

The real reason Apple and Microsoft are embracing 'HTML5' - Zaagmans
http://crisp.tweakblogs.net/blog/4090/the-real-reason-apple-and-microsoft-are-embracing-html5.html

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lurch_mojoff
There is no deep conspiracy behind Apple's and Microsoft's support for HTML5
video and h.264.

They are adopting HTML5 for video because video is becoming more and more
essential part of the web and an open standard for it makes the browsers of
both companies independent of any particular plugin. No sane company wants to
be dependent on others.

As for them choosing h.264 - that's simple too - h.264 is open standard (as
in, no single company or other entity has the ability to change it at some
random point in some random way) and is widely used already (i.e. there is a
lot of software and hardware support). On top of that the patent situation
with h.264 is much clearer and safer (e.g. given h.264's huge use, the longer
no submarine patents surface, the higher the likelihood that there aren't
any).

edit: fixed typos

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ergo98
>There is no deep conspiracy behind Apple's and Microsoft's support for HTML5
video and h.264.

Who said there's a deep conspiracy theory? Saying "they aren't being entirely
open with their motives" is an observation that is almost always true of
almost all businesses.

This is a classic conflict of interest. It's like finding out that your doctor
who is telling you that you really need to remove a kidney has a lucrative
side business selling kidneys.

This is really all so ridiculous, though. The video thing is a giant red
herring -- the truth is that Flash as a video container is almost always used
to thinly serve up h.264 these days. Yes, the stream should be decoupled from
the player. No doubt.

Yet that blanket idea about video is used to mask the incredible gap that
HTML5 currently has on mobile devices.

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tzs
MP3 suffers from all the same characteristics that he says is a threat to our
artistic culture. Yet it did not kill our musical culture. Arguably, it lead
to a vast expansion of musical culture.

There's no reason to believe that H.264 is any more of a threat than MP3 was.

~~~
yardie
MP3 is at or near it's patentable lifetime. Fraunhoffer Institute created
MP3Pro to replace it but it hasn't taken off; now there are more viable
alternatives.

The MP3 format was used because the patent wasn't enforced. As soon as it was
and people found out the terms of license (per file, per encoder, and per
decoder) the AAC license became a better alternative (only per encoder, per
decoder, and high thresholds to payments).

In one regard h.264 is almost a repeat of the MP3 fiasco. Terms are good
enough to make it widespread, then severely jacked up once it has market
domination. From an enduser point of view. This isn't a problem, the CE
company you buy gadgets from is required to pay this. Depending on the company
this could be a problem. If you are a US-based company (where software patents
are valid) competing against foreign companies it can be the difference of
your product not selling because of a cheaper alternative.

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hackermom
Another author in this MPEG license discussion debacle who is clearly unread
and confused over what open means, and what free means.

H.264 _IS_ open, just as all the other MPEG "technologies" are. The complete
documentation for each and one of MPEG's data formats is available to anyone,
free of charge, to use and to implement in whatever way they want - it's just
that the end result; the H.264 video product itself, isn't free to deal with
from January 1st 2016. What MPEG decides from that date and on can so far only
be guessed, and for some damned reason, everyone in the "other camp" keeps
making the worst possible guesses, while always having kept their mouths shut
about MPEG-1 Layer-3, and MPEG-4 ASP. I call it FUD, and hypocrisy.

