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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

#291

Post by carussell »

ubernostrum wrote: post #287
spoondan wrote: post #242

I like Gruber, but he's almost insufferable on issues like these. These questions are "simple" in the least flattering sense. Let's dispatch them: If H.264 support is being removed to “enable open innovation”, will Flash Player support be dropped as well? If not, why? The premise is that openness is all or nothing. But Google can support Flash and work towards openness, just as Apple can prefer open web standards in…

But Google can support Flash and work towards openness Here's the thing, though. Mozilla and Google, over the past year, have basically used the video-codecs thing as a publicity stunt. LOOK AT ME I'M SO PURE AND OPEN AND NOT LIKE THOSE VICIOUS CLOSED EVIL APPLE NAZIS (except please please please don't ask us about all that proprietary stuff we still do, please ). It's hard not to see this as hypocritical. So it's pe…

please don't ask us about all that proprietary stuff we still do

Like what?

Re: Google Removing H.264 Support in Chrome

#292

Post by CaptainZapp »

ubernostrum wrote: post #195
guywithabike wrote: post #43

I'm looking forward to Google remaining consistent with their words and removing Flash from Chrome in the near future. You know, for the good of the users.

Well, Mozilla's already gone down the road of hypocrisy ("H264 bad! Plugins insecure! Keep shipping Flash!"), so why not Google, too?

  Well, Mozilla's already gone down the road of hypocrisy ("H264 bad! Plugins insecure! Keep shipping Flash!")
Sigh! When did the Mozilla ever claim that they do not ship H.264 because it's insecure? They stated, as far as I recall, that they do not wish to support a patent crippled technology in their browser. A decision a lot of the more technically inclined users, who remember the GIF fiasko fully support.

In addition: The Mozilla project does not ship Flash. You have to download it from Adobe's website and install it yourself.

I'm calling bullshit, badly disguised as a strawman.

Re: Google Removing H.264 Support in Chrome

#293

Post by lovskogen »

danudey wrote: post #257
spoondan wrote: post #242

I like Gruber, but he's almost insufferable on issues like these. These questions are "simple" in the least flattering sense. Let's dispatch them: If H.264 support is being removed to “enable open innovation”, will Flash Player support be dropped as well? If not, why? The premise is that openness is all or nothing. But Google can support Flash and work towards openness, just as Apple can prefer open web standards in…

What I don't understand is how Chrome can remove h.264 (which is widely used) because they want 'openness', while at the same time shipping a browser (Chrome) where you cannot remove Flash (which continues to support H.264). It seems here that keeping H.264 support and dropping Flash would be more in the name of openness. (Edit: bane points out that you can disable Flash in Chrome. My original point still stands, but…

Flash is fading away, and should be kept for legacy reasons for a while. But not dropping h.264 now would make for another proprietary decade on the web.

Re: Google Removing H.264 Support in Chrome

#294

Post by DannoHung »

lovskogen wrote: post #293
danudey wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I don't understand is how Chrome can remove h.264 (which is widely used) because they want 'openness', while at the same time shipping a browser (Chrome) where you cannot remove Flash (which continues to support H.264). It seems here that keeping H.264 support and dropping Flash would be more in the name of openness. (Edit: bane points out that you can disable Flash in Chrome. My original point still stands, but…

Flash is fading away, and should be kept for legacy reasons for a while. But not dropping h.264 now would make for another proprietary decade on the web.

I think a proprietary video codec is significantly less open-threatening than a proprietary runtime. For one thing, the codec will eventually lose its patent protections. The runtime will continue to evolve at the platform owner's discretion.

Regardless of how you feel about h.264 in general though, the decision to not support h.264 video in the browser through the video tag means that Flash is going to be sticking around just so we can watch videos.

An incredible victory for openness!

Re: Google Removing H.264 Support in Chrome

#295

Post by stanleydrew »

ubernostrum wrote: post #287
spoondan wrote: post #242

I like Gruber, but he's almost insufferable on issues like these. These questions are "simple" in the least flattering sense. Let's dispatch them: If H.264 support is being removed to “enable open innovation”, will Flash Player support be dropped as well? If not, why? The premise is that openness is all or nothing. But Google can support Flash and work towards openness, just as Apple can prefer open web standards in…

But Google can support Flash and work towards openness Here's the thing, though. Mozilla and Google, over the past year, have basically used the video-codecs thing as a publicity stunt. LOOK AT ME I'M SO PURE AND OPEN AND NOT LIKE THOSE VICIOUS CLOSED EVIL APPLE NAZIS (except please please please don't ask us about all that proprietary stuff we still do, please ). It's hard not to see this as hypocritical. So it's pe…

Pretty sure Google open-sourced vp8 (the video codec in webm), which means they don't own it or exclusively control it. I don't know how much more open you can get.

Re: Google Removing H.264 Support in Chrome

#296

Post by lovskogen »

DannoHung wrote: post #294
lovskogen wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Flash is fading away, and should be kept for legacy reasons for a while. But not dropping h.264 now would make for another proprietary decade on the web.

I think a proprietary video codec is significantly less open-threatening than a proprietary runtime. For one thing, the codec will eventually lose its patent protections. The runtime will continue to evolve at the platform owner's discretion. Regardless of how you feel about h.264 in general though, the decision to not support h.264 video in the browser through the video tag means that Flash is going to be sticking a…

But the runtime will fade away. This is Google making a fresh start for the years to come. Shouldn't that start be with a open codec instead of a closed one?

The de facto standard for serving today is making a h.246, WebM, a OGG and a FLV (for fallback). Look at videoJS.

So it doesn't mean Flash for video is sticking around.

Re: Google Removing H.264 Support in Chrome

#297

Post by buster »

scottbruin wrote: post #234
buster wrote: post #38

People should really blame MS and Apple for only supporting their own video codec here. I am fully behind the decision of Mozilla, Opera, Google and others to support open and patent unencumbered video formats. Can someone just look at the table at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML5_video and really tell me that this mess isn't the fault of MS and Apple in the first place? Ogg is ready to play a big role and WebM is…

As others have said, it's not "their own video codec." Also, it's not clear that WebM is not patent-encumbered in some way. Secondly, Apple "picked" H.264 as a format nearly four years ago when they built the original iPhone with hardware decoding, before WebM existed and likely before some of the code for WebM was written. Third, whatwg tried to pick one single codec in 2009. Again, this was well before WebM existed…

Afaik, HTML5 is not finished yet. They could still settle for a codec, i guess? Will this happen? Not with all the money that is to be made out of license fees in the future. But nevertheless, it's the right move to drop support for H.264, imo. No single part of the internet as we know it should be "owned" by a few companies (see the very good comment about the GIF format at http://news.ycombinator.net/item?id=2094591 ).

Why are so many against the proprietary Flash format but embrace the H.264 codec? Google even invested 133 million dollar to buy On2 and offer the world an alternative.

Re: Google Removing H.264 Support in Chrome

#299

Post by kinofcain »

stanleydrew wrote: post #295
ubernostrum wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But Google can support Flash and work towards openness Here's the thing, though. Mozilla and Google, over the past year, have basically used the video-codecs thing as a publicity stunt. LOOK AT ME I'M SO PURE AND OPEN AND NOT LIKE THOSE VICIOUS CLOSED EVIL APPLE NAZIS (except please please please don't ask us about all that proprietary stuff we still do, please ). It's hard not to see this as hypocritical. So it's pe…

Pretty sure Google open-sourced vp8 (the video codec in webm), which means they don't own it or exclusively control it. I don't know how much more open you can get.

Open-source is not the same thing as public domain. See: MySql.

Re: Google Removing H.264 Support in Chrome

#300

Post by gaiusparx »

app wrote: post #177
Raphael_Amiard wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The encoder is good, but it doesn't hold a candle to x264. It's is still _very_ slow.

Google as always wants us to use their beta software. This thread has generated much debates. I'm always suspicious when big corporation touts ideology as their cause. Don't fall into the pray. Just asked the question "Where is the money?" and you can guess the real reason for their move. Google seems to think that they have the clouts to influence all area of humanity, in this case the audio/visual entertainment industry that includes set top boxes, chip and hardware makers etc. They are fighter all wars (MS Office, iPhone, Bing, Facebook) by spreading themselves thinly. I believe these few years will see the start of decline of Google as a company.
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