Google drops support for H.264 video in Chrome to push WebM

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  • Reply 261 of 334
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Hiro View Post


    OK Mr smartypants that can't read very well. I already said it is FUD. High quality FUD. You can't get any riling mileage when I very explicitly brought up your point first.



    And since you indicate you want proof that can't happen until a judge or jury makes a ruling, which I also mentioned, I leave you with an article from one of my least favorite authors: http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/2...free-for-long/



    All that was High Grade FUD but not a lawsuit threat. I believe it shows that MPEG-LA is willing to actively maneuver, not just sit around.



    Also notice the last line of the article: "I’ve asked Google for comment on Horn’s remarks and will update here if I’m given one."



    Note there were no updates, and it has been ~8 months. Maybe Google didn't answer because they didn't like what they would have to say???



    As posted earlier, read this link for more info on both sides of the issue, especially my favorite part at the bottom, "No comment."



    Mr. Horn is a douche bag. I posted also earlier he is suing apple over patents he acquired by Sony and Nokia. Imagine that, the CEO of MPEG-LA suing a fellow licensee over patents dealing with phones
  • Reply 262 of 334
    mstonemstone Posts: 11,510member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by solipsism View Post


    An issue he didn?t address was the on-board decoder chips for H.264. Unless Google gets WebM decoding on chips it?s going to be an even worse competitor to H.264 on mobile devices.



    Right now all the Android phones have H.264 decoding in hardware. One interesting thing is that they won't even play WebM, at least as to what I have read. We will see how fast that changes with respect to Google's latest moves.
  • Reply 263 of 334
    hirohiro Posts: 2,663member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by sprockkets View Post


    Read this fud



    OK so??? it's the same deal as WebM, But Theora is too small a fish to deal with. The case wouldn't be worth the legal staff fees because Theora's codecs aren in any significant commercial use.



    You're actually making my point for me with stuff like this. Did you even think that through?
  • Reply 264 of 334
    solipsismsolipsism Posts: 25,726member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by sprockkets View Post


    Take a look at the supporters:



    http://www.webmproject.org/about/supporters/



    Nice list of supporters but I haven?t heard of any of those HW vendors actually supporting WebM as of yet. I also noticed Imagination, which Apple owns 9.5%, is in the list and Intel is not.



    As I?m sure you are aware, these lists need to be taken with a grain of salt. Case in point, Apple?s admission into the Blu-ray Disc Association.
  • Reply 265 of 334
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by mstone View Post


    Right now all the Android phones have H.264 decoding in hardware. One interesting thing is that they won't even play WebM, at least as to what I have read. We will see how fast that changes with respect to Google's latest moves.



    Gingerbread or 2.4 will support it.
  • Reply 266 of 334
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by solipsism View Post


    Nice list of supporters but I haven?t heard of any of those HW vendors actually supporting WebM as of yet. I also noticed Imagination, which Apple owns 9.5%, is in the list and Intel is not.



    As I?m sure you are aware, these lists need to be taken with a grain of salt. Case in point, Apple?s admission into the Blu-ray Disc Association.



    true, to date only rockchips has an actual chip ready. Other links posted on ars show qualcomm is next.
  • Reply 267 of 334
    hirohiro Posts: 2,663member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by MacRulez View Post


    Yeah, how'd that gamble work out for them?



    I've read some analysis around the web suggesting that this really isn't about WebM at all, but merely a gambit being used to try to leverage the public to encourage MPEG-LA to simplify license terms and lower their fees.



    But they already did. Its kind of hard to get lower than free forever for non-commerciial use. I have no sympathy for commercial users having to pay fees. That's just part and parcel to buying your tools to build your products.



    Quote:

    If that's the case and it's successful, we all win. And if WebM takes over, we save money there too (licensing fees have a way of trickling down to consumers; read the fine print in the EULA for your video software and cameras regarding h.264).



    That fine print was almost assuredly from pre-August when the license granting changed. Not to mention how EULAs almost all go over the line in some places.



    Quote:

    I just don't see a downside here, and I'm just old enough to know that none of this will matter in a year or so when an even better codec inevitably comes along.



    That's the truth, we are only a couple years out from the planned release of H.265 and one of the other links sprockkets had say Theora is working on another too.
  • Reply 268 of 334
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Hiro View Post


    OK so??? it's the same deal as WebM, But Theora is too small a fish to deal with. The case wouldn't be worth the legal staff fees because Theora's codecs aren in any significant commercial use.



    You're actually making my point for me with stuff like this. Did you even think that through?



    Well at least theora tried in good faith to make sure they were not stepping on MPEG-LA's patents. MPEG-LA being douche bags about it doesn't help nor win any points in my book.



    What point am I supporting for you again?



    Quote:

    That's the truth, we are only a couple years out from the planned release of H.265 and one of the other links sprockkets had say Theora is working on another too.



    Even MPEG said h.265 isn't going to be a big improvement, and will take even more processing power. Theora is set in stone just like webm is.
  • Reply 269 of 334
  • Reply 270 of 334
    hirohiro Posts: 2,663member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by sprockkets View Post


    As posted earlier, read this link for more info on both sides of the issue, especially my favorite part at the bottom, "No comment."



    Mr. Horn is a douche bag. I posted also earlier he is suing apple over patents he acquired by Sony and Nokia. Imagine that, the CEO of MPEG-LA suing a fellow licensee over patents dealing with phones



    I won't debate on Horn, he's CEO of a group just slightly less litigant than RIAA.



    Google has pushed the issue HARD though and it may make for a very rock shake out, or not.



    If W3C would just list three or four codecs as necessary to support the video tag this whole brouhaha would go away. But they are a gutless bunch (at least on this issue) afraid to tell one member (or set of members) they can't own everything. So they stand aside hoping the members beat each other into submission but not badly enough that a member company pulls its W3C membership over the issue. All so they can stay "pure" and only deal in tags. I really don't think that's possible or advisable anymore. The web is too big now.
  • Reply 271 of 334
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by mjtomlin View Post


    Microsoft was accused of being anti-competitive ... because they forced it on users by "tying" it to Windows... That's what gave them an unfair advantage, they leveraged their Windows monopoly in an attempt to kill off competing browsers.



    Apple's insistence of not using Flash in the iPhone had nothing to do with competition... in 2007 THERE WAS NO FLASH for the ARM architecture other than Flash Lite, which couldn't play desktop Flash apps anyway... the full blown up to date version of Flash for ARM based mobile devices was only released this past fall. This happened after Apple released its fourth version of iOS. All the stink Adobe and everyone else made about it was nothing more than posturing for the cameras.



    What Google is doing is not anti-competitive. They're removing a developmental hurdle which is understandable, but at the same time, pushing a new obstacle in front of their users. However, Google has never been about users, it is about data mining and serving ads.



    I tend to agree.



    The statement of intention by Google (since it is not yet an actual fact) to drop H.264 is either

    (a) incredibly stupid -- which is not impossible, but seems unlikely,

    (b) power-play-politicking -- to force concessions and control in some future web-control arena,

    (c) the result of an executive level snit by their hierarchy for any number of reasons, bad or otherwise.

    Or maybe a combination of these.



    Mostly, it is a sad development in part because it continues to show how Google (and many other corporations) use 'standards', product development and media to try to enforce their private agenda.



    Just a reminder that Google is not a 'for-the-user/consumer' organization.

    No surprise there...
  • Reply 272 of 334
    nvidia2008nvidia2008 Posts: 9,262member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Bruce Young View Post


    I tend to agree.



    The statement of intention by Google (since it is not yet an actual fact) to drop H.264 is either

    (a) incredibly stupid -- which is not impossible, but seems unlikely,

    (b) power-play-politicking -- to force concessions and control in some future web-control arena,

    (c) the result of an executive level snit by their hierarchy for any number of reasons, bad or otherwise.

    Or maybe a combination of these.



    Mostly, it is a sad development in part because it continues to show how Google (and many other corporations) use 'standards', product development and media to try to enforce their private agenda.



    Just a reminder that Google is not a 'for-the-user/consumer' organization.

    No surprise there...



    I just spent a good hour with an Android tablet today. To be honest, it's a rip off of iOS, more confusing, and basically a way for Google to just do more data mining and sell more ads.



    Google is now the new Microsoft for me. As of this year.
  • Reply 273 of 334
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by nvidia2008 View Post


    I just spent a good hour with an Android tablet today. To be honest, it's a rip off of iOS, more confusing, and basically a way for Google to just do more data mining and sell more ads.



    Google is now the new Microsoft for me. As of this year.



    How is Android a rip of iOS?
  • Reply 274 of 334
    nvidia2008nvidia2008 Posts: 9,262member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by mstone View Post


    I see this thread has gotten seriously out of control since I last visited it.



    I wanted to share some info I found that might be relevant to the video codec topic (not sure what what you guys are discussing at this point). Really a good read IMO.



    http://diveintohtml5.org/video.html



    It's a nice read that finally explains properly what HTML5 <video> is.



    In my view at the end of the day the above article really dovetails with what Gruber has been saying (http://daringfireball.net/2011/01/pr..._vs_idealistic)



    Basically you have to not only encode for H.264 and WebM, but you have to offer the Flash fallback anyway.



    So, in the end of the day, most sites may decide to just offer H.264 and use the Flash fallback.



    So WebM may not really go anywhere, as Gruber says "GOOGLE’S DECISION TO DROP NATIVE H.264 PLAYBACK FROM CHROME SERVES TO PROP UP FLASH PLAYER"
  • Reply 275 of 334
    nvidia2008nvidia2008 Posts: 9,262member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Sourcer View Post


    How is Android a rip of iOS?



    1. Slide to unlock

    2. Flick side to side for different apps

    3. Press and hold to rearrange icons

    4. Slide up keyboard, slide down keyboard



    That's just barely the beginning. Just spend 30 minutes with Android and it is blindingly clear that it is very similar to iOS in many ways. And since iPhone 3G and iPod touch was highly innovative in touchscreen interaction, with Android coming later, I would say iOS was there ahead of Android. From this point of course Android has other innovations, I'd give it that*.



    This is something where you either agree or not. No point spending months debating it.



    .................................................. ...............



    *But these Android innovations seem to just add complexity and confusion. The physical buttons for "Back" "Home" and "Search" seem to conflict with the flow of the touchscreen icons. Plus why are there essentially two sets of app screens? The left-and-right one, and the one where you click the icon with all the squares.
  • Reply 276 of 334
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Bruce Young View Post


    I tend to agree.







    Mostly, it is a sad development in part because it continues to show how Google (and many other corporations) use 'standards', product development and media to try to enforce their private agenda.



    Just a reminder that Google is not a 'for-the-user/consumer' organization.

    No surprise there...





    this article is interesting. why? because it states that Apple and Microsoft are a part of MPEG-LA and receive money for the licensing of h.264? how very sweet of them to support h.264 and proclaim google as 'rubbish'. so noble it makes me want to vomit.



    http://www.linuxinsider.com/story/We...elf-71647.html
  • Reply 277 of 334
    macrulezmacrulez Posts: 2,455member
    deleted
  • Reply 278 of 334
    anonymouseanonymouse Posts: 6,950member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by nvidia2008 View Post


    ... So, in the end of the day, most sites may decide to just offer H.264 and use the Flash fallback.



    So WebM may not really go anywhere, as Gruber says "GOOGLE?S DECISION TO DROP NATIVE H.264 PLAYBACK FROM CHROME SERVES TO PROP UP FLASH PLAYER"



    WebM will not go anywhere, and that's exactly what Google is up to here -- propping up Flash -- thus the complete and utter hypocrisy of their public statements on "openness". Obviously, some of the posters in this thread are Google shills here to defend them, but some of them probably are honestly deluded open source advocates who just have no understanding of the real world and how Google is playing them, and will eventually burn them too when the time comes. This is no different than the way certain moneyed interests play certain groups for political purposes, and, apparently, just as easy to do.
  • Reply 279 of 334
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by anonymouse View Post


    WebM will not go anywhere, and that's exactly what Google is up to here -- propping up Flash -- thus the complete and utter hypocrisy of their public statements on "openness". Obviously, some of the posters in this thread are Google shills here to defend them, but some of them probably are honestly deluded open source advocates who just have no understanding of the real world and how Google is playing them, and will eventually burn them too when the time comes. This is no different than the way certain moneyed interests play certain groups for political purposes, and, apparently, just as easy to do.



    so posters are either 'google shills' or 'deluded' unless they are siding with apple and the h.264?



    so google is out to make more money and ads are the way they do it. flash does about 94% of ads so of course they like flash. apple apparently likes h.264 because they make lots of money off of google and others to license it. wow. but yet 'google' are the bad guys.

    anyone who thinks apple is looking out for 'them' is just brainwashed. apple is out for filling its own coffers just like every other business. the difference is you have somehow convinced yourself that apple is more 'noble' than the rest. dream on, they ain't.
  • Reply 280 of 334
    tenobelltenobell Posts: 7,014member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by sprockkets View Post


    Well at least theora tried in good faith to make sure they were not stepping on MPEG-LA's patents. MPEG-LA being douche bags about it doesn't help nor win any points in my book.



    Well the whole point of the MPEG-LA is to protect the patents.





    Quote:

    Even MPEG said h.265 isn't going to be a big improvement, and will take even more processing power. Theora is set in stone just like webm is.



    H.264 used to require more processing power than the average machine could provide, things always improve.



    Theora and WebM being set in stone is not good, codecs should continue to improve.
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