Google to drop support for H264 codecs

[ahhaa]

Can somebody explain the real implications of this? Will Chaos or Web>M rule?

"With its alternative WebM video-encoding technology now entering the marketplace, Google announced plans today to remove built-in Chrome support for a widely used rival codec called H.264 favored by Apple and Microsoft. The move places Google instead firmly in the camp of browser makers Mozilla and Opera, who ardently desire basic Web technologies to be unencumbered by patent restrictions. "Though H.264 plays an important role in video, as our goal is to enable open innovation, support for the codec will be removed and our resources directed towards completely open codec technologies," said Mike Jazayeri, a Google product manager, in a blog post.
snip----
H.264, also called AVC, is widely supported in video cameras, Blu-ray players, and many other devices, but it comes with significant royalty licensing fees from a group called MPEG LA that licenses a pool of hundreds of video-related patents on behalf of patent holders including Microsoft, LG Electronics, Panasonic, Philips Electronics, Samsung, Sharp, Sony, and Toshiba.
Although MPEG LA made made H.264 free to use in perpetuity for video that's streamed for free, other patent licensing barriers exist for those using the technology in products--for example, Mozilla would have to pay $5 million to license the technology, even setting aside the fact that it wouldn't be permitted to ship it in Firefox unless it created a proprietary fork of the open-source product. And Microsoft has said it pays more in royalties to ship Windows 7 with built-in H.264 support than it receives back from MPEG LA.
WebM, in comparison, has been an open-source, royalty-free specification since Google announced it last May. It comprises the VP8 video codec Google got through its $124.6 million acquisition of On2 Technologies and the Theora audio codec associated with an earlier and otherwise largely unsuccessful royalty-free codec effort.

Much more technical discussion at
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-20028196-2.html

[sum_guy]

It's about the money, H.264 isn't going anywhere yet, but the licensing is pretty high for Google, WebM isn't going to take over the universe yet either, but it will cut costs since it's open source. Googles investment in Youtube is a good example, going open source will save a ton of money for Google (parent company of Youtube).

[sum_guy]

Here is a good example of the marriage of WebM + OGG on Youtube...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6BamP51OFI&feature=fvst

[yoda313]

even setting aside the fact that it wouldn't be permitted to ship it in Firefox unless it created a proprietary fork of the open-source product.

Correct me if I'm wrong but when is firefox ever "shipped"?? I guess its probably semantics but that implies that firefox is sold on store shelves. It's a free opensource broswer only available online isn't it?

Or are they referring to some variant I am unaware of that may be packaged in some new computers you might buy?

Also is the google format comparable to h264?

Will this be moot like how xvid is virtually similar to divx?

[vhelp]

well, firefox v3.0.19 came with my netbook w/ the option to install, along with xp home edition. from what i heard ms is ditching xp on all netbooks, notebooks and laptops and only giving windows 7 in either start ed (se) or their higher grade package version.

i installed ff bc it was available and i didn't have to d/l it on dialup--at the time. now i have dsl but still. i'm glad i installed it bc for some reason some things don't work in opera while they do in ff. same goes for ie 8 i just recently upgraded from ie 6 (pre installed on netbook) to verion 8 but i'm not sure i like it because it wants to stay connected to ms--to send back your details among other stuff. so i mostly say away from ie 8 and stick to ff and opera. i may have bought the last netbook with windows xp.

p.s. i think this post got posted in another thread by accident..but i can't figure out which one--if mod's find a stray post from me in another thread topic please delete thank you.

-vhelp 5462

[sum_guy]

even setting aside the fact that it wouldn't be permitted to ship it in Firefox unless it created a proprietary fork of the open-source product.

Correct me if I'm wrong but when is firefox ever "shipped"?? I guess its probably semantics but that implies that firefox is sold on store shelves. It's a free opensource broswer only available online isn't it?

Or are they referring to some variant I am unaware of that may be packaged in some new computers you might buy?

Also is the google format comparable to h264?

Will this be moot like how xvid is virtually similar to divx?

Firefox is "shipped" when it is put up for Download to the end users.

The google format is unlike h264, so far as I know, there isn't anything else as close as say xvid to divx. Here is what media info reports on a file I encoded with the WebM format. Note that video and audio are both lossy formats, I can say that the encoded video at lowered bitrates still looks and sounds good. WebM is technically VP8 video and OGG audio. Basically its like any other video and audio container and just adds another codec to our list of installed codecs.

Writing application : Lavf52.91.0
Writing library : Lavf52.91.0
Video
ID : 1
Format : VP8
Codec ID : V_VP8
Duration : 2mn 19s
Bit rate : 713 Kbps
Width : 480 pixels
Height : 360 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 4:3
Frame rate : 29.970 fps
Compression mode : Lossy
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.138
Stream size : 11.9 MiB (81%)
Language : English / English
Audio
ID : 2
Format : Vorbis
Format settings, Floor : 1
Codec ID : A_VORBIS
Duration : 2mn 19s
Bit rate : 128 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Sampling rate : 44.1 KHz
Bit depth : 16 bits
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 2.13 MiB (14%)
Writing library : libVorbis (Schaufenugget) (20101101 (Schaufenugget))
Language : English / English