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Yea, but the flip side of that is that hardware acceleration is a chicken-and-egg problem: Google's work here makes it more likely that we'll get hardware accel

Yea, but the flip side of that is that hardware acceleration is a chicken-and-egg problem: Google's work here makes it more likely that we'll get hardware acceleration working in the future because there will now be a good reason to do it. (They do mention "More than 20 device partners across the industry are launching products in 2015 and beyond using VP9.", so perhaps some of those will feature working hardware acceleration.)

aroch 12y ago
Both Intel (integrated GPUs) and nVidia (discrete GPUs) have announced VP9 hw acceleration for their GPUs. However, I believe these are probably the only two "household name" ODMs that are supporting it. The rest of the partners are cheap SOC manufacturers like Rockchip and Mediatek
- vernie 12y ago
  Well that explains the Rockchip SoC in the Chromebit
- pseudosavant 12y ago
  FWIW, everyone and their dog (nVidia, AMD, ARM, Qualcomm, etc) announced support for VP8 when WebM launched in 2010 too (http://blog.webmproject.org/2010/05/introducing-webm-open-web-media-project.html http://blog.webmproject.org/2010/05/introducing-webm-open-we...). Yet, hardware accelerated decode is basically non-existant still, and accelerated encoding doesn't exist at all. Even though lots of companies did demos of hardware acceleration. Part of the problem is that within 3 years Google had already basically dropped VP8 and moved onto VP9. That kind of churn doesn't go over well in the hardware space typically. For a variety of practical reasons, codecs aren't the type of thing you usually replace every few years. It takes more than a few years for really good quality optimized encoders (e.g. x264, LAME, etc) to be built.
  - threeseed 12y ago
    This why everyone should be skeptical about Google's foray into mobile video codecs. They have no "skin in the game". This isn't their core business like companies such as Sony or Adobe. And we all know what happens to Google's non core business products.
    - madeofpalk 12y ago
      Did you forget about Android? That's a pretty significant amount of... skin.
      - acdha 12y ago
        The question you need to ask is how much a video codec factors into Android's success. What would happen if they dropped VP8/VP9 entirely? Every single video on YouTube, Netflix, Amazon, etc. would still play. Nobody would encounter problems with video chat, sharing, etc. because those apps all require H.264 unless they only support Android users with high-end CPUs. At the end of the day, VP8/VP9 is interesting as a possible bandwidth optimization or share certain patent/free software positions. It's just hard to believe that this would decide even a single phone purchase, much less enough to significantly affect Android development priorities.
      - taf2 12y ago
        Do they actually have a good way to monetize android - are they selling phones? Last I checked they had a great search engine. How does the revenue model on mobile compare? Android is different on every oem so though it might be huge - is it really even a google product or more of a Google open source project?
        threeseed 12y ago
        Android isn't a product for Google. It's a channel to route users to advertisements.
        danieldk 12y ago
        Do they actually have a good way to monetize android As far as I understand, the initial motivation is to avoid being locked out. Suppose that iOS held 80% of the market, they could change the default engine, replace Google Maps with Apple Maps (like they did), etc. Given that smartphones and tablets are now commonly used to access the web, Google could have lost a serious chunk of traffic. In other words, Google does not have to monetize Android directly, it exists to keep people in Google's ecosystem.
- TD-Linux 12y ago
  Qualcomm and Samsung's SoCs now support VP9. In addition, nVidia's K1 and newer SoCs also support it.
threeseed 12y ago
Sure. But you also have a lot of factors working against you. Basically no one but Google is particularly interested in VP9. Most of the key players in the IT industry are part of the H.26x camp. And when you have Apple who dominates mobile browsing not interested then content creators won't be interested. This flows onto component suppliers.
- lern_too_spel 12y ago
  Nonsense. You can't really believe this. Apple only needs one video chip set provider. All the other suppliers need to get a piece of the Android pie, which requires them to support VP9.

aroch 12y ago

Both Intel (integrated GPUs) and nVidia (discrete GPUs) have announced VP9 hw acceleration for their GPUs. However, I believe these are probably the only two "household name" ODMs that are supporting it. The rest of the partners are cheap SOC manufacturers like Rockchip and Mediatek

vernie 12y ago
Well that explains the Rockchip SoC in the Chromebit
pseudosavant 12y ago
FWIW, everyone and their dog (nVidia, AMD, ARM, Qualcomm, etc) announced support for VP8 when WebM launched in 2010 too (http://blog.webmproject.org/2010/05/introducing-webm-open-web-media-project.html http://blog.webmproject.org/2010/05/introducing-webm-open-we...). Yet, hardware accelerated decode is basically non-existant still, and accelerated encoding doesn't exist at all. Even though lots of companies did demos of hardware acceleration. Part of the problem is that within 3 years Google had already basically dropped VP8 and moved onto VP9. That kind of churn doesn't go over well in the hardware space typically. For a variety of practical reasons, codecs aren't the type of thing you usually replace every few years. It takes more than a few years for really good quality optimized encoders (e.g. x264, LAME, etc) to be built.
- threeseed 12y ago
  This why everyone should be skeptical about Google's foray into mobile video codecs. They have no "skin in the game". This isn't their core business like companies such as Sony or Adobe. And we all know what happens to Google's non core business products.
  - madeofpalk 12y ago
    Did you forget about Android? That's a pretty significant amount of... skin.
    - acdha 12y ago
      The question you need to ask is how much a video codec factors into Android's success. What would happen if they dropped VP8/VP9 entirely? Every single video on YouTube, Netflix, Amazon, etc. would still play. Nobody would encounter problems with video chat, sharing, etc. because those apps all require H.264 unless they only support Android users with high-end CPUs. At the end of the day, VP8/VP9 is interesting as a possible bandwidth optimization or share certain patent/free software positions. It's just hard to believe that this would decide even a single phone purchase, much less enough to significantly affect Android development priorities.
    - taf2 12y ago
      Do they actually have a good way to monetize android - are they selling phones? Last I checked they had a great search engine. How does the revenue model on mobile compare? Android is different on every oem so though it might be huge - is it really even a google product or more of a Google open source project?
      - threeseed 12y ago
        Android isn't a product for Google. It's a channel to route users to advertisements.
      - danieldk 12y ago
        Do they actually have a good way to monetize android As far as I understand, the initial motivation is to avoid being locked out. Suppose that iOS held 80% of the market, they could change the default engine, replace Google Maps with Apple Maps (like they did), etc. Given that smartphones and tablets are now commonly used to access the web, Google could have lost a serious chunk of traffic. In other words, Google does not have to monetize Android directly, it exists to keep people in Google's ecosystem.
TD-Linux 12y ago
Qualcomm and Samsung's SoCs now support VP9. In addition, nVidia's K1 and newer SoCs also support it.

threeseed 12y ago

Sure. But you also have a lot of factors working against you. Basically no one but Google is particularly interested in VP9. Most of the key players in the IT industry are part of the H.26x camp. And when you have Apple who dominates mobile browsing not interested then content creators won't be interested. This flows onto component suppliers.

lern_too_spel 12y ago
Nonsense. You can't really believe this. Apple only needs one video chip set provider. All the other suppliers need to get a piece of the Android pie, which requires them to support VP9.