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Google's dropping H.264 in Chrome is not a step backward for openness.

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Re: Google's dropping H.264 in Chrome is not a step backward for openness.

#61

Post by rbanffy »

Entlin wrote: post #29

You know what we actually need? A h.264-buyout. Let's ask MPEG-LA how much they are planning to earn by the time their licence runs out (2024?). It will probably be ~200 Million or so. Then ask the whole internet to chip in. Result: all the open source people are happy, and we all get to use the higher quality codec in any application we can imagine. And we also get to keep our devices with their battery efficient de…

> Then ask the whole internet to chip in.

And enable them? Let them become irrelevant.

Re: Google's dropping H.264 in Chrome is not a step backward for openness.

#62

Post by kenjackson »

rbanffy wrote: post #59
GHFigs wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These licensed technologies you speak of are not embedded within web browser standards. Neither are video codecs.

And not embedding h.264 may prevent it from becoming a de-facto standard while pushing WebM, a fully open competitor (that's not perfect yet), may give it a chance of becoming, rightfully, part of a standard.

This was a spit in the face of Apple, and Jobs is the type to hold grudges. iOS devices won't use WebM. And no matter how you slice it, iOS devices will be popular in the formative years of HTML5.

At best WebM splits into a state where its really not much more useful than it is today. Or H264 just kills it anyways, and Chrome dies.

In no case does WebM become the defacto standard.

Re: Google's dropping H.264 in Chrome is not a step backward for openness.

#63

Post by ZeroGravitas »

recoiledsnake wrote: post #49
haberman wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How about a Google monopoly? At least h.264 is owned by a number of different companies. It's amazing to me. In the 90s Microsoft's overt policy was "embrace, extend, extinguish," and it called the GPL a "cancer," the MPAA was launching war against DeCSS, and Amazon.com was flexing its one-click patent against competitors. Open source developers had no powerful allies. Now you have a powerful company like Google th…

Why doesn't Google release the source code of the flavor of Linux that it uses after earning tens of billions basically leveraging Linux code? Google open sources things that are not central to it's business, just like every other company out there. MPEG-LA cannot be a patent troll let alone a known one, because it's a loose organization of companies that agree on a standard to prevent fragmentation of video and let…

The MPEG-LA patent troll is a reference to MobileMedia, a Non-Practicing Entity (aka patent troll) that uses patents it got from Sony and Nokia and sued Apple, Rim and HTC within months of forming as a company.

MobileMedia is owned by, and shares a CEO with, MPEG-LA (who also licence non MPEG patent pools e.g. Firewire, the name alone is a bit misleading if you ask me).

http://thepriorart.typepad.com/the_prior_art/2010/04/mobilem...

Re: Google's dropping H.264 in Chrome is not a step backward for openness.

#64

Post by antimatter15 »

redial wrote: post #32
tomlin wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not so fast. These licensed technologies you speak of are not embedded within web browser standards. It's a big difference. Flash, for one, is a plugin. It hitches a ride with the browser, it's not part of its standardized, internal workings. Google probably will benefit financially from this change and the rhetoric from Google's camp probably is FUD. No different than what Apple is doing with it's proprietary App St…

How is bundling flash any different than bundling H.264 in Chrome? none of those are part of the HTML5 specification. And in Chrome, flash is part of the internal workings. You can't update (or remove) the flash player inside.

No. You can disable the internal flash plugin by navigating to about:plugins and hitting disable. It's not part of the internal workings.

Re: Google's dropping H.264 in Chrome is not a step backward for openness.

#65

Post by jokermatt999 »

irons wrote: post #53
recoiledsnake wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why doesn't Google release the source code of the flavor of Linux that it uses after earning tens of billions basically leveraging Linux code? Google open sources things that are not central to it's business, just like every other company out there. MPEG-LA cannot be a patent troll let alone a known one, because it's a loose organization of companies that agree on a standard to prevent fragmentation of video and let…

MPEG-LA cannot be a patent troll let alone a known one, because it's a loose organization of companies that agree on a standard to prevent fragmentation of video and let people deal with one entity instead of a thousand. Also, the licensing terms are fixed at a maximum 10% rise per five-year renewal. Given the lifespan of patents, that's a low ceiling.

Also, the licensing terms are fixed at a maximum 10% rise per five-year renewal. Given the lifespan of patents, that's a low ceiling.

This is the first I've heard of this. Since one of the main concerns I've heard is that MPEG-LA could raise fees to unacceptable levels, do you mind providing a source for this? I'm still less comfortable with H264 being the standard rather than WebM, but this makes me less worried. (Anti-FUD?)

Re: Google's dropping H.264 in Chrome is not a step backward for openness.

#66

Post by cletus »

jawee wrote: post #54
cletus wrote: post #34

This is a weak article. > It's called bait and switch. Not really. If anything, it's the eventual use of market power for profiteering. > But it would become another closed de facto standard, just like IE6. Huh? IE6 is a browser not a standard . > This is comparing apples and oranges. Flash is a plugin, This is splitting hairs and a straw man. The user does not care or typically doesn't differentiate between somethin…

> But it would become another closed de facto standard, just like IE6. Huh? IE6 is a browser not a standard. Well, neither can H.264 be a standard, it is a non-free codec for video. The key was de facto.. Internet Explorer 6, at the peak of its dominance, became the standard that many web developers developed for. Even though it wasn't a standard, when it had over 90% of the market, it was often the only browser that…

> Well, neither can H.264 be a standard

Let's not split hairs. Browser != data format.

I can see the point you're arguing (or at least what the author is trying to argue, whether or not it's your opinion as well). But it's at best a stretch.

In the IE6 "glory" days, it wasn't just a case that Websites wouldn't be made to work for other browsers (meaning they were never tested or, if they were, it was beyond scope to fix). It was worse than that. Sites would deliberately look at the user agent and simply not work if it was a non-IE browser. This still happens. I still come across sites that not only warn you they're optimized for IE and FF (ie proceed at your own "risk" when using Chrome). Some go further and simply won't work if you try and use Chrome. It's thankfully rare but it still happens.

Anyway, the point here is the IE6 displayed HTML/CSS content differently than other browsers and had JS differences too. It took effort to make things cross-browser and it was (and arguably still is) a big deal.

So the stretch of comparing H.264 to IE6 is twofold:

1. We're talking about the entire Web vs the narrow context of Web-based videol so it's a question of scope; and

2. Converting video from one format to another can be automated. Converting a site designed for IE6 to work on other browsers cannot.

So not only aren't the problems analogous but the author is engaging in scaremongering to try and equate H.264 with the (stipulated) horrors of IE6.

Re: Google's dropping H.264 in Chrome is not a step backward for openness.

#67

Post by jarek »

recoiledsnake wrote: post #57
jarek wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or we could just use VP8. All the open source people are happy, the codec will quickly improve, and the vast majority of your devices with their battery efficient dedicated H.264-decompression chips will be replaced by devices with battery efficient dedicated VP8 and H.264-decompression chips within three years. We also save 200 mill.

>the codec will quickly improve I am sorry, but codecs don't work like regular software. Fixing bugs and issues in the encoder could make the resulting video incompatible with older decoders (decoders and encoders are not easily updateable in firmware devices such as consoles, set top boxes, mobile devices etc.). Therefore it's important to have a proper spec in place and then improve encoders and decoders. A dump of…

Fair enough. Then all of the above minus codec improving and plus video quality slightly worse than H.264.

I mean, if you want to pitch in to buy the better one, be my guest. Maybe start a Kickstarter or something.

Re: Google's dropping H.264 in Chrome is not a step backward for openness.

#68

Post by podperson »

Pewpewarrows wrote: post #20
eddanger wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not drop Flash too?

You clearly haven't read the article. Flash is a sandboxed plugin running alongside the browser. It's not the internals of a new and heatedly debated HTML tag, which ultimately has to be an open standard and format, and supported until HTML6 comes around in another decade. Choosing to drop experimental support for a closed, proprietary, and royalty-encumbered codec in a tag's specification that hasn't even been final…

How is supporting arbitrary codecs via the tag any different from supporting arbitrary fonts through CSS font-family?

Re: Google's dropping H.264 in Chrome is not a step backward for openness.

#69

Post by bzbarsky »

Locke1689 wrote: post #56
bzbarsky wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fee would be about $5 million a year. Arguably, both could afford it (it would be about 5-10% of revenue, but doable). The reason Mozilla is not wanting to include H.264 is that: 1) It can't do that in the open source version, and doesn't want to have separate open-source and closed-source releases. 2) It feels H.264 would be bad for the web, since it requires paying to create content in H.264. Reason #2 is somew…

Both of those things are misleading or wrong. There's no reason why they would have to make it closed source, especially if they use x264. H264 patents don't require everyone to pay to create content, you should read the MPEG licensing agreement.

> There's no reason why they would have to make it closed > source, especially if they use x264.

That's not what the lawyers said. In the US, at least; things may be different in your jurisdiction.

Note that this is the route Chrome used to take: Chromium did not support H.264, while the Chrome binaries, built from some source that was not public, did.

> H264 patents don't require everyone to pay to create > content

They do require you to pay to produce an encoder. Of course someone can then distribute said encoder for free if they want, so the end user doesn't technically _have_ to pay. But in practice they do.

And if you use an unlicensed encoder, then you're infringing on the patents. So is anyone who views any videos that were produced with the unlicensed encoder, even if their decoder is licenced. And some other restrictions to do with the fact that encoders are typically not licensed for arbitrary use (e.g. the encoder in a typical digital camera doesn't give you the right to put the resulting video on a website that you make money from, via Google Adwords, say). You should in fact read the licensing agreements involved, or at least the excerpts in http://bemasc.net/wordpress/2010/02/02/no-you-cant-do-that-w...

Re: Google's dropping H.264 in Chrome is not a step backward for openness.

#70

Post by mitjak »

kenjackson wrote: post #62
rbanffy wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And not embedding h.264 may prevent it from becoming a de-facto standard while pushing WebM, a fully open competitor (that's not perfect yet), may give it a chance of becoming, rightfully, part of a standard.

This was a spit in the face of Apple, and Jobs is the type to hold grudges. iOS devices won't use WebM. And no matter how you slice it, iOS devices will be popular in the formative years of HTML5. At best WebM splits into a state where its really not much more useful than it is today. Or H264 just kills it anyways, and Chrome dies. In no case does WebM become the defacto standard.

So, because of your questionable personal knowledge of Jobs and the influence he holds over Apple, a video codec will fail? Last time I checked the world didn't run entirely on Apple hardware and software alone.
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