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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

#151

Post by jamesaguilar »

sid0 wrote: post #126
jamesaguilar wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One they can get away with because nobody cares. The other would kill the browser immediately.

The other would kill the browser immediately. Firefox doesn't bundle Flash either, and that hasn't killed it.

I guess I was assuming that the request was to remove flash entirely and prohibit its addition through plugins. If the question is bundle versus don't bundle, my answer is confusion at the difference in end result. It's not an apples to apples comparison because not bundling H.264 is essentially the same as making it entirely unavailable.

Re: Google Removing H.264 Support in Chrome

#152

Post by ZeroGravitas »

upinsmoke wrote: post #110
Charuru wrote: post #95

Next move, suddenly youtube stops encoding in h.264 and youtube won't be able to be played on the iPad. And Android tablets look a LOT better.

You do know that the reason h.264 is better on iOS is because the hardware decoder, right? Android doesn't even do hardware-accelerated graphics, let alone video decoding.

Some parts of Android graphics are GPU accelerated, and the vast majority of Android devices accelerate video decoding (though codec support does vary, and up till now doesn't generally include VP8, though the TI OMAP hardware at least can be updated to support it).

Re: Google Removing H.264 Support in Chrome

#153

Post by jamesaguilar »

gloob wrote: post #96
jamesaguilar wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Standard" has more than one meaning. In the phrase "de facto standard" I think the meaning is more in the direction of "something considered by an authority or by general consent as a basis of comparison." Or to put it another way, standards bodies do not, as you seem to be implying, have a monopoly on the word "standard".

Fair enough. If we take the "popular acclamation" theory of standardization, here's how it breaks down: h.264: IE, Safari WebM: Chrome, Firefox 4 Streaming video with Flash: all of the above In which case the most standardy standard is "h.264 over Flash", with native h.264 and native WebM tied for second place.

If you look at it from the perspective of the provider, the standard is h.264 files on the server, and various avenues through which you can deliver it. Saying WebM is tied for second place is vastly overstating its proximity in popularity space to h.264.

Re: Google Removing H.264 Support in Chrome

#155

Post by mbrubeck »

extension wrote: post #100
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, Apple used to be fully behind royalty-free standards for the web: http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-patentpolicy-comment... Apple believes that it is essential to continued interoperability and development of the Web that fundamental W3C standards be available on a royalty-free basis. In line with the W3C's mission to "lead the Web to its full potential," Apple supports a W3C patent policy with an immutab…

Have they said or done something that conflicts with this statement?

Their implementations of the HTML5 and draft standards work only with royalty-encumbered codecs. (The licensing is currently royalty-free for publishers and end users, but not for device manufacturers or browser vendors.)

Re: Google Removing H.264 Support in Chrome

#156

Post by lincolnq »

jerhinesmith wrote: post #119
lincolnq wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, Google has an enormous reputation for NIH. Great technology companies often do.

Great technology companies often do. If that's true, at what point does that trait change from an advantage to a liability? Is it purely about openness? Or is it more subjective (e.g. I don't like Silverlight, so Microsoft should support standards vs. websockets sound awesome , and I'm glad Google is innovating)?

It may be an expression of hubris (and always a liability). I'm not really trying to imply a causal relationship.

Re: Google Removing H.264 Support in Chrome

#157

Post by cookiecaper »

danh wrote: post #82
marbletiles wrote: post #25

Google's assumption: People will add WebM encoding to their already complicated video workflows What will actually happen: Chrome will get served h.264 wrapped in Flash. Lose all round, then.

Maybe that is somehow what Google wants? It has cozied up to Adobe to the point of including flash in Chrome itself. And YouTube apparently can't be bothered to make html5 video work reliably. I can't think of why anyone would want to promote flash, though.

YouTube depends on Flash for its most profitable enterprises, which are advertisements before the video you're trying to watch, rental, and so forth. I don't know why they can't implement pre-show ads in HTML5, but rentals, etc., can't be done in HTML5 because they require DRM.

There was a big post a while back about all the things YouTube needs to do in Flash instead of HTML5. The fact of the matter is that HTML5 video puts several of YouTube's main money-makers out of order, at least temporarily while the logic is re-implemented.

Edit: The post from YouTube about why they still need Flash is at http://apiblog.youtube.com/2010/06/flash-and-html5-tag.html .

Re: Google Removing H.264 Support in Chrome

#158

Post by cdeutsch »

As a person who encodes video for the web for a living I can tell you we won't be switching to WebM because of iOS and other hardware devices that have hardware based decoding.

H.264 is the closest thing to a ubiquitous codec there is and assuming Chrome correctly updates the "canPlayType" javascript function I won't even have to update our players to provide Chrome users with the crappy Flash player.

As a Chrome user, I'll be switching to Safari so I can continue to get the working HTML5 player.

We'll consider switching once Apple adds support for WebM and the millions of old iOS devices are obsolete. In other words it's H.264 for us for the next 3 years.

Re: Google Removing H.264 Support in Chrome

#159

Post by plorkyeran »

Raphael_Amiard wrote: post #108
sdfdfgsdfgh wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And all the embedded chips in cellphones,m set top boxes and mp3 players are going to support WebM? Thats going to take a while - the lead time on new DSP families isn't quick. And how long before their are optimized open source libraries like ffmpeg and x264?

ffmpeg does already supports webm, and the encoder is quite good from what i gathered, since it's done by the same crew than x264

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

Re: Google Removing H.264 Support in Chrome

#160

Post by kenjackson »

Raphael_Amiard wrote: post #86
marbletiles wrote: post #25

Google's assumption: People will add WebM encoding to their already complicated video workflows What will actually happen: Chrome will get served h.264 wrapped in Flash. Lose all round, then.

Well i don't know. What i see : Adobe is gonna support webm. So having only one format is gonna be possible. Browsers who supported or were gonna support H264 : - Safari (5% market share) - IE9 (0% market share right now, probably around 15% in 3 years) - Chrome (around 13 %) Browsers who supports Webm : - Firefox (30% market share) - Chrome - IE9 will probably support it via codecs which is better than nothing The b…

IE8 is at 33% share now. IE7 is about 7%. I expect most on IE6 are still on XP. So I'd expect that we'll see similar uptake rates for IE9, if not more given the HTML5 benefit (IE8 doesn't have much clear benefit over IE7 from what I can tell).

So I'd say expect IE9 to be closer to 27% in 3 years.

Of course this ignores two big questions:

1) Is IE still hemorraging market share? 2) Does IE9 actually reverse the trend of people using Chrome?

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