Decoding the HTML 5 video codec debate • Hacker News Board

Re: Decoding the HTML 5 video codec debate

#11

Post by thristian » Mon, Jul 06, 2009, 6:03 AM UTC

mellis wrote: post #7

anigbrowl wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Film/video post-production guy here. Agree about software patents but I'm not so sure about the licensing in this case. The thing is, h.264 really is very very good at what it does. I don't think it's so bad to reward that with a license fee, and the patent administrators are benign dictators. There are lots of exceptions to allow startups to use it, there are sub-inflation caps on the fee increases, and the maximum…

Is it really so cheap? If so, it seems that it should be possible to create a mechanism which could cover these fees for open-source projects. Perhaps someone like Mozilla or Canonical or other open-source advocates could create a fund for such things? In an ideal world, we wouldn't have to pay licensing fees for this. But this seems a small price to pay for a standard video codec. Is there anything like this for .mp…

The problem with patent licensing and open-source software is that patent license agreements are usually geared towards shipping physical items (such as DVD players, etc.) Commercial, proprietary software tries very much to behave like physical items (one single producer, building and shipping items to to customers) so patent terms like "20c per unit" work quite well.

Open-source, on the other hand, has a most unphysical habit of proliferating without the original creator's involvement. If Canonical promises to pay 20c per CD they ship, and 10% of those CDs are imaged and torrented and downloaded and burnt and re-imaged and re-shared all over the web, nobody knows how many "units" are out there, and there's no reasonable way Canonical (or Mozilla, or any other prospective licensee) can comply with any patent license more complicated than "do whatever you want".

Re: Decoding the HTML 5 video codec debate

#12

Post by anigbrowl » Mon, Jul 06, 2009, 6:06 AM UTC

mellis wrote: post #7

anigbrowl wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Film/video post-production guy here. Agree about software patents but I'm not so sure about the licensing in this case. The thing is, h.264 really is very very good at what it does. I don't think it's so bad to reward that with a license fee, and the patent administrators are benign dictators. There are lots of exceptions to allow startups to use it, there are sub-inflation caps on the fee increases, and the maximum…

Is it really so cheap? If so, it seems that it should be possible to create a mechanism which could cover these fees for open-source projects. Perhaps someone like Mozilla or Canonical or other open-source advocates could create a fund for such things? In an ideal world, we wouldn't have to pay licensing fees for this. But this seems a small price to pay for a standard video codec. Is there anything like this for .mp…

I don't remember what the mp3 situation is - it's probably on Wikipedia. Your fund idea is pretty good, but if it's client-side chances are you can either reference graphics card hardware on newer systems or be exempted on older ones (which might not be an issue anyway, as it's quite processor-intensive and doesn't run that well on older CPUs). You can email them on the website if you dig around.

Re: Decoding the HTML 5 video codec debate

#13

Post by GHFigs » Mon, Jul 06, 2009, 6:25 AM UTC

jrockway wrote: post #5

GHFigs wrote: post #3

There is no debate. Hixie removed the relevant portions from the spec. There is now no required codec. Unless the landscape changes significantly, there will be no required video codec. It's unfortunate, but it isn't the catastrophe that the article implies. The vendors that are going to support Theora out of the box are going to do so anyway , and the vendors that are going to support h264 out of the box are going t…

Standardizing on either wouldn't have done nothing but dissociate the spec from reality. So now web designers have to deal with incompatibilities introduced in the last century, as well as ones introduced in yet-to-be published specs. What is the point of standards if everyone is going to ignore them? The HTML5 committee could have saved a lot of time by not writing the spec and instead concentrating on a free refere…

What is the point of standards if everyone is going to ignore them?

That's the point. That's why that part was removed. If Theora had been mandated, Apple would have ignored it. If h264 had been mandated, Mozilla would have ignored it.

Re: Decoding the HTML 5 video codec debate

#14

Post by jrockway » Mon, Jul 06, 2009, 6:41 AM UTC

GHFigs wrote: post #13

jrockway wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Standardizing on either wouldn't have done nothing but dissociate the spec from reality. So now web designers have to deal with incompatibilities introduced in the last century, as well as ones introduced in yet-to-be published specs. What is the point of standards if everyone is going to ignore them? The HTML5 committee could have saved a lot of time by not writing the spec and instead concentrating on a free refere…

What is the point of standards if everyone is going to ignore them? That's the point. That's why that part was removed. If Theora had been mandated, Apple would have ignored it. If h264 had been mandated, Mozilla would have ignored it.

The end result is the same. You can't use if you want it to work on all platforms.

Re: Decoding the HTML 5 video codec debate

#15

Post by GHFigs » Mon, Jul 06, 2009, 6:48 AM UTC

jrockway wrote: post #14

GHFigs wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the point of standards if everyone is going to ignore them? That's the point. That's why that part was removed. If Theora had been mandated, Apple would have ignored it. If h264 had been mandated, Mozilla would have ignored it.

The end result is the same. You can't use if you want it to work on all platforms.

Ah, but you can like so:

Re: Decoding the HTML 5 video codec debate

#16

Post by wmf » Mon, Jul 06, 2009, 6:57 AM UTC

mellis wrote: post #7

anigbrowl wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Film/video post-production guy here. Agree about software patents but I'm not so sure about the licensing in this case. The thing is, h.264 really is very very good at what it does. I don't think it's so bad to reward that with a license fee, and the patent administrators are benign dictators. There are lots of exceptions to allow startups to use it, there are sub-inflation caps on the fee increases, and the maximum…

Is it really so cheap? If so, it seems that it should be possible to create a mechanism which could cover these fees for open-source projects. Perhaps someone like Mozilla or Canonical or other open-source advocates could create a fund for such things? In an ideal world, we wouldn't have to pay licensing fees for this. But this seems a small price to pay for a standard video codec. Is there anything like this for .mp…

it seems that it should be possible to create a mechanism which could cover these fees for open-source projects. Perhaps someone like Mozilla or Canonical or other open-source advocates could create a fund for such things?

Since the fees are capped, some organization could just pay the cap, distribute a "free" codec, and write the cost off as a marketing expense. Mozilla can afford to do this, but refuses on principle.

Is there anything like this for .mp3 support?

Fluendo distributes a "free" MP3 decoder; they pay the license fee on behalf of users.

Re: Decoding the HTML 5 video codec debate

#17

Post by wmf » Mon, Jul 06, 2009, 6:59 AM UTC

mattmaroon wrote: post #10

So doesn't Theora just win? Most Mac users seem to use Firefox, so Safari has a marketshare just a touch above Chrome. Still essentially a rounding error.

Even if everybody used Firefox, YouTube still wouldn't adopt Theora due to perceived bandwidth/quality issues.

Re: Decoding the HTML 5 video codec debate

#18

Post by ars » Mon, Jul 06, 2009, 7:11 AM UTC

As a web developer I prefer the last option listed: allow video to use any and all codecs installed on the users computer.

BUT, expose this information to the server, so I know which video to serve. Add an Accept-Video-Codec and an Accept-Audio-Codec header, and that is all you need to do.

For extra points send some information on screen resolution in the headers, instead of making me use javascript for it.

The reason this is good is that browers don't need to support anything. They just use the media libraries on the computer. If I want more codecs, I install them, I don't need to convice the browser to support them.

Re: Decoding the HTML 5 video codec debate

#19

Post by andrewl-hn » Mon, Jul 06, 2009, 7:38 AM UTC

GHFigs wrote: post #15

jrockway wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The end result is the same. You can't use if you want it to work on all platforms.

Ah, but you can like so:

I'm not really sure how it's going to work in Chrome, though. The article says they are going to support both codecs. As a result it's up to browser which video source to choose. It's interesting whether it will pick the first source or the 'preferred' one (presumably, mp4). Is it possible to set the source preference in HTML? Like:

or something similar?

Re: Decoding the HTML 5 video codec debate

#20

Post by mikedouglas » Mon, Jul 06, 2009, 8:05 AM UTC

andrewl-hn wrote: post #19

GHFigs wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, but you can like so:

I'm not really sure how it's going to work in Chrome, though. The article says they are going to support both codecs. As a result it's up to browser which video source to choose. It's interesting whether it will pick the first source or the 'preferred' one (presumably, mp4). Is it possible to set the source preference in HTML? Like: or something similar?

The first supported is used (from the spec).