VP8 and H.264 to both become mandatory for WebRTC

#1

Post by kinetik » Sun, Nov 16, 2014, 10:48 PM UTC

VP8 and H.264 to both become mandatory for WebRTC
andreasgal.com

Re: VP8 and H.264 to both become mandatory for WebRTC

#2

Post by yuhong » Mon, Nov 17, 2014, 1:50 AM UTC

Hopefully this means MS is finally willing to support VP8 and hopefully WebM too.

Re: VP8 and H.264 to both become mandatory for WebRTC

#3

Post by rurounijones » Mon, Nov 17, 2014, 2:14 AM UTC

> “WebRTC-compatible” endpoints will be allowed to do either codec, both, or neither.

Neither?! What? How will that work then?

Re: VP8 and H.264 to both become mandatory for WebRTC

#4

Post by cjbprime » Mon, Nov 17, 2014, 2:17 AM UTC

rurounijones wrote: post #3

> “WebRTC-compatible” endpoints will be allowed to do either codec, both, or neither. Neither?! What? How will that work then?

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.

Re: VP8 and H.264 to both become mandatory for WebRTC

#5

Post by rurounijones » Mon, Nov 17, 2014, 2:22 AM UTC

cjbprime wrote: post #4

rurounijones wrote: post #3

> “WebRTC-compatible” endpoints will be allowed to do either codec, both, or neither. Neither?! What? How will that work then?

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.

Re: VP8 and H.264 to both become mandatory for WebRTC

#6

Post by Someone » Mon, Nov 17, 2014, 2:32 AM UTC

rurounijones wrote: post #3

> “WebRTC-compatible” endpoints will be allowed to do either codec, both, or neither. Neither?! What? How will that work then?

A WebRTC-compatible endpoint must be able to communicate with a WebRTC endpoint, but apparently need not understand it, at least that is what I make of it.

https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-rtcweb-overview-12#se... mentions one concrete example of a WebRTC-compatible endpoint: a WebRTC Gateway that mediates between a WebRTC endpoint and a non-WebRTC endpoint.

Vague? Yes. Poor choice of words? Yes (both IMHO)

Re: VP8 and H.264 to both become mandatory for WebRTC

#7

Post by MichaelGG » Mon, Nov 17, 2014, 2:58 AM UTC

Does this matter? Implementors can and will just do whatever they want for really critical things like this.

Re: VP8 and H.264 to both become mandatory for WebRTC

#8

Post by guelo » Mon, Nov 17, 2014, 3:22 AM UTC

MichaelGG wrote: post #7

Does this matter? Implementors can and will just do whatever they want for really critical things like this.

If implementors want to be able to interoperate with other implementations they will now know which codecs to target.

Re: VP8 and H.264 to both become mandatory for WebRTC

#9

Post by zenojevski » Mon, Nov 17, 2014, 3:27 AM UTC

rurounijones wrote: post #3

> “WebRTC-compatible” endpoints will be allowed to do either codec, both, or neither. Neither?! What? How will that work then?

For a proxy, I guess, or a load balancer, a mediator, a monitor, and so on.

Re: VP8 and H.264 to both become mandatory for WebRTC

#10

Post by Sanddancer » Mon, Nov 17, 2014, 4:10 AM UTC

rurounijones wrote: post #3

> “WebRTC-compatible” endpoints will be allowed to do either codec, both, or neither. Neither?! What? How will that work then?

I'm reading that as WebRTC endpoints have to implement those two, but there's nothing precluding them from negotiating to use H.265 or Sorenson or Mpeg-1.