The problem is this reads like an attack article: Google dared come out with a rival to the iPhone so lets start posting negative articles about them.
Hm, maybe because you want to read it like that? Both formats are open. H.264 is superior and widely supported by hardware decoders (less CPU load, less energy consumption) and already the recording format on a lot of devices (camcorders, cameras, mobile phones, HDD video recorders, PVRs). Why add a lesser format that will only add complexity (record H.264 on my point and shoot, convert it to VP8/webm, then play it back in a browser without direct hardware support, so let the CPU do all the work a second time)... it makes little, if any, sense. It is a solution for which there is no need. Like a kid riding the bike without holding the handle bar: look Ma, no teeth... It is not better, only different.
This is an article about a Google technology. It has nothing to do with Apple. Articles on Android I can understand as it does compete with the iPhone, but why publish this?
I come to this site to find out Apple news and rumors, not to get the latest news on Google.
I agree. This is meaningless to Apple. Apple can support VP8 just as easily as h264.
I agree. This is meaningless to Apple. Apple can support VP8 just as easily as h264.
On a desktop/laptop maybe. On an iPhone/iPod/iPad: no. H.264 is supported by hardware decoders, Motion-JPEG (the other format supported on the iPad, and maybe the next iPhone) uses no complex compression (files are rather huge, but there is not a lot of work for the CPU). Adding VP8 support would decrease battery life. Do you think Apple will introduce the next iPad and say: now 5 hours of video playback (instead of ten)? I do not see this happening at all.
There is a difference between open source and open standard. Open source software is generally free, H.264 is an open standard. The reason it is open is because it is not owned by any one company. H.264 is a collaberation between many different companies and organizations.
very true.
add to this that MPEG LA has waived the licensing fees for pretty much everyone until 2016 (and could waive them again or even drop them) and it is no shock that H.264 is so hot on the web etc
"X264 developer says Google's new VP8 WebM codec is a mess"..... And in other news, Flash developer says HTML5 is a mess.
Within hours of the announcement. everyone is rushing to spread FUD about VP8 and come to H264's defense. A surefire way to keep Flash relevant for years to come. Adobe must be delighted. VP8 is the best way to kill Flash by avoiding a stalemate in the video codec wars.It's a little premature to declare it unfit to replace H264 as the standard for video encoding.
Adding VP8 support would decrease battery life. Do you think Apple will introduce the next iPad and say: now 5 hours of video playback (instead of ten)? I do not see this happening at all.
If all people did was watch video that might be an issue. I think video is a small fraction of the time people spend on the iPhone, so it's not a big issue there. I don't think the iPad is particularly good for video either - it's 9.7" SD screen becomes a lot smaller when watching widescreen video.
If all people did was watch video that might be an issue. I think video is a small fraction of the time people spend on the iPhone, so it's not a big issue there. I don't think the iPad is particularly good for video either - it's 9.7" SD screen becomes a lot smaller when watching widescreen video.
Well, I was flying back from Washington DC to Frankfurt yesterday and there were 8 iPads in business class (plus mine). Absolutely everybody was watching video whenever I passed them. I think 720p video on the iPad looks absolutely amazing and it is definitely as big as watching my 52" LCD from a normal distance (12" or so) at home (maybe even bigger).
Anyhow, it is not a question of being an issue or not. Apple advertises video play back times - and 10 hours of video IS a selling point compared to almost all laptops and netbooks. They won't allow that figure to go down and they will not support a "foreign" format, if it messes up their specs.
A developer of a competing technology says VP8 is a mess. LOL. In other news, Microsoft says Windows is better than OSX.
Well, he may have a bias but he is an expert in a technology that is pretty opaque to most people. (Me for certain) As such his observations and detailed comments can be looked at and checked for verification. A Windows programmer would be able to make a lot of interesting comments about the differences that OS X has and his opinions about them. And scientific results should be verifiable regardless of the bias of the checker.
We're not just getting a conclusion, we're getting a dissection with notes.
You're totally wrong. If Mozilla includes H.264 support in Firefox, then they can't distribute the source code. That means they can no longer operate as an open-source project.
So why couldn't they simply point people to a H.264 plugin. I mean that's how Microsoft is going to treat WebM in IE9, so they can distance themselves from any potential patent problems. And that's how I fully expect Apple to treat WebM on the Mac. With all of the extensions in Firefox, you're telling me that they couldn't add plugins for codecs?
As for their ideology, what about other patent encumbered codecs like GIF use to be? Mozilla has always supported them without trouble or ideological trauma. Is this a case of "getting some religion" because of those experiences? I fully appreciate their stance, but I think they come off as not open to a compromise that still respect their ideals.
Well, he may have a bias but he is an expert in a technology that is pretty opaque to most people. (Me for certain) As such his observations and detailed comments can be looked at and checked for verification. A Windows programmer would be able to make a lot of interesting comments about the differences that OS X has and his opinions about them. And scientific results should be verifiable regardless of the bias of the checker.
We're not just getting a conclusion, we're getting a dissection with notes.
Exactly. So far, to counter they call him spreading FUD, instead of dissecting the Assembly code of H.264 and it's many algorithms and comparing them to V8.
Let's see them.
As a mechanical engineer and computer scientist I don't trust gossip from web sites--I want to see the research.
"X264 developer says Google's new VP8 WebM codec is a mess"..... And in other news, Flash developer says HTML5 is a mess.
Within hours of the announcement. everyone is rushing to spread FUD about VP8 and come to H264's defense. A surefire way to keep Flash relevant for years to come. Adobe must be delighted. VP8 is the best way to kill Flash by avoiding a stalemate in the video codec wars.It's a little premature to declare it unfit to replace H264 as the standard for video encoding.
Okay firstly, do you have any specific refutations of Jason Garrett-Glaser's very technical review? Or are you just labeling it as FUD as a knee-jerk reaction? If you have any real expertise and can refute any of Jason's claims then I'm interested. Otherwise...
Secondly, how does this have anything to do with Flash? Flash can play both H.264 and WebM within its container. They just announced their support. Adobe is FINE with it.
Thirdly, this is the first time most people have been able to do more than speculate on VP8 and its suitability as a replacement. I don't think Jason was saying that it's totally unfit. He thinks it needs a lot of work, and fears that it will be targeted for patent violation. Google has declared that it's ready for use. So there will be no shakedown period. The spec is final. If Jason is in any way right then that's a problem.
So why couldn't they simply point people to a H.264 plugin. I mean that's how Microsoft is going to treat WebM in IE9, so they can distance themselves from any potential patent problems. And that's how I fully expect Apple to treat WebM on the Mac. With all of the extensions in Firefox, you're telling me that they couldn't add plugins for codecs?
Yeah, the H.264 codec is really only a problem for big companies who have to pay millions to integrate it and don't want to pay up. Like Mozilla.
Mozilla dev can simply forward the decoding on to a system decoder, like MPlayer or VLC.
I don't really see a switch from H.264 as there are way too many devices out there that hardware accelerate it. What Google could do is offer VP8 instead of Flash but alongside H.264. This will require people to upgrade to a non-IE browser if it's HTML 5 video.
Well, he may have a bias but he is an expert in a technology that is pretty opaque to most people. (Me for certain) As such his observations and detailed comments can be looked at and checked for verification. A Windows programmer would be able to make a lot of interesting comments about the differences that OS X has and his opinions about them. And scientific results should be verifiable regardless of the bias of the checker.
We're not just getting a conclusion, we're getting a dissection with notes.
I could "dissect" x264 and make it sound like crap too. If you do not have a detailed understanding of it, you would never know the difference. If a "neutral" party does the dissection it is worth a look, but this guy most certainly has a strong bias, which makes his points irrelevant unless verified or backed up with independent investigation.
On a desktop/laptop maybe. On an iPhone/iPod/iPad: no. H.264 is supported by hardware decoders, Motion-JPEG (the other format supported on the iPad, and maybe the next iPhone) uses no complex compression (files are rather huge, but there is not a lot of work for the CPU). Adding VP8 support would decrease battery life. Do you think Apple will introduce the next iPad and say: now 5 hours of video playback (instead of ten)? I do not see this happening at all.
I'm not arguing that - and have no way of knowing if VP8 is any good or not.
My point is that if VP8 is any good, there's nothing to stop Apple from supporting it. If h264 is better, Apple can support that. Apple can support both, if they wish. If Billy Bob's Magic Software Coding comes out with another codec that's better than either, Apple can support that. Or all of them.
It just doesn't matter to Apple one way or another.
A host of other companies are also collaborating on the project. Of particular importance are companies like AMD, ARM, NVIDIA, and Qualcomm. Google is working with these companies to get WebM acceleration built into hardware on as broad a range of devices as possible; having a broad range of GPU and embedded CPU manufacturers on board will greatly aid that effort.
Even without hardware acceleration, Google claims that low-end hardware will still perform well with WebM.
Nightly builds of Mozilla and Chromium (the open source project used for development of Chrome) will include WebM support starting today. The Chrome early access release dev channel will include WebM support as of May 24. A beta of Opera with WebM support is also available.
WebM support in Android is expected in Q4 2010, and Broadcom announced today that its motion video acceleration solution for mobile phones, VideoCore, should gain WebM support by Q3 2010.
Adobe is also on board. The company will incorporate WebM support into Flash, and Adobe CTO Kevin Lynch said that the company wants to deliver WebM support to "a billion" users within a year.
Flash support is particularly valuable, as it negates one of H.264's current practical advantages: the same compressed H.264 video can be served to users via both Flash and HTML5 video. This allows sites to target non-Flash devices alongside Flash-enabled ones without having to encode their video files twice.
A browser that supports WebM content isn't much use if there's no WebM content to play, and Google has that covered too. Anyone opting into YouTube's HTML5 front-end will be able to use WebM for video playback by appending "&webm=1" to the URL.
For content creators, patches for the open source FFmpeg encoder/decoder were released today, as were filters for use with Microsoft's DirectShow framework. Installing these filters will enable WebM support in a wide range of audio/video applications on Windows, including Windows Media Player, as well as third-party software such as Media Player Classic.
There is literally no excuse for Apple not to embrace WebM. Then again, there's no excuse for Apple not fixing their 5 year old H.264 video export color conversion bug, either, but that simple fix has yet to come.
I fully understand the significance for web video and the future of the internet.
The problem is this reads like an attack article: Google dared come out with a rival to the iPhone so lets start posting negative articles about them.
I read the article and it was showing the perspective from a person who had been critical of Apple's H.264 and was stating his opinion on Google's VP8 WebM and its user-ability at the moment compared to H.264, which this person was not overly praising ( I mean the H.264)
Personally as long as VP8 WebM can be supported and does not interfere with Apple's development plans for future iPhone/OS improvements, then it should be no skin off Apple's back. If on the other hand it is a Adobe approach and half hearted attempt to support iPhone, then NO please.
I could "dissect" x264 and make it sound like crap too. If you do not have a detailed understanding of it, you would never know the difference. If a "neutral" party does the dissection it is worth a look, but this guy most certainly has a strong bias, which makes his points irrelevant unless verified or backed up with independent investigation.
Hence why I said, "And scientific results should be verifiable regardless of the bias of the checker."
However I wouldn't place his bias as strong enough to poison everything he says. He is a developer in an open source project and a contributor to ffmpeg. And if you read his previous post on the subject when all he could do is speculate, he gives a pretty even-handed overview of the situation and points out all of the pragmatic points.
Flash, Google, VP8, and the future of internet video
There is a comment made by a member of Xiph (which have their opposite bias) that helps give some perspective on it. He basically says that "the devil is in the details" about the patent infringement, meaning that they are similar but subtly different. On the code and spec, he seems to agree so there you go.
It would have been nice if Google had opened it up for the video developers to help clean things up, but that's not how they decided to roll. The spec is frozen. Hey Google, what happened to being truly "open"?
Yeah, the H.264 codec is really only a problem for big companies who have to pay millions to integrate it and don't want to pay up. Like Mozilla.
Mozilla dev can simply forward the decoding on to a system decoder, like MPlayer or VLC.
I don't really see a switch from H.264 as there are way too many devices out there that hardware accelerate it. What Google could do is offer VP8 instead of Flash but alongside H.264. This will require people to upgrade to a non-IE browser if it's HTML 5 video.
Well, Adobe has stated that Flash will support WebM so it could just be the backend video that gets changed and Flash would take care of older browsers as well. And Microsoft has stated that IE9 will support it with a plugin. Of course that still means that all IE users will need to upgrade to the latest version or use Flash. Personally, I don't feel that Microsoft is pushing them hard enough and the web is hurting because of legacy support.
Google better keep supporting H.264. Even if WebM replaces H.264 in many use cases like YouTube, we're not there yet and they shouldn't force everyone to upgrade their devices right now to get there.
Exactly. So far, to counter they call him spreading FUD, instead of dissecting the Assembly code of H.264 and it's many algorithms and comparing them to V8.
Let's see them.
As a mechanical engineer and computer scientist I don't trust gossip from web sites--I want to see the research.
I agree sir. And in the interest of that debate, there is a comment from the "opposite" side at Xiph.
He seems to say that the specs are similar but subtly different in the details, so wouldn't be infringing. On the spec being "imprecise, unclear, and overly short, leaving many portions of the format very vaguely explained" he replies:
Quote:
"Sadly, he's correct about this. We can fix the spec and write a good one after the fact, but this leaves up in the air how many bugs are undiscovered because no one documented the hard parts (so no one else could check them). Tim's been pouring over the code for weeks already and has caught a few such instances, I don't think any were major.
That said, despite Google's claim that things are already frozen, I'm sure that if a showstopper popped up they'd change their minds. I don't think there are any showstoppers. What we'll probably find in the future are instances of 'aw, geez, it would have been nice to change that if it wasn't too late.' We have some amount of experience dealing with that from Theora :-)"
And to give some perspective to this, Jason had almost two days to review VP8 and the people at Xiph had "weeks" and qualify that "Some design chunks look very similar even to the trained eye..." So I believe that Jason isn't practicing any intentional bias in this debate.
The CEO's of Google, MS, Dell, Sony, HP have the Walmart business model. Which is design and make 'crap' as cheaply as possible, sell it as cheaply as possible and 'hope' they sell a lot of crap to a lot of people.
Seemingly, you know nothing about the products produced and sold by these companies.
Comments
The problem is this reads like an attack article: Google dared come out with a rival to the iPhone so lets start posting negative articles about them.
Hm, maybe because you want to read it like that? Both formats are open. H.264 is superior and widely supported by hardware decoders (less CPU load, less energy consumption) and already the recording format on a lot of devices (camcorders, cameras, mobile phones, HDD video recorders, PVRs). Why add a lesser format that will only add complexity (record H.264 on my point and shoot, convert it to VP8/webm, then play it back in a browser without direct hardware support, so let the CPU do all the work a second time)... it makes little, if any, sense. It is a solution for which there is no need. Like a kid riding the bike without holding the handle bar: look Ma, no teeth... It is not better, only different.
How is this Apple news?
This is an article about a Google technology. It has nothing to do with Apple. Articles on Android I can understand as it does compete with the iPhone, but why publish this?
I come to this site to find out Apple news and rumors, not to get the latest news on Google.
I agree. This is meaningless to Apple. Apple can support VP8 just as easily as h264.
I agree. This is meaningless to Apple. Apple can support VP8 just as easily as h264.
On a desktop/laptop maybe. On an iPhone/iPod/iPad: no. H.264 is supported by hardware decoders, Motion-JPEG (the other format supported on the iPad, and maybe the next iPhone) uses no complex compression (files are rather huge, but there is not a lot of work for the CPU). Adding VP8 support would decrease battery life. Do you think Apple will introduce the next iPad and say: now 5 hours of video playback (instead of ten)? I do not see this happening at all.
There is a difference between open source and open standard. Open source software is generally free, H.264 is an open standard. The reason it is open is because it is not owned by any one company. H.264 is a collaberation between many different companies and organizations.
very true.
add to this that MPEG LA has waived the licensing fees for pretty much everyone until 2016 (and could waive them again or even drop them) and it is no shock that H.264 is so hot on the web etc
Within hours of the announcement. everyone is rushing to spread FUD about VP8 and come to H264's defense. A surefire way to keep Flash relevant for years to come. Adobe must be delighted. VP8 is the best way to kill Flash by avoiding a stalemate in the video codec wars.It's a little premature to declare it unfit to replace H264 as the standard for video encoding.
Adding VP8 support would decrease battery life. Do you think Apple will introduce the next iPad and say: now 5 hours of video playback (instead of ten)? I do not see this happening at all.
If all people did was watch video that might be an issue. I think video is a small fraction of the time people spend on the iPhone, so it's not a big issue there. I don't think the iPad is particularly good for video either - it's 9.7" SD screen becomes a lot smaller when watching widescreen video.
If all people did was watch video that might be an issue. I think video is a small fraction of the time people spend on the iPhone, so it's not a big issue there. I don't think the iPad is particularly good for video either - it's 9.7" SD screen becomes a lot smaller when watching widescreen video.
Well, I was flying back from Washington DC to Frankfurt yesterday and there were 8 iPads in business class (plus mine). Absolutely everybody was watching video whenever I passed them. I think 720p video on the iPad looks absolutely amazing and it is definitely as big as watching my 52" LCD from a normal distance (12" or so) at home (maybe even bigger).
Anyhow, it is not a question of being an issue or not. Apple advertises video play back times - and 10 hours of video IS a selling point compared to almost all laptops and netbooks. They won't allow that figure to go down and they will not support a "foreign" format, if it messes up their specs.
A developer of a competing technology says VP8 is a mess. LOL. In other news, Microsoft says Windows is better than OSX.
Well, he may have a bias but he is an expert in a technology that is pretty opaque to most people. (Me for certain) As such his observations and detailed comments can be looked at and checked for verification. A Windows programmer would be able to make a lot of interesting comments about the differences that OS X has and his opinions about them. And scientific results should be verifiable regardless of the bias of the checker.
We're not just getting a conclusion, we're getting a dissection with notes.
You're totally wrong. If Mozilla includes H.264 support in Firefox, then they can't distribute the source code. That means they can no longer operate as an open-source project.
So why couldn't they simply point people to a H.264 plugin. I mean that's how Microsoft is going to treat WebM in IE9, so they can distance themselves from any potential patent problems. And that's how I fully expect Apple to treat WebM on the Mac. With all of the extensions in Firefox, you're telling me that they couldn't add plugins for codecs?
As for their ideology, what about other patent encumbered codecs like GIF use to be? Mozilla has always supported them without trouble or ideological trauma. Is this a case of "getting some religion" because of those experiences? I fully appreciate their stance, but I think they come off as not open to a compromise that still respect their ideals.
Well, he may have a bias but he is an expert in a technology that is pretty opaque to most people. (Me for certain) As such his observations and detailed comments can be looked at and checked for verification. A Windows programmer would be able to make a lot of interesting comments about the differences that OS X has and his opinions about them. And scientific results should be verifiable regardless of the bias of the checker.
We're not just getting a conclusion, we're getting a dissection with notes.
Exactly. So far, to counter they call him spreading FUD, instead of dissecting the Assembly code of H.264 and it's many algorithms and comparing them to V8.
Let's see them.
As a mechanical engineer and computer scientist I don't trust gossip from web sites--I want to see the research.
"X264 developer says Google's new VP8 WebM codec is a mess"..... And in other news, Flash developer says HTML5 is a mess.
Within hours of the announcement. everyone is rushing to spread FUD about VP8 and come to H264's defense. A surefire way to keep Flash relevant for years to come. Adobe must be delighted. VP8 is the best way to kill Flash by avoiding a stalemate in the video codec wars.It's a little premature to declare it unfit to replace H264 as the standard for video encoding.
Okay firstly, do you have any specific refutations of Jason Garrett-Glaser's very technical review? Or are you just labeling it as FUD as a knee-jerk reaction? If you have any real expertise and can refute any of Jason's claims then I'm interested. Otherwise...
Secondly, how does this have anything to do with Flash? Flash can play both H.264 and WebM within its container. They just announced their support. Adobe is FINE with it.
Thirdly, this is the first time most people have been able to do more than speculate on VP8 and its suitability as a replacement. I don't think Jason was saying that it's totally unfit. He thinks it needs a lot of work, and fears that it will be targeted for patent violation. Google has declared that it's ready for use. So there will be no shakedown period. The spec is final. If Jason is in any way right then that's a problem.
So why couldn't they simply point people to a H.264 plugin. I mean that's how Microsoft is going to treat WebM in IE9, so they can distance themselves from any potential patent problems. And that's how I fully expect Apple to treat WebM on the Mac. With all of the extensions in Firefox, you're telling me that they couldn't add plugins for codecs?
Yeah, the H.264 codec is really only a problem for big companies who have to pay millions to integrate it and don't want to pay up. Like Mozilla.
Mozilla dev can simply forward the decoding on to a system decoder, like MPlayer or VLC.
I don't really see a switch from H.264 as there are way too many devices out there that hardware accelerate it. What Google could do is offer VP8 instead of Flash but alongside H.264. This will require people to upgrade to a non-IE browser if it's HTML 5 video.
Well, he may have a bias but he is an expert in a technology that is pretty opaque to most people. (Me for certain) As such his observations and detailed comments can be looked at and checked for verification. A Windows programmer would be able to make a lot of interesting comments about the differences that OS X has and his opinions about them. And scientific results should be verifiable regardless of the bias of the checker.
We're not just getting a conclusion, we're getting a dissection with notes.
I could "dissect" x264 and make it sound like crap too. If you do not have a detailed understanding of it, you would never know the difference. If a "neutral" party does the dissection it is worth a look, but this guy most certainly has a strong bias, which makes his points irrelevant unless verified or backed up with independent investigation.
On a desktop/laptop maybe. On an iPhone/iPod/iPad: no. H.264 is supported by hardware decoders, Motion-JPEG (the other format supported on the iPad, and maybe the next iPhone) uses no complex compression (files are rather huge, but there is not a lot of work for the CPU). Adding VP8 support would decrease battery life. Do you think Apple will introduce the next iPad and say: now 5 hours of video playback (instead of ten)? I do not see this happening at all.
I'm not arguing that - and have no way of knowing if VP8 is any good or not.
My point is that if VP8 is any good, there's nothing to stop Apple from supporting it. If h264 is better, Apple can support that. Apple can support both, if they wish. If Billy Bob's Magic Software Coding comes out with another codec that's better than either, Apple can support that. Or all of them.
It just doesn't matter to Apple one way or another.
A host of other companies are also collaborating on the project. Of particular importance are companies like AMD, ARM, NVIDIA, and Qualcomm. Google is working with these companies to get WebM acceleration built into hardware on as broad a range of devices as possible; having a broad range of GPU and embedded CPU manufacturers on board will greatly aid that effort.
Even without hardware acceleration, Google claims that low-end hardware will still perform well with WebM.
Nightly builds of Mozilla and Chromium (the open source project used for development of Chrome) will include WebM support starting today. The Chrome early access release dev channel will include WebM support as of May 24. A beta of Opera with WebM support is also available.
WebM support in Android is expected in Q4 2010, and Broadcom announced today that its motion video acceleration solution for mobile phones, VideoCore, should gain WebM support by Q3 2010.
Adobe is also on board. The company will incorporate WebM support into Flash, and Adobe CTO Kevin Lynch said that the company wants to deliver WebM support to "a billion" users within a year.
Flash support is particularly valuable, as it negates one of H.264's current practical advantages: the same compressed H.264 video can be served to users via both Flash and HTML5 video. This allows sites to target non-Flash devices alongside Flash-enabled ones without having to encode their video files twice.
A browser that supports WebM content isn't much use if there's no WebM content to play, and Google has that covered too. Anyone opting into YouTube's HTML5 front-end will be able to use WebM for video playback by appending "&webm=1" to the URL.
For content creators, patches for the open source FFmpeg encoder/decoder were released today, as were filters for use with Microsoft's DirectShow framework. Installing these filters will enable WebM support in a wide range of audio/video applications on Windows, including Windows Media Player, as well as third-party software such as Media Player Classic.
There is literally no excuse for Apple not to embrace WebM. Then again, there's no excuse for Apple not fixing their 5 year old H.264 video export color conversion bug, either, but that simple fix has yet to come.
The H.264 problem is well documented. AI readers: please read up on it.
I fully understand the significance for web video and the future of the internet.
The problem is this reads like an attack article: Google dared come out with a rival to the iPhone so lets start posting negative articles about them.
I read the article and it was showing the perspective from a person who had been critical of Apple's H.264 and was stating his opinion on Google's VP8 WebM and its user-ability at the moment compared to H.264, which this person was not overly praising ( I mean the H.264)
Personally as long as VP8 WebM can be supported and does not interfere with Apple's development plans for future iPhone/OS improvements, then it should be no skin off Apple's back. If on the other hand it is a Adobe approach and half hearted attempt to support iPhone, then NO please.
I could "dissect" x264 and make it sound like crap too. If you do not have a detailed understanding of it, you would never know the difference. If a "neutral" party does the dissection it is worth a look, but this guy most certainly has a strong bias, which makes his points irrelevant unless verified or backed up with independent investigation.
Hence why I said, "And scientific results should be verifiable regardless of the bias of the checker."
However I wouldn't place his bias as strong enough to poison everything he says. He is a developer in an open source project and a contributor to ffmpeg. And if you read his previous post on the subject when all he could do is speculate, he gives a pretty even-handed overview of the situation and points out all of the pragmatic points.
Flash, Google, VP8, and the future of internet video
http://x264dev.multimedia.cx/?p=292
There is a comment made by a member of Xiph (which have their opposite bias) that helps give some perspective on it. He basically says that "the devil is in the details" about the patent infringement, meaning that they are similar but subtly different. On the code and spec, he seems to agree so there you go.
http://xiphmont.livejournal.com/5023...135231#t135231
It would have been nice if Google had opened it up for the video developers to help clean things up, but that's not how they decided to roll. The spec is frozen. Hey Google, what happened to being truly "open"?
Yeah, the H.264 codec is really only a problem for big companies who have to pay millions to integrate it and don't want to pay up. Like Mozilla.
Mozilla dev can simply forward the decoding on to a system decoder, like MPlayer or VLC.
I don't really see a switch from H.264 as there are way too many devices out there that hardware accelerate it. What Google could do is offer VP8 instead of Flash but alongside H.264. This will require people to upgrade to a non-IE browser if it's HTML 5 video.
Well, Adobe has stated that Flash will support WebM so it could just be the backend video that gets changed and Flash would take care of older browsers as well. And Microsoft has stated that IE9 will support it with a plugin. Of course that still means that all IE users will need to upgrade to the latest version or use Flash. Personally, I don't feel that Microsoft is pushing them hard enough and the web is hurting because of legacy support.
Google better keep supporting H.264. Even if WebM replaces H.264 in many use cases like YouTube, we're not there yet and they shouldn't force everyone to upgrade their devices right now to get there.
Exactly. So far, to counter they call him spreading FUD, instead of dissecting the Assembly code of H.264 and it's many algorithms and comparing them to V8.
Let's see them.
As a mechanical engineer and computer scientist I don't trust gossip from web sites--I want to see the research.
I agree sir. And in the interest of that debate, there is a comment from the "opposite" side at Xiph.
http://xiphmont.livejournal.com/5023...135231#t135231
He seems to say that the specs are similar but subtly different in the details, so wouldn't be infringing. On the spec being "imprecise, unclear, and overly short, leaving many portions of the format very vaguely explained" he replies:
"Sadly, he's correct about this. We can fix the spec and write a good one after the fact, but this leaves up in the air how many bugs are undiscovered because no one documented the hard parts (so no one else could check them). Tim's been pouring over the code for weeks already and has caught a few such instances, I don't think any were major.
That said, despite Google's claim that things are already frozen, I'm sure that if a showstopper popped up they'd change their minds. I don't think there are any showstoppers. What we'll probably find in the future are instances of 'aw, geez, it would have been nice to change that if it wasn't too late.' We have some amount of experience dealing with that from Theora :-)"
And to give some perspective to this, Jason had almost two days to review VP8 and the people at Xiph had "weeks" and qualify that "Some design chunks look very similar even to the trained eye..." So I believe that Jason isn't practicing any intentional bias in this debate.
The CEO's of Google, MS, Dell, Sony, HP have the Walmart business model. Which is design and make 'crap' as cheaply as possible, sell it as cheaply as possible and 'hope' they sell a lot of crap to a lot of people.
Seemingly, you know nothing about the products produced and sold by these companies.