5 ms·

Ogg Theora, H.264 and the HTML 5 Browser Squabble

12 points by tfincannon 17y ago

mrkurt 17y ago
I'm not sure how that article turned into a treatise on how mean Microsoft is, but I stopped reading after the first third of it. Someone let me know if it picked up after that. :) Not to shill for my employer or anything, but Ryan Paul wrote a really good overview of the whole HTML5 video thing the other day: http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2009/07/decoding-the-html-5-video-codec-debate.ars http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2009/07/decoding-the...
- vetinari 17y ago
  You didn't miss anything, it is average Apple-can't-do-wrong fanboi article.
DarkShikari 17y ago
Fun fact: in the interests of forward compatibility, Firefox appears to have used liboggplay for its video pipeline. This means that if they ever want to use anything other than Theora, they will have to completely rewrite the entire video system. Apparently the problem with doing something sane like using Gstreamer is that... it's LGPL. Which apparently isn't free enough for them. They also force YV12 -> RGB conversion in software on playback and do two sizeof(videoframe) callocs per frame, leading to the tremendous irony of having video playback vastly slower than Flash.
- jmillikin 17y ago
  Apparently the problem with doing something sane like using Gstreamer is that... it's LGPL. Which apparently isn't free enough for them. This is not correct. The reason GStreamer is not used in Firefox is because the GStreamer backend wasn't finished in time for FF 3.5. Rather than push back the release date, they released an implementation that works for many videos. The GStreamer backend is still under active development, and will eventually be merged to trunk. leading to the tremendous irony of having video playback vastly slower than Flash. Using the most recent version of Flash and Firefox, I can play high-definition Theora easily on my laptop, but even medium-resolution H.264 in Flash struggles to achieve real-time decoding. A quick, unscientific sampling of other FF 3.5 users online has indicated to me that many others experience similar performance in both cases.
  - ZeroGravitas 17y ago
    I don't think you're correct about the gstreamer backend. Some Mozilla-based projects use Gstreamer (Songbird for one), and I believe they're having discussions about a future collaboration for accessing user's video cameras in the browser but Mozilla don't want to support any old codecs. Their mission as a non-profit is to support the open web, and promoting royalty-free codecs fits with that mission. They can make a difference by actively choosing not to do stuff, just like at one point in the past they refused to support ActiveX despite having code available. It would have made Firefox a more useful browser at the cost of making the web less open.
    - jmillikin 17y ago
      See https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=422540 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=422540 for the progress of the GStreamer <video> backend.
      - ZeroGravitas 17y ago
        I was confused by this recent comment: http://lists.xiph.org/pipermail/theora/2009-June/002362.html http://lists.xiph.org/pipermail/theora/2009-June/002362.html "We can't ship gstreamer. We don't ship under the LGPL. That being said, we can link to it on Linux. We would just need something for the Mac and Windows as well." Though the mentions of Fennec and the fact that some mobile folk have adopted Gstreamer for DSP accelerated decoding might make it useful there too.
        ZeroGravitas 17y ago
        Looks like Fennec on Nokia 810 is the first target: http://iloapp.mikek.dk/blog/developer?Home&post=44 http://iloapp.mikek.dk/blog/developer?Home&post=44
TweedHeads 17y ago
JPEG, GIF, PNG are used as long as nobody threatens us with patent lawsuits. Just make H.264 free for the world to use (without fine print legalese) and we will adopt it and support it inmediately. Meantime, theora is the only free and viable option.
- DarkShikari 17y ago
  Actually, GIF was patented for a very, very long time: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphics_Interchange_Format#Unisys_and_LZW_patent_enforcement http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphics_Interchange_Format#Uni... LZW patents only expired in 2003. Before that, GIF was not only patented, but the patents were actively (and often obnoxiously) enforced by Unisys. The situation was similar to that of MP3 with Frauenhofer in the late 1990s.
  - yosh 17y ago
    LZW encoding was patented, decoding was never patent encumbered. So web browsers never had to worry, since all they were doing was decompressing. For the H.264 case, decoding is also encumbered, so it's not the same situation.
jmillikin 17y ago
Amazing; the very first sentence in the article is factually incorrect: Pundits are roasting Apple over a scuffle raised by Mozilla and Opera to define the free Ogg Theora video codec as the official way to present video on the web in the new HTML 5 specification. There was never any attempt to define Theora as the "official way to present video". It was merely provided as a baseline, a lowest-common-denominator format that could be relied upon by content providers. Ogg Theora is based upon VP3 video technology originally proprietary to On2, and subsequently abandoned after it became obsolete. Theora is not obsolete; it is superior to most popular codecs, such as XVid, WMV, and QuickTime. In standard-definition encoding, it's even superior to modern proprietary codecs such as H.264: http://people.xiph.org/~greg/video/ytcompare/comparison.html http://people.xiph.org/~greg/video/ytcompare/comparison.html http://people.xiph.org/~maikmerten/youtube/ http://people.xiph.org/~maikmerten/youtube/ Apple has also voiced concerns that Ogg Theora may be encumbered by unknown patents. That risk isn't significant to Mozilla and Opera, both of whom could simply abandon the format for something else [...] Apple also has a bankroll to attract patent trolls that Mozilla and Opera both lack. This hand-waving ignores that Google will also be supporting Theora, and undoubtedly has deeper pockets than Apple. Besides, a risk of unknown patents applies to any video codec. There's no technical or legal reason to exclude Theora support.
- FooBarWidget 17y ago
  I agree that the complaining about Theora's quality is blown of of proportion by people who don't know any better. Theora is definitely better than low-definition FLV files as streamed by YouTube and better than MPEG-2. But can you really claim it is better than H.264? I don't see many differences in the Theora vs H.264 images on the comparison page, but I can clearly see the differences in the actual videos. H.264 is better than Theora, although not by too much. I'm more curious about how Theora compares to XviD/DivX, which is (was?) the standard in the video encoding community. But so far I haven't seen any comparisons.
  - jmillikin 17y ago
    I don't know how to help if you can't tell the difference between the examples at < http://people.xiph.org/~greg/video/ytcompare/comparison.html http://people.xiph.org/~greg/video/ytcompare/comparison.html >. The H.264 examples are significantly blurrier than the Theora versions. Theora is slightly better than XviD, which is much better than DivX. They are still the standard as far as I know, though being supplanted by H.264 encoders for high-end use.
ZeroGravitas 17y ago
Some more sophisticated analysis from the author in the comment thread: "I did read the Ars article, which similarly voices the "free codec is good, international standards body specifications are evil" thing everyone has been repeating. The bottom line is that x264 is GPL so the whole "Linux users can't use H.264 video" is simply wrong, and in the big picture Mozilla and Opera don't really matter. Once Chrome starts gaining traction, do you really think Google will see any need to dump $50 million on the remains of Netscape's ashes? And what purpose does Opera serve other than to make the EU feel like it has some say in the browser market?" Sounds like someone pissed in his cheerios. Bloody fanboys.
- FooBarWidget 17y ago
  It isn't about the implementation's license, it's about patents. H.264 is patented while Theora is not. This makes it illegal for anybody to distribute H.264 decoding software, whether open source or not, until they've paid for the patent license.
  - pbhj 17y ago
    FooBarWidget: "This makes it illegal for anybody to distribute H.264 decoding software, whether open source or not, until they've paid for the patent license." Only within the jurisdictions in which the patent is valid and in force (renewal fees paid).
  - blasdel 17y ago
    Patents limit distribution of the 'machine', and are intended to make the 'plans' describing how to build it a matter of public record. Distributing the source code does not infringe the patent.

12 points by tfincannon 17y ago

I'm not sure how that article turned into a treatise on how mean Microsoft is, but I stopped reading after the first third of it. Someone let me know if it picked up after that. :) Not to shill for my employer or anything, but Ryan Paul wrote a really good overview of the whole HTML5 video thing the other day: http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2009/07/decoding-the-html-5-video-codec-debate.ars http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2009/07/decoding-the...

vetinari 17y ago
You didn't miss anything, it is average Apple-can't-do-wrong fanboi article.

DarkShikari 17y ago

Fun fact: in the interests of forward compatibility, Firefox appears to have used liboggplay for its video pipeline. This means that if they ever want to use anything other than Theora, they will have to completely rewrite the entire video system. Apparently the problem with doing something sane like using Gstreamer is that... it's LGPL. Which apparently isn't free enough for them. They also force YV12 -> RGB conversion in software on playback and do two sizeof(videoframe) callocs per frame, leading to the tremendous irony of having video playback vastly slower than Flash.

jmillikin 17y ago
Apparently the problem with doing something sane like using Gstreamer is that... it's LGPL. Which apparently isn't free enough for them. This is not correct. The reason GStreamer is not used in Firefox is because the GStreamer backend wasn't finished in time for FF 3.5. Rather than push back the release date, they released an implementation that works for many videos. The GStreamer backend is still under active development, and will eventually be merged to trunk. leading to the tremendous irony of having video playback vastly slower than Flash. Using the most recent version of Flash and Firefox, I can play high-definition Theora easily on my laptop, but even medium-resolution H.264 in Flash struggles to achieve real-time decoding. A quick, unscientific sampling of other FF 3.5 users online has indicated to me that many others experience similar performance in both cases.
- ZeroGravitas 17y ago
  I don't think you're correct about the gstreamer backend. Some Mozilla-based projects use Gstreamer (Songbird for one), and I believe they're having discussions about a future collaboration for accessing user's video cameras in the browser but Mozilla don't want to support any old codecs. Their mission as a non-profit is to support the open web, and promoting royalty-free codecs fits with that mission. They can make a difference by actively choosing not to do stuff, just like at one point in the past they refused to support ActiveX despite having code available. It would have made Firefox a more useful browser at the cost of making the web less open.
  - jmillikin 17y ago
    See https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=422540 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=422540 for the progress of the GStreamer <video> backend.
    - ZeroGravitas 17y ago
      I was confused by this recent comment: http://lists.xiph.org/pipermail/theora/2009-June/002362.html http://lists.xiph.org/pipermail/theora/2009-June/002362.html "We can't ship gstreamer. We don't ship under the LGPL. That being said, we can link to it on Linux. We would just need something for the Mac and Windows as well." Though the mentions of Fennec and the fact that some mobile folk have adopted Gstreamer for DSP accelerated decoding might make it useful there too.
      - ZeroGravitas 17y ago
        Looks like Fennec on Nokia 810 is the first target: http://iloapp.mikek.dk/blog/developer?Home&post=44 http://iloapp.mikek.dk/blog/developer?Home&post=44

TweedHeads 17y ago

JPEG, GIF, PNG are used as long as nobody threatens us with patent lawsuits. Just make H.264 free for the world to use (without fine print legalese) and we will adopt it and support it inmediately. Meantime, theora is the only free and viable option.

DarkShikari 17y ago
Actually, GIF was patented for a very, very long time: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphics_Interchange_Format#Unisys_and_LZW_patent_enforcement http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphics_Interchange_Format#Uni... LZW patents only expired in 2003. Before that, GIF was not only patented, but the patents were actively (and often obnoxiously) enforced by Unisys. The situation was similar to that of MP3 with Frauenhofer in the late 1990s.
- yosh 17y ago
  LZW encoding was patented, decoding was never patent encumbered. So web browsers never had to worry, since all they were doing was decompressing. For the H.264 case, decoding is also encumbered, so it's not the same situation.

jmillikin 17y ago

Amazing; the very first sentence in the article is factually incorrect: Pundits are roasting Apple over a scuffle raised by Mozilla and Opera to define the free Ogg Theora video codec as the official way to present video on the web in the new HTML 5 specification. There was never any attempt to define Theora as the "official way to present video". It was merely provided as a baseline, a lowest-common-denominator format that could be relied upon by content providers. Ogg Theora is based upon VP3 video technology originally proprietary to On2, and subsequently abandoned after it became obsolete. Theora is not obsolete; it is superior to most popular codecs, such as XVid, WMV, and QuickTime. In standard-definition encoding, it's even superior to modern proprietary codecs such as H.264: http://people.xiph.org/~greg/video/ytcompare/comparison.html http://people.xiph.org/~greg/video/ytcompare/comparison.html http://people.xiph.org/~maikmerten/youtube/ http://people.xiph.org/~maikmerten/youtube/ Apple has also voiced concerns that Ogg Theora may be encumbered by unknown patents. That risk isn't significant to Mozilla and Opera, both of whom could simply abandon the format for something else [...] Apple also has a bankroll to attract patent trolls that Mozilla and Opera both lack. This hand-waving ignores that Google will also be supporting Theora, and undoubtedly has deeper pockets than Apple. Besides, a risk of unknown patents applies to any video codec. There's no technical or legal reason to exclude Theora support.

FooBarWidget 17y ago
I agree that the complaining about Theora's quality is blown of of proportion by people who don't know any better. Theora is definitely better than low-definition FLV files as streamed by YouTube and better than MPEG-2. But can you really claim it is better than H.264? I don't see many differences in the Theora vs H.264 images on the comparison page, but I can clearly see the differences in the actual videos. H.264 is better than Theora, although not by too much. I'm more curious about how Theora compares to XviD/DivX, which is (was?) the standard in the video encoding community. But so far I haven't seen any comparisons.
- jmillikin 17y ago
  I don't know how to help if you can't tell the difference between the examples at < http://people.xiph.org/~greg/video/ytcompare/comparison.html http://people.xiph.org/~greg/video/ytcompare/comparison.html >. The H.264 examples are significantly blurrier than the Theora versions. Theora is slightly better than XviD, which is much better than DivX. They are still the standard as far as I know, though being supplanted by H.264 encoders for high-end use.

ZeroGravitas 17y ago

Some more sophisticated analysis from the author in the comment thread: "I did read the Ars article, which similarly voices the "free codec is good, international standards body specifications are evil" thing everyone has been repeating. The bottom line is that x264 is GPL so the whole "Linux users can't use H.264 video" is simply wrong, and in the big picture Mozilla and Opera don't really matter. Once Chrome starts gaining traction, do you really think Google will see any need to dump $50 million on the remains of Netscape's ashes? And what purpose does Opera serve other than to make the EU feel like it has some say in the browser market?" Sounds like someone pissed in his cheerios. Bloody fanboys.

FooBarWidget 17y ago
It isn't about the implementation's license, it's about patents. H.264 is patented while Theora is not. This makes it illegal for anybody to distribute H.264 decoding software, whether open source or not, until they've paid for the patent license.
- pbhj 17y ago
  FooBarWidget: "This makes it illegal for anybody to distribute H.264 decoding software, whether open source or not, until they've paid for the patent license." Only within the jurisdictions in which the patent is valid and in force (renewal fees paid).
- blasdel 17y ago
  Patents limit distribution of the 'machine', and are intended to make the 'plans' describing how to build it a matter of public record. Distributing the source code does not infringe the patent.