No, you can't do that with H.264 • Hacker News Board

Re: No, you can't do that with H.264

#71

Post by GHFigs » Wed, Feb 03, 2010, 10:42 PM UTC

vog wrote: post #15

DrJokepu wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, Theora is just simply inferior in every technical aspect to h264. The decision comes down to quality vs price. Choosing quality for a higher price is definitely not a "dumb" decision, surely you too often buy a bit more expensive product that promises a better quality. On the other hand, choosing a cheaper, lower quality product is understandable as well if quality is not that important. Vorbis, howeve…

In the web, with a lot of youtube-like sized videos, the quality of Theora is more than sufficient. Also, for vacation videos and the like, Theora provides a reasonably good quality. In other words: Theora is already good enough for the "masses". It's not the technological inferiority of Theora that hinders its wide adoption. I think it's that people use H.264 for everything and don't care about the licence and the a…

Theora is already good enough for the "masses".

So it's acceptable to deliver a product you know to be inferior to someone because their content isn't important enough to you? Would you not be insulted if someone said they didn't think your home movies were worth encoding with the best available technology?

Re: No, you can't do that with H.264

#72

Post by tjogin » Wed, Feb 03, 2010, 11:30 PM UTC

middayc wrote: post #38

tjogin wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are obvious problems with H.264, but I don't believe MPEG LA's plan is to sue regular people for not complying with the license agreement when they did that video that one time. Not because I think they're not evil enough to do it, but because that kind of money-making scheme just doesn't scale. Also, whenever they've sued one or two people, people's eyes will open and they'll just use an other codec. No big de…

I thought we were "hackers" here with potential to create startups, possibly related to video or just using it as a support system? If you have the need to pay for the sake of it you can relocate to my country, we have one of the highest taxes in the world :)

What does high taxes have to do with anything? I'm just saying that it's irrational to think that MPEG LA's plan is to sue consumers. Us being "hackers" does nothing to change those odds.

Re: No, you can't do that with H.264

#73

Post by jrockway » Thu, Feb 04, 2010, 12:44 AM UTC

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #70

jrockway wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am completely opposed to web standards including proprietary codecs. HTML5 should have Theora (or some other open gratis and libre codec) as the standard which all browsers wishing to be HTML5 compliant must be able to handle - this does not stop anyone from using h264 if they wish to. What it does is ensure that the web remains as free and open to use as possible. You seem not to realize that Apple and Microsoft a…

> You seem not to realize that Apple and Microsoft are the ones writing the "standards". Nope I thought it was the WHAT-WG and the HTML WG at the W3C. Yes major corporations have direct influence on these groups but so to do the OSS friendly browser corps and to some extent web designers and users. Google are already using h264 in HTML5 on YouTube for capable browsers aren't they? Are they sending Theora/Vorbis strea…

Seems clear where they are going then.

Yeah, exactly. I don't think Theora will ever see the light of day, and most users will just "pirate" h.264. It's a shame.

Re: No, you can't do that with H.264

#74

Post by sjs » Thu, Feb 04, 2010, 5:22 AM UTC

tjogin wrote: post #72

middayc wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought we were "hackers" here with potential to create startups, possibly related to video or just using it as a support system? If you have the need to pay for the sake of it you can relocate to my country, we have one of the highest taxes in the world :)

What does high taxes have to do with anything? I'm just saying that it's irrational to think that MPEG LA's plan is to sue consumers. Us being "hackers" does nothing to change those odds.

> I'm just saying that it's irrational to think that MPEG LA's plan is to sue consumers. Us being "hackers" does nothing to change those odds.

Some of us make products that may want to use h.264 and would be liable to have to pay to do so. Not as consumers, but as businesses.

> Certainly, that's not great either. But no, MPEG LA are not coming after "_you_".

Not if you're just a consumer, but we are not all just consumers on HN. So they might come after us.

Re: No, you can't do that with H.264

#75

Post by blasdel » Thu, Feb 04, 2010, 7:17 AM UTC

jrockway wrote: post #69

alextgordon wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the iPhone, they can't. On the desktop, it's more likely that they'll click the back button than download a codec, install it, relaunch their browser and navigate back to your site.

How do all the Vista and XP users view H.264 videos? Oh yeah, by installing a plugin.

A plugin called Flash, which %99.99 of them have.

100 million of them have installed VLC, and the standard DirectShow codec packs probably have at least that too.

Re: No, you can't do that with H.264

#76

Post by robin_reala » Thu, Feb 04, 2010, 10:14 AM UTC

malkia wrote: post #61

So if I release an iPhone game (commercial) with video in it encoded in one of the formats mentioned... Them I'm violating? I guess so!

Not necessarily, you just need to pay the licensing fees for a commercial-use encoder.

Re: No, you can't do that with H.264

#77

Post by ZeroGravitas » Thu, Feb 04, 2010, 12:07 PM UTC

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #70

jrockway wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am completely opposed to web standards including proprietary codecs. HTML5 should have Theora (or some other open gratis and libre codec) as the standard which all browsers wishing to be HTML5 compliant must be able to handle - this does not stop anyone from using h264 if they wish to. What it does is ensure that the web remains as free and open to use as possible. You seem not to realize that Apple and Microsoft a…

> You seem not to realize that Apple and Microsoft are the ones writing the "standards". Nope I thought it was the WHAT-WG and the HTML WG at the W3C. Yes major corporations have direct influence on these groups but so to do the OSS friendly browser corps and to some extent web designers and users. Google are already using h264 in HTML5 on YouTube for capable browsers aren't they? Are they sending Theora/Vorbis strea…

Google are currently using H.264 for everyone on Youtube. That's what they send to iPhone, most of the higher quality Flash videos and the new HTML5 trial.

However, they support Theora in both Chrome and Chromium. In the Chromium OS demos they demonstrated playing Theora files from an SD card. They also purchased a company that creates codecs that don't infringe on MPEG patents and which was the original source of Theora.

I don't think it's clear at all which "side" Google is taking on this because as a large they'll get some benefit whether the web adopts royalty free codecs or not (e.g. if small, community specific Youtube competitors pay more per video than giant sites like Youtube that's good, but more video on the web generally probably helps Google too).

Re: No, you can't do that with H.264

#78

Post by pbhjpbhj » Thu, Feb 04, 2010, 1:24 PM UTC

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #77

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You seem not to realize that Apple and Microsoft are the ones writing the "standards". Nope I thought it was the WHAT-WG and the HTML WG at the W3C. Yes major corporations have direct influence on these groups but so to do the OSS friendly browser corps and to some extent web designers and users. Google are already using h264 in HTML5 on YouTube for capable browsers aren't they? Are they sending Theora/Vorbis strea…

Google are currently using H.264 for everyone on Youtube. That's what they send to iPhone, most of the higher quality Flash videos and the new HTML5 trial. However, they support Theora in both Chrome and Chromium. In the Chromium OS demos they demonstrated playing Theora files from an SD card. They also purchased a company that creates codecs that don't infringe on MPEG patents and which was the original source of Th…

Thanks for your wider view and info.

Re: No, you can't do that with H.264

#79

Post by ZeroGravitas » Tue, Feb 09, 2010, 11:50 AM UTC

GHFigs wrote: post #71

vog wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the web, with a lot of youtube-like sized videos, the quality of Theora is more than sufficient. Also, for vacation videos and the like, Theora provides a reasonably good quality. In other words: Theora is already good enough for the "masses". It's not the technological inferiority of Theora that hinders its wide adoption. I think it's that people use H.264 for everything and don't care about the licence and the a…

Theora is already good enough for the "masses". So it's acceptable to deliver a product you know to be inferior to someone because their content isn't important enough to you? Would you not be insulted if someone said they didn't think your home movies were worth encoding with the best available technology?

That'll be why your vacation photos are in the lossless but patent encumbered JPEG-2000 format, rather than the less efficient, but patent royalty free JPEG?