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Google Removing H.264 Support in Chrome

blog.chromium.org

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Re: Google Removing H.264 Support in Chrome

#51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why doesn't Apple just include WebM support? It's an open codec...

Since when has Apple supported open standards simply because it makes sense to do so? Apple almost invariably chooses closed over open.

Comment of the year right here, folks. +4 already too. Thank heavens its a throwaway, how embarrassing.

Re: Google Removing H.264 Support in Chrome

#52
post #26
post #8

What the hell? It's sad that Google's corporate strategy is starting to override what's in the best interests of it's users. Web video is finally, after so many years, actually encoded in H.264. Who besides YouTube uses WebM or Ogg? I'll be going back to Safari if this happens.

I suspect they think forcing open standards is in the best long term interests of users, much the same way Apple has chosen to support HTML5 by shunning Flash. Also, keep in mind that use of the HTML5 tag is quite limited at the moment. The impact is quite minimal. If Google didn't make a move like this, WebM might not take off the way it needs to to challenge the closed alternatives.

Yet they don't remove flash. Wouldn't that also be in the best long term interest for users?

Re: Google Removing H.264 Support in Chrome

#53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why doesn't Apple just include WebM support? It's an open codec...

Since when has Apple supported open standards simply because it makes sense to do so? Apple almost invariably chooses closed over open.

I love to hate on Apple's decisions, but this is just ludicrous.

Re: Google Removing H.264 Support in Chrome

#54
Has everyone so quickly forgotten that Flash will soon support WebM playback? It's a significant point in the discussion. With any flash capable browser having WebM support, along with native support in Firefox, Chrome, Opera... it seems there is some sense in this move.

It does seem a bold strategy, I would have probably waited at least a bit longer.

Edit: Oh, "These changes will occur in the next couple months"

Re: Google Removing H.264 Support in Chrome

#55
post #41
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An open solution isn't the best interest of the users? Surely this is just like Apple not supporting Flash in the hope that people go create HTML5 stuff which is open. Both companies have taken strategic and gutsy moves that will temporarily inconvenience users in the hope that long-term it pays of to both the companies and the users.

> An open solution isn't the best interest of the users? An ubiquitous solution is in the best interests of users. My parents could care less about whether the video is encoded in H.264 or Ogg. They just want it to work on their iPad. > Surely this is just like Apple not supporting Flash in the hope that people go create HTML5 stuff which is open. It's not the same at all. Google, through YouTube and Chrome, helped m…

"de facto standard" is a meaningless, self-contradictory phrase that really boils down to saying "But this is the way we've always done it!"

Standards are not de facto. Standards are things created by standards bodies. The word has an actual meaning. Trying to twist it to mean "the way we do stuff now" (as your argument for h.264 does) or "the way I want to do stuff" (as many arguments for HTML5 (which doesn't have a standard yet) do) is intellectually dishonest.

Re: Google Removing H.264 Support in Chrome

#56
post #17

The choice has been made by many places to simply use h264 video via the HTML5 tag to hit the iPhone/iPad and then fallback to a Flash video player which can easily play the h264 source video. Content producers would rather encode videos once, which is why they moved to FLV in the first place. There's no incentive to use anything else here. This hurts users. I am all for standards, but not for hurting users. And like…

Why doesn't Apple just include WebM support? It's an open codec...

Because Apple uses h.264 in all their hardware. They have implementations on firmware so they could accelerate video on their iPhones, iPads, iPods, even making specific hardware for it.

This makes this videos to perform great on their hardware, fast and taking less resources(more battery),it lets them make things like editing video in real time on your phone, but only works for one codec.

If they use software codecs, all their competitive advantages are lost on mobile.

Re: Google Removing H.264 Support in Chrome

#57
post #44
post #16

Fantastic. Much as I enjoyed Burn All GIFs back in the day, I don't think Burn All H.264s sounds nearly as catchy or fun. Glad Google is doing the Right Thing on this front -- however convenient or entrenched they might be, hairy patented messes like H.264 have no place on an open web.

I'm just having a hard time understanding why they're ok with bundling the Flash player with Chrome, but not carrying an h264 decoder.

Because Flash is an established "standard", while the HTML5 tag is not.

Re: Google Removing H.264 Support in Chrome

#58

One of the biggest criticisms against Microsoft over the years is that they suffer from Not-Invented-Here syndrome. Is it just me, or does Google seem to be increasingly heading down this path? Granted, Google tends to go down the open-source route, where Microsoft has tended not to, but I'm not sure that excuse holds up well over the long-term. Either way, I'm genuinely curious if anyone else feels this.

Google dropped their own O3D plugin to adopt the open standard WebGL. They also sunsetted Google Gears to push HTML5 offline storage (some say prematurely)

They also based their browser around Webkit which is promoted by their main rival Apple (although based on the original KHTML) and many Google engineers are bullish about the Apple endorsed LLVM for the Portable Native Client code.

Re: Google Removing H.264 Support in Chrome

#59
post #44
post #16

Fantastic. Much as I enjoyed Burn All GIFs back in the day, I don't think Burn All H.264s sounds nearly as catchy or fun. Glad Google is doing the Right Thing on this front -- however convenient or entrenched they might be, hairy patented messes like H.264 have no place on an open web.

I'm just having a hard time understanding why they're ok with bundling the Flash player with Chrome, but not carrying an h264 decoder.

well they are nothing alike. Flash player is a free but proprietary implementation of an swf player. H264 is a licensed and patented codec specification.

Re: Google Removing H.264 Support in Chrome

#60
post #17

The choice has been made by many places to simply use h264 video via the HTML5 tag to hit the iPhone/iPad and then fallback to a Flash video player which can easily play the h264 source video. Content producers would rather encode videos once, which is why they moved to FLV in the first place. There's no incentive to use anything else here. This hurts users. I am all for standards, but not for hurting users. And like…

You can equally argue that Apple's stance on video and on Flash is hurting users.

Apple's stance on Flash does hurt users. But its stance on vodeo? Hardly. They chose an established, proven format that has hardware decoding capabilities. That means they could include it cheaply, and in a way that doesn't drain battery like a software decoder would.
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