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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

#331

Post by JonnieCache »

bane wrote: post #281
danudey wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> (yes, it'll consume battery like a dry horse drinks water in a desert) For mobile devices, that's a huge deal. There are no resources more scarce than battery power on a mobile device.

I don't disagree, but Android users seem to get by more or less "ok" without hardware 264 decoding (at least the ones who have devices without hardware decoding). Personally, I just leave my mobile devices plugged in most of the time anyway so they're always topped off, but that's just me.

>mobile devices plugged in most of the time

DOES NOT COMPUTE.

Re: Google Removing H.264 Support in Chrome

#332

Post by JonnieCache »

cookiecaper wrote: post #271
plorkyeran wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ffmpeg only has a working webm decoder. xvp8 (the x264-based encoder) hasn't been touched for a few months and is basically vaporware.

In #ffmpeg on freenode: (09:50:48 PM) sjuxax: Guy on HN said this: "ffmpeg only has a working webm decoder. xvp8 (the x264-based encoder) hasn't been touched for a few months and is basically vaporware" (09:50:50 PM) sjuxax: true? ... (09:52:34 PM) Dark_Shikari: not quite true (09:52:42 PM) Dark_Shikari: close, but not quite. (09:52:58 PM) Dark_Shikari: 1) the github tree hasn't been updated (09:53:05 PM) Dark_Shikar…

As much as google can seem pretty sinister these days, it's reassuring that their strategy for implementing a video decoder is "hire the dev on the leading open source project for a year."

Re: Google Removing H.264 Support in Chrome

#333

Post by aridiculous »

fleitz wrote: post #173

Phone me when Youtube only supports WebM, this is just a PR stand.

Agreed. Why is everyone assuming Google will convert all YouTube to WebM?

That would be the main attack on Apple, not removing support for HTML5 h264 in Chrome (flash is the easy backup here). There's a motive for Google to convert YouTube to WebM to screw Apple, but it doesn't seem likely.

Re: Google Removing H.264 Support in Chrome

#334

Post by rmc »

WiseWeasel wrote: post #193
hristov wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And why will that happen? Because people like to pay license fees so much they will be all too eager to pay the fees for both h.264 encoding and flash? Yes, businesses that already use h.264 and flash will probably continue using them. But the bootstrapped websites and startups will opt for the free stuff at least initially, and of all those bootstrapped startups some will be successful enough to make some noise. And…

You're dreaming if you think Apple is going to add WebM hardware decoding support to iPhones. That would basically mean that all previously sold iPhones would be marginalized, it would increase the hardware costs and space/power requirements, and there is no market advantage to supporting the WebM format as there's no WebM-exclusive content.

You're dreaming if you think Apple is going to add WebM hardware decoding support to iPhones.

You're dreaming if you think Apple could ignore WebM if it became the de facto web video standard. It all depends if WebM becomes that popular.

Re: Google Removing H.264 Support in Chrome

#335

Post by stanleydrew »

sbierwagen wrote: post #327
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.

VP8 is open source, but Google isn't accepting patches, and it resembles H.264 in a lot of ways... and H.264 is patented. Google hasn't been sued over it yet, but if they are, it probably wouldn't end well for them. http://x264dev.multimedia.cx/archives/377

It looks to me like Google plan to accept patches: http://www.webmproject.org/code/contribute/submitting-patche.... But maybe I'm mistaken. Are you saying they aren't accepting patches or just that they haven't yet?

Re: Google Removing H.264 Support in Chrome

#337

Post by bphogan »

nkassis wrote: post #273
KeithMajhor wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple's stance on Flash hurts users _now_. But, I still envy my future self living in a world where Flash is dead. The same can be said about Google hurting users _now_. Pushing content producers towards an open and maintainable format has obvious long term advantages.

That's exactly my view, both moves are good to me. HTML5 video is still young and barely used currently, it's the time to try to shape how it will be used. If you wait 5 years, h264 will be impossible to displace and everyone will have to get software with a license, hurting all of us even more.

But again, H264 is not HTML5 video... H264 is a video codec that just happens to be used with the video tag on Mobile Safari and IE9. It's also how a majority of YouTube's videos are encoded currently, as well as many many other video uplod sites.

It's also the codec used on the Xbox360, the PSP, the PS3, and other pes of consumer electronics. It turns out that to reach the largest audience of consumer electronic devices and computer, H264 happens to be the best choice.

Video production workflows let content producers save as h264 videos.

The adult industry is using h264 videos on their web sites to serve their content to portable "more personal" devices.

I'd say h264 is pretty entrenched now.

Re: Google Removing H.264 Support in Chrome

#338

Post by vegashacker »

KeithMajhor wrote: post #311
simonsquiff wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple didn't previously have Flash support in iOS and then remove it... taking something working out for ideological reasons is much worse than never adding something in for ideological reasons in my book.

http://venturebeat.com/2010/04/08/apple-bans-flash-to-iphone... Apple could support flash for nothing... Adobe has tried to do it for them, with both direct flash support and this conversion tool. Apple is making a purely idealogical decision.

That article, "Apple bans Flash-to-iPhone conversions in apps", is no longer true. Apple relaxed the ban. See, e.g.,

http://venturebeat.com/2010/09/09/apple-loses-game-of-chicke...

Re: Google Removing H.264 Support in Chrome

#339

Post by vetinari »

andrewf wrote: post #312
lovskogen wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the runtime will fade away. This is Google making a fresh start for the years to come. Shouldn't that start be with a open codec instead of a closed one? The de facto standard for serving today is making a h.246, WebM, a OGG and a FLV (for fallback). Look at videoJS. So it doesn't mean Flash for video is sticking around.

Surely the defacto standard is h.264 with FLV for fallback. Can anyone name a single site with significant traffic cother than Google/Youtube who are doing WebM or Ogg?

Wikipedia.

Re: Google Removing H.264 Support in Chrome

#340

Post by OpieCunningham »

spoondan wrote: post #242

I like Gruber, but he's almost insufferable on issues like these. These questions are "simple" in the least flattering sense. Let's dispatch them: If H.264 support is being removed to “enable open innovation”, will Flash Player support be dropped as well? If not, why? The premise is that openness is all or nothing. But Google can support Flash and work towards openness, just as Apple can prefer open web standards in…

The premise is that openness is all or nothing. But Google can support Flash and work towards openness, just as Apple can prefer open web standards in lieu of Flash while supporting proprietary systems. There's no hypocrisy or conflict.

The difference is that one company is claiming to champion open left and right whereas the other company focuses their discussion of open to very specific areas. There is hypocrisy with the former company in this case.

Maybe in the future. WebM support is new in Android, hardware decoders are really just coming to market, and there are enough existing and in-production phones that rely on H.264. The constraints placed on Google by the handful of Chrome users leveraging H.264 HTML5 video is completely unlike the realities of dealing in the handset market.

The point is that many view Chrome's move to eliminate H.264 as rushed, so why not rush Android's move? It's rhetorical. Google can't rush Android's move because it would kill Android to be unable to view 99% of online video.

It should be obvious that Google's hope is anyone using HTML5 video will eventually move to WebM exclusively.

Again, rhetorical. These companies won't move to WebM any time soon. It's interesting to me that very few of the comments here bring up the issue of encode quality. Netflix and Amazon are two companies that regularly deal with Hollywood studios, who have review policies for distributed video quality. WebM is inferior and very likely to remain inferior to H.264. One question Gruber failed to pose is: Does Google expect everyone to accept across the board lower quality of video content in the name of marginal "open"?

Content producers won't care if Chrome users end up in Flash, since the content's still available and very few non-mobile users are getting HTML5 video anyway. Flash is still the norm outside of mobile devices.

There are numerous reasons that's an unsupported blanket statement. Of course content producers will care. Why would they not care about how to support various and incompatible distribution and playback methods?

Were people ecstatic that Chrome supported H.264?

Clearly, there's a difference between caring about something that works as is generally expected and caring about something that doesn't work in opposition to expectations. People care when things break. The correct answer to that final question is: Adobe. Hurrah for them?

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