I am almost flabbergasted by the spin and blunt-face upon which this news is delivered. We were just discussing the pot calling the kettle black with Apple / Adobe and now Microsoft have also come out in favour of a closed video format for an open web–IE9’s HTML5 video support will allow H264 only. Update Now that the initial shock is over, I’ve rewritten the article to actually represent news rather than something on Twitter.
With IE9 Microsoft have initiated a drive to bring IE into the 21st Century and even in some places outdo their competitors, following years and IE stagnation and lackluster updates compared to features available in all other major browsers. Notably important is fast SVG, a new JavaScript engine to rival the other JIT engines in other browsers and importantly, HTML5 support.
HTML5’s features are rather broad so whilst no word on HTML5 Canvas has been mentioned yet, Microsoft did commit to HTML5 Audio and Video which were demonstrated at their developer’s conference MIX10. A preview release of the new rendering engine was made available, but this release was not the same build as demoed at MIX and didn’t include HTML5 Audio and Video.
It was always obvious that H.264 support would be part of it, but some developers assumed that the sensible option for Microsoft would have been to let IE access DirectShow (Window’s media platform, much like QuickTime on Mac) so that any codecs installed on the system would be available for use. Since Windows 7 Microsoft have included H.264 and DivX codecs by default. Vista added MPEG-2 support which was absent from Windows XP.
To a certain extent, Apple use this method by transmogrifying HTML5 video tags into QuckTime elements in Safari so that QuickTime handles the media and thus anything QuickTime can play, so can Safari, including additional installed codecs via the likes of Perian.
What is so blunt in Microsoft’s announcement that they will support H.264 only in HTML5 video is the pure Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt of ^aEURoeother codecs^aEUR they portray.
Other codecs often come up in these discussions. The distinction between the availability of source code and the ownership of the intellectual property in that available source code is critical. Today, intellectual property rights for H.264 are broadly available through a well-defined program managed by MPEG LA. The rights to other codecs are often less clear, as has been described in the press.
Microsoft do not once substantiate in their post what codecs they are referring to, what isn’t clear about said codec’s licencing and what press have said anything about this. Microsoft seem to be implying that H.264 is the only safe and reliable codec. Microsoft said that the availability of source code and ownership of IP right is critical but then fail to substatiate that statement by either mentioning source code at all (the source code to Microsoft’s H264 implementation and of IE itself is not open) or the ownership of rights befalls anywhere else than with the MPEG-LA (and not, for example with the user, like with open source codecs like Theora).
So how is H.264 in any way critically related to open source and rights ownership (of IP in that source)? H.264 is proprietary and closed and the rights are locked away behind MPEG-LA’s doors.
If that alone wasn’t bad blogging / journalism, then the fact that Microsoft did not once mention that they themselves are a patent licensor for the MPEG-LA is much worse. Microsoft own part of the pool of patents that make up the H.264 codec. This means that it is their express interest that people pay for H.264 licences as this pays into their back pocket via the MPEG-LA.
This is a defraudment of developers, monopoly abuse^aEUR”using their monopoly with IE to direct business to the MPEG-LA of which Microsoft will profit. Absolutely shocking, and no mention of this shocking bias is made in their announcement.
The selective information masking their bias continues with this statement:
Of course, developers can rely on the H.264 codec and hardware acceleration support of the underlying operating system, like Windows 7, without paying any additional royalty.
But Window’s licence for H.264 is for non-commerical use for decoding by consumers. You will need to purchase a licence for developers (content-creators, not consumers) to encode H.264 content. Had they said ^aEURoeOf course, consumers can rely,^aEUR there would be no problem, but Microsoft are masking the fact that H.264 licencing is not free and is not transferable^aEUR”just because you have a decoder on your machine, doesn’t mean it’s licenced correctly for the use you intend. This is the case even with professional software like Final Cut Pro, that does not come with a commercial use licence for H.264!
The MPEG-LA have made it clear that if you don’t get your licencing right and pay their protection money, they will come after you.
This is genuinely frightening. Not the coming-after-you bit, but that a proprietary, patent riddled video codec could become the de-facto standard on the web.
Would YouTube have ever taken off, if they had to pay the MPEG-LA for every time a video was watched by somebody? Imagine the web without YouTube. For one, we wouldn’t have a new yardstick for poor quality comments on the Internet, sure, but at the same time we wouldn’t have so much amateur content being produced, and we wouldn’t have had so much demand for video that ISPs were forced to catch up, and that would have meant that things like Hulu may never have come into existence, because neither the infrastructure, nor the demand would have been there.
Microsoft are helping to put to a stop any innovation around video on the web. No new business models surrounding videos will be allowed unless they get paid for it. This will simply prevent innovation from happening in the first place. Microsoft’s decision will genuinely affect every web user for the next 10 years.
What proof do I have for that? None. Because Microsoft have severely crippled the chance that any such proof will ever come to exist. We will never know what innovation we will have missed out on because of an open web cemented around a closed video format.
This is a sad day for the Internet. For shame Microsoft, for shame.
I’ll clean it up.
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That was me cleaning this article up.
What, because it was so bad, or so rage-inducing?
Rage-inducing. That was me randomly banging my fists on my aluminium Apple (why hello mr Hypocrisy, you are popular today) keyboard. This news pisses me off.
That means I still won’t be able to experience the full web on my Haiku R1 install once it’s here.
How? Because the WC3 is going to standardize on h264?
With IE and Safari supporting only H.264 video, which covers the default browser of the two main OSes, why would anyone provide their content in non-H.264 content?
And if no-one provides their content in non-H.264 versions, how are non-IE/non-Safari users supposed to access it?
Because Microsoft and Apple don’t dictate the content I’m afraid. Sites on the web and popular sites like YouTube do and those sites have more of a vested interest in making sure their content is accessible everywhere without handcuffs on them. Apple, in particular, are going to find that out the hard way. If you’re railing against a particular technology then you’d better make damn sure there are things people actually want to access in your alternate world. Microsoft and Apple don’t have anything.
It’s tough shit really if you want to access the sites and content that all the cool kids are looking at and have all the cool features. That’s what happened in the early days of the web with Netscape, and IE simply had to follow. If they hadn’t they would have failed. Ditto here. They’re not in a position to dictate.
Except that YouTube is already in beta on an HTML5/non-Flash version of their site … so there goes that argument. http://www.youtube.com/html5
Safari does NOT just support H.264. Support is based off QuickTime and will support codecs that QuickTime supports.
I am really not shocked. OK, you would assume they would just use their media framework and hence supporting Theora is as “easy” as installing a plugin.
But the problem with that is that you have to secure all codecs you support and that can be really hard (media players that play a lot of content get security updates all the time)
That is just a excuse of course.
So what I am saying is that if you expect Apple and MS to do really selfish evil moves they will deliver.
Security problems are a prime example of why you should use system codecs. They are widely used by lots of systems, get lots of testing, and any holes are plugged by one update.
If you don’t you end up with lots of differing, and possibly the same security holes depending on the source of the codec that get updated at different times leaving various apps vulnerable and others not.
I would guess that you will be able to, but perhaps not without infringing the H.264 patents
Haiku does include ffmpeg for its video codecs, which includes libavcodec, which includes an h264 decoder last I checked.
So, you may eventually experience the “full web” on Haiku, but not without potentially breaking the law.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psTUiQzNoxw ;D
So the selfish angle arises.
I think he meant that as an example – it could have been other operating systems as well. I think the point is a double-team effort of MS and Apple to maintain control over who uses what codecs to record/playback their video on the internet. Google too, I think, no? Somehow this gets back to organizations looking to maintain control over their products (music, movies, etc.)
No. The web was born and is what it is today out of the concept that every single OS and device (which these days is more and more important) could access it unfettered.
So the selfish angle arises.
As if this angle wasn’t prevalent in the pro H.264 camp…
The Haiku media kit supports h.264 playback today. It’s based on ffmpeg after all.
Then the Webpositive browser just has to support the video tag with media kit and we can merrily play all the h.264 and theora video. I’ll take that over Gnash any day thank you very much.
So even if Haiku would be obligated to exclude h.264 and other codecs for legal reasons. It could just as easily be added after installation. It’s like on Linux. The first package I install on Ubuntu is ubuntu-restricted-extras to get all the codecs Canonical won’t ship.
So in practice this will be no problem for the consumer.
Just a minor nit here – Haiku’s media kit is *not* based on ffmpeg – but it does have an ffmpeg-based media addon which can support any codec supported by ffmpeg if there aren’t any other suitable addons available for a given codec.
Thus, ffmpeg is basically used as a “backup” addon module in this capacity.
It’s nice of Microsoft to remind us of its old “embrace, extend, extinguish” ways. It will be interesting to see if they still have enough clout to pull something like this off.
Edited 2010-04-29 23:18 UTC
really?
Really??????
Where is the extend? how about the plan to kill H264.
Frankly I think you did not give any thought to the meaning of that phrase.
really?
Really??????
Where is the extend? how about the plan to kill H264.
Frankly I think you did not give any thought to the meaning of that phrase.
I’d say you didn’t think of it enough. There are various different ways to see it, I see it as: embrace HTML5 and the freedom of it, extend it with H.264, kill off the freedom of it.
Apple, Google and the W3C are now conspirators with MS?
Again… not much thought.
Where did anyone say that Apple, Google and the W3C are conspirators with Microsoft?
Apple and Microsoft are trying to kill off the freedom of HTML5 by dictating (or thinking that they can dictate) the codec that will effectively be used because they think they control something with IE and Safari.
Microsoft is just following what the industry is already doing. If they had said that IE9’s HTML5 implementation would “only support VC-1 (WMV/WMVHD)” then the complaints would make more sense to me. (Since while VC-1 is an industry standard too, Microsoft is its primary developer (though it does make use of licensed patented tech from others). So Microsoft has closer ties to VC-1. They also helped developed H.264 and have patents to that effect, but they were part of a much larger group in that effort. H.264 isn’t a “Microsoft” format, like VC-1 is.)
Back to my original point: The rest of the industry is already going with H.264. Microsoft is following in that. Microsoft doesn’t control this. If anyone does, it’s Apple.
Theora’s nowhere near as good as H.264 (or VC-1 for that matter), according to tests (that I think I’ve seen cited even by Theora backers here).
Now, I was hoping that IE9 would be neutral and just call the system api to play HTLM5 video, and if the user’s computer had the correct codec installed, it would play, if not, then too bad. (That would cover H.264, WMV, MPEG-2, and even DivX, since Windows 7 comes with those codecs preinstalled. The user would have to install Theora himself, or installing IE9 could automatically install it.) But doing that would lead to H.264 as the one and only HTML5 standard anyway because if IE is neutral and the rest of the industry picks H.264, then H.264 wins.
I’d even say that if IE9’s HTML5 supported only H.264 AND and Theora, it would lead to H.264 winning in the end, for the same reason.
The only way MS could’ve helped Theora, and maintiain HTML5’s “freedom”, was to support Theora and not support H.264. But that would mean supporting the inferior format and starting a war with the rest of the industry that’s already going with H.264.
Are they? HTML5 video has not yet been established nor is there any standard format for it. People want to try and enforce a restrictive one, but they are likely to be disappointed.
That’s not going to happen simply because it would be like a butterfly farting. No one would notice because there is sod all useful or interesting on the internet that uses it.
There is currently no standard for HTML5 video and no one has yet gone with anything apart from their personal choices.
Since Apple have no content to dictate terms then I find that suprising. You seem to be labelling Apple as the ‘rest of the industry’, which is pretty laughable.
For internet video then that is entirely subjective. Besides, we’ll end up having VP8 on that score so that argument will get non-existent if it isn’t already when it comes to internet video.
If sites like YouTube don’t use it then it’s irrelevant. You know that as well as I, I suspect. If there’s no content for a browser then no one cares.
I’m afraid people who think IE and Safari are somehow relevant in the world of a new web standard where Apple and Microsoft don’t create any of the cool new content people actually want are going to be sorely disappointed. No one is going to demand that YouTube supports h.264 so that they can get all of the cool features in their browsers that their friends have got and they haven’t. Really, people hate IE enough already as it is.
Edited 2010-04-30 12:09 UTC
So they embraced H264, how did they extend or extinguish it?
This is how it works…
1)Embrace Standards
2)????
3)Extinguish!
You don’t embrace and extinguish a broad consortium of your own partners.
Heh. Obviously you haven’t had many dealings with Microsoft.
(and no, I didn’t put much thought into my comment)
But thinking about it now, I’m not talking about extending h264, I’m talking about the nascent HTML5 video utopia. They’re embracing HTML 5 video by talking about how great it is, extending it by promoting the html5/h264 combo, and extinguishing the utopia by trying to forever tie the open html5 standard to the closed h264 pseudo-standard.
h264 is a real standard.
MS is as complicit as the W3C. so you are claiming the Web Standards Body is looking to kill HTML5 video.
The problem with Absolutism on a topic is that it does not fit right in the real world.
Says who? There is certainly no format dictated as part of HTML5.
Why not? They’ve done their best to kill off HTML5 video in a flurry of contradictions via various interested parties. Microsoft in particular would rather you used Windows Media and Silverlight. Microsoft have belatedly committed to h.264 because the web has threatened to move on without them and define their own standards for HTML5 video.
See your statement on h.264 as a standard above.
Yes it is. Indeed. It is the standard video codec for some applications such as digial TV transmissions and Blueray video players, is it not?
Say what? h264 is NOT the standard codec for use on the web. It can’t be, because it doesn’t meet the royalty-free requirement for use in that role.
Being royalty-free IS a requirement for web standards, didn’t you know? Absolutely it is. Every other web standard meets it.
Here is an example, and at the same time an indicator that Microsoft is very well aware of the requirement that web satndards must be royalty-free.
http://news.cnet.com/microsoft-news/?keyword=W3C
http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/Microsoft-backs-Web-Open-Fon…
Edited 2010-04-30 02:01 UTC
Where is it written that it needs to be royalty free to be a standard? Just because it hasn’t happened doesn’t me an it can’t.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_standard
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W3C
At this time, AFAIK, HTML5 is only a Candidate Recommendation (CR), or perhaps even earlier.
It won’t progress to a W3C Recommendation (REC) until it specifies a suitable codec, and that codec must be royalty-free.
Edited 2010-04-30 04:55 UTC
Sorry, I spoke too soon.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML5#W3C_standardization_process
It is still a Working Draft. It would seem that some parties have been very successful so far in stonewalling HTML5.
Ima stop you there..
Jesus.. please stop quoting 10+ wikipedia articles as “basis” for any argument. You may as well be quoting Uncyclopedia…
You:
http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Troll
Your agenda?:
http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Twat
Your excuse for trolling?:
http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Myers-Briggs
OSAlert user’s major gripe:
http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/I_Can%27t_Believe_It%27s…
And not forgetting:
http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/United_States_of_Tyranny_and_Dic…
Some people, it seems, are never happy unless they are arguing about something.
Edit: please also note the intended irony that many of those links have absolutely nothing, or very little directly, to do with my gripe.
Edited 2010-04-30 10:54 UTC
Ima stop you there.
http://www.osnews.com/permalink?421733
Despite my very best attempts, even going so far as linking direct to the applicable policy page of the very organisation that is writing the HTML5 specification, I still appear to have somehow failed to stop further idiotic ramblings trying to refute the W3C’s requirement that the codec that will be specified within the W3C’s HTML5 Recommendation must be royalty-free.
“the web video codec standard MUST be royalty-free”
Caveat: W3C policy will (begrudgingly) allow RAND terms only if there is no royalty-free technology available. In the case of the web video codec and the HTML5 standard, there is at least one suitable royalty-free codec available, so therefore, whichever web video codec is eventually specified in HTML5, it MUST be royalty-free. Therefore, h264 will NOT be that codec.
The policy of the organisation writing the HTML5 specification requires it to be so.
Why do you have such a problem trying to grasp this simple fact?
Edited 2010-04-30 11:31 UTC
What has that got to do with what I said? I sometimes wonder if you are capable of reading… If anything, you actually PROVED my point. Douche.
Edit: Yay venom.
Edited 2010-04-30 14:08 UTC
Why, what did you say that was supposed to be a point?
BTW, this sub-thread is about this question:
I posted not one but two replies to this question, directly relevant to this sub-thread, each answering the exact question as posed:
The first post referred to wikipedia, because it is easy to understand:
http://www.osnews.com/permalink?421724
… but many people disbelieve wikipedia, so I posted a second more definitive (but also more complex) reference for the benefit of such bellyaches:
http://www.osnews.com/permalink?421733
So, did you get a wire crossed somewhere? I can’t see any relevant point at all from you. Douche.
Edited 2010-04-30 14:18 UTC
I’m sorry that you are confused. That might be much of the issue.
Last time I looked, threads flow. Topics are threaded so that, well, a thread of discussion is maintained. If someone questions you within a thread, you might find that the topic changes. If you don’t grasp that concept, you really must stop, right now.
No. You just don’t seem to have actually understood the question. Unfortunately you seem to equate “standard” with “web standard” or “royalty-free standard” (baring in mind, we have already previously established that an Open Standard does NOT require Royalty-Free status, and those organisations that DO require Royalty-Free status have generally retrospectively applied that requirement after many Open Standards have been established as such.) That is not what the OP said. The OP said “Where is it written that it needs to be royalty free to be a standard?”. No where. That is the correct answer. No where. A standard != “web” or “royalty-free” or even “open”. Standards are standards when they are ratified and recognised by a Standards regulatory body. Please now adjust you brain to retain this piece of information.
No, he doesn’t. It’s you the one who desn’t understand anything. Allow me to clarify it for you. In his original message (http://www.osnews.com/permalink?421681), lemur2 said:
So, as you can see, he made absolutely clear that he was talking about WEB standards.
Then, aesiamun replied (http://www.osnews.com/permalink?421711)
I assume this is the reason of your confusion. aesiamun omitted the word “web”. But reading the original message (the one he was replying to, which I quoted at the beginning) one realizes that he (aesiaum) probably just forgot to write it or he simply misunderstood it.
So, if anything, it is aesiamun (along with you) who got it wrong, NOT lemur2.
Just carefully re-read the thread in case you still don’t get it.
Edited 2010-04-30 19:29 UTC
No. You just don’t seem to have actually understood the question. Unfortunately you seem to equate “standard” with “web standard” or “royalty-free standard” (baring in mind, we have already previously established that an Open Standard does NOT require Royalty-Free status, and those organisations that DO require Royalty-Free status have generally retrospectively applied that requirement after many Open Standards have been established as such.) That is not what the OP said. The OP said “Where is it written that it needs to be royalty free to be a standard?”. No where. That is the correct answer. No where. A standard != “web” or “royalty-free” or even “open”. Standards are standards when they are ratified and recognised by a Standards regulatory body. Please now adjust you brain to retain this piece of information. [/q]
Sorry, but you are wrong. It is you who has misunderstood. This whole discussion is about WEB standards, and HTML5 in particular.
HTML5 is a web standard being proposed by W3C. W3C are the authors of this standard.
W3C have a requirement that the technology in their standards is royalty-free. If some technology is not royalty-free, then W3C will not specify it in their standard (unless there is absolutely no alternative).
In this case, for a video codec, h264 is encumbered by royalties, and there is at least one alternative video codec that is not.
Therefore, h264 will never be the standard codec specified by the web standard, HTML5.
It is very simple, really, almost everyone on the planet (except you, apparently) has got this by now.
But let’s note that every time you claim it must be patent-unencumbered, you are lying.
It has to be implemented on a Royalty Free Basis… the codec it self does not have to be royalty free, but for implementations involving the web, it has to be.
That means that if it is to be a standard, browser makers and users will not have to pay royalties. MPEG-LA can still push for royalties on content creators and hardware makers.
Rather than a wikipedia page, I have sought out policy statements direct from the horses mouth, as it were, just in case there is any further idiotic challenge similar to the above:
http://www.w3.org/TR/patent-practice#sec-Goals
The whole aim of W3C is to get Royalty-free standards for the web, where practicable.
There is certainly at least one viable way to achieve this primary W3C goal for the video codec within the HTML5 specification.
BTW, HTML5 is indeed a W3C specification.
This document linked above should shut the doubters up, one would hope.
Edited 2010-04-30 06:24 UTC
HTML5 is a royalty free specification.
Video codecs aren’t officially defined as which ones are part of the HTML5 Specification.
Same goes for the audio codecs.
Even the HTML5 spec gives several examples on how to leverage the source element for your site with various codecs.
http://www.w3.org/TR/html5/video.html#the-source-element
Yer, and? That’s why we currently have this large debate about it.
Lemur2: Well f–king said.
Edited 2010-05-01 16:03 UTC
Ok, so they embraced HTML5 video. They didn’t extend any standard, that would be implementing the video tag by calling it ms-video or something stupid, and giving it a different javascript api then everyone else.
As for the codec, the w3c backed off specific codecs now for the spec, so its up to the implementors. Not only that, but what apple is doing is having a worse effect at this point – you can download chrome on windows which supports both, but if you are on an iDevice (which dominates the mobile web), it is h264 only.
If they had done something like implement the video tag with WMV only support, then I would probably agree with you, even though it still doesn’t really fit.
Only at the insistence of Apple. W3C originally specified Theora, and Apple threw a hissy fit and vetoed that. Since there is no other competitive royalty-free video codec available at this time, the W3C have been unable to include the codec specification as yet within the HTML5 specification.
This in turn is a major reason why HTML5 is not yet a W3C recommendation.
The codec is NOT up to the implementors. One cannot have a royalty encumberence within a web satndard, so there is no agreed standard as yet.
Perhaps if Google make VP8 royalty-free, then this situation can be resolved. Or maybe Theora can be agreed upon eventually. Whatever … h264 is NOT it.
Sort of like Apple embracing, exte… er, and extinguishing lala.com, right?
I left this comment on the MSDN blog:
“This is a very sad day for the open web. Microsoft will support HTML5 (yay!) but only a patent-encumbered, proprietary codec (boo!) anyone apart from Apple, Microsoft, and Google won’t be able to support (due to the prohibitive licensing cost and/or the non-Free nature). So instead of Flash, we’re now crippling the web with another proprietary technology.
I guess I was hoping against my better judgement. Microsoft is a licensor of the MPG-LA, and as such, you guys profit from having as many H264 licenses sold as possible. I had just hoped that due to recent positive steps from Microsoft with regards to openness and standards, we’d see some enlightenment here.
Due to the emphasis on “only”, I’m assuming IE9 won’t tap into DirectShow/Media Foundation codecs? I.e., if a user has a Theora codec installed, IE9 will make use of it?”
hmm…
Firefox can support h264 all they want… they just need to use the host OS’s h264 codec.
OS X, Windows and Linux all have h264 support so FF needs to suck it up and use the codec on the OS.
Linux does NOT have H264 support – at least, not legally, and not out of the box. No major Linux distribution out there ships with H264 support because doing so would violate US (and possibly other countries’) laws.
darn… all those thieves on Linux will have to continue stealing the codec.
Anyone who claims they do not use x264 is a liar.
I don’t use it and I don’t know of any internet video currently that requires it. Even if that were the case you still need a valid license to actually use it, which Firefox cannot provide or guarantee. They would have to effectively dictate what platforms you could run it on.
Edited 2010-04-30 00:08 UTC
I don’t. Fluendo has me covered (on OpenSolaris). Am I a liar?
ffmpeg, vlc, and x264 are all legal, so long as you live in a country without software patents. That means anywhere but north america or korea, with the UK and australia sort of on the fence about the whole thing.
The leaglity or otherwise is not the issue. The issue is that in order to be a web standard, it MUST be royalty-free.
H264 is not royalty-free. Therefore, h264 is not the web standard.
http://www.w3.org/TR/html5/video.html#the-source-element
None of the codecs are part of the Royalty Free HTML5 Specification.
The examples show all sorts of ways for you to host source options and in doing so you leave it up to the client to pick and run one that works.
This is the (current) fallout from this decision:
http://lwn.net/Articles/340132/
HTML5 is meant to have a codec specified. Originally, prior to that decision made in June 2009, Theora was that codec. Now it has been taken out, and we have the current unacceptable situation.
However, HTML5 is not yet a W3C Recommendation.
(1) If Google release VP8 as royalty-free, then objections against Theora would likely be mooted, and W3C could then stipulate a codec for HTML5 once again (HTML5/VP8).
(2) Alternatively, Theora could improve enough to moot Google’s objection, and so remaining dissent (Apple) would be sufficiently insignificant that W3C could re-instate HTML5/Theora.
Those two are the only possible outcomes. HTML5/H264 is NOT an option.
It will all depend on Google’s decision regarding YouTube. If YouTube switches to Theora or VP8, and serves Flash to everybody else – just you wait how quick Apple and Microsoft will scramble to implement Theora/VP8.
I dislike having to be dependent on Google, but let’s hope they do the right thing. Chances are slim, but hey, maybe they’ll surprise us.
If not, and we stick to H264, we’ll have the Jon Grubers of tomorrow blaming everyone but Apple and Microsoft when the patent shit hits the fan (which it will).
It probably will come down to Google’s decisions.
So what are the factors in Google’s decision?
http://lwn.net/Articles/340132/
Google’s apparent objection to Theora (namely, Google indicated a belief that Ogg Theora’s quality-per-bit is not yet suitable for the volume handled by YouTube) was true in June, 2009. Theora then was version 1.0.
Mozilla funded improvements in Theora (Thusnelda at least).
http://techcrunch.com/2009/01/26/mozilla-gives-100000-grant-towards…
Later on that year, late in September 2009, Theora 1.1 (Thusnelda) was released, with very substantial improvements in Theora’s quality-per-bit.
http://hacks.mozilla.org/2009/09/theora-1-1-released/
This statement remains true today.
Reportedly, the current development version of Theora, called Ptalarbvorm, makes at least as significant further improvement in Theora’s quality-per-bit.
This may satisfy Google.
Google are reportedly in talks with Mozilla about this very topic, apparently with a view to collaboration.
http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2010/04/google-planning-to-…
(the article speculates about VP8, and that could be the case, but it could also be about Theora).
Maybe VP8 includes licensed use of someone else’s technology, and Google will be unable to release it royalty-free.
Maybe Google and Mozilla are both waiting for Ptalarbvorm. Maybe Google is helping Mozilla to write a robust VP8 player that can be included in Firefox.
I don’t know, but by looking at this list:
http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/AVC/Pages/Licensors.aspx
and seeing a longish list of not-exactly-friends-of-Google, I see a very strong incentive for Google to escape from the need to be beholden to MPEG LA in order for Google to conduct its YouTube business.
Edited 2010-04-30 12:41 UTC
I saw an article a few days ago saying that Microsoft had won their “long file names in FAT” patent case in Germany. Which suggests that software patents are recognized in Germany, and Europe in general, depending on the nature of the covered technology.
http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2010/04/german-appeal-court-u…
“The German decision also shows that European courts are willing to grant software patents, provided that those patents represent genuine technical innovations (like encoding long file names on a filesystem that can’t store them) and aren’t just business processes (such as running auctions on the Internet).”
Meanwhile, they are all hosted, and downloadable, in and from the US…
x264 is a h264 encoder. I have never encoded any videos with h264 encoding, and I therefore claim that I do not use x264. In fact, I don’t have it installed.
Would you like to try again with that comment, and see if you can commit libel against me twice in the one thread?
Anyone who doesn’t know what x264 is should learn it first, before making accusations.
Just a minor nitpick … my Linux machine does include a h264 decoder. It is embedded in the video card hardware.
Since I paid for the video card hardware, I therefore have a paid-for licenase, so my Linux machine does in fact include a legal, licensed h264 decoder. Out of the box. It is simply that this decoder was not shipped with the Linux distribution OS software, but rather it was shipped with the ATI graphics card hardware.
Now, if only ATI would release the specs for the API to this part of the graphics card hardware then I could actually use it (as I am entitled to do as a purchaser of an ATI graphics card) under Linux with the open source ATI driver.
Until everyone can use what they have legally purchased, h264 remains an unsuitable codec for video on the web. Other protocls used for the web (e.g. HTML, CSS, SVG, ECMAscript, DOM, et al) all meet the requirement that they be royalty-free. There is NO reason why the video codec used on the web should fail to meet this requirement also.
Edited 2010-04-30 02:03 UTC
OS X, Windows and Linux all have h264 support so FF needs to suck it up and use the codec on the OS.
Except that Linux doesn’t have a license for H.264. As such it’s still illegal in the US and anywhere where software patents are valid.
The codecs provided by Fluendo give Linux users a legal option. I’ll likely buy it.
http://www.fluendo.com/shop/product/complete-set-of-playback-plugin…
However, I feel this can spell disaster for Firefox. Firefox cannot bundle the H.264 MPEG4 codec inside the browser due to patents but also because the GPL license.
Edited 2010-04-30 00:40 UTC
Thats why there are a lot of people pushing for FF to hook into the platform specific playback frameworks. So on mac it would use quicktime, on linux it would use gstreamer, and on windows it would use directx.
this does suck. later releases of IE9 will suport other formats (at least 1 other, VP8). Microsoft will be playing a wait and see aproach for 10. if other formats are taking the place H264 they will likely include them, but MS is hoping that H264 destroys the others so that they don’t have to do more work.
Microsoft and Apple want to stear the web here and i can understand why they are doing this from a technical stand point and an industry business stand point. BUT! as an advocate of choice, of open standards, and of having options, this does upset me…
we will see how this plays out, and believe me, MS hasn’t totally ruled out suporting more codecs, they just won’t do it off the bat.
Microsoft have already lost by including h.264. No one is using Windows Media or Silverlight as an option, which is what they really want, and are not likely to either. Their statements in the article are more borne out of frustration than anything else. h.264 was simply the least bitter pill.
Unfortunately for them both, they don’t have any content to dictate what they want.
Silverlight already supports H.264 video decoding.
Neither Silverlight nor H264 are web standards.
Comparing Flash to a video codec is not a 1 to 1 comparison though. A video codec does one thing. For the most part HTML5/CSS3/javascript will do everything Flash does. The video codec is only one piece of that and can be changed out without affecting the other parts. Flash is Flash is Flash.
When do the H.264 patents expire?
At least the original spec is 2003, with drafts dating back to the late 1990’s. Not to be defeatist, but at least we won’t suffer forever.
By the time H.264 patents expire, people will be using H.265 with all new patents. It never ends.
I think it is around 2023. There’s a list somewhere.
Still, I’m very much in favour of just ignoring the patents. H.264 is sufficiently better and more widely used than any alternatives that the patent issues don’t really bother me.
After all, MP3 and DVD support pose similar legal problems which have been effectively solved in Linux – you can just download a plugin.
Doesn’t matter if patent issues bother you or not … HTML5 is not your specification, and you are not a provider of a web browser.
Not the point, at all. My Linux system actually includes two perfectly legal h264 decoders. The first one is embedded in my legally-purchased ATI video card hardware. The second one I downloaded from Adobe’s website, it is contained within Adobe’s Flash plugin for Linux (just as an equivalent is contained within Adobe’s Flash plugin for Windows). Apparently, Adobe pays the MPEG LA license fee for these freely-downloadable plugins.
The problem is that no individuals or non-profit groups, charities, very small businesses, underdeveloped countries etc, etc can afford to pay the fees to encode video in h264. Therefore, whole sections of the web community will be disenfranchised from being web video producers.
Therefore, just like every other protocol standard used on the web (e.g. HTML, CSS, SVG, PNG, ECMAscript, DOM etc), the web video codec standard MUST be royalty-free.
I’ll repeat it for the many people who just don’t seem to grok this point: “the web video codec standard MUST be royalty-free”.
Sheesh!
Why is this apparently so hard for people to grasp already?
Edited 2010-04-30 11:03 UTC
Really, this is shocking. Microsoft is using its market position to promote the use of a standard (it is a standard, albeit not an open one) it supports, and therefore potentially profit from it.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, you have the option (now more than ever) to spurn Microsoft and use OSs/browsers/productivity software, what have you that you find more appealing. Exercise that option, but don’t act so incredulous when Microsoft does something to drive its profits.
Edited 2010-04-29 23:35 UTC
I’m afraid IE dictates no standards whatsoever when it comes to internet video. If Microsoft had bought YouTube then that might have been different but that’s another story. I’m sure they’d love the standard to be WMV rather than h.264 despte their defence of it, but alas………..
Google can see the writing on the wall, which is why they’re mulling over and working on VP-8 before they start getting YouTube and themselves into something they cannot go back on later. Whatever YoutTube supports, that’s pretty much it and others will follow and if IE won’t support what these sites use then IE is the first thing to go up against the wall. Microsoft have nothing to swim against the tide with.
Sorry Microsoft, but you’re simply not that important here.
Edited 2010-04-29 23:42 UTC
If YouTube has that much power, that is, monopolistic power, then maybe they should be broken up. Or maybe the EU can mandate that they support the 5 most popular formats for each and every video. Yeah, I went there.
Or maybe the EU can mandate that they support the 5 most popular formats for each and every video.
Unlikely, unless they can figure out a legal way of squeezing money out of it and into their pockets.
It’s just so frustrating that in the US and anywhere else with software patents being valid this totally pisses on the whole idea of free web, not to mention pissing on the feet of OS enthusiasts, regular home-users with non-mainstream OS, volunteer run computer shops and classes and so on: for OS enthusiasts even if you were to acquire a H.264 decoder it’d most likely be illegal, for regular home-users it’d make them criminals without them even knowing it and they most likely don’t know about Fluendo codecs (not to mention their willingness to pay for codecs!), volunteer run shops and classes are often running Linux and as such have to skip H.264 content completely or buy Fluendo codecs for all of their machines..
This is really sad, though I’m not surprised by this news however. It was quite easily expected.
Monopoly is not illegal.
Use of Monopoly to gain an unfair advantage in another market or use of a monopoly IS illegal. Google choosing a video format for one of its products is not illegal… no matter how much influence they have.
I’ve read here multiple times that in Europe, monopoly itself is indeed illegal. That once a company reaches such dominance that it can dictate terms for what everyone else in the industry does (which is actually lower than the “monopoly” threshold), then that company must “help” its competitors to even things out.
Or perhaps if Microsoft is so powerful as to threaten the freedom of the internet ( it belongs to us, not Microsoft) then Microsoft should be broken up asap.
Cheers all.
VP8 can only become the standard video codec for the web if Google release it for use (and implementation for that matter) by anyone, royalty-free.
Royalty-free is a requirement for web standards.
You keep saying that but fail to back it up with any proof.
You keep saying that. Over and over again. Repeatedly. It won’t make it any closer to something the average user actually cares about though. That is what is important here. That the average user’s hardware includes the correct chipsets, software codecs and such to decode the video without lag or stuttering.
Actually, it’s true according to the w3c. Why do you think H.264 was ruled out at the very beginning as the standard codec for HTML 5? Of course, the w3c totally fscked up and was too afraid to put their foot down and require a standard codec for HTML 5 compliance… So here we go again, back to the mid 90’s and the codec hell. Wonderful. HTML 5 was one of the most promising developments for an open web, but thanks to the w3c we’re going into a complete regression. I wonder how many different players and codecs we’ll end up needing before this is all over and the next Flash comes around, repeating this cursed cycle ad infinitum until we stop letting corporate types sit on the web standards committees?
Just to be clear here … it was Apple who earlier last year vetoed the W3C from specifying Ogg Theora as the video codec standard in HTML5.
http://lwn.net/Articles/340132/
This veto cannot last forever.
However, if Google release VP8 royalty-free soon, as rumour has it they are planning to do:
http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2010/04/google-planning-to-…
then Apple’s veto may actually turn out to have been helpful.
As long as it is made royalty-free, VP8 could then provide a second possible codec suitable for use within HTML5, and presumably that would be a significantly better option than Theora. Google’s apparent objection to Theora (namely, Google indicated a belief that Ogg Theora’s quality-per-bit is not yet suitable for the volume handled by YouTube) would presumably no longer apply to VP8. This would leave Apple as the lone objector, and moot their objection.
Edited 2010-04-30 11:55 UTC
What?
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.264/MPEG-4_AVC – “The ITU-T H.264 standard and the ISO/IEC MPEG-4 AVC standard”
What’s so hard to understand about that? It is THE RECOGNISED INTERNATIONAL STANDARD – geez – just because we don’t like that it’s patented to the crapper doesn’t mean it’s not the standard.
Crumple zones are also a patented technology that have been incorporated into safety standards that auto manufacturers have to meet before they can bring a car to market. Should we throw them out too because they’re patented?
Time to build a bridge Thom…
A standard for what exactly? I don’t yet know of anything major using it for internet video and I’m sure there are a lot of other ‘standard’ video formats.
You might want to enlighen yourself about software patents some time rather than wheeling out the usual shitty car analogies.
WTF are you talking about? Go to youtube. You see that crappy quality Flash video plying, guess what it was encoded in? Yeah, that’d be h.264. All this crap about h.264 but most internet video regardless of what container it uses, encode their video in h.264 because of the benefits of the format.
Neither Flash nor h264 is a web satndard.
Repeating it does not make up for the fact that you haven’t given any proof…
Your repetition is one of the key things that you shouldn’t do to an INTJ…yet you seem to keep doing it.
It is common knowledge. I have provided proof in my previous post.
http://www.osnews.com/permalink?421724
As an INTJ, it is actually quite in character for me to be repeatedly correct.
Edited 2010-04-30 04:47 UTC
Technically, it’s still a standard for video encoding/decoding. As in, gone through the ITU standardisation process, such that it was given the name H.264.
Yes, it’s not “the standard for video on the web”. But it’s still a standard.
Just like OOXML is a standard for office documents.
Yes, but in the context of this thread and its topic, which is “IE9 HTML5 Video Will Be H264 Only” … H264 is NOT the standard within HTML5 and it never will be.
OOXML is also in a lot of trouble, standards-wise.
http://www.osnews.com/story/23124/Microsoft_Office_15_-_Not_2010_-_…
Edited 2010-04-30 05:24 UTC
Not exactly a ringing endorsement. Two things are required of a ‘standard’:
1. That it is well used. This is generally called ‘de-facto’. This isn’t great, but the reality is that many things have become de-facto standards that affect point 2.
2. That it can be implemented in a multitude of ways on multiple platforms and devices with as few restrictions as possible (preferably none) – either technical or legal.
Neither is the case for h.264, certainly with regards to HTML5 and internet video.
Flash is not h.264 sunshine. What the f–k are you talking about? It has no relevance to HTML5 distribution of internet video whatsoever. The end result is still Flash encoded.
Edited 2010-05-01 00:54 UTC
Im I hate the game these big companies play to earn most money possible not thinking about the best for their users.. Corruption and intrigues all over. Setting an open standard would calm things down a bit I believe, and provide a better and easier and more secure web experience to most users.
The company with the most money and power decides the rules.. sadly. This will cripple the web for years to come. :\
Crap. A sad day!
Viva la resistance :p
How is this news a surprise to anyone? As a practical matter, there are two codecs in contention – H.264, and Theora. Firefox advocate Theora, Google and Apple clearly favor H.264. Realistically, why would anyone *ever* expect Microsoft to behave other than this?
Because some people still dream about businesses giving up their profit for noble causes, which never happens, particularly not with MS.
Why should any business (the main reason for existence is to make money) give up profits for nobility?
I did not say it should. I was actually trying to say that it is naive to expect businesses to give up their profits. So, you are preaching to the choir.
Increased profits are achieved via either: (1) increasing prices, or (2) reducing costs.
Royalty-free is an excellent way of achieving #2.
People will install whatever is needed to watch youtube vidoes. Flash, Theora, H.264, Dabayabadoo 2.7232, whatever Google wants them to use.
IE9 is only going to Vista and 7 so including Theora would have done nothing for XP users that still use IE. That’s a big chunk of users that most publishers would not be willing to give up.
I’m seeing a lot of misdirected anger here. Google could require a Theora plugin overnight and that would be the end of it. The harsh reality is that Google likes H.264 but at the same time doesn’t want to piss off the FOSS community. Opening VP8 is just a token gesture. They’re letting H.264 get established so at some point they’ll claim to have no choice but to keep using it. Our hands are tied, just look at all those idevices that have H.264 hardware support. So sorry.
If this were actually the case, then Google would have no reason to have purchsed On2.
Mozilla will not ship a h264 decoder within their product. The W3C will not recommend a royalty-encumbered standard. As for hardware support … most GPUs can be programmed for any video codec via languages such as GLSL or GPGPU.
Rumour has it that Google and Mozilla might be about to get together and resolve the web video codec situation.
http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2010/04/google-planning-to-…
You have a logical disconnect here. IE users running XP require a plugin to view video no matter what is used to encode & send that video. If an XP/IE user visits YouTube today, they are directed to install an Adobe Flash plugin in order to view videos. Most users do this without batting an eye.
If tomorrow YouTube were to switch to HTML5/Theora (rather than Flash), then all that YouTube/Google would need to do is direct their IE users to this plugin instead:
http://www.google.com/chromeframe
http://code.google.com/chrome/chromeframe/
There is no need for YouTube to abandon IE users.
Edited 2010-04-30 03:01 UTC
Sure they do, they’re in the video business. They may like H.264 now but they are also going to make investments into other tech to possibly use in the future.
Mozilla doesn’t have to ship one, there is no pressure on their users to switch when the major video sites will still offer their videos in Flash.
So what if they open VP8? They’re currently serving H.264 videos and they’re not going to stop. They’ve made their decision and opening VP8 is just a fruit basket for FOSS fans.
Where is the logical disconnect? I already pointed out that Google could require users to install anything. Let’s say that MS also included Theora in IE9. So what? Google would still serve HTML5 H.264 to IE9 users and older browsers would get Flash with H.264. Other publishers would do the same. Theora would be supported in a majority of browsers but publishers wouldn’t bother using it. They’re not going to build multiple files for ideological reasons.
Google is the one holding the magic key here called YouTube and everyone is in denial of it. It might be more comforting to blame MS or Apple but Google owns the BBC of the internet and they are pushing H.264. Google is God here in that they are the only entity that has the power to set a codec standard by their influence alone.
Do you realize how many Flash videos exist on Microsoft websites? From the company that is pushing a Flash competitor? They are in no way coming out a winner in all this. They wanted Silverlight to replace Flash video on major sites, not HTML5. H.264 was the lesser of two evils to them.
Edited 2010-04-30 03:54 UTC
Yes. It is likely that they will use VP8 in conjunction with HTML5, make it royalty-free, thereby get it accepted as the standard for video on the web.
This will result in Google no longer being beholden to MPEG LA for permission to run their YouTube business.
Google and Adobe are starting to get chummy also. Flash has, in the past, supported VP6, and it may well be the case that very soon it will support VP8 (possibly while still retaining support for h264). This would allow sites to offer videos as Flash/VP8 rather than Flash/h264, and enable all those sites to also free themselves of control by MPEG LA, whillst still being able to use their Flash tools to write the site.
Why not stop? One would reduce costs and no longer be beholden to the whims of MPEG LA. It could happen as simply as an update to Flash.
So all it requires is Google to re-encode their videos, probably with VP8.
It is estimated that Google has in excess of one million servers. Google could arguably be able to re-encode on million of its most popular videos within a few minutes, and another million within a few more minutes, and tens of millions of its most popular videos within an hour.
Where is the problem here?
Not many? Google has millions, but Microsoft wouldn’t have that many.
Why exactly isn’t Theora, or an opened VP8, the very least of three or four evils then?
Edited 2010-04-30 04:01 UTC
Of course it is technically possible for them to do it, but they don’t want to. They like H.264 and VP8 is just a useful distraction at the moment. SEE WE LIKE OPEN SOURCE…..now let’s keep encoding those H.264 videos.
The point is that Microsoft has zero control over web video codecs which can be seen by the fact that they use Flash in many of their own websites.
Because MS already uses H.264 in Silverlight.
Fucking Useless Drivel.
…pardon my old english.
Things could be a LOT WORSE! MS could have said they only support wma in IE9, and most of the world would probably have gone along with it.
If this were 1999, that is certainly how things would have unfolded, but it seems that maybe, just maybe MS does not have the power to dictate the whole world like it did 10 years ago.
I really don’t see the big technical deal with supporting whatever video format that system has a codec installed for. In quicktime, I can play just about every format out there because I have the ogv, and the Perian suite of codecs. It should not be that big of a deal for Safari or IE to check what codecs and installed and use them.
A point I’ve made over and over again. There is ZERO legitimate excuse for not supporting whatever codecs the host OS has installed apart from lazy developers… and yes, in my mind that includes the ‘alleged’ security issues. (Chrome has been proving that a lie it is with it’s sandboxing of just about everything! Sandbox the **** codecs too!)
This is doubly true for Windows – if they were making it cross-platform they could at least use that excuse; but it’s a bit likely not even making an XP version of IE9 just as they didn’t make a 2k/98 version of IE7 & 8. Every other browser maker can code cross-platform; this isn’t even a REAL cross-platform issue!
That they are even TALKING about what codecs to support/not support in each browser with the VIDEO tag is pure bull – and frankly should be enough to send most developers back to the intent of HTML 4 STRICT / XHTML 1.0 STRICT; SIMPLIFYING the specification by having just ONE tag – OBJECT – replace APPLET, EMBED, IMG, etc… So with HTML5 do they finally ride Microsofts case about not implementing OBJECT properly, or do they tack on even MORE tags that nobody is going to bother using?
All this in-fighting malarkey about what codec is in the specification is just more of the bullshit that HTML5 is being turned into. Honestly, I’m so fed up with it I have NO PLANS to code websites in HTML 5 until sometime around 2020 if ever…. It’s the exact OPPOSITE of all the progress STRICT gave us – people can’t even be bothered to learn how to use TH, CAPTION, LEGEND, FIELDSET, LABEL, ACRONYM – **** sake the only people who even try to use ABBR are the microformat junkies; so to make it even ‘better’ let’s slap on a bunch more ‘new tags’ that are nothing more than overglorified DIVisions and replication of **** we can already do with less tags? Yeah, right!
HEADER – we have heading tags, we don’t need more of them. Silly bull for people who can’t bother learning proper heading orders… or just for people who don’t realize that just like not every ejaculation needs a name, not every element needs a DIV wrapped around it.
NAV – Not just another extra wrapping element around UL’s for no good reason, wouldn’t it have been simpler to undeprecate MENU?!?
Etc, etc, etc…
A recently departed friend of mine
http://www.danschulzrip.com/
Used to make the joke that the same people who made endless nested table rubbish layouts now just make endless nested div layouts – net change zero.
I get the feeling much of HTML 5 seems like little more than legitimizing the use of excess containers around elements that don’t need them – net change zero. I’m half hoping crap like this codec nonsense will lead to the eventual implosion of HTML5 so we can get back to it’s original intent of making it SIMPLER, not the overcomplicated train wreck it’s devolved into when compared to it’s immediate predecessor.
NOT that anyone bothers using STRICT… much less use it PROPERLY. See Youtube’s alleged HTML5 demo which was little more than slapping the VIDEO tag into a non-validating XHTML 1.0 tranny document – that’s NOT HTML5… or the nutjobs running around with HTML 5 demo’s that barely use HTML5, don’t use it properly, then claim to use and be about CSS3 – with NO TRACE of any ACTUAL CSS3. News flash, -moz and -webkit are NOT CSS3 properties.
How many idiots can there be… they say it’s 1 out of 3…
Edited 2010-04-30 10:36 UTC
Let’s not forget that IE only recently started to understand ABBR.
I actually think this is better. What if I have more than 6 levels of headings (probably an unusual thing to happen but anyway) ? HTML as it stands doesn’t support this. Deprecating h1-h6 for heading solves the problem, and also solves the misuse of h1-h6 for different size text rather than the real usage of the level of the heading.
Unfortunately, it isn’t a joke unless its the kind that is funny because it is true.
Latex2HTML5 will be far more pleasant than Latex2html with so many more commonly understood elements.
I must be the only person on this website who is delighted with such a move; first Microsoft announces support for HTML5, adds h264 support to Silverlight, and the icing on the cake of support h264 for the video tag. If this was Microsoft even 5 years ago they would have been pushing for some weird-ass proprietary format riddled up the wazoo with patents and a horrifying mess to ever try and implement. Theora fanboys (the same ones who demand it to be used and yet don’t provide a DirectShow/QuickTime CODEC that can not only decompress but compress video) may scream and shout that their CODEC is losing the battle but the reality compared to where the internet was 10 years ago – it is an improvement.
As for Firefox, nothing has ever stopped them from tapping into QuickTime and DirectShow to provide CODEC support, just as for many years Linux users have been downloading and installing h264/mp3/wmv/etc gstreamer plugins without the slightest care regarding patents and thus alternative browsers on those platforms could easily just tap into gstreamer if they wish.
The reality is that the Theora advocates never dedicated the resources required; how many full time people work on Theora? thats right 2-3 if you’re lucky. Call me back when you have 50 people working full time on it and are developing plugins for QuickTime/DirectShow, then I might remotely consider using it as a format because right now to do anything with the CODEC as so far as compressing video and audio is like pulling finger nails out.
Edited 2010-04-30 04:44 UTC
You mean, like Silverlight ?
They aren’t thrusting it upon the internet as the only solution; they are providing HTML5 and Silverlight; there are somethings that Silverlight are good; internal applications that need access to webcams, usb devices and so forth. Unlike Adobe who think that people should use Flash for every f-cking thing, no matter how stupid it is, Microsoft on the other hand realise that there are some situations that HTML5 is good whilst other situations where Silverlight is a more suitable contender.
Again, if this was Microsoft from 5 years ago they would have said, ‘f-ck HTML5, Silverlight all the way” but they haven’t. It irks some here that maybe Microsoft isn’t the big bad boogyman they try to make it out to be.
Edited 2010-04-30 09:43 UTC
Except that the reason Microsoft are allowing H264 _only_ is because it directly channels money into their back pocket through the MPEG-LA. It^aEURTMs fraud, that^aEURTMs the only way I can see it.
What if Google do release VP8 as free, how are they going to support IE9 users? With a plugin to install? We^aEURTMve gone right back to 2000 again.
Microsoft^aEURTMs decision will affect every person who uses the web for the next 10 years. It will stifle innovation, keep the megacorops busy with lawsuits against small companies and individuals for an eternity and prevent all new types of business models from springing up around video.
YouTube would have _never_ taken off if they had to pay for every video that was being viewed. YouTube is now a cornerstone of the Internet. That is the kind of change Microsoft have just killed off. I^aEURTMm sickened by their choice here.
Decision to not include VP8? I thought the issue was Theora.
Who has the #1 video site and can push any codec? MS or Google?
Anyone else notice how long Chrome for Linux has been in Beta?
The FOSS crowd really needs to stop buying into Google’s pillow talk.
Assuming that VP8 is open sourced there is nothing stopping Google from creating a VP8 DirectShow and QuickTime plugins for Windows and Mac OS X respectively. The cold hard reality is that so far the Theora developers have refused to provide a CODEC for DirectShow and QuickTime that not only decodes but also encodes video using easy to use video encoding software. Tell me when I can go “save as’ within QuickTime and then export it as a Theora video, then I might remotely give a flying continental about Theora.
Btw, it wouldn’t be a browser plugin, it would be a plugin for DirectShow and QuickTime; if people can download and install Chrome, can download and install Flash, christ, if they can download and install any number of applications then I think they can download and install a 1MB CODEC.
Edited 2010-04-30 09:39 UTC
Uh, http://xiph.org/quicktime/
I^aEURTMve been ragging on about the QT component being a year out of date, but nethertheless, it exists and you can save-as to OGG in OS X.
Microsoft won^aEURTMt allow any other codec than H264 so a VP8 directshow component will be useless. Google will have to get users to install ChromeFrame or an ActiveX control.
Completely useless since it isn’t compatible with QuickTime X.
Where is the evidence that they’ll block third party DirectShow plugins?
Nothing is compatible with QuickTime X, it doesn’t have a plugin interface.
They will block DirectShow codecs because they have said IE9 will use H264 _only_. Read the article.
Edited 2010-04-30 10:43 UTC
Amazing how I have no problems using flip4mac with QuickTime X.
It states:
Which could mean support for h264 as so far as providing a CODEC but it doesn’t rule out third parties providing a CODEC for other formats. Until more details are given about how exactly it is done – its all speculation. What ever the case maybe, though, h264 is a great format and it is good to see that Microsoft has embraced it for video playback instead of trying to push WMV or VC-1 as I would have expected in the past.
That^aEURTMs because QuickTime Player the app is reverting to the QuickTime 7 media API so as to use the codec plugin. QuickTime X (the API) does not support plugins. The UI switches between the two backends as appropriate.
For the video tag only. It doesn’t mean you can’t embed video using existing methods that do utilize DShow or MF codecs.
It’s amusing to see that some of the very same people who bash Apple for not allowing choice via the exclusion of Flash in iP* devices are against choice when it comes to other web formats and support Mozilla’s decision to only support the Ogg family and not use GStreamer or some other extensible media framework.
Now MS announced that they’ll only support AVC. According to the comments here that’s bad.
If theoretically MS announced instead to only support Ogg Theora and not offer the choice to use other codecs (like AVC), the likely tone of the comments here was along the lines of “Who needs choice? We have won!”
why?
the internet is google and google will declare the winner between theora/vp8 and h264
do you seriously think microsoft can impose a video format? or apple?
youtube will impose the video format not the software companies
in regards to microsoft, hey it is microsoft, we know they eat FUD, talk FUD and spread FUD around the world
they’re incapable of competing in technology with their competitors ( the first are google and apple ) so they’re trying to make a living from patent trolling
Because we^aEURTMre straight back to 2000 where you had to install various different softwares just to play video and not all softwares were available on all platforms. Before it was media players, today it^aEURTMll be browsers.
How does Google pushing VP8 help iPhone users? Google will still need to provide and pay up for H264 come 2016 if they want to be in that market.
It^aEURTMs a mess.
Chip manufacturers hold all the cards. If Google opens VP8 and switches YouTube to it overnight, YouTube will run like shit for the 5 years it takes to get VP8 hardware-accelerated encoding and decoding smoothed out and ubiquitous, and everyone will start using the other big 5 video sharing sites that continue to use h.264
No surprise here.
The leopard cannot change its spots.
Just realized that this browser still exists
Good one.
There is absolutely no technical or legal reason why they shouldn’t support _both_ Theora and H.264.
Theora is official standard for web video, unlike h.264, and Microsoft has no excuse for this crap. Also it sounds like a good candidate for another anti-trust inquiry by the EU.
Taking a broader look, stakes are very high here and MS wants to see h264 win. The winning format will certainly be one supported by all (five) major browsers. At the moment everyone supports everything, except Firefox (Theora only) and IE9 (h264 only), so the fight is on between two strongest browser brands. For now it’s a win only for Adobe Flash.
Well, IE9 isn’t released yet. IE6, IE7 and IE8 don’t support display of any video without a plugin.
Available plugins for IE6, IE7 and IE8 that currently support playing video are Silverlight, Adobe Flash plugin, Cortado and Google Chrome Frame.
Of these plugins, AFAIK only the last two support HTML5. Both of the plugins for IE6, IE7 and IE8 which support HTML5 also support Theora, but only one (Google Chrome Frame) supports h264.
Silverlight is capable of playing any media for which you provide a codec (there’s apparntly a Vorbis codec in Moonlight’s repository, and a Theora codec was shown by another developer not long ago). This would be a better fallback mechanism than relying on the user to install a DShow or MF codec. Silverlight will simply load your codec, then play your media.
is how osnews is viewing this announcement as horrible because h264 is going to be used exclusively, while slashdot is viewing it is as great because Microsoft is doing all this html5 stuff.
Quoting from the rewrite:
“If that alone wasn^aEURTMt bad blogging / journalism, then the fact that Microsoft did not once mention that they themselves are a patent licensor for the MPEG-LA is much worse. Microsoft own part of the pool of patents that make up the H.264 codec. This means that it is their express interest that people pay for H.264 licences as this pays into their back pocket via the MPEG-LA.
This is a defraudment of developers, monopoly abuse^aEUR”using their monopoly in IE9 to direct business to the MPEG-LA of which Microsoft will profit. Absolutely shocking, and no mention of this shocking bias is made in their announcement. “
——————
First, it’s well known that Microsoft has patents in H.264. Hell, a Microsoft guy chaired the H.264 committee for a time, even as Microsoft was also developing VC-1. Yeah, Microsoft has patents in this area. But there’s no need to disclose that in every statement they make. It’s well known. But so do lots of companies have H.264 patents. As I said above, if Microsoft had said that they’d only support VC-1, your charge would have more merit (though still fall short), since Microsoft has a larger share of the patent pool for that than they do for H.264.
Second, what “monopoly in IE9”? IE has no monopoly, let alone IE9, which hasn’t even been released and won’t even run on XP, which still commands the majority of desktops. There is no IE9 monopoly. There is no IE monopoly at all, not anymore. Micrsoft bashers can’t keep bashing Microsoft for abusing monopoly in IE (let alone IE9) while at the same time boasting at the large share that other browsers have garnered.
Third, Microsoft isn’t leading the rush to H.264 adoption, they’re following that rush, which is led by Apple, Google, and the content creation industry. Microsoft’s going to do whatever Google does. If Google makes YouTube use Theora/VP8 or whatever, then Microsoft will support it. If not, then Microsoft doesn’t want to add bloat to IE or Windows by making either carry around a codec that nobody besides OSS fans cares about. Google is the one with monopoly power here, not Microsoft.
Fourth, H.264, from everything I’ve read, is simply better than Theora. Apple has demonstrated with their success in iPhone/iPad that the public doesn’t care one iota about “software freedom”. Given that, the users deserve to have the better codec, and that’s H.264. They don’t care that H.264 is “less free”. And Apple and Microsoft don’t want to carry extra bloat of Theora for no reason other than to placate OSS fans.
I do think that Microsoft’s decision is lame. They should’ve made their HTML5 implementaion neutral and just call the system API to play whatever video a web site delivers, and if the codec is installed, it’ll play. I’ve not seen Micrsoft state a technical reason that they don’t want to do that. The only reason I see for their making this statement at all is that they know that they can make IE9 codec-neutral in how it plays HTML5 video, but the reality is that there are only two defacto candidates for the codecs that web sites will use for HTML5 video, and Windows 7 already supports one of them (H.264), the same one the Apple supports, the same one that YouTube supports, the same one that the industry supports, while Windows 7 does not support Theora unless the user installs that codec himself (I don’t even know if a MediaFoundation (successor of DirectShow, used by Vista and Windows 7) plugin for Theora even exists; VLC supports Theora on Windows 7 but VLC carries around its own code for all codecs, not relying on the system api at all).
Correct, I made a typo there, of course there^aEURTMs no monopoly on IE9, it hasn^aEURTMt been released yet! Microsoft still have a monopoly on IE though. It^aEURTMs still over 50% in most places and as pretty much every computer comes sold with Windows which defaults to IE (and the browser ballot is broken in Microsoft^aEURTMs favour).
But besides even that, you^aEURTMre underestimating the amount of clout that Microsoft holds over developers with IE. Why on earth are developers still supporting IE6? And equally, many developers will have been holding off of using HTML5 because ^aEURoeIE doesn^aEURTMt support it^aEUR. IE9 will of course work toward changing that, and it supporting only H.264 will provide a mighty amount of weight in developer^aEURTMs minds to just forego providing OGG entirely.
Having over 50% marketshare is a monopoly? Since when? Germany has had a remarkably high majority Firefox marketshare for years even though Windows has a higher marketshare there than the US.
http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser-DE-monthly-200904-201004
So your issue is really with countries where the majority hasn’t installed a browser that you favor. Your problem is with people, not Microsoft.
Most developers work on what the boss wants them to. If you have a business where 15% of your sales are to IE6 users it would be incredibly foolish to block IE6 just because it is a lousy browser. IE6 only has about 5.5% share in the US. It’s dropped by half in about a year so I think the solution to IE6 is patience.
http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser_version-na-monthly-200904-201004
Yes they (W3C) should grow some balls and make a definitive decision! What did they expect would happen by not deciding on a codec for HTML5 video?! I can see the HTML5 video being a total screw-up – same as when the web became popular – everybody (browser creators) for the own “standard” and the public must suffer.
The extremely widespread confusion of the words “codec” and “format” only leads to chronic misunderstanding. A codec encodes and decodes (hence the name). A format specifies how to make something that encodes and decodes. That’s why H.264 is a format (it is a specification, as it does not encode or decode anything by itself). Or in other words – a codec standard (i.e. a standard for codecs – codec makers implement the specification in software or hardware).
That’s also why Thom’s article is incorrect in saying that Windows comes with a built-in DivX codec – DivX is a company and a brand name of proprietary products made by the company, such as the DivX Pro Codec, which is a software product, a codec, that encodes and decodes video in the MPEG-4 ASP format. So Windows comes with an MPEG-4 ASP decoder, a decoder for video in the MPEG-4 ASP format (that is, it can decode video made with any MPEG-4 ASP encoder like DivX, Xvid, FFmpeg MPEG-4 etc. – they all use the same format), not with the DivX software product made by the DivX company. It’s like saying that “Mozilla released a new version of Microsoft Internet Explorer” or that Linus Torvalds started his own “Microsoft Windows” operating system in 1991. DivX is a registered trademark by DivX, Inc.
The failure to understand the difference between a software product and a format is also the reason why people are constantly confusing x264 with H.264 (there’s no such thing as “x264 video”; x264 is just one of many software products that encode video in the H.264 format – it is a software encoder, and it does not decode video, so it’s useful only for encoding), that’s why people are confusing Ogg, Vorbis and Theora (three separate things), that’s why people think they must use the same codec the audio/video was encoded with for decoding (ignoring the whole point of common standards – i.e. multiple compatible implementations for the same format), that’s why people are confusing free software with open standards, or copyright with patents (for example, some people believe that because Xvid is free, it is also patent-free and therefore suitable for the web – of course it uses the patented MPEG-4 format just like everyone else), and so on and so on.
So it’s very useful to understand the difference between a company, format and a software product. Because it is impossible to understand the whole issue without understanding the basic terms.
I don’t find it surprising that Microsoft is not supporting Theora Video. I do find it surprising that they are only supporting H.264. Microsoft media player supports the unpatented Motion JPEG codec and MPEG-1 (that may or may not be currently patented, but should have the last of the patents expiring by the end of 2012.) As well, there is the H.263 format, that was created in 1996, so patents on it should be expiring no later than 2017. All of those are are already used by either Quicktime or Media Player or both, and so the extra patent issues should be minimal. Choosing only to support H.264, which has MPEG-LA patents that don’t expire until 2028 (though maybe a baseline version can be used sooner patent free ~ 2023) is limiting the options. I think this is a sad day for web freedom.
I think that H.264 will probably be better for people using Linux than Flash. I figure that eventually if H.264 becomes a defacto standard, there will be a free as in beer decoder. As in Redhat or Suse or Ubuntu or similar will pay for the decoder license, and distribute a gstreamer plugin. I also think that MPEG-LA will not sue people for non-commercial use of H.264 patents. I can think of no better way to get a backlash against software patents than to start suing individuals. I also think that Wikipedia will exert some pressure to support patent free formats since Wikipedia will not use patented formats.