Google will drop H.264 support from Chrome, herd the masses towards WebM and Theora

[dinamic1]

http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/11/google-will-drop-h-264-support-from-chrome-herd-the-masses-towa/

good news :popcorn:

[Ric_NYC]

http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/11/google-will-drop-h-264-support-from-chrome-herd-the-masses-towa/

good news :popcorn:


Let's see what happens next.





...
The move places Google instead firmly in the camp of browser makers Mozilla and Opera, who ardently desire basic Web technologies to be unencumbered by patent restrictions.

Read more: http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-20028196-264.html#ixzz1Almt1WoM

[doorknob60]

Good, that means Youtube will start doing the same. (I know they already use WebM, but not on all videos yet)

[Shpongle]

Good++;

[madjr]

go google!

dang am loving 2011 already!

[Merk42]

Good, that means Youtube will start doing the same. (I know they already use WebM, but not on all videos yet)
Yeah, until YouTube is ONLY WebM, there is very little reason for IE and Safari browsers to support it out of the box (IE9 and Safari can support it if you manually install codecs).

Making YouTube WebM and Flash would be a kick in the pants to iOS though...

[Lucradia]

Yeah, until YouTube is ONLY WebM, there is very little reason for IE and Safari browsers to support it out of the box (IE9 and Safari can support it if you manually install codecs).

Making YouTube WebM and Flash would be a kick in the pants to iOS though...

Can't Safari just support WebM? Isn't it open?

[Lucradia]

While (Google == "VP8 + Theora") {
Good++;
}

Fixed. ;)

[madjr]

Can't Safari just support WebM? Isn't it open?

they can, but it's apple , so...

[Lucradia]

they can, but it's apple , so...

You mean that whole LGPL requirement? :lol:

[Johnsie]

Chrome still has a tiny market share. They dont really have alot of weight to throw around.

[Ctrl-Alt-F1]

I agree. Chrome can only hurt themselves by doing this. If Google wants to use some muscle, they need to leverage youtube, which is a risky maneuver.

[lovinglinux]

Great move.

[Canis familiaris]

Chrome still has a tiny market share. They dont really have alot of weight to throw around.
Er how about Chrome + Firefox + Opera then?

[gnomeuser]

Chrome still has a tiny market share. They dont really have alot of weight to throw around.

10% of the market as well as the number one video website and search engine. I think they do have weight to throw around.

However I am concerned, Chromium is using ffmpeg which means one cannot just add codec support on the fly like with GStreamer. h264 content won't cease to exist and users will want to access it. What story will they tell for average users for reenabling support to gain access to the content.

Under Linux I suspect one could simply install the chromium ffmpeg extras package but what will Windows users do.

In the time between the glorious new era when all content is using open standards and now, it sounds like us Chromium users will be screwed.

[Paqman]

Chrome still has a tiny market share. They dont really have alot of weight to throw around.

It's the third biggest browser, and the only one of the three gaining market share. IE is slowly slumping, and Firefox's share has stabilised.

[Johnsie]

It's only the world's 3rd most used browser on some websites, and the percentage is still very small. Most people don't care what format their video is in as long as it will play.

Youtube is popular, so I'd say that's where the real weight lies. People view it on all the browsers. That's the only way Google can force the masses to change. Personally I believe people should have a choice though ;-)

[Arex Bawrin]

Youtube is the only way this will work...and even still it's quite risky. I can imagine a person going to youtube and seeing a failure message suggesting Chrome (and hopefully Firefox) to fix the video. But does anyone use the html 5 version of youtube anyways?

[Paqman]

It's only the world's 3rd most used browser on some websites, and the percentage is still very small

Nope, if you take Statcounter's sample size of 16.3 billion hits as representative then it's pretty solidly in third. Currently about 15% and climbing hard:

http://gs.statcounter.com/



Youtube is popular, so I'd say that's where the real weight lies.

Agreed. Google may own sizeable chunks of the browser and mobile markets, but they're the sweaty 900lb gorilla of video hosting.

[Mr. Picklesworth]

Er how about Chrome + Firefox + Opera then?

That's actually Chrome + Firefox + Opera + IE9.
Safari is the only desktop browser that isn't supporting WebM / VP8. It and IE9 are the only ones left supporting h264.

This leaves the whole HTML video thing pretty clear cut on the desktop. The only thing left is hardware support on mobile, which isn't a big deal. There is a lot of support for webm from the hardware industry, and hardware-based acceleration tends to follow software. If websites start using webm, there will be hardware acceleration in short order.

[Mr. Picklesworth]

Oh nice, a tripple post. Sorry!

[Mr. Picklesworth]

.

[sydbat]

<snip>

Under Linux I suspect one could simply install the chromium ffmpeg extras package but what will Windows users do.

<snip>Do what the majority of Windows users always do - click on everything they are told to and end up getting the correct update / new browser/ whatever without knowing what they are really doing.

However, if you mean that small percentage of Windows users that actually know something about what they are doing, then they'll figure it out...like installing an updated version, or finding the 'hack' that fixes things.

[Mr. Picklesworth]

Behold! A tech journalist with his head screwed on straight:
http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/open-enterprise/2011/01/why-google-isnt-evil-today-at-least/index.htm
Engadget could learn a thing or two.

[tapasapat]

That's actually Chrome + Firefox + Opera + IE9.
Safari is the only desktop browser that isn't supporting WebM / VP8. It and IE9 are the only ones left supporting h264.

Actually IE9 supports only VP8 if the plugin has been installed. There were some reports of Vorbis support too, but MS was quick to remove any indications of that. So no full WebM support for IE9, I'm afraid. Same goes for IE8, which can play VP8 encoded videos with the installed plugins (on Windows 7 only, though).

[MisterGaribaldi]

Behold! A tech journalist with his head screwed on straight:
http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/open-enterprise/2011/01/why-google-isnt-evil-today-at-least/index.htm
Engadget could learn a thing or two.

Quite right on both counts, and I strongly agree with you on this point.

It will be interesting to see F/OSS / unencumbered tech actually start to gain a foothold in the market, particularly in consumer and (hopefully eventually) professional devices.

The fact that we're having this conversation at all is at least anecdotal proof of this. There was a time not that long ago where this sort of thing would never have happened, and would never have even been likely to happen. Now, we're seeing a far more bottom-up approach. I'm really glad to see it, and I look forward to HTML5 and all the rest of this being out there and fully realized by everyone. It'll be a good thing.

[ukripper]

Behold! A tech journalist with his head screwed on straight:
http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/open-enterprise/2011/01/why-google-isnt-evil-today-at-least/index.htm
Engadget could learn a thing or two.

Haven't read such a good article in ages! Thanks for the link.

[Lucradia]

By the way, Google has to update their theora video encoder / decoder on youtube still, if I recall.

Using recordmydesktop now will cause the videos to become garbled and green.

[phrostbyte]

Actually both IE9 & Safari can support WebM natively using a easily installed codec. IE8 and below can support WebM with a plugin that replaces IE's rendering engine on demand (Chrome Frame). Neither support WebM natively out of the box, making them the only major web browsers that don't.

It would be nice if Microsoft and Apple added native support for WebM in their browsers, but I wouldn't count on this happening yet.

Actually, I think it's more likely that Microsoft would do add WebM support simply because they don't have any real attachment (financial or otherwise) to H.264. But people over rate Apple's attachment to H.264 also. It wouldn't be surprise me if they adopted WebM too.

[madjr]

here is the BIG reason as to why they are dropping H.264:

http://www.itworld.com/open-source/133397/chrome-video-decision-a-vaccination-against-licence-trap

[lovinglinux]

Microsoft folks didn't like the move :)

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/tims/archive/2011/01/11/an-open-letter-from-the-president-of-the-united-states-of-google.aspx

[MisterGaribaldi]

Microsoft folks didn't like the move :)

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/tims/archive/2011/01/11/an-open-letter-from-the-president-of-the-united-states-of-google.aspx

Um... what's Esperanto got to do with Google dropping H.264?

[lovinglinux]

Um... what's Esperanto got to do with Google dropping H.264?

Read the article. It is a sarcastic analogy. Ridiculous and desperate in my opinion.

[lovinglinux]

Um... what's Esperanto got to do with Google dropping H.264?

Read the article. It is a sarcastic analogy. Ridiculous and desperate in my opinion.

[Primefalcon]

I am actually considering dropping ars technica off my feeds atm, they so damm anti anything that's anti apple it's hardly proper journalism

[qualtch]

I'm actually curious about this fact. Even if WebM is open choice, and I'd definetly go for that, but from this comment and links you can see a huge difference between h.264 vs WebM:


Are you serious? First of all the WebM shot looks much worse and blurrier, second you know absolutely nothing about the bitrates both videos were encoded with, and last but not least, *it's not even the same freaking shot* that is compared. In other words: that shot is 100% useless for comparing the two.

Maybe if you want a real comparison from someone who knows everything about video coding because he, you know, wrote x264:

http://x264dev.multimedia.cx/archives/377

Or if you are to lazy to read that, compare these two shots, which are laboratory-condition shots made with VP8 and H264 (ie: exact same shot, same bitrate, same encoder speed and quality settings):

VP8:
http://doom10.org/compare/vp8.png

H264:
http://doom10.org/compare/x264.png

Really, people should stop taking all the open/free BS coming from Google for granted because it is really starting to get in the way of rational thinking.

[zekopeko]

I am actually considering dropping ars technica off my feeds atm, they so damm anti anything that's anti apple it's hardly proper journalism

What does this have to do with Apple?

I find that their article, on why this is a bad move, has some pretty decent argument.

[Merk42]

I'm actually curious about this fact. Even if WebM is open choice, and I'd definetly go for that, but from this comment and links you can see a huge difference between h.264 vs WebM:A lot of people quote that article. Then a lot of other people question the bias given the author.

[zekopeko]

A lot of people quote that article. Then a lot of other people question the bias given the author.

Or they could simply look at the screenshots and see that VP8 is indeed blurry.

[ukripper]

Or they could simply look at the screenshots and see that VP8 is indeed blurry.

Or could be made blurrier intentionally on this occassion.

[madjr]

vp8 has changed and improved since a year ago (and continues to), is not the exact same, is webM now, so stop comparing old screens and/or spreading fud.

[zekopeko]

Or could be made blurrier intentionally on this occassion.

I have no reason to believe that. And from personal experience VP8 is less crisp then h.264.

[themarker0]

IMO, they should make an adword blocker. Everyone would flock to it. Then break it.

[madjr]

I have no reason to believe that. And from personal experience VP8 is less crisp then h.264.

did you notice the x.264 shot is 400kb bigger in size?

it should IMO look a bit "crispier" (no sorry, i mean less smooth), because is freaking Bigger.

and even tho i hardly notice much difference.

this is just spreading FUD all over again

[zekopeko]

did you notice the x.264 is 400kb bigger in size?

it should IMO look a bit crispier, because is Bigger.

Thanks for a laugh.

Do you seriously think that 400kb of extra video data on a 1080 clip are going to make a difference?

EDIT: I see now that you were referring to the size of the picture no the size of the video file. If you go to http://doom10.org/compare/ you will see that the h.264 mkv is 1MB less in size then VP8.mkv. So better quality in less space. Looks to me like this cements even more h.264 position as a technologically better solution.


and even tho i hardly notice much difference.

You should go and check your eyes. The difference is pretty clear.


this is just spreading FUD all over again

Nobody is spreading FUD here. Those pictures are from May 19, 2010. So roughly half a year old.

If you want to argue that VP8 and H.264 are on equal level in regards to technical quality then you have to produce some proof to support your assertions because for now h.264 looks better.

[ukripper]

Nobody is spreading FUD here. Those pictures are from May 19, 2010. So roughly half a year old.


Bit old for comparison. Improvements have been made in VP8 sector too.

[madjr]

Thanks for a laugh.

Do you seriously think that 400kb of extra video data on a 1080 clip are going to make a difference?

Those pictures are from May 19, 2010. So roughly half a year old.


sure, because vp8 (now webM) hasnt improved anything in almost a year... They're working on it as we speak.


oh and why dont you show us pics of the same kb size, so we could then really compare.

if every dumb pic is 400 / 600k more, am sure it adds up lots of extra MB in the end and my digital camera doesnt have that much memory in the first place.

So x.264 takes lots more space, which i dont have and the quality gains are questionable.

old pics, old fud.

[madjr]

anyway, there's no point for me to keep on this argument.

i could care less if one is a bit better than the other (this is like comparing intel vs amd, ati vs nvidia, kde vs gnome, jpg vs png... we could go recurring forever...). FOSS is about choice.

you're free to keep using h/x.264, while others are free to use webM.

closed formats (like we all know) are the worst lock-ins/monopolies, so am very happy we got an alternative either way.

[ukripper]

I remember when Google had acquisition of VP8 I had feeling that plan was something massive. I have to say it is brilliant move to protect openness of the web in the long run. Android and WebM what a great combo.

[Npl]

sure, because vp8 (now webM) hasnt improved anything in almost a year... They're working on it as we speak.Whos working on it? I really dont know but I know google isnt doing it themself.

oh and why dont you show us pics of the same kb size, so we could then really compare.The pictures are both in PNG (which is lossless).

if every dumb pic is 400 / 600k more, am sure it adds up lots of extra MB in the end and my digital camera doesnt have that much memory in the first place.why are you ragging about the size of PNG encodes again?


So x.264 takes lots more space, which i dont have and the quality gains are questionable.err, filesize of the x264 file is smaller. And in what way is it questionable that x264 doesnt have better or atleast equal quality at the same size?

old pics, old fud.No, I have never heard FUD using the size of PNG pictures as argument yet!

you're free to keep using h/x.264, while others are free to use webM.hows googles removal of h264 helping in having a choice? Sounds more like pushing their own format.

[Mr. Picklesworth]

hows googles removal of h264 helping in having a choice? Sounds more like pushing their own format.

It's pretty straight-forward, really. This isn't about adding choice, and that is a damn good thing.

Google isn't “banning” h.264; they are simply removing their implementation of it for html video (http://diveintohtml5.org/video.html).

First of all, does anyone really think a sane website could use just the HTML video tag in the next ten years? The specification isn't even final. It is really hard for it to be final until the industry agrees on something. I should point out that everything on the web so far has been royalty free, and it's pretty widely accepted that it should remain so (http://www.oreillynet.com/xml/blog/2002/05/bernerslee_keep_the_web_royalt.html).

So, what's happening here? Google is leveraging Chrome's dominant position to stand behind the two free video formats that Firefox (http://www.0xdeadbeef.com/weblog/2010/01/html5-video-and-h-264-what-history-tells-us-and-why-were-standing-with-the-web) and Opera (http://my.opera.com/haavard/blog/2011/01/13/openness) also agree with. (Those links aren't to official statements, but they pretty nicely reflect them). With a huge number of desktop web browsers (including every major open source browser) supporting a particular format we can move this process forwards.

Why do we want to? Because it is a waste of effort – and, yes, Google's money – to support three different video formats in Chrome, and it is a waste to support that many in YouTube HTML5 video is not an embedded video player. It's a lot more than that. It provides a reasonable guarantee that a video will play in a particular specified fashion, like the image tag provides a reasonable guarantee that an image will appear. It also provides a whole bunch of awesome stuff (http://videos-cdn.mozilla.net/serv/firefox4beta/ants/FlightDemo.webm) (from here (http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/4.0b8/whatsnew/)) that goes way, way beyond <embed src="myvideo.mp4"…

So, for the video tag, a browser has to support the same formats on every platform it runs on with appropriate playback code wrapped into the browser. So, with each format directly supported within Chrome there is a cost in effort — and, yes, money.

Npl, Ubuntu cannot provide a reasonable guarantee that h.264 will play anywhere (let alone in html's video tag). People need to add more packages over the Internet to do that. Is Ubuntu limiting choice?

[zekopeko]

sure, because vp8 (now webM) hasnt improved anything in almost a year... They're working on it as we speak.


oh and why dont you show us pics of the same kb size[/SIZE], so we could then really compare.

if every dumb pic is 400 / 600k more, am sure it adds up lots of extra MB in the end and my digital camera doesnt have that much memory in the first place.

So x.264 takes lots more space, which i dont have and the quality gains are questionable.

old pics, old fud.

I corrected myself. I thought that you were talking about the video size not the PNG size. Let me quote my edit:


EDIT: I see now that you were referring to the size of the picture no the size of the video file. If you go to http://doom10.org/compare/ you will see that the h.264 mkv is 1MB less in size then VP8.mkv. So better quality in less space. Looks to me like this cements even more h.264 position as a technologically better solution.

So, yes you are wrong. h.264 produces files of less size but with more detail. No please stop spreading false information based on faulty logical reasoning.


anyway, there's no point for me to keep on this argument.

i could care less if one is a bit better than the other (this is like comparing intel vs amd, ati vs nvidia, kde vs gnome, jpg vs png... we could go recurring forever...). FOSS is about choice.

you're free to keep using h/x.264, while others are free to use webM.

Google doesn't want me to have a choice. They want me to use WebM.


closed formats (like we all know) are the worst lock-ins/monopolies, so am very happy we got an alternative either way.

Again with false information. The format isn't closed. It's fully documented with a very detailed specification.

[madjr]

sorry, slow forum, duplicate post

[Merk42]

A lot of people quote that article. Then a lot of other people question the bias given the author.*next page or so is people doing exactly that*
(note: I didn't say where I stand in the whole matter, just that I knew it would happen)

Google doesn't want me to have a choice. They want me to use WebM.
Mozilla doesn't want me to have a choice. They want me to use WebM.
Opera doesn't want me to have a choice. They want me to use WebM.
Microsoft doesn't want me to have a choice. They want me to use H.264.
Apple doesn't want me to have a choice. They want me to use H.264.

I guess you're more arguing madjr's questionable use of the word 'choice' though.


Again with false information. The format isn't closed. It's fully documented with a very detailed specification.
Would you at least agree it's less than desirable that h.264 requires a paid license for non personal use?

[madjr]

hows googles removal of h264 helping in having a choice? Sounds more like pushing their own format.

you will still be able to use plugins to play x/h.264

chromium has never supported it, nor firefox or opera (should they pay $5 million each to support it?). So there's no reason chrome should do it.

these links will give you the answers you want:


http://www.itworld.com/open-source/133397/chrome-video-decision-a-vaccination-against-licence-trap
http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/Google-to-pull-H-264-HTML5-support-from-Chrome-1168092.html

the decision has already been made, so not much more to add.

[MisterGaribaldi]

While (Google == "VP8 + Theora") {
Good++;
}

Fixed. ;)

Shouldn't that be "++ Good"? I mean, if we're going to go newspeaking and all... :p

[spoons]

This whole argument is why software patents are ridiculous.

[madjr]

This whole argument is why software patents are ridiculous.

That's specially true for the h.264 and MPEG-LA's Larry Horn which is one of the worst patent Trolls in the software industry

http://techrights.org/2010/05/26/patent-trolls-exploit-cams/
http://techrights.org/2010/04/26/mpeg-lala-land-as-patent-troll/
http://www.osnews.com/story/23335/Patent_Troll_Larry_Horn_of_MPEG-LA_Assembling_VP8_Patent_Pool
http://www.osnews.com/story/23258/MPEG-LA-owned_Patent_Troll_Sues_Smartphone_Makers

[zekopeko]

That's specially true for the h.264 and MPEG-LA's Larry Horn which is one of the worst patent Trolls in the software industry

http://techrights.org/2010/05/26/patent-trolls-exploit-cams/
http://techrights.org/2010/04/26/mpeg-lala-land-as-patent-troll/
http://www.osnews.com/story/23335/Patent_Troll_Larry_Horn_of_MPEG-LA_Assembling_VP8_Patent_Pool
http://www.osnews.com/story/23258/MPEG-LA-owned_Patent_Troll_Sues_Smartphone_Makers

Linking to BoycottNovell aka Techrights isn't helping your argument. Just damages any credibility you might have left.

Either way the above links have nothing to do with h.264 or MPEG-LA and its patents. It's a separate company that is nothing like the MPEG-LA in the context. You are trying to link a patent troll to a consortium that isn't a patent troll.

[zekopeko]

Duplicate post

[Shpongle]

Shouldn't that be "++ Good"? I mean, if we're going to go newspeaking and all... :p

Well you read the Good and then its incremented , ++Good would mean its good +1 before you read it

[sdowney717]

vp8 is good enough and equals the h264 baseline encoded video
so it is good enough.
not sure how apple will accommodate vp8


Is VP8 Better Than H.264?

In its current state, VP8 is not better than H.264. The quality of VP8 video is more or less on par with the lowest quality profile of H.264: Baseline. The two higher quality profiles - Main and High - offer better results. VP8 is definitely better than Theora though.

Is this bad news? Absolutely not. One could say that VP8 video simply is good enough, just like JPEG was good enough for images and MP3 was good enough for audio. On top of that, the majority of today's H.264 videos use the Baseline profile, for efficiency and compatibility reasons. For example, Bits on the Run uses H.264 Baseline because videos transcode faster and more computers (e.g. ATOM-based netbooks) can play the videos without stuttering. Also, most mobile devices (like the iPhone) only support H.264 Baseline.

http://www.longtailvideo.com/support/blog/12120/googles-vp8webm-and-what-it-means-for-you

[MisterGaribaldi]

Well you read the Good and then its incremented , ++Good would mean its good +1 before you read it

I guess you've never read 1984.

[madjr]

Linking to BoycottNovell aka Techrights isn't helping your argument. Just damages any credibility you might have left.

Either way the above links have nothing to do with h.264 or MPEG-LA and its patents. It's a separate company that is nothing like the MPEG-LA in the context. You are trying to link a patent troll to a consortium that isn't a patent troll.

a link to news is a link to news, doesn't matter where is from.

i didn't know techrights had something to do with boycottnovel, but that doesn't matter because all they do is link back to osnews (http://www.osnews.com/story/23335/Patent_Troll_Larry_Horn_of_MPEG-LA_Assembling_VP8_Patent_Pool), which i also included. If you have a problem with the articles check with their respective authors.

[alexan]

This is damn good.
H.264 should remain a good... codec plugin. It is not supposed to be a standard if its closed.

What if Mpeg-la is going to release a update to improve "their" codec and Ballamer jump in with the HolyWallet and the next day we "discover" that said update will be only ActiveX available?

No one would be allowed to deliver same improvement for other platforms (Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Safari...).
With an Open standard the game is fairer.
Ballamer can always jump in with his HolyWallet.. but the game still remain open for the work of talented competitors

[Shpongle]

I guess you've never read 1984.

Well Played Sir!. I have plans to read it eventually

[ukripper]

So in the end score is Google 1 - Apple 0

[alexan]

So in the end score is Google 1 - Apple 0

I wouldn't say that. Webkit is Chrome *AND* Safari.
If Google drain the standard out of business of restricted companies it's more unlikely that the company 'with-the-market-share-everything-belong-to-me' Microsoft will own the game.
So, I would say:
Patent Trolls 0 - Rest of the Open World 1

[zekopeko]

a link to news is a link to news, doesn't matter where is from.

i didn't know techrights had something to do with boycottnovel

Techrights is a re-branded BoycottNovell. Now you know. For the sake of humanity don't like to it any more please.


, but that doesn't matter because all they do is link back to osnews (http://www.osnews.com/story/23335/Patent_Troll_Larry_Horn_of_MPEG-LA_Assembling_VP8_Patent_Pool), which i also included. If you have a problem with the articles check with their respective authors.

I questioned the relevance of your links to the debate (ignoring the source of the first two).

What does a separate company which really is a patent troll have to do with MPEG-LA (except sharing the same CEO) which isn't a patent troll?

[zekopeko]

This is damn good.
H.264 should remain a good... codec plugin. It is not supposed to be a standard if its closed.

What if Mpeg-la is going to release a update to improve "their" codec and Ballamer jump in with the HolyWallet and the next day we "discover" that said update will be only ActiveX available?

No one would be allowed to deliver same improvement for other platforms (Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Safari...).
With an Open standard the game is fairer.
Ballamer can always jump in with his HolyWallet.. but the game still remain open for the work of talented competitors

This is facepalm worthy. h.264 isn't a piece of software. It's a specification for an encoder/decoder. There are FOSS implementations of the specification.

tl;dr you are rambling nonsense.

[phrostbyte]

This is facepalm worthy. h.264 isn't a piece of software. It's a specification for an encoder/decoder. There are FOSS implementations of the specification.

tl;dr you are rambling nonsense.

Please try to keep the debate civil.

[alexan]

This is facepalm worthy. h.264 isn't a piece of software. It's a specification for an encoder/decoder. There are FOSS implementations of the specification.

Software isn't a "piece" as well, even if they are specification they are subjected to MPEG-LA approval.

Integrate, improve and extend that "technology" (if you don't want call it software) can be done only if MPEG-LA (and friend with money) agree.

This is why this "technology" (again: if you don't want to call it software) shouldn't come as standard (planned inside the browser software).

I give you a possible scenario of what would happen.

Case: people who browse internet demand video streaming with 3D (glass or glassless technologies). It would possible with flash, but people would use a more native way.

option 1 (open specification): opera, firefox, chrome etc start engineering their own WebM3D... fork, fight, join forces or whatever.
option 2 (closed specification): everyone wait/knock at MPEG-LA door... those with the biggest wallet (S. Jobs/Ballemer) win.


Option 1: product of human genius
Option 2: "not a product" (not shaped or designed from paying clients, but mere lobbyst)

[alaukikyo]

What does this have to do with Apple?


niether does safari or any iOS device supports webm or ogg they are in favour of h.264 .

[mips]

10% of the market as well as the number one video website and search engine. I think they do have weight to throw around.

I agree. 99% of the online content I watch is via Youtube, I just don't bother with other sites.



I'm actually curious about this fact. Even if WebM is open choice, and I'd definetly go for that, but from this comment and links you can see a huge difference between h.264 vs WebM:

I don't doubt that H.264 is superior to VP8 in it's current form. VP8 will see further development in future and the fact that it is open sourced even will accelerate the development even faster.

If one looks at the current crappy content on youtube etc I don't see VP8 making a noticeable difference to the online content quality. The biggest problem wrt quality is home users not knowing how to properly rip video & audio so the quality is good and they just upload their crap.

Just compare these two low bitrate clips to get an idea what I'm talking about:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqR_4h96eXc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LyJ3HAK71fo