Steve Jobs says no to Google's VP8 WebM codec - Page 2

Great! Let's begin with those horribly over-used terms like "meme" and "paradigm" that no one seems able to use correctly. Then let's go back to "dimensions" instead of "form factor" (what other factors are involved?) and financial analysts' use of "guidance" instead of "forecast."

And last, but certainly not least, let's consign "ecosystem" to the landfill when used to describe a particular product or designer's sphere of influence.

So, IP3 it is! Let's get on the bandwagon.

That's my point. I don't see me developing to this codec when the problem is solved by OS or flash which is already installed. As to mobile I want to work on windows 7, iPhone os and android. Do I need this technology for that?

But...but...Asherian is a Republican; how can this Gordian knot be untied?

It's not clear to me that Mozilla would need to pay anything if it only used h.264 decoders that come bundled with the OS. If Mozilla wanted to go the whole 9 yards, though, $5M per year shouldn't be insurmountable from donations.

Here is an official summary of the h.264 license terms:
http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/...rmsSummary.pdf

They only need to pay the license if they want to support an operating system that doesn't support h264 playback.

Mozilla is doing this for ideological reasons only. It is nice when standards could be based on publicly owned IP, but it is clear that isn't really a big option here. VP8 is so close to h264 encoding that there will most likely be patent lawsuits on companies supporting VP8 (including on Mozilla). Publicly owned IP makes sense for something like HTML (because there are many ways to do page layout), but video encoding and playback is a much narrower field so I don't think Public IP will ever work in this case.

Personally I think it is suicide for Mozilla not to support h264. Promoting an ideological idea is great, but it is not worth sacrificing market share for. Rather then blocking h264, they should work with Google to promote VP8.

Currently Mozilla earns 75,000,000 per year on Firefox. They would save more money by spending 5,000,000 to create a library that could be used by open source operating systems and keep that 75 million flowing in. Most likely the library would have to force the end user to agree to a (free) sublicense, but I don't really know the legal details here. They could still promote VP8. This isn't a one way street.

A more likely outcome of not supporting h264, is supporting it indirectly through Flash. This will just help something even more proprietary (Flash) stick around. Unlike flash, h264 does allow for implementation competition. Web sites could target h264 HTML5 video and h264 in a flash wrapper so they would only need to encode to one format.

I see you are dominating the thread again, spewing all this vitriol and propaganda, and then taking the author to task for doing what you yourself are so skilled at.

- You say it's "live now and it looks great," implying that it's already a done deal and ready for prime-time, but in fact you have to download a build of an unreleased product to even see it.

- You say the author "demonstrably doesn't know what he's talking about" by implying that he said VP8 can't do HD when in fact he didn't actually say that at all.

- You talk about VP8 doing "HD" when you know the the stream is highly compressed and barely worthy of the name.

- You quote big numbers in terms of the cash Mozilla would have to pay to support H.264, but don't give any reference, and worse, don't compare it to the actual revenue Mozilla makes. Even if your numbers are accurate, 5 million is a lot of money to an individual but hardly a drop in the bucket for a large concern like Mozilla.

When it comes to threads on video codecs, you are the biggest propaganda machine I've ever seen. Seems to me you've got a lot of nerve referring to anyone else's posts as "propaganda" or implying that others are twisting the truth to their own ends.

Pot, meet Kettle.

*facepalms* Bad move, Steve. At least after writing that Flash article.

I don't see the world jumping on VP8 until there are HW decoders. Even if it was better codec than H.264 without that integral part added to all HW it's dead in the water.

Mozilla doesn't have to do anything with H.264 and Firefox users can still get their browser to play back H.264 videos. Either an x264 plugin designed by users or using the OS' H.264 implementation. I figure the former will happen first.

I see Google clearly trying to make a longterm play for the future of the web but the shirt term goal is just going to lead to confusion. We had people that expected LightPeak on the last Mac releases and LTE iPhone last year so I'm sure we'll get people expecting more "miracles" to happen on this front, too.

In a few years is where this VP8 gets interesting. It will have a chance to get mature, to get all the number crinkles ironed out and potentially give MPEG-LA a scare that makes H.264 cost free for all browsers and sites that wish to use it. This is what I think is Google's play here. They want H.264 to become free and are using a slightly inferior free codec to force their hand. If not, then they'll have codec that is 6 years more mature to fallback back on. it's a win-win situation for them.


PS: I also expect patent lawsuits to pop up regarding VP8.

Well, it wasn't quality or compression. It wasn't that it was worried about the encumberment of MPEG LA, because it knew damn well that this will attract lots of lawsuits. If they were so worried about Firefox, I'm sure they could have licensed it in perpetuity for way less than $131 million, which is what they paid for the "unemcumbered" VP*. Part of it is a completely retrograde way to keep Flash in the game.

Think back to before Macs could play less than a third of web video. You could play Real and Windows Media, up to a point only. When the "Advanced" Windows Media 9 came out, we were left alone. Only Flash could fill in the gaps, so that websites would only have to post one version for all. Well, for mobiles, that sucks. Much faster (and simpler) is HTML 5 (open) and the H.264 codec. See, if you standardize, things work very well with video. The codec is completely scalable, from Blu-ray video to the smallest of web video. Same codec.

So, if they wanted to help, they would have just paid Firefox's royalties. Much cheaper than unleashing this crap and confusion on the net. Why? Well, they're following Sony's rules: if you make a new format, you build yourself a world all to yourself. And, wonderfully, magically, this is "free!" Good advertising word, that.

regardless what you think. WebM is still "closed" in the sense that it is controlled by Google. Google will always have the final say about what happens to it, unlike H264 which is controlled by a standard body.

No it's not it's only a trick of the brain.

You might want to take a look at a (reputable) poll or two.

When it starts to bother you, just remember: There is no spoon.

In other words, PR Agents are everywhere Neo. Ignore the writer in the red dress.

Google spent over $100 million to buy On2, in order to give VP8 away. I think it's a legitimate question to ask how much money they would have needed to pay to MPEG LA to cover all of their probable royalty revenues, in order to make H264 effectively unencumbered.

$100M wouldn't scratch the surface of buying them off. Some members of the consortium might not want to be bought out at any price, if they feared the level playing field it created would completely undermine their business model.

You must be a Google employee or supporter. You try to present Google as a humanitarian company when in fact Google is evil. Google tries to undermine other companies' businesses buy giving out crapy illegal imitations in order to make a buck selling advertising. Google is in the process of destroying itself by poorly imitating everybody else for a buck in advertising. This model will not work. Google needs to innovate.

speaking of quality...

http://doom10.org/compare/vp8.png
http://doom10.org/compare/x264.png
http://doom10.org/compare/x264baseline.png
http://doom10.org/compare/xvid.png

Comparing h.264 and VP8 to GIF and PNG isn't quite an accurate comparison.

GIF was already supported by every browser and in wide use before PNG even became a possibility. h.264 is only supported by 13% of the browsers on the Internet, so it has hardly become ubiquitous.

I don't think anyone will argue that VP8 is technically superior to h.264, but we need some sort of format that doesn't have license fees associated with it if it is supposed to be adopted across all browsers.

Articles here are nothing more than a mean to make Apple fanboys feel all warm and fuzzy. The title has nothing to do with the article. The Article itself rambles on with false information. I feel sorry for the people who don't know any better and actually buy into this crap.

The heading of this article suggests that Apple can and will keep Safari/QuickTime from supporting the V8 codec.

But Jobs *allegedly* only referred to a critical article as reflecting his opinion on V8.

To me this suggests that "Apple thinks Google's V8 video codec is flawed and risky" would be a way more appropriate heading.

Especially since a heading like the current, copied to sites like Macsurfer and the likes, will make many people think that Apple will be treating WebM like Flash, which I think would cause unneccessary PR problems for Apple.


Moreover:
It might be time for AI to take alleged mails from Jobs a bit less seriously. You guys are making it seem like the CEO of America's 3rd largest company's first responsibility is to answer customer mails 24/7...

yes, that is precisely the problem... with all but the MPEG LA group. MPEG LA is a known quantity. Who is complaining about mpeg2 video for DVD's, mp4 video, mp3 audio, aac audio? Codecs used within them will always come and go. but H.264 is the official codec put together by this known group of technologists (this same group that we have happily relied on for other adopted and proven technologies). They are pushing the envelope; they want to be unencumbered by rogue patent trolls; they are pooling their efforts; and their efforts are producing good results that need to generate some return.

Likely, the licensing fees will always remain reasonable because the MPEG group will want to keep a simple, sustained and useable framework.

As was pointed out in the article about GIF, it is the supposedly free technologies that become the pool of uncertainty after they are widely adopted. Why would you want to jump into that pool of uncertainty when you don't have to? What for? For a less capable and less mature technology that has to navigate around the MPEG patents anyway? (and whatever other unknown ones are there ready to spring up). It is the MPEG group that are proving the value of their research and breakthroughs, and they are not sitting in an ivory tower somewhere.

Google does not appear to have done its due diligence on this and they are ostensibly jumping on the "Freedom" bandwagon when their record shows them to be less concerned about private data and freedoms than others, such as Apple for one (who are going to protect data going to advertisers as much as possible and whose computers don't phone home or make you verify your software every other minute).

In this type of situation, Apple's motivations are usually patently clear, whether you agree with them or not. Google on the other hand, seems to reveal itself as the murkier pool of uncertainty by the minute.

Please don't cite OSNews, unless you're Thom and you're shilling for it.

There will be a revote on all Members holding the patents who originally voted to not charge until 2016.

It is in their best interest to continue not charging, but Google and rags like OSNews are spreading fear and uncertainty to drive Google's aim of gaining favored status amongst the Publishing and Motion Picture Industry.

It will never happen.

I think Apple cares more about quality (for the end user and for their own artistic integrity) than the "open" ideology.

If Steve Jobs forwards an article about the poor quality of something, there is no reason not to take him at face value.

Right, because Google had the final say when a small group ported Android to the Intel architecture. Anyway, WebM's license grants VP8's patent rights, and Vorbis is already open anyway. Making it possible to use without charge or permission.

"Note that x264 is an open source project for encoding H.264 compliant video. It has no inherent bias in promoting the H.264 specification over VP8"

MAKE ME LAUGH!

Without videos in H.264 format, x264 and Garrett-Glaser "work" is useless.
Without H.264 being the almighty standard... his work is USELESS.
Sorry, Mr. Garrett-Glaser... but why don't you embrace WebM and support the future of the Web?

Mr. Garrett-Glaser HAS inherit bias in promoting the H.264 specification over VP8.

Steve Jobs is the new Bill Gates... same kind of actions and style.
Apple and Open Web? LOL!

Is that the same Android that Microsoft licenses?

It'll probably end up being at least as patent encumbered as Og.

For example (via Gruber): MPEG-LA Considering Patent Pool for VP8/WebM

Clearly, there's more uncertainty around using VP8/WebM than there is around H.264 as far as costs go, since the costs are now hidden and include possible legal fees.

I don't see this as a boon for Mozilla at all, if anything, it's just another detour into an Og-like dead-end that leads to nothing but Firefox's irrelevance. Maybe that's the ultimate goal here: sideline Firefox by giving them false hope that there is a viable, free alternative to H.264, while Google quietly eats away at their market share with Chrome. After all, from Google's perspective, the only reason for Firefox's existence is to provide a cross-platform platform that Google apps and services are guaranteed to run on, so that neither Microsoft or Apple can cut them off at the knees. Now that they have Chrome running on multiple platforms, they don't really have a use for Firefox for much longer, and, from Google's point of view, it would be better to migrate these users to Chrome anyway.

and Adobe payback This could get uglier than the Flash thing. Imagine...No WebM? Well no YT for you!

Google and Apple seem to have many reasons these days to not cooperate in fact quite the reverse and I cannot help but wonder how long it will be before Google cease or close down many features or products that are great for Apple users. I have to think Apple are working hard to have replacements should this start happening. The optimist in me hopes Google and Apple prefer to remain friendly adversaries and this won't come to pass. I am trying hard to think what Apple has that Google would like to continue but can't think of anything other than their presence to help fend of anti-trust and monopoly issues... Oh I know one ... an ad revenue stream which iAd is about to undermine! Oh dear!

The same guy said NO to Blu as well.

New Mac and Windows computers come with licenses. Mozilla will not need a license for these platforms.

Linux is the only issue.

Why? Steve didn't say Apple would never support it, he simply directed the correspondent to a web site which discussed the issue. Apple may be undecided on whether to support it, but suggesting that available information says that it's not so great.


Agreed. A 'standard' controlled by Google is no better than a 'standard' controlled by Adobe.

If this new codec turns out to be any good, Apple can support it. They didn't say anything that would preclude that.


The problem is that WebM's license doesn't give them the right to give a license to patents they don't own. If patent holders decide that this codec infringes their patents, they can sue regardless of what Google says.

Now, if Google wants to INDEMNIFY users against patent suits, that would be a different matter -but they haven't offered to do that. I wonder why.

That would be a fair analogy, the only difference would be Republicans don't create anything, they only destroy

Apple didn't say anything *at all*!

All that this article is really proving is that Dilger has forgotten to take his daily anti hysterical spinning spree pills.

I am Canadian. I believe in freedom, something Americans gave up some time ago with the DMCA.

Uh, what?

Somebody is claiming that VP8 doesn't support/work well with HD...the fact that HD video is online that anyone can freely check out is a valid point to make. Stop whining and go check it out rather than pointing fingers at me and calling me names.


Interesting how I didn't say that either. He doesn't know what he's talking about because he said it doesn't lend itself well to HD or something like that.


HD implies resolution. If the author meant something else, he used the wrong term and, again, didn't know what he was talking about.


You can figure out how to find the reference. It's all over the internet. Mozilla has even talked about it themselves. I've got no time to baby you with it.

Your excuse is it's small money to a company that gives its only product away. I'll let that speak for itself.


I've got no stake in any codec. I just need to deal with them. Nothing I've said is propaganda, you just don't want to hear reality.

h264 is of slightly superior quality to WebM, but it is expensive with uncertain royalties in 2016.

If the terms of use of h.264 change suddenly, I will just convert all my videos to something else. But there is no evidence this will happen.

yes, well so are moving pictures, regardless of their codec.

+1

Just like the spectrum auction. Not everything Google does is for direct and immediate benefit. Sometime they do things just to force openness, which benefits them in the long run. It's very possible that they did this just to force H.264 to remain free or keep the costs very low.

If you are putting it that way, mpeg1 can do HD also. It just doesn't do very well, that's all.