video codec until the last video codec developer has retired. As long as there is ongoing effort to write better codecs, there will be multiple codecs in use at any given time. What's important is that you can encode your video in Theora or VP8 and expect it to work in modern browsers (Firefox, Chrom{e,ium}, Opera, etc). In a year or two VP9 will be just as supported, and then you can switch to it.
doctorpangloss 13y ago
It's good that there is healthy competition again in end user video codecs. H.264 is a nearly 10 year old video codec, and HEVC's complexity means implementing it as a high-quality open source library will take a really long time. Google's different incentives will at least force HEVC development to accelerate.
sologoub 13y ago
One thing here doesn't make much sense - the compression algorithm technically is a mathematical algorithm. Mathematical algorithms cannot be patented. So why is the patent on something that cannot be patented an impediment in this issue? That said, I'm sure there are ways to confuse the algorithm part by throwing some mentions of physical servers or what not into the patent application...

54 points by gizzlon 13y ago

See: http://www.youtube.com/html5 http://www.youtube.com/html5 Unfortunately the amount of videos encoded only with h.264 is still important and you can't avoid Flash if your browser/OS doesn't provide h.264. So yes, having open video formats and codecs available is great, but please Google... we need you to use them.

ZeroGravitas 13y ago
Are you talking about YouTube? They have everything in vp8. It's something to do with their ad delivery system that forces you back to Flash (and therefore H.264) for some videos.
- reidrac 13y ago
  Read the notes: http://www.youtube.com/html5 http://www.youtube.com/html5 Not all videos are in webm format, you can add &webm=1 to any search URL. ie. Hacker News search: about 3,780,000 results, about 1,320,000 results with webm flag. In fact sometimes I get an an error like this: http://i.imgur.com/dBPICoM.png http://i.imgur.com/dBPICoM.png (using Chromium 25.0.1364.172 with no h.264 support) I don't know if this is because of ads or what. EDIT: typo
  - ZeroGravitas 13y ago
    They claimed to be encoding all new videos uploaded, and to have already processes up to 30% of their entire back-catalogue, and 99% of viewed videos about two years ago. So I'm guessing they're pretty much done by now. http://youtube-global.blogspot.co.uk/2011/04/mmm-mmm-good-youtube-videos-now-served.html#uds-search-results http://youtube-global.blogspot.co.uk/2011/04/mmm-mmm-good-yo... If I do a similar search to yours, the ones that disappear from the &webm=1 search are all presented to me with Flash, not with HTML5/H.264 but I believe if you embed them in another site you should get the HTML5/Webm version (not actually tested this, just read it as a workaround). You could also try searching for them on a Wii, since it's Youtube app uses Webm.
mikevm 13y ago
If only YouTube's HTML5 video player wasn't so buggy! I have tried switching to the HTML5 player a couple of times, but a few days later I'm back to flash.

ancarda 13y ago

>Google and its partners in the WebM project want to establish the codec as a royalty-free standard for HTML5 video and for web video calling using WebRTC. They could also remove, as they promised, h.264 support from Chrome. You know, that would help to push VP8/9 a lot.

dan1234 13y ago
Or would it push people back to h.264 supportive browsers once they find videos from xyz site don't play?
- gtaylor 13y ago
  Yeah. I like and use Chrome, but Firefox is back to being pretty good as well. If Google were to do something so drastic as yanking H.264 support from Chrome, I would probably re-evaluate my choice. But that's the great thing here: This is an individual choice. I think Google has enough clout in Youtube to move us forward without pulling a Steve Jobs anti-Flash stunt. At the time, there were very few alternatives to iOS in quality, but at the present time we have plenty of good browsers. A "pull-the-plug" approach would alienate a good number of users, who could just pick up and go with Firefox, or Safari, or IE, or Opera. I like that they're gradually rolling this stuff out, trying to get hardware companies to add built-in decoding, etc. It won't happen overnight, they're playing the long game.
- zimbatm 13y ago
  nitpick: it would still be playing in Flash

taylorbuley 13y ago

Theora/.ogg/Vorbis, VP8 & now VP9/webm, H.264... Just as we were starting to finally get resolution around a "standard" Codec for web video -- namely, Firefox recently capitulating on H.264, paving the way for professional video on the web -- Google Chrome comes to make life difficult anew. I understand that Google has more skin in the web video game than anyone (viz YouTube), but for the rest of the web this pushes HTML5 video even further out on product timelines.

wmf 13y ago
Just use H.264 which is still supported in Chrome.
ernesth 13y ago
So firefox supporting a new codec is a good thing but chrome supporting a new codec is a bad thing?
zimbatm 13y ago
The MPEG-LA is for profit and they will be asking for more licensing fees once their domination is complete. Trading freedom for convenience is probably not a good thing on the longer term.
- buster 13y ago
  This. The point is that a "standard" should not be ruled by licenses and patents!
jmillikin 13y ago
There will never be a single standard video codec until the last video codec developer has retired. As long as there is ongoing effort to write better codecs, there will be multiple codecs in use at any given time. What's important is that you can encode your video in Theora or VP8 and expect it to work in modern browsers (Firefox, Chrom{e,ium}, Opera, etc). In a year or two VP9 will be just as supported, and then you can switch to it.

doctorpangloss 13y ago

It's good that there is healthy competition again in end user video codecs. H.264 is a nearly 10 year old video codec, and HEVC's complexity means implementing it as a high-quality open source library will take a really long time. Google's different incentives will at least force HEVC development to accelerate.

sologoub 13y ago

One thing here doesn't make much sense - the compression algorithm technically is a mathematical algorithm. Mathematical algorithms cannot be patented. So why is the patent on something that cannot be patented an impediment in this issue? That said, I'm sure there are ways to confuse the algorithm part by throwing some mentions of physical servers or what not into the patent application...