"...it does nothing of benefit for Apple (to whom licensing fees are not an issue)..."
My question... who are his sources at Apple? Mr. Jobs himself has talked about paying licensing royalty for Blu-Ray.
"Blu-ray is just a bag of hurt. I don't mean from the consumer point of view. It's great to watch movies, but the licensing is so complex," Jobs said. "We're waiting until things settle down, and waiting until Blu-ray takes off in the marketplace before we burden our customers with the cost of the licensing and the cost of the drives."
I read DED not for the 'news reporting' but for his analysis of Apple's internal thinking
Note that Dilger mentioned licensing fees, not the complexity of the licensing at the time of Jobs statement.
Also note that Jobs statement, while truthful, wasn?t the whole truth. There are plenty of reasons why Apple was never going to adopt Blu-ray. For one, they were backing their video service. Digital video downloads and streaming is more popular on computers than all optical media for watching videos and it?s growing at a huge rate. For HECs it?s great, but not for a laptop, which is what Apple sells most.
Also part of the issue is the cost. Sure, you can buy a Blu-ray player at Best Buy for under $100 but the 9.5mm Blu-ray drives they need didn?t exist then and cost over $500 as an upgrade option on Dell and HP machines that use those ultra-slim drives.
The bottom line is the Bu-ray/HD-DVD war was at a time that made many wait and by the time it ended the online video market became the very real future for mobile PCs. I suspect it won?t be long before the optical drive ? which takes 25% of the 13? Mac internal space, has moving parts and uses a lot of power to run at slower than NAND speeds ? will be removed entirely.
I am sufficiently annoyed to have made Bing my default search engine. If it sucks too much I'll move it back but honestly what an asshat move because I fully expect Google to drop h.264 support on YouTube shortly which will be truly annoying.
As with most things that defy reason, there's got to be more to this. Both Google's explanation and timing don't pass the smell test. There's something here we don't know yet.
You know, I've always been pretty okay with Google. But this is the first time, and the start of, mark my words, Google being the new Microshaft. "Do no evil" is now officially dead to me.
I find vorbis to be the best, but that's just me. All have their own artifacts at lower bit rates, but I find vorbis' to be the least annoying. Personally I use h.264 and vorbis in mkv, and use aac and the standard container when I want maximum compatibility.
This scheme was used also for QT for a time. If you used it, you had to be GPL, but if you wanted to be proprietary, you had to pay.
It isn't as if apple needs to make another lossless format either. They could have just used FLAC. And given their history of using some free stuff, it can't hurt them. Vorbis is open domain or BSD.
That link, while useful, only seems to deal with encoders, not decoders. But as doom9 knows, its the best damn encoder. At least the last time I checked
Well, Flash video is usually a Flash wrapper around H.264 content nowadays. So Adobe is on the H.264 bandwagon too, they just want you to only access it through them, not directly. The part of Flash that sucks is the wrapper and scripting/animation layers, it also used to be the lack of hardware acceleration although that seems to be mostly fixed now.
My very subversive guess is that because of the Flash as a wrapper around H.264 content setup, Chrome WILL STILL DO H.264 DECODING!!! But ONLY inside Flash wrappers. And if that's the case something is very self serving about the Chrome announcement.
Well studios like it for DRM too. It isn't easy to steal videos from sites like thedailyshow.com
dropping H264 support from the Chrome browser weakens Chrome competitively, as it already has done to FireFox (as DED notes). because there are other good browsers available. but it strengthens Flash as the media player of last resort, especially for mobile devices that simply can't play WebM well at all (assuming Adobe improves Flash soon as promised again and again).
which is probably what Google intends. Flash is about the only difference with iOS in Android's favor market-wise. the "whole web" hype (whereas only geeks care about the "open" BS). if H264 availability really begins to shrink that hurts Apple.
but to really make that stick, Google will have to stop using H264 for YouTube. and that would be very naked market aggression that would bring up very dangerous monopoly issues about YouTube. we'll see ...
anyway, it's very probably too late. the iOS user base is too big already (and may even double again in 2011), and its high-end customer profile is way too desirable for any mediacos to blow off by not offering total H264 content for it.
to me, this Google maneuver looks like either a case of incredible conceit - or desperation. or both?
This decision obviously favors google, but I didn't see DED mention this: Web content is royalty free, but not the encoders or decoders.
Nice of Google to release webm, and if anyone wants to sue, just get it over with. No one is suing over Vorbis and a big company, Sandisk uses it, and it isn't as if they can't extract money over a lawsuit.
Of course if Google wants to, YouTube can go web m overnight, as it already is converting to it now on their html5 access view. It can't kill apple to support it, since it is free, and it is hardware supported.
Nobody will BOTHER to sue Vorbis, which is old, decrepit technology. But hey, it's free. As in skunk beer.
Nobody will BOTHER to sue Vorbis, which is old, decrepit technology. But hey, it's free. As in skunk beer.
You are probably thinking of theora; vorbis is quite actively developed and usually wins ab comparison tests. For most people vorbis at 110kbps is as good or better than mp3 at 160kbps. It is used a lot, mainly because of no licensing fees than anything else, but it is a good format.
A good example is Starcraft II. All music in the game is vorbis.
x264 is nothing short of absolutely bloody amazing. Just see the mp4 BluRay rips at 1080p and 720p, as well as Handbrake conversions to 720p playback on, for example, iPad (High Profile is actually supported). A few years ago x264 was a good free alternative to commercial encoders and was somewhat similar to xvid encoding. In 2010, x264 blew away everything else.
So from a web developer perceptive, if you are going to need to support two formats anyway, it seems logical that it should be Flash and h.264. If you want to support FF as a an open source gesture, then make the extra effort and export as Ogg too. I fail to see why I would want to support webM/V8. If Chrome retains Flash support, webM will never take off.
In fact, the crucial thing is, where are the web developer tools for WebM? And where is the browser support, apart from Chrome? You'll get a AVC version if you produce the film. A well-documented codec, with lots of techs who know how to tweak it. Where's the encoders for WebM? Am I missing something?
So, you've done the work. You've linked to, say, a large h.264 version, and say you put a Flash version on your site, too. Now you've got to put a third version there, because Chrome's user stats are on the way up. Can you drop any of the other versions? Why, no.
Stupid, monopolistic move. I'm surprised at how fast it's happening to a once very cool company. But it has to do with their post-search business model, which is monopolistic as hell.
I am sufficiently annoyed to have made Bing my default search engine. If it sucks too much I'll move it back but honestly what an asshat move because I fully expect Google to drop h.264 support on YouTube shortly which will be truly annoying.
The only Google services I use are Search and Maps. When I read this I started thinking that maybe I should take another look at Bing.
Chrome is just one of dozens of browsers out there using WebKit with a new UI slapped on top. Not sure why anyone cares about it. If it were released by someone other than Google it'd be another iCab or Omniweb with a -0.1% market share.
Comments
DED claims
"...it does nothing of benefit for Apple (to whom licensing fees are not an issue)..."
My question... who are his sources at Apple? Mr. Jobs himself has talked about paying licensing royalty for Blu-Ray.
"Blu-ray is just a bag of hurt. I don't mean from the consumer point of view. It's great to watch movies, but the licensing is so complex," Jobs said. "We're waiting until things settle down, and waiting until Blu-ray takes off in the marketplace before we burden our customers with the cost of the licensing and the cost of the drives."
I read DED not for the 'news reporting' but for his analysis of Apple's internal thinking
Note that Dilger mentioned licensing fees, not the complexity of the licensing at the time of Jobs statement.
Also note that Jobs statement, while truthful, wasn?t the whole truth. There are plenty of reasons why Apple was never going to adopt Blu-ray. For one, they were backing their video service. Digital video downloads and streaming is more popular on computers than all optical media for watching videos and it?s growing at a huge rate. For HECs it?s great, but not for a laptop, which is what Apple sells most.
Also part of the issue is the cost. Sure, you can buy a Blu-ray player at Best Buy for under $100 but the 9.5mm Blu-ray drives they need didn?t exist then and cost over $500 as an upgrade option on Dell and HP machines that use those ultra-slim drives.
The bottom line is the Bu-ray/HD-DVD war was at a time that made many wait and by the time it ended the online video market became the very real future for mobile PCs. I suspect it won?t be long before the optical drive ? which takes 25% of the 13? Mac internal space, has moving parts and uses a lot of power to run at slower than NAND speeds ? will be removed entirely.
Vorbis is unimpressive and working with it on Linux for a decade where I have all these codecs, I'll take h.264 and aac.
This developer has a brain on his shoulders with an eye for leveraging his efforts to satisfy all parties.
http://x264dev.multimedia.cx/archives/584
I find vorbis to be the best, but that's just me. All have their own artifacts at lower bit rates, but I find vorbis' to be the least annoying. Personally I use h.264 and vorbis in mkv, and use aac and the standard container when I want maximum compatibility.
This scheme was used also for QT for a time. If you used it, you had to be GPL, but if you wanted to be proprietary, you had to pay.
It isn't as if apple needs to make another lossless format either. They could have just used FLAC. And given their history of using some free stuff, it can't hurt them. Vorbis is open domain or BSD.
That link, while useful, only seems to deal with encoders, not decoders. But as doom9 knows, its the best damn encoder. At least the last time I checked
Well, Flash video is usually a Flash wrapper around H.264 content nowadays. So Adobe is on the H.264 bandwagon too, they just want you to only access it through them, not directly. The part of Flash that sucks is the wrapper and scripting/animation layers, it also used to be the lack of hardware acceleration although that seems to be mostly fixed now.
My very subversive guess is that because of the Flash as a wrapper around H.264 content setup, Chrome WILL STILL DO H.264 DECODING!!! But ONLY inside Flash wrappers. And if that's the case something is very self serving about the Chrome announcement.
Well studios like it for DRM too. It isn't easy to steal videos from sites like thedailyshow.com
which is probably what Google intends. Flash is about the only difference with iOS in Android's favor market-wise. the "whole web" hype (whereas only geeks care about the "open" BS). if H264 availability really begins to shrink that hurts Apple.
but to really make that stick, Google will have to stop using H264 for YouTube. and that would be very naked market aggression that would bring up very dangerous monopoly issues about YouTube. we'll see ...
anyway, it's very probably too late. the iOS user base is too big already (and may even double again in 2011), and its high-end customer profile is way too desirable for any mediacos to blow off by not offering total H264 content for it.
to me, this Google maneuver looks like either a case of incredible conceit - or desperation. or both?
This decision obviously favors google, but I didn't see DED mention this: Web content is royalty free, but not the encoders or decoders.
Nice of Google to release webm, and if anyone wants to sue, just get it over with. No one is suing over Vorbis and a big company, Sandisk uses it, and it isn't as if they can't extract money over a lawsuit.
Of course if Google wants to, YouTube can go web m overnight, as it already is converting to it now on their html5 access view. It can't kill apple to support it, since it is free, and it is hardware supported.
Nobody will BOTHER to sue Vorbis, which is old, decrepit technology. But hey, it's free. As in skunk beer.
Nobody will BOTHER to sue Vorbis, which is old, decrepit technology. But hey, it's free. As in skunk beer.
You are probably thinking of theora; vorbis is quite actively developed and usually wins ab comparison tests. For most people vorbis at 110kbps is as good or better than mp3 at 160kbps. It is used a lot, mainly because of no licensing fees than anything else, but it is a good format.
A good example is Starcraft II. All music in the game is vorbis.
Vorbis is unimpressive and working with it on Linux for a decade where I have all these codecs, I'll take h.264 and aac.
This developer has a brain on his shoulders with an eye for leveraging his efforts to satisfy all parties.
http://x264dev.multimedia.cx/archives/584
x264 is nothing short of absolutely bloody amazing. Just see the mp4 BluRay rips at 1080p and 720p, as well as Handbrake conversions to 720p playback on, for example, iPad (High Profile is actually supported). A few years ago x264 was a good free alternative to commercial encoders and was somewhat similar to xvid encoding. In 2010, x264 blew away everything else.
Seriously, what is this WebM nonsense?
So from a web developer perceptive, if you are going to need to support two formats anyway, it seems logical that it should be Flash and h.264. If you want to support FF as a an open source gesture, then make the extra effort and export as Ogg too. I fail to see why I would want to support webM/V8. If Chrome retains Flash support, webM will never take off.
In fact, the crucial thing is, where are the web developer tools for WebM? And where is the browser support, apart from Chrome? You'll get a AVC version if you produce the film. A well-documented codec, with lots of techs who know how to tweak it. Where's the encoders for WebM? Am I missing something?
So, you've done the work. You've linked to, say, a large h.264 version, and say you put a Flash version on your site, too. Now you've got to put a third version there, because Chrome's user stats are on the way up. Can you drop any of the other versions? Why, no.
Stupid, monopolistic move. I'm surprised at how fast it's happening to a once very cool company. But it has to do with their post-search business model, which is monopolistic as hell.
I am sufficiently annoyed to have made Bing my default search engine. If it sucks too much I'll move it back but honestly what an asshat move because I fully expect Google to drop h.264 support on YouTube shortly which will be truly annoying.
The only Google services I use are Search and Maps. When I read this I started thinking that maybe I should take another look at Bing.
http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/3783...and-drop-html5
The only Google services I use are Search and Maps. When I read this I started thinking that maybe I should take another look at Bing.
Sadly I don't like Bing. Apple perhaps should be looking at a YouTube alternative, Map and Search option for OS X and iOS users.
http://x264dev.multimedia.cx/archives/377
Note: Since the spec is now final, it can't be fixed.