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No double standards: supporting Google's push for WebM

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Re: No double standards: supporting Google's push for WebM

#101

Post by vetinari »

pohl wrote: post #51
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The iPad really should have supported High Profile. No-one's going to encode a 3rd version for the iPad when everyone else jumped straight from Baseline to High, which means it's effectively Baseline. Seems strange that the iPhone 4 got better specs so shortly after (much like the 256MB memory). I'm sure they'll fix it in the next rev though, which just increases the chance that rev. 1 devices will be served Baseline…

when everyone else jumped straight from Baseline to High Interesting. Which mobile device(s) did that, and what decoder chip(s) did they use?

He is talking about content providers, not devices. It is really diificult to find main@ bitsreams in the wild.

Re: No double standards: supporting Google's push for WebM

#102

Post by vetinari »

marbletiles wrote: post #70
ijuhyftgreduy wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google switches youtube to WebM and people will want WebM in their browser, they may even be prepared to switch to chrome if it's the only thing that can view WebM easily. When Google decides to take the internet TV business away from people like Netflix - remember they are an advertising company - they want their own codec to avoid any arguments.

Yes, YouTube would have to switch to WebM -- ie no support for serving any other codec -- for that to be true. Which is effectively turning off YouTube for every browser and device on the web today. Are they going to do that? No chance. Some day, maybe, but they're not going to lead the way. And while YouTube is still additionally serving h.264, there's still no pressure for everybody else to change.

They may also turn 480p and higher to be webm only; effectively making h.264 low quality, intended only for "legacy mobile devices".

Re: No double standards: supporting Google's push for WebM

#103

Post by GHFigs »

vetinari wrote: post #60
GHFigs wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With H.264 bundled with a piece of software, that is not possible. The decision to only support bundled codecs and refuse to let the user use anything else was made by Mozilla, Google, and Opera. It is not a spec requirement or technical necessity. The idea that a browser would be forced to bundle h.264 is quite evidently mistaken, as the browsers that do support it don't bundle it.

The browsers that do support it run on the platform by the same vendor. IE9 runs only on Vista/7, where MS provides H.264 decoder. Safari runs only with Quicktime, where Apple provides H.264 decoder. So although the browsers do not come with decoders, they use their vendor's decoder and nothing else. On the other hand, if Mozilla/Opera/Chrome used third party decoder, that would be support nightmare ("It works on my…

The browsers that do support it run on the platform by the same vendor.

I don't understand the significance. The same APIs are accessible to any other browser. If someone has evidence that Mozilla, et al. have been technically locked out of using the media APIs on Windows or Mac OS X, I'd be interested in the details, and if someone has evidence that they've been locked out of using the media APIs on Linux, I'll eat my hat.

they use their vendor's decoder and nothing else

I'm not sure what you mean. If you mean something like "Windows will only support h.264 and you can't use anything else", then that is exactly wrong.

Re: No double standards: supporting Google's push for WebM

#104

Post by vetinari »

rimantas wrote: post #81
ashearer wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Graphics chips with built-in WebM support are slated to ship this quarter. It's not hard to imagine that the 2012 iPhone hardware will get this ability for free, even if it's only a side effect of using the same graphics chips as Android devices. Then it's just up to Apple whether to turn it on. Google appears to be laying the groundwork it can now so that the answer is more likely to be yes. This will take a few yea…

You did not answer my question.

You:

a) may be able to persuade your vendor (Apple) to support webm in your device,

b) for the time being, you are going to watch low-resolution, low-bitrate version of youtube. All higher quality streams will be webm and you can return to point a).

Any further questions?

Re: No double standards: supporting Google's push for WebM

#105

Post by GHFigs »

commandar wrote: post #100
neild wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was discussing this with some people yesterday. I find it incredibly frustrating that the Grubers of the world have spent months attacking Google for supporting the evil, closed Flash, but then manage to spin Google dropping a closed format in favor of an open one as evil and using it as a roundabout way of continuing to hate on Flash. Your argument turns on Gruber hating Flash for being closed. He doesn't: He hate…

>You're right that Flash is an entrenched, defacto standard. It is, however, much less of one than it was three years ago, and that's pretty much entirely due to one factor: iOS doesn't support it. The HTML element has traction entirely due to the fact that it's the only way to play video from a web page on an iOS device. You don't have a choice between or Flash: It's or nothing. So is this debate about what's best f…

help HTML5 see better overall adoption

Who says it needs help?

Re: No double standards: supporting Google's push for WebM

#106

Post by rimantas »

commandar wrote: post #100
neild wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was discussing this with some people yesterday. I find it incredibly frustrating that the Grubers of the world have spent months attacking Google for supporting the evil, closed Flash, but then manage to spin Google dropping a closed format in favor of an open one as evil and using it as a roundabout way of continuing to hate on Flash. Your argument turns on Gruber hating Flash for being closed. He doesn't: He hate…

>You're right that Flash is an entrenched, defacto standard. It is, however, much less of one than it was three years ago, and that's pretty much entirely due to one factor: iOS doesn't support it. The HTML element has traction entirely due to the fact that it's the only way to play video from a web page on an iOS device. You don't have a choice between or Flash: It's or nothing. So is this debate about what's best f…

> So is this debate about what's best for the future of open > standards on the web, or is it about what's best for iOS?

Dropping support for h.264 means slower adoption of How's that better for the open standards? The most infuriating part of this is, that FSF and Google are so busy with their own agenda, that they forget users.

Re: No double standards: supporting Google's push for WebM

#107

Post by yuhong »

sudont wrote: post #40
spiffworks wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The webm spec is frozen, and all patents are irrevocably licensed. Webm is not 'controlled' by Google.

The patent thing is just FUD by Apple proponents. But, I won't support WebM until it's an ISO standard, frozen is just a promise at this point. Their own site says "dedicated to developing a high-quality..." which, taken literally, means that the project is still underway. Also listed on the front page: "Submit patches and improvements" Yet again, saying that it's a work in progress.

BTW, there is an effect at ISO to do a royalty-free ("Option 1") MPEG: http://www.robglidden.com/tag/mpeg/

Re: No double standards: supporting Google's push for WebM

#108

Post by rimantas »

commandar wrote: post #59
rimantas wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's Mozilla's market share on mobile devices?

I don't know, but mobile only represents about 3% of web traffic. http://www.quirksmode.org/blog/archives/2011/01/2010_mobile_...

How do you expect this number to change?

Re: No double standards: supporting Google's push for WebM

#109

Post by rimantas »

ashearer wrote: post #94
rimantas wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You did not answer my question.

I hope I can be forgiven for interpreting what you said as a statement, instead of as a true how-to question. My statement in reply was that this will take a few years to play out. Chrome's support doesn't make an immediate difference to you or to content publishers. Firefox doesn't support H.264 either and has larger market share. So rest assured that no soldering gun is suddenly needed, and you can continue to use…

> Chrome's support doesn't make an immediate difference to > you or to content publishers.

True. But FSF calls to abandon support or h.264 altogether. I don't see how that helps me.

Re: No double standards: supporting Google's push for WebM

#110

Post by yuhong »

jasonlotito wrote: post #92
commandar wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>IE9 is still in development. They can still choose to support WebM. I was talking with a friend yesterday and mentioned how hilarious it'd be if Microsoft decided to adopt WebM on WP7 and then attack Apple for being too closed. :)

I love the people shouting to the roof for standards support and how H.264 is a proper standard and how we should support it because it's being used everywhere. I just can't help think of the OOXML debacle.

Yep, antimatter15 had to call it out.
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