[W]e think it is the best available video codec today for HTML5 for our customers. Relative to alternatives, H.264 maintains strong hardware support in PCs and mobile devices as well as a breadth of implementation in consumer electronics devices around the world, excellent video quality, scale of existing usage, availability of tools and content authoring systems
H.264 isn't SJ proprietary codec. And it is already quite widely regarded that Theora treads on quite a few video patents held by MPEG-LA and partners.
In related news, NEC mad at Apple for not using the VESA standard.
WTF are you on about. Apple has contributed numerous things to VESA. Bear in mind VESA is about more than gfx resolutions (I assume that's what you mean). Wall mounting brackets etc. are also part of the VESA standard.
H.264 isn't SJ proprietary codec. And it is already quite widely regarded that Theora treads on quite a few video patents held by MPEG-LA and partners.
Obviously you know I was responding to a troll post earlier in the thread. The Microsoft blog post actually did a nice job of covering some of the issues. As far as Apple consumers. We should all be glad that the majority of video sites are converting their sites to support html 5 video, and Adobe is working hard to provide tools to support HTML 5 because Apple is moving forward and Flash Video on mobile is not part of the roadmap.
Since Firefox and Opera users can’t view HTML5 video with the H.264 codec, it would be interesting to see how much of that video is viewable in the Ogg Theora format. Many sites reporting off the news reported about missing these facts and mixing up H.264 with HTML5 video.
People are desperate to have their site work on the iPad. But I have to say that on the desktop some of the Flash based players work better than HTML5 (faster to start, better controls etc).
I guess the way HTML5 video tag works depends on the browser implementor, so Apple could just use Quicktime player to implement this tag, which is a good player, but when the page turns off the players natural controls and implements their own with Javascript, more often than not they do an inferior job.
That's how standards work. You get a whole bunch of people to sign off and cross license.
I'm wondering how this is worse than one company profiting off a proprietary standard.
Yes, my point was exactly as you noted: whether Apple is one of several companies making money on the proprietary h.264 codec or whether they make all that money themselves is a minor distinction; the main thing is it's hardly open and certainly isn't free.
Fanbois can chant "h.264!" and "HTML5!" in parrot-like incantations just as frequently as His Steveness wants them to, but it still won't make one anywhere near as open as the other.
Yes, my point was exactly as you noted: whether Apple is one of several companies making money on the proprietary h.264 codec or whether they make all that money themselves is a minor distinction; the main thing is it's hardly open and certainly isn't free.
Fanbois can chant "h.264!" and "HTML5!" in parrot-like incantations just as frequently as His Steveness wants them to, but it still won't make one anywhere near as open as the other.
I see. So do you actually have a point to make outside of getting your daily allowance of droning on about fanboys?
H.264 is in fact a standard, free to end users in perpetuity, explicitly selected and developed by a consortium of industry players, academics, and researchers to provide a broadly available high quality video codec. That it isn't owned by single company ala Flash strikes you as a "minor distinction" suggests that perhaps your'e more interested in getting in your stupid little digs than making sense.
The International Organization for Standardization, the Motions Pictures Group and the Video Encoding Experts Group aren't some kind of money grubbing industry cartel. The ISO has hundreds of members, and they choose standards with an eye towards interoperability. And when the best technology is patent encumbered they work out the cross-liscening so that users can deploy without fear of litigation. They do all that because it's a better outcome then depending on the mercies of individual companies that may or may not play nice with the rest of the industry, resulting in needless friction for technological deployment. It doesn't always work and, as in the case of Flash, proprietary sometimes becomes entrenched, but that's not considered the desirable outcome, by most of the players most of the time.
While not open source, H.264 conforms to most definitions of an open standard (which is notoriously murky) by including things like collaborative process, transparency, non-discriminatory licensing, not allowing any one company to dominate decision making, etc.
Really, this is all pretty self evident, it's just foolish to pretend like Flash's position in the market is functionally equivalent to H.264, or that the use of H.264 as a video codec within HTML 5 somehow poisons the open nature of that spec.
Argue that Flash is good and useful and proprietary formats are capitalism in action if you wish; please don't insult our intelligence with hand waving around open source, open format, proprietary and for profit.
I'm coming in late so forgive me if this was covered already, but I thought MPEG and MPEG-LA were different groups, aren't they?
Yes. h.264 is a standard developed and maintained by the IOS MPEG and VCEG (Motion Picture and Video Coding Expert Groups).
MPEG LA is a privately held patent administration firm that acts as a clearing house for the patent pools on h.264, as well as a number of other standards.
The fact that the ISO subcontracts patent administration shouldn't be taken as any particular comment on the openness, interoperability or standard compliance of a given format.
The fact that the ISO subcontracts patent administration shouldn't be taken as any particular comment on the openness, interoperability or standard compliance of a given format.
Agreed: introducing ISO into this thread was a distraction that contributed nothing to the discussion of h.264's proprietary nature.
Quote:
H.264 is in fact a standard, free to end users in perpetuity, explicitly selected and developed by a consortium of industry players, academics, and researchers to provide a broadly available high quality video codec. That it isn't owned by single company ala Flash strikes you as a "minor distinction" suggests that perhaps your'e more interested in getting in your stupid little digs than making sense.
Why is the number of owners important to you? Whether it's one or five or a dozen, h.264 is still a proprietary technology.
And on the section I bolded, yes, MPEG-LA has been very clever in the licensing shell game by calling their multi-million-dollar fees by a name other than "royalty" and consistently stressing, as you've repeated for them here, that these fees aren't paid by end users.
Most taxes aren't paid by end users either, but it's not like such costs don't affect the ecosystem.
If you believe that Steve's ongoing diatribe against Flash and his constant pushing of h.264 is one of his surprisingly few charitable acts you're deluded. It's business, and Apple's participation in MPEG-LA is primarily in the interest of their shareholders, nothing more and nothing less.
Comments
This is what Microsoft had to say on SJ proprietary Codec H.264
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2...eo-in-ie9.aspx
[W]e think it is the best available video codec today for HTML5 for our customers. Relative to alternatives, H.264 maintains strong hardware support in PCs and mobile devices as well as a breadth of implementation in consumer electronics devices around the world, excellent video quality, scale of existing usage, availability of tools and content authoring systems
H.264 isn't SJ proprietary codec. And it is already quite widely regarded that Theora treads on quite a few video patents held by MPEG-LA and partners.
In related news, NEC mad at Apple for not using the VESA standard.
WTF are you on about. Apple has contributed numerous things to VESA. Bear in mind VESA is about more than gfx resolutions (I assume that's what you mean). Wall mounting brackets etc. are also part of the VESA standard.
Will Steve be anti html5 once Adobe releases Edge? That looks pretty promising. I'm actually impressed to see Adobe thinking ahead.
Probably not, cos Apple hates Adobe's shitty Flash tech, not Adobe. A nice HTML5 editor would be awesome, even going by the small peek we've seen.
You are kinding!! H.264 is not Steve's Codec. The MPEG-LA would certainly have something to say about that.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MPEG-LA..._AVC_Licensors
Would you instead say it is proprietary and partly owned by Steve?
No, as that isn't correct either.
.h264 != HTML5
Steve Jobs doesn't "own" either.
Thompson
H.264 isn't SJ proprietary codec. And it is already quite widely regarded that Theora treads on quite a few video patents held by MPEG-LA and partners.
Obviously you know I was responding to a troll post earlier in the thread. The Microsoft blog post actually did a nice job of covering some of the issues. As far as Apple consumers. We should all be glad that the majority of video sites are converting their sites to support html 5 video, and Adobe is working hard to provide tools to support HTML 5 because Apple is moving forward and Flash Video on mobile is not part of the roadmap.
I for one am tired of the almost daily 'you should update your Flash version' or 'you should update your Reader version' notifications.
Yeah, just like that damn iTunes and covert Quicktime piece of crap.
Originally Posted by tawilson
You are kinding!! H.264 is not Steve's Codec. The MPEG-LA would certainly have something to say about that.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MPEG-LA..._AVC_Licensors
So it's also Panasonic's, Microsoft's, Sony's and Samsung's codec?
So it's also Panasonic's, Microsoft's, Sony's and Samsung's codec?
Yes, like Apple they are among the companies that profit from the proliferation of their proprietary h.264 codec.
...
does it come with bluetooth?
HEY!... watch the teeth!
I guess the way HTML5 video tag works depends on the browser implementor, so Apple could just use Quicktime player to implement this tag, which is a good player, but when the page turns off the players natural controls and implements their own with Javascript, more often than not they do an inferior job.
Yes, like Apple they are among the companies that profit from the proliferation of their proprietary h.264 codec.
That's how standards work. You get a whole bunch of people to sign off and cross license.
I'm wondering how this is worse than one company profiting off a proprietary standard.
That's how standards work. You get a whole bunch of people to sign off and cross license.
I'm wondering how this is worse than one company profiting off a proprietary standard.
Yes, my point was exactly as you noted: whether Apple is one of several companies making money on the proprietary h.264 codec or whether they make all that money themselves is a minor distinction; the main thing is it's hardly open and certainly isn't free.
Fanbois can chant "h.264!" and "HTML5!" in parrot-like incantations just as frequently as His Steveness wants them to, but it still won't make one anywhere near as open as the other.
Yes, my point was exactly as you noted: whether Apple is one of several companies making money on the proprietary h.264 codec or whether they make all that money themselves is a minor distinction; the main thing is it's hardly open and certainly isn't free.
Fanbois can chant "h.264!" and "HTML5!" in parrot-like incantations just as frequently as His Steveness wants them to, but it still won't make one anywhere near as open as the other.
I see. So do you actually have a point to make outside of getting your daily allowance of droning on about fanboys?
H.264 is in fact a standard, free to end users in perpetuity, explicitly selected and developed by a consortium of industry players, academics, and researchers to provide a broadly available high quality video codec. That it isn't owned by single company ala Flash strikes you as a "minor distinction" suggests that perhaps your'e more interested in getting in your stupid little digs than making sense.
The International Organization for Standardization, the Motions Pictures Group and the Video Encoding Experts Group aren't some kind of money grubbing industry cartel. The ISO has hundreds of members, and they choose standards with an eye towards interoperability. And when the best technology is patent encumbered they work out the cross-liscening so that users can deploy without fear of litigation. They do all that because it's a better outcome then depending on the mercies of individual companies that may or may not play nice with the rest of the industry, resulting in needless friction for technological deployment. It doesn't always work and, as in the case of Flash, proprietary sometimes becomes entrenched, but that's not considered the desirable outcome, by most of the players most of the time.
While not open source, H.264 conforms to most definitions of an open standard (which is notoriously murky) by including things like collaborative process, transparency, non-discriminatory licensing, not allowing any one company to dominate decision making, etc.
Really, this is all pretty self evident, it's just foolish to pretend like Flash's position in the market is functionally equivalent to H.264, or that the use of H.264 as a video codec within HTML 5 somehow poisons the open nature of that spec.
Argue that Flash is good and useful and proprietary formats are capitalism in action if you wish; please don't insult our intelligence with hand waving around open source, open format, proprietary and for profit.
I'm coming in late so forgive me if this was covered already, but I thought MPEG and MPEG-LA were different groups, aren't they?
Yes. h.264 is a standard developed and maintained by the IOS MPEG and VCEG (Motion Picture and Video Coding Expert Groups).
MPEG LA is a privately held patent administration firm that acts as a clearing house for the patent pools on h.264, as well as a number of other standards.
The fact that the ISO subcontracts patent administration shouldn't be taken as any particular comment on the openness, interoperability or standard compliance of a given format.
The fact that the ISO subcontracts patent administration shouldn't be taken as any particular comment on the openness, interoperability or standard compliance of a given format.
Agreed: introducing ISO into this thread was a distraction that contributed nothing to the discussion of h.264's proprietary nature.
H.264 is in fact a standard, free to end users in perpetuity, explicitly selected and developed by a consortium of industry players, academics, and researchers to provide a broadly available high quality video codec. That it isn't owned by single company ala Flash strikes you as a "minor distinction" suggests that perhaps your'e more interested in getting in your stupid little digs than making sense.
Why is the number of owners important to you? Whether it's one or five or a dozen, h.264 is still a proprietary technology.
And on the section I bolded, yes, MPEG-LA has been very clever in the licensing shell game by calling their multi-million-dollar fees by a name other than "royalty" and consistently stressing, as you've repeated for them here, that these fees aren't paid by end users.
Most taxes aren't paid by end users either, but it's not like such costs don't affect the ecosystem.
If you believe that Steve's ongoing diatribe against Flash and his constant pushing of h.264 is one of his surprisingly few charitable acts you're deluded. It's business, and Apple's participation in MPEG-LA is primarily in the interest of their shareholders, nothing more and nothing less.