The problem is the minimum level for WebRTC is so low, it makes H.264 useless for regular video decoding (like what you'd find on youtube).
So hopefully browsers implement more than the minimum.
VP8 and H.264 to both become mandatory for WebRTC
31–40 of 78 posts
Re: VP8 and H.264 to both become mandatory for WebRTC
#32I hope Daala will put an end to this mess. But even though Opus is mandatory now, it didn't yet translate into support by Apple and MS for instance for regular music and Web audio. Their historic sickening opposition to open codecs is not easy to dismantle. Apple still doesn't even support FLAC, just because they like to make things messy for everyone. By the way, what happened with Nokia's attacks on VP8? Were they…
> Their historic sickening opposition to open codecs What are you talking about? I'm not aware of any historic opposition to open codecs at Apple. Hell, they're still big into AAC, which is an open codec. And even ALAC is now open source and royalty-free.
What are you talking about?
AAC is pay for use codec and Apple receives royalties for its use through MPEG-LA. ALAC was historically proprietary, it was opened only after it lost to FLAC. Apple never supported any codec, that was really free, like Vorbis or FLAC.
Re: VP8 and H.264 to both become mandatory for WebRTC
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Their historic sickening opposition to open codecs What are you talking about? I'm not aware of any historic opposition to open codecs at Apple. Hell, they're still big into AAC, which is an open codec. And even ALAC is now open source and royalty-free.
> And even ALAC is now open source and royalty-free. Nothing stops them from supporting FLAC as well except their nasty attitude in general. FLAC is actually used by many services which sell music, unlike ALAC. AAC is nowhere patent free.
>Nothing stops Mozilla from supporting JPEG2000 except their nasty attitude in general. JPEG2000 is actually supported by many image editors, unlike APNG.
I think in most of these cases the real reasons are more mundane - spending the resources on supporting extra formats would give them no competitive advantage (and a significant cost in terms of maintenance and security). It sucks, but that's the capitalist system for you.
Re: VP8 and H.264 to both become mandatory for WebRTC
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
These are video codecs. Presumably an audio-only app (e.g. IP phone) would be compatible too, so that would explain using neither of the two video codecs. WebRTC also has datachannels that use neither audio nor video.
Seems like a marketing recipe for disaster. "Why can't I see you on you on my webrtc compatible desktop app?!" Like an end-user is going to recognize the difference in terminology.
Compare "HD Ready" TVs.
Re: VP8 and H.264 to both become mandatory for WebRTC
#35I hope Daala will put an end to this mess. But even though Opus is mandatory now, it didn't yet translate into support by Apple and MS for instance for regular music and Web audio. Their historic sickening opposition to open codecs is not easy to dismantle. Apple still doesn't even support FLAC, just because they like to make things messy for everyone. By the way, what happened with Nokia's attacks on VP8? Were they…
Despite the gazillions of dollars they have earned, Apple is really constrained when it comes to software development.
They don't have the man power to stray far from their focused feature set. Just look at the mess that iOS 8.0 is. I don't know if they are not willing to hire more capable people or if they just don't care as long as the money pours in (that could bite them in the long term though).
FLAC is a niche feature and those features are usually only supported if someone at Apple has a personal interest in supporting it and if it doesn't get vetoed by the power that be.
In the case of FLAC it might even have been the latter as you could describe FLAC (not entirely correct) as the codec that let's you digitize your CDs losslessly. That view would put it in competition with iTunes (320kps AAC/MP3 ought to be enough for anybody?) and additionally, if you are a true Apple follower, you don't have a CD drive anymore anyway.
Re: VP8 and H.264 to both become mandatory for WebRTC
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Their historic sickening opposition to open codecs What are you talking about? I'm not aware of any historic opposition to open codecs at Apple. Hell, they're still big into AAC, which is an open codec. And even ALAC is now open source and royalty-free.
What are you talking about? AAC is pay for use codec and Apple receives royalties for its use through MPEG-LA. ALAC was historically proprietary, it was opened only after it lost to FLAC. Apple never supported any codec, that was really free, like Vorbis or FLAC.
There's been plenty of detailed reports concluding for the small number of patent Apple holds, they don't receive anywhere near enough money to cover their own MPEG-LA fees. They aren't doing this out of financial interest — it simply isn't worth enough to them to justify that.
Re: VP8 and H.264 to both become mandatory for WebRTC
#37I hope Daala will put an end to this mess. But even though Opus is mandatory now, it didn't yet translate into support by Apple and MS for instance for regular music and Web audio. Their historic sickening opposition to open codecs is not easy to dismantle. Apple still doesn't even support FLAC, just because they like to make things messy for everyone. By the way, what happened with Nokia's attacks on VP8? Were they…
Despite the gazillions of dollars they have earned, Apple is really constrained when it comes to software development. They don't have the man power to stray far from their focused feature set. Just look at the mess that iOS 8.0 is. I don't know if they are not willing to hire more capable people or if they just don't care as long as the money pours in (that could bite them in the long term though). FLAC is a niche f…
> That view would put it in competition with iTunes (320kps AAC/MP3 ought to be enough for anybody?)
Apple has its own lossless audio codec that's supported by iTunes called ALAC. Created in 2004, it was initially propriety but as of 2011 it is now open source and royalty free under the Apache License.
Re: VP8 and H.264 to both become mandatory for WebRTC
#38Why not VP9?
Re: VP8 and H.264 to both become mandatory for WebRTC
#39I don't really agree with the author's comment that this is "an unmitigated win for users": if nothing else, hardware products might become more expensive because they will need native encoding/decoding capability for each codec.
Most hardware decoders are microcoded anyway, supporting H.264, ASP, and VC-1. Adding VP8 isn't that bad - Qualcomm, nVidia, and Mediatek already ship VP8 decoders. The next generation codecs such as HEVC and VP9 are a lot more computationally expensive and do require a lot more die area.
I thought OpenCL is a standard interface to create decoders. Moreover a DSP could be exposed as an OpenCL machine.
Re: VP8 and H.264 to both become mandatory for WebRTC
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
> And even ALAC is now open source and royalty-free. Nothing stops them from supporting FLAC as well except their nasty attitude in general. FLAC is actually used by many services which sell music, unlike ALAC. AAC is nowhere patent free.
>Nothing stops Mozilla from supporting JPEG2000 except their nasty attitude in general. JPEG2000 is actually supported by many image editors, unlike APNG. I think in most of these cases the real reasons are more mundane - spending the resources on supporting extra formats would give them no competitive advantage (and a significant cost in terms of maintenance and security). It sucks, but that's the capitalist system…
That analogy seems to ignore that FLAC is literally the lossless format that is used everywhere - except on Apple devices, and has not and never had patent concerns. On top of that, ALAC is clearly based on FLAC but has effectively been worsened. It is pure and 100% literal NIH. The same can't be said for JPEG2000. Not even close.
Nobody's complaining Apple doesn't support actual MPEG ALS, for example.