Google's press release: http://www.google.com/intl/en/press/pressrel/ir_20090805.htm...
Google Buys Video Company On2 for $106.5M
11–20 of 28 posts
Re: Google Buys Video Company On2 for $106.5M
#12My immediate first thought was also that Ogg Theora & HTML5 played a role in Google's reasoning to buy On2. Even if they've disclaimed all patent rights, Google is providing the deep pockets to keep other vendors reassured about patent trolls.
Even better, Google can now open up VP6.
Vendors have reservations about submarine patents on Theora/VP3 - the possibility that that even though On2 has disclaimed patent rights, other patent holders are lurking about, waiting for Theora/VP3 to become popular enough to sue over.
I think VP6 doesn't have this problem. If a patent troll had a potential claim over VP6, they'd have gone after On2 or Adobe or Youtube by this point.
EDIT: Someone else has posted that Youtube never used VP6. Anyone know if Flash+VP6 was common enough to obviate the "we're nervous about patents because nobody ever used this" argument against Theora/VP3?
Re: Google Buys Video Company On2 for $106.5M
#13This decision doesn't make any sense to me. There's nothing about On2 that's worth more than ~$10m.
On2 is notorious for having fallen behind technology-wise, with VP7 falling by the wayside and VP8 seemingly being just a small upgrade of VP7--and still being vastly inferior to the best free software encoders out there. They've pretty much had to cheat in every single comparison they've posted in order to make it look as if they were still in the game.
They've spent the past seven years saying that they were "about to" come out with something better than H.264, and yet still haven't; they're almost Duke Nukem Forever-level in terms of vaporware.
A developer I know joked that their entire development team is probably worth less than Skal (former Xvid developer who currently works for Google).
Furthermore, nobody is going to buy into a new video format--even on the phenomenally unlikely chance that it's marginally better--if no hardware supports it.
The only thing I can imagine is that they bought them for their software patents, which says something about the sad state of the intellectual property world.
Re: Google Buys Video Company On2 for $106.5M
#14Have Google neutralised any remotely possible patent threat from On2 over Theora now? Can we finally get on with implementing ?
Any submarine patent threat that does exist wouldn't be from On2, so this wouldn't resolve it if it existed.
Re: Google Buys Video Company On2 for $106.5M
#15My immediate first thought was also that Ogg Theora & HTML5 played a role in Google's reasoning to buy On2. Even if they've disclaimed all patent rights, Google is providing the deep pockets to keep other vendors reassured about patent trolls.
Even better, Google can now open up VP6. Vendors have reservations about submarine patents on Theora/VP3 - the possibility that that even though On2 has disclaimed patent rights, other patent holders are lurking about, waiting for Theora/VP3 to become popular enough to sue over. I think VP6 doesn't have this problem. If a patent troll had a potential claim over VP6, they'd have gone after On2 or Adobe or Youtube by t…
No need to "open it up"; VP6 has already been reverse-engineered. There were planned projects to write encoders, but the adding of H.264 support to Adobe Flash ended any attempt in that realm, since VP6 is now useless.
Re: Google Buys Video Company On2 for $106.5M
#16My immediate first thought was also that Ogg Theora & HTML5 played a role in Google's reasoning to buy On2. Even if they've disclaimed all patent rights, Google is providing the deep pockets to keep other vendors reassured about patent trolls.
Remember, On2 already disclaimed all patent rights to VP3, so buying them shouldn't have any effect in that regard.
Re: Google Buys Video Company On2 for $106.5M
#17This decision doesn't make any sense to me. There's nothing about On2 that's worth more than ~$10m. On2 is notorious for having fallen behind technology-wise, with VP7 falling by the wayside and VP8 seemingly being just a small upgrade of VP7--and still being vastly inferior to the best free software encoders out there. They've pretty much had to cheat in every single comparison they've posted in order to make it loo…
There's nothing about On2 that's worth more than ~$10m.
It has quite a large customer base. Brightcove, Skype, Youtube to name a few.
Obviously not in the league of H.264 though.
EDIT: but still lossmaking...http://www.on2.com/file.php?228
Re: Google Buys Video Company On2 for $106.5M
#18This decision doesn't make any sense to me. There's nothing about On2 that's worth more than ~$10m. On2 is notorious for having fallen behind technology-wise, with VP7 falling by the wayside and VP8 seemingly being just a small upgrade of VP7--and still being vastly inferior to the best free software encoders out there. They've pretty much had to cheat in every single comparison they've posted in order to make it loo…
There's nothing about On2 that's worth more than ~$10m. It has quite a large customer base. Brightcove, Skype, Youtube to name a few. Obviously not in the league of H.264 though. EDIT: but still lossmaking... http://www.on2.com/file.php?228
Youtube doesn't, and as far as I know, never did use VP6.
Additionally, I'm not so sure a large customer-base is even a good thing; everyone I've talked to who has used their VP6 encoder engine on a server farm comments on how much of a crashy, buggy piece of crap it is. This reputation is not going to help grow the business in the future even if they do produce a good product.
Re: Google Buys Video Company On2 for $106.5M
#19Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's nothing about On2 that's worth more than ~$10m. It has quite a large customer base. Brightcove, Skype, Youtube to name a few. Obviously not in the league of H.264 though. EDIT: but still lossmaking... http://www.on2.com/file.php?228
Youtube doesn't, and as far as I know, never did use VP6. Additionally, I'm not so sure a large customer-base is even a good thing ; everyone I've talked to who has used their VP6 encoder engine on a server farm comments on how much of a crashy, buggy piece of crap it is. This reputation is not going to help grow the business in the future even if they do produce a good product.
Yeah, you're right, youtube uses SVQ.
Re: Google Buys Video Company On2 for $106.5M
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
Youtube doesn't, and as far as I know, never did use VP6. Additionally, I'm not so sure a large customer-base is even a good thing ; everyone I've talked to who has used their VP6 encoder engine on a server farm comments on how much of a crashy, buggy piece of crap it is. This reputation is not going to help grow the business in the future even if they do produce a good product.
Yeah, you're right, youtube uses SVQ.
No, they used Sorenson H.263, aka "FLV1" (I assume that's what you meant though). SVQ1 was a vector-quantizer codec used by Quicktime in the 90s, and SVQ3 is another Quicktime format which is a ripoff of H.264.