It's people like McLean we need less of. If it was people like McLean that invented the internet it wouldn't be the internet.
You mean people like Andressen and Bina that stole U of Illinios IP, started Netscape, closed the source, and had to do a multi-million out of court settlement?
Edit: this is slightly off-topic since the article is about a standard codec for HTML5's <video> tag
This post clearly outs Ogg as having no use, while H264 is technically superior in almost every way (especially hardware acceleration as mentioned), While I do agree H264 is superior this does not mean Ogg is useless.
What's the hurt in apple supporting H264 AND Ogg ?
Google was mentioned plenty in this article yet no mention that chrome already supports Ogg Theora!!
Google engineers might not want to run the youtube backend using it, but at least they support it.
Saying Microsoft is a standards-demon is an understatement, but Apple's track record does not exactly scream rainbow unicorns either.
I for one am thankfull safari does not have a huge market share, making the only browsers so far that will not support Ogg Theora Internet exploder and Safari.
And a gigantic number of IE users will most certainly get 3rd-party Ogg Theora support through a plugin should Wikimedia continue its current path in the long run.
(on wikipedia: want to see this video? click here to install the Ogg Theora plugin!)
Regardless of how this turns out, there most likely will be a non-royalty video codec supported in the long run simply because small developers/open source have a need for it. Be it Ogg Theora or something else.
1. The article said, "Mozilla's entire Firefox business model revolves around Google paying it around $50 million a year to direct search queries its way." I might ask, whose search do we see in the Safari toolbar?
How is that relevant? The point is that Mozilla will have zero business the day Google decides that Chrome doesn't need a Firefox stepbrother. If Google pulled out of Safari, the browser would still be supported by Apple's billions of hardware sales.
Quote:
Originally Posted by fjpoblam
2. In this whole affair, is not Apple's firm stand, refusing to negotiate on ANY terms, as obstructionist as Microsoft?
Had you considered the points raised, you'd realize that Apple shouldn't "negotiate" the use of an obsolete codec that is incompatible with the mobile future of the web. Using a word like "obstructionist" only seeks to inflame emotions. There is no logical, technical reason for designating Ogg Theora as the official codec of HTML 5. All it can possibly do is derail HTML 5 and open the door for Silverlight to assume to role of Flash in keeping video completely closed.
Quote:
Originally Posted by fjpoblam
Please oh please read the OTHER specs of HTML5. It, along with CSS3, offers huge performance benefits, website accessibility gains, and other good, for website visitors (and might I add, for website developers, of which I am one - admitted conflict of interest). To have the browser manufacturers disagree and delay HTML5 implementation well into the teens or twentys is a true heartbreak.
The only people worried about HTML 5 not being here for another ten years are Microsoft Silverlight flacks and those they have convinced with their rhetoric about how browsers won't support HTML 5 until 2020 despite the fact that modern (non-IE) browsers already support much of the standard.
Let me inject some reality into your fantasy world. Low-cost/thin laptops, netbooks, UMPC, MIDs, and smartphones don't have the processing power to decode high quality and especially HD video. Even if they did, software decoding is very inefficient and uses too much power.
Because of this, all of these mobile device platforms have hardware decoding logic built in to their chipsets or system-on-a-chip. These hardware decoders are fixed in function, with the vast majority of them supporting MPEG4/H264 and WMV/VC-1, and many supporting MPEG-2. NONE of them support Theora and they cannot be simply modified via software to do so.
Likewise, all of the major ARM system-on-a-chip manufacturers create the architecture and components for future chips years in advance, and none of them support Theora. They are not going to go modify their next-generation components just to support an odd-ball video codec. And even if future powerful netbooks/MIDs/PMPs/Smartphones using high powered ARM and Intel Atom processors can get a decent framerate with high-bitrate/HD theora video, they will be wasting a ton of power pegging the CPU and the rest of the system will be unresponsive.
Considering one of the major reasons for creating HTML5 video was to remove the requirement of the Flash player for online video ---- which most mobile devices either can't run because of processor limitations or unsupported platforms -- It is simply ridiculous to suggest using Theora which completely negates that advantage.
In summary, if Theora gets adopted as the standard, native HTML 5 video becomes COMPLETELY WORTHLESS to the tens of millions of mobile devices out there.
This.
It seems to me every other argument fades to insignificance, given the installed user base using .264 hardware acceleration. I mean, really, is there any point in discussing it further?
Mobile video is the future of online video, if not its present. H264 efficiency is being built into every mobile device on the planet. Hence, H264 is the future of online video, regardless of what putative standards are adopted.
Content providers can put up all the Ogg Theora material they want, when it chokes on your mobile you'll go elsewhere. And by "you" I mean "everybody."
How is that relevant? The point is that Mozilla will have zero business the day Google decides that Chrome doesn't need a Firefox stepbrother. If Google pulled out of Safari, the browser would still be supported by Apple's billions of hardware sales.
Had you considered the points raised, you'd realize that Apple shouldn't "negotiate" the use of an obsolete codec that is incompatible with the mobile future of the web. Using a word like "obstructionist" only seeks to inflame emotions. There is no logical, technical reason for designating Ogg Theora as the official codec of HTML 5. All it can possibly do is derail HTML 5 and open the door for Silverlight to assume to role of Flash in keeping video completely closed.
The only people worried about HTML 5 not being here for another ten years are Microsoft Silverlight flacks and those they have convinced with their rhetoric about how browsers won't support HTML 5 until 2020 despite the fact that modern (non-IE) browsers already support much of the standard.
I suppose "obstructionist" is more inflamatory than "flacks" and "rhetoric", so excuse me, I'm sure. And Apple's survival on hardware, without Google's investment in Safari software, is assured. I'm sure most modern browsers support the semantic advances of html5 (<header>, <article>, <aside>, <footer>, <h>, etc.) with which you are so obviously familiar. So I withdraw my hasty conclusions!
Mozilla is not a "business like any other." Mozilla is a public benefit, non-profit organization whose only purpose is to advance the open web. If users can't use their data however they want because of licensing problems, then it's not really an Open web, now is it?
Of course It's only reason for being is open web standards.
Mozilla's entire Firefox business model revolves around Google paying it around $50 million a year to direct search queries its way.
Edit: this is slightly off-topic since the article is about a standard codec for HTML5's <video> tag
This post clearly outs Ogg as having no use, while H264 is technically superior in almost every way (especially hardware acceleration as mentioned), While I do agree H264 is superior this does not mean Ogg is useless.
What's the hurt in apple supporting H264 AND Ogg ?
Google was mentioned plenty in this article yet no mention that chrome already supports Ogg Theora!!
Google engineers might not want to run the youtube backend using it, but at least they support it.
Saying Microsoft is a standards-demon is an understatement, but Apple's track record does not exactly scream rainbow unicorns either.
I for one am thankfull safari does not have a huge market share, making the only browsers so far that will not support Ogg Theora Internet exploder and Safari.
And a gigantic number of IE users will most certainly get 3rd-party Ogg Theora support through a plugin should Wikimedia continue its current path in the long run.
(on wikipedia: want to see this video? click here to install the Ogg Theora plugin!)
Regardless of how this turns out, there most likely will be a non-royalty video codec supported in the long run simply because small developers/open source have a need for it. Be it Ogg Theora or something else.
So in the end, I'm not worried
Apple had hardware accelerated H.264 in their smartphones and desktop. They don't have that in Ogg and since Apple helped craft H.264/MPEG4 with QuickTime, what benefit does Apple receive from the FOSS community for pushing that dated spec?
STFU, Mozilla & Opera. Use the libs that VLC is using and quit whining.
NO video codec should be "blessed" or deemed "official" by W3C, the same way that no image format is.
You're correct. With the W3 ending XHTML 2 development to focus on HTML 5 just announced today it's quite clear that they will make sure there is no endorsed VIDEO or IMG format.
"No offense but the article is biased - at best. Apple's push is completely driven by the iTunes eco-system, it's business driven, Apple is a business, don't start telling us they became philanthropic overnight! The debate is not Ogg vs h264 or anything else. The debate is about embracing an open standard so that content can be displayed seamlessly, on any device. Ogg may not be the best answer, but Apple's position is definitely one of the worst and one of the most biased, whether you like it or not!"
H.264 is an open standard, its not owned by Apple, its not owned by anyone. The difference is that you have to pay a license for its use, while Theora doesn't. The reason Apple is supporting it is because they genuinely believe it is the best codec. What do you feel is wrong that?
A quote from an article I saw: "100x more effort is being put into improving h.264 than will ever be put into OGG Theora."
Quote:
Originally Posted by tsirko
"No offense but the article is biased - at best. Apple's push is completely driven by the iTunes eco-system, it's business driven, Apple is a business, don't start telling us they became philanthropic overnight! The debate is not Ogg vs h264 or anything else. The debate is about embracing an open standard so that content can be displayed seamlessly, on any device. Ogg may not be the best answer, but Apple's position is definitely one of the worst and one of the most biased, whether you like it or not!"
It's thousands of kilometres away but I'm positive that I can hear Adobe laughing their asses off over this decision. Gee, I can already see the tough decisions content providers will have to make: a) Drop Flash for <video> and automatically alienate hundreds of million of users and possibly, pay for extra storage space to accommodate for various video formats and suffer from extra CPU cycles for various cross encoding procedures or b) keep Flash and thus retain a 99 percent market penetration without any OS or browser dependencies. Really, I can see their heads smoking.
Firefox has 20% market share in desktops. The fastest growth is in mobile devices where Firefox has next to no market share.
Growth means nothing without actual numbers. If my mobile users base increases from one to two persons I have a growth of 100 percent. Compare that to the growth of 50 percent when the desktop user base increases from one billion to one and a half. This example is purposefully far-fetched as to demonstrate the difficulties with such claims.
Growth means nothing without actual numbers. If my mobile users base increases from one to two persons I have a growth of 100 percent. Compare that to the growth of 50 percent when the desktop user base increases from one billion to one and a half. This example is purposefully far-fetched as to demonstrate the difficulties with such claims.
There are 40M+ iPhones/iPod Touches. 139M smartphones were sold in 2008. 36M smartphones sold in Q1 2009. 3.9M iPhones in Q1 2009.
Yes, lets pick a particularly stupid example when you can simply google for real numbers. There are zero difficulties in determining the growth rate of smartphones. Smart phones sales up 12.7% despite an 8% dip in total phone sales.
That's completely ignoring the PMP market and PS/DS handheld game markets with video.
There are 40M+ iPhones/iPod Touches. 139M smartphones were sold in 2008. 36M smartphones sold in Q1 2009. 3.9M iPhones in Q1 2009.
How many of these are replacement units for defect/dated models? How many can actually play H.264 videos for real (storage space, sufficient bandwidth, processing power etc.)? What profiles are supported? And how does this compare to over 1 billion desktop users?
Quote:
Yes, lets pick a particularly stupid example when you can simply google for real numbers
I should try this with my next term paper. Instead of adding footnotes and a bibliography I'll just add "Go read it up in the library yourself if you need proof!". But I forgot, this is the Internet where it's obviously the responsibility of the reader to look up numbers instead of the one doing claims providing them. \
Quote:
That's completely ignoring the PMP market and PS/DS handheld game markets with video
I'm sure the DS can download and play H.264 or Theora files with no problem.
Comments
It's people like McLean we need less of. If it was people like McLean that invented the internet it wouldn't be the internet.
You mean people like Andressen and Bina that stole U of Illinios IP, started Netscape, closed the source, and had to do a multi-million out of court settlement?
Yah, okay.
To have the browser manufacturers disagree and delay HTML5 implementation well into the teens or twentys is a true heartbreak.
The point of dropping codec requirements is to not delay HTML5 and have a spec that everyone is willing to implement. <video> remains.
This post clearly outs Ogg as having no use, while H264 is technically superior in almost every way (especially hardware acceleration as mentioned), While I do agree H264 is superior this does not mean Ogg is useless.
What's the hurt in apple supporting H264 AND Ogg ?
Google was mentioned plenty in this article yet no mention that chrome already supports Ogg Theora!!
Google engineers might not want to run the youtube backend using it, but at least they support it.
Saying Microsoft is a standards-demon is an understatement, but Apple's track record does not exactly scream rainbow unicorns either.
I for one am thankfull safari does not have a huge market share, making the only browsers so far that will not support Ogg Theora Internet exploder and Safari.
And a gigantic number of IE users will most certainly get 3rd-party Ogg Theora support through a plugin should Wikimedia continue its current path in the long run.
(on wikipedia: want to see this video? click here to install the Ogg Theora plugin!)
Regardless of how this turns out, there most likely will be a non-royalty video codec supported in the long run simply because small developers/open source have a need for it. Be it Ogg Theora or something else.
So in the end, I'm not worried
(...and I agree with JavaCowboy's post)
1. The article said, "Mozilla's entire Firefox business model revolves around Google paying it around $50 million a year to direct search queries its way." I might ask, whose search do we see in the Safari toolbar?
How is that relevant? The point is that Mozilla will have zero business the day Google decides that Chrome doesn't need a Firefox stepbrother. If Google pulled out of Safari, the browser would still be supported by Apple's billions of hardware sales.
2. In this whole affair, is not Apple's firm stand, refusing to negotiate on ANY terms, as obstructionist as Microsoft?
Had you considered the points raised, you'd realize that Apple shouldn't "negotiate" the use of an obsolete codec that is incompatible with the mobile future of the web. Using a word like "obstructionist" only seeks to inflame emotions. There is no logical, technical reason for designating Ogg Theora as the official codec of HTML 5. All it can possibly do is derail HTML 5 and open the door for Silverlight to assume to role of Flash in keeping video completely closed.
Please oh please read the OTHER specs of HTML5. It, along with CSS3, offers huge performance benefits, website accessibility gains, and other good, for website visitors (and might I add, for website developers, of which I am one - admitted conflict of interest). To have the browser manufacturers disagree and delay HTML5 implementation well into the teens or twentys is a true heartbreak.
The only people worried about HTML 5 not being here for another ten years are Microsoft Silverlight flacks and those they have convinced with their rhetoric about how browsers won't support HTML 5 until 2020 despite the fact that modern (non-IE) browsers already support much of the standard.
Let me inject some reality into your fantasy world. Low-cost/thin laptops, netbooks, UMPC, MIDs, and smartphones don't have the processing power to decode high quality and especially HD video. Even if they did, software decoding is very inefficient and uses too much power.
Because of this, all of these mobile device platforms have hardware decoding logic built in to their chipsets or system-on-a-chip. These hardware decoders are fixed in function, with the vast majority of them supporting MPEG4/H264 and WMV/VC-1, and many supporting MPEG-2. NONE of them support Theora and they cannot be simply modified via software to do so.
Likewise, all of the major ARM system-on-a-chip manufacturers create the architecture and components for future chips years in advance, and none of them support Theora. They are not going to go modify their next-generation components just to support an odd-ball video codec. And even if future powerful netbooks/MIDs/PMPs/Smartphones using high powered ARM and Intel Atom processors can get a decent framerate with high-bitrate/HD theora video, they will be wasting a ton of power pegging the CPU and the rest of the system will be unresponsive.
Considering one of the major reasons for creating HTML5 video was to remove the requirement of the Flash player for online video ---- which most mobile devices either can't run because of processor limitations or unsupported platforms -- It is simply ridiculous to suggest using Theora which completely negates that advantage.
In summary, if Theora gets adopted as the standard, native HTML 5 video becomes COMPLETELY WORTHLESS to the tens of millions of mobile devices out there.
This.
It seems to me every other argument fades to insignificance, given the installed user base using .264 hardware acceleration. I mean, really, is there any point in discussing it further?
Mobile video is the future of online video, if not its present. H264 efficiency is being built into every mobile device on the planet. Hence, H264 is the future of online video, regardless of what putative standards are adopted.
Content providers can put up all the Ogg Theora material they want, when it chokes on your mobile you'll go elsewhere. And by "you" I mean "everybody."
STFU, Mozilla & Opera. Use the libs that VLC is using and quit whining.
NO video codec should be "blessed" or deemed "official" by W3C, the same way that no image format is.
How is that relevant? The point is that Mozilla will have zero business the day Google decides that Chrome doesn't need a Firefox stepbrother. If Google pulled out of Safari, the browser would still be supported by Apple's billions of hardware sales.
Had you considered the points raised, you'd realize that Apple shouldn't "negotiate" the use of an obsolete codec that is incompatible with the mobile future of the web. Using a word like "obstructionist" only seeks to inflame emotions. There is no logical, technical reason for designating Ogg Theora as the official codec of HTML 5. All it can possibly do is derail HTML 5 and open the door for Silverlight to assume to role of Flash in keeping video completely closed.
The only people worried about HTML 5 not being here for another ten years are Microsoft Silverlight flacks and those they have convinced with their rhetoric about how browsers won't support HTML 5 until 2020 despite the fact that modern (non-IE) browsers already support much of the standard.
I suppose "obstructionist" is more inflamatory than "flacks" and "rhetoric", so excuse me, I'm sure. And Apple's survival on hardware, without Google's investment in Safari software, is assured. I'm sure most modern browsers support the semantic advances of html5 (<header>, <article>, <aside>, <footer>, <h>, etc.) with which you are so obviously familiar. So I withdraw my hasty conclusions!
http://9to5mac.com/vlc-video-lan-1
STFU, Mozilla & Opera. Use the libs that VLC is using and quit whining.
NO video codec should be "blessed" or deemed "official" by W3C, the same way that no image format is.
Someone change a number, ring Sky News!!!
Mozilla is not a "business like any other." Mozilla is a public benefit, non-profit organization whose only purpose is to advance the open web. If users can't use their data however they want because of licensing problems, then it's not really an Open web, now is it?
Of course It's only reason for being is open web standards.
Mozilla's entire Firefox business model revolves around Google paying it around $50 million a year to direct search queries its way.
Edit: this is slightly off-topic since the article is about a standard codec for HTML5's <video> tag
This post clearly outs Ogg as having no use, while H264 is technically superior in almost every way (especially hardware acceleration as mentioned), While I do agree H264 is superior this does not mean Ogg is useless.
What's the hurt in apple supporting H264 AND Ogg ?
Google was mentioned plenty in this article yet no mention that chrome already supports Ogg Theora!!
Google engineers might not want to run the youtube backend using it, but at least they support it.
Saying Microsoft is a standards-demon is an understatement, but Apple's track record does not exactly scream rainbow unicorns either.
I for one am thankfull safari does not have a huge market share, making the only browsers so far that will not support Ogg Theora Internet exploder and Safari.
And a gigantic number of IE users will most certainly get 3rd-party Ogg Theora support through a plugin should Wikimedia continue its current path in the long run.
(on wikipedia: want to see this video? click here to install the Ogg Theora plugin!)
Regardless of how this turns out, there most likely will be a non-royalty video codec supported in the long run simply because small developers/open source have a need for it. Be it Ogg Theora or something else.
So in the end, I'm not worried
Apple had hardware accelerated H.264 in their smartphones and desktop. They don't have that in Ogg and since Apple helped craft H.264/MPEG4 with QuickTime, what benefit does Apple receive from the FOSS community for pushing that dated spec?
http://9to5mac.com/vlc-video-lan-1
STFU, Mozilla & Opera. Use the libs that VLC is using and quit whining.
NO video codec should be "blessed" or deemed "official" by W3C, the same way that no image format is.
You're correct. With the W3 ending XHTML 2 development to focus on HTML 5 just announced today it's quite clear that they will make sure there is no endorsed VIDEO or IMG format.
Thanks!
A quote from an article I saw: "100x more effort is being put into improving h.264 than will ever be put into OGG Theora."
"No offense but the article is biased - at best. Apple's push is completely driven by the iTunes eco-system, it's business driven, Apple is a business, don't start telling us they became philanthropic overnight! The debate is not Ogg vs h264 or anything else. The debate is about embracing an open standard so that content can be displayed seamlessly, on any device. Ogg may not be the best answer, but Apple's position is definitely one of the worst and one of the most biased, whether you like it or not!"
One thing in favor of Ogg Theora: its nice sounding name.
Haha!!
It's like calling your child Philomena Umbragade.
Firefox has 20% market share in desktops. The fastest growth is in mobile devices where Firefox has next to no market share.
Growth means nothing without actual numbers. If my mobile users base increases from one to two persons I have a growth of 100 percent. Compare that to the growth of 50 percent when the desktop user base increases from one billion to one and a half. This example is purposefully far-fetched as to demonstrate the difficulties with such claims.
Growth means nothing without actual numbers. If my mobile users base increases from one to two persons I have a growth of 100 percent. Compare that to the growth of 50 percent when the desktop user base increases from one billion to one and a half. This example is purposefully far-fetched as to demonstrate the difficulties with such claims.
http://tinyurl.com/n8xww2
There are 40M+ iPhones/iPod Touches. 139M smartphones were sold in 2008. 36M smartphones sold in Q1 2009. 3.9M iPhones in Q1 2009.
Yes, lets pick a particularly stupid example when you can simply google for real numbers. There are zero difficulties in determining the growth rate of smartphones. Smart phones sales up 12.7% despite an 8% dip in total phone sales.
That's completely ignoring the PMP market and PS/DS handheld game markets with video.
There are 40M+ iPhones/iPod Touches. 139M smartphones were sold in 2008. 36M smartphones sold in Q1 2009. 3.9M iPhones in Q1 2009.
How many of these are replacement units for defect/dated models? How many can actually play H.264 videos for real (storage space, sufficient bandwidth, processing power etc.)? What profiles are supported? And how does this compare to over 1 billion desktop users?
Yes, lets pick a particularly stupid example when you can simply google for real numbers
I should try this with my next term paper. Instead of adding footnotes and a bibliography I'll just add "Go read it up in the library yourself if you need proof!". But I forgot, this is the Internet where it's obviously the responsibility of the reader to look up numbers instead of the one doing claims providing them.
That's completely ignoring the PMP market and PS/DS handheld game markets with video
I'm sure the DS can download and play H.264 or Theora files with no problem.