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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

#301

Post by ZeroGravitas »

CountSessine wrote: post #255
andybak wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry for the downvote but that was a very early analysis and the story has progressed a bit since. There's room for a more nuanced evaluation of WebM which I'd like to hear.

How do you know whether anything at all has advanced? One of the most knowledgeable authorities on video compression has called into question VP8's patent situation. Why is there any need at all to imagine a false opposite? Other than optimism? The whole VP8/webm situation reminds me of when Microsoft tried to do the right thing and open-license VC1, but got clobbered by patent holders and had to reverse themselves.

Dark Shakari's latest pronouncement on video encoding patents was to accuse someone of patenting his idea by reading commit logs, and argue at the same time that the idea was obvious to anyone and therefore not patentable. His evidence that it must have been copied? Because it didn't include some later changes he made. (Note this doesn't even pass a basic logic test, never mind constitute a sophisticated take on the current patent situation). He then retracted the accusation.

http://x264dev.multimedia.cx/archives/589

Update: Tandberg claims they came up with the algorithm independently: to be fair, I can actually believe this to some extent, as I think the algorithm is way too obvious to be patented. Of course, they also claim that the algorithm isn’t actually identical, since they don’t want to lose their patent application.

I still don’t trust them, but it’s possible it’s merely bad research (and thus being unaware of prior art) as opposed to anything malicious. Furthermore, word from within their office suggests they’re quite possibly being honest: supposedly the development team does not read x264 code at all. So this might just all be very bad luck.

Regardless, the patent is still complete tripe, and should never have been filed.

Re: Google Removing H.264 Support in Chrome

#302

Post by bad_user »

kinofcain wrote: post #299
stanleydrew wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty sure Google open-sourced vp8 (the video codec in webm), which means they don't own it or exclusively control it. I don't know how much more open you can get.

Open-source is not the same thing as public domain. See: MySql.

BSD (webm) != GPL (mysql)

Also the definition of public domain varies by country, and it's actually safer (for the rest of us) to prefer stuff under BSD-like licenses, although I prefer APL the most because it also has an explicit patents grant.

Re: Google Removing H.264 Support in Chrome

#303

Post by andybak »

mikeklaas wrote: post #172
drivebyacct2 wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Performance of what? I'm not defending Flash's performance, but WebM is fine, completely acceptable. With hardware decoding continuing to advance in Flash, I guess I don't see what your complaint is. If it's native in most browsers, fallback in IE (they aren't going to care anyway) and potentially native even in IE on supported hardware...

Performance of the WebM implementation in Flash. It took them years to take advantage of hardware decoding for H.264

But now that architecture is in place it won't be difficult to extend it to other codecs. Most of the time it took to get support for hardware decoding in place was time needed for Adobe to wake up and realise there was a problem.

They have moved fairly quickly since then.

Re: Google Removing H.264 Support in Chrome

#304

Post by ZeroGravitas »

mikeklaas wrote: post #172
drivebyacct2 wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Performance of what? I'm not defending Flash's performance, but WebM is fine, completely acceptable. With hardware decoding continuing to advance in Flash, I guess I don't see what your complaint is. If it's native in most browsers, fallback in IE (they aren't going to care anyway) and potentially native even in IE on supported hardware...

Performance of the WebM implementation in Flash. It took them years to take advantage of hardware decoding for H.264

It took them less time than it took for Mac OS X to support hardware decoding in Macbooks GPUs that already worked if you bootcamped into XP on the same machine. Though it took even longer for Flash on Mac OS X because even after Apple supported it (on limited chipsets) they didn't bother to expose it to third parties.

Re: Google Removing H.264 Support in Chrome

#305

Post by scottbruin »

buster wrote: post #297
scottbruin wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As others have said, it's not "their own video codec." Also, it's not clear that WebM is not patent-encumbered in some way. Secondly, Apple "picked" H.264 as a format nearly four years ago when they built the original iPhone with hardware decoding, before WebM existed and likely before some of the code for WebM was written. Third, whatwg tried to pick one single codec in 2009. Again, this was well before WebM existed…

Afaik, HTML5 is not finished yet. They could still settle for a codec, i guess? Will this happen? Not with all the money that is to be made out of license fees in the future. But nevertheless, it's the right move to drop support for H.264, imo. No single part of the internet as we know it should be "owned" by a few companies (see the very good comment about the GIF format at http://news.ycombinator.net/item?id=209459…

I'm not for or against either—that's why I wanted to step back and make sure we're talking about this in terms of the history of the issue. Sure, I have my preference for how I'd like to see things pan out as a developer who just managed a 6 month project deploying video to a large client base.

> Why are so many against the proprietary Flash format but embrace the H.264 codec?

This is the wrong question to me. A more apt comparison is to JPEG or GIF. Considering the work I just did, it's like comparing JPEG to Bitmap—of course I like JPEG better, and its licensing issues have been transparent to me as a developer and end-user.

As a developer, I dislike Flash because:

1. it's slow on my computer

2. it requires another language for client-side development,

3. it breaks how the web "works" (open in new window, back button, etc.)

4. it costs me a developer money as opposed to the browser vendor

If you look at the above list, the web going the way of H.264 has none of these problems. Personally, I'd like a single video format but wish that WebM had come along two years ago instead of causing another transition in video formats.

Re: Google Removing H.264 Support in Chrome

#306

Post by bad_user »

DannoHung wrote: post #294
lovskogen wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Flash is fading away, and should be kept for legacy reasons for a while. But not dropping h.264 now would make for another proprietary decade on the web.

I think a proprietary video codec is significantly less open-threatening than a proprietary runtime. For one thing, the codec will eventually lose its patent protections. The runtime will continue to evolve at the platform owner's discretion. Regardless of how you feel about h.264 in general though, the decision to not support h.264 video in the browser through the video tag means that Flash is going to be sticking a…

Data outlives code.

Right now as a software developer you have the option of not using Flash.

Depending on your constraints, that may be a difficult choice to make, but it's a choice nonetheless: HTML5 is getting more popular, the JVM was always capable and popular enough for many scenarios, and there's also Silverlight.

But choosing another codec for your multiple TB (and growing) of video you want to serve on the web? You've got no choice but H.264, as anything else would cost you dearly.

And I'm pretty sure you don't know how software patents work. Companies apply for the same patents with different wording all the time. And there will also come a time when H.264 will not be enough, with MPEGLA in their infinite resourcefulness offering an easy upgrade to the next version under "reasonable" terms. By the time the standard will be patents free, H.264 will be as relevant as GIF is today.

Re: Google Removing H.264 Support in Chrome

#307

Post by ajb »

dev_jim wrote: post #93
Raphael_Amiard wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well i don't know. What i see : Adobe is gonna support webm. So having only one format is gonna be possible. Browsers who supported or were gonna support H264 : - Safari (5% market share) - IE9 (0% market share right now, probably around 15% in 3 years) - Chrome (around 13 %) Browsers who supports Webm : - Firefox (30% market share) - Chrome - IE9 will probably support it via codecs which is better than nothing The b…

> The big deal breaker i see is the mobile devices who natively support H264 You kind of buried this but this is the true deal breaker. There aren't (and probably won't be) hardware WebM decoders. And Firefox doesn't support WebM yet. You'll have to wait on version 4 (0% market share right now as you said for IE9).

No, there are hardware webm decoders. Eg: "Broadcom Accelerates WebM Video on Mobile Phones" from http://www.broadcom.com/press/release.php?id=s471536 And that's from eight months ago. Broadcom is a huge maker of mobile SOCs; I haven;t checked the others, but I bet they support webm too.

Re: Google Removing H.264 Support in Chrome

#308

Post by ZeroGravitas »

mikeryan wrote: post #207
zmmmmm wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> WebM is probably patent encumbered. We just don't know who owns the patents yet. Actually we do, because Google used the very clever strategy of essentially copying the H.264 algorithm and then methodically working around all the patents. This means that if there are outstanding patents on WebM they are probably on H.264 as well. But the great likelihood is that there are not outstanding patents because any such pa…

Can you support this statement? Because Google didn't even create VP8 - they bought it with ON2. I can't find anything that supports your statement. H264 isn't "an algorithm" its a pretty massive collection of different algorithms. I actually find it a bit difficult its not infringing in some way and this analysis seems to confirm this. http://x264dev.multimedia.cx/archives/377

That very link describes multiples places where VP8 does things different to H.264 and basically calls them idiots for not doing it the H.264 way yet doesn't connect this to the patent situation that he is simultaneously accusing them of being idiots about because it is too similar to H.264. He can't have it both ways.

There's a more thorough discussion of this here:

An analysis of WebM and its patent risk

http://carlodaffara.conecta.it/?p=420

Re: Google Removing H.264 Support in Chrome

#309

Post by ubernostrum »

CaptainZapp wrote: post #292
ubernostrum wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, Mozilla's already gone down the road of hypocrisy ("H264 bad! Plugins insecure! Keep shipping Flash!"), so why not Google, too?

Well, Mozilla's already gone down the road of hypocrisy ("H264 bad! Plugins insecure! Keep shipping Flash!") Sigh! When did the Mozilla ever claim that they do not ship H.264 because it's insecure? They stated, as far as I recall, that they do not wish to support a patent crippled technology in their browser. A decision a lot of the more technically inclined users, who remember the GIF fiasko fully support. In additi…

Sigh! When did the Mozilla ever claim that they do not ship H.264 because it's insecure?

Mike Shaver and Robert O'Callahan both -- during the early attempt to frantically spin this as more than just an ideological PR stunt -- pointed to security as a reason why they didn't feel comfortable delegating to other software. See the following posts:

http://shaver.off.net/diary/2010/01/23/html5-video-and-codec...

http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/roc/archives/2010/01/video_fr...

http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/roc/archives/2009/06/directsh...

Of course, they did eventually come clean and admit this was just a naked ideological PR stunt. O'Callahan's quote about the fact that delegating to OS codecs would mean giving up Mozilla's control -- sorry, "leverage" -- over what users can do with their own computers is particularly telling, especially in a debate that's ostensibly about "freedom".

I'm calling bullshit, badly disguised as a strawman.

I'm calling "do your homework, lest you look like a badly-informed fanboy".

Re: Google Removing H.264 Support in Chrome

#310

Post by sid0 »

tzs wrote: post #176
sid0 wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That page is meant to show off how Safari handles various HTML5 features. Isn't the point of HTML that all browsers handle it similarly? If that link is restricted to one browser, it isn't better than all the "Designed for IE6" sites you used to see in the early '00s, and absolutely no evidence of Apple being "fully behind HTML5".

HTML5 is not a standard. It does not yet behave the same in all browsers that implement it. Different browsers implement different subsets of it. The site you cite is meant specifically to show how Apple is doing with their HTML5 implementation. There is simply no point in viewing it in another browser. Viewing it in, say, Firefox would tell you nothing at all about how well Apple has implemented HTML5 in Safari. Thi…

HTML5 is not a standard. It does not yet behave the same in all browsers that implement it. Different browsers implement different subsets of it.

And yet they're converging to implementing all of it.

The site you cite is meant specifically to show how Apple is doing with their HTML5 implementation.

Then it's a Safari demo, not an HTML5 demo. The Microsoft demos use HTML5 and yet work just fine in other browsers.

Those sites were generally presenting information that was useful to people regardless of which browser they were using.

How is seeing HTML5 working in Firefox or Chrome not useful to people?

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