

Google's web video ambitions bump into hard reality - xooyoozoo
http://www.cnet.com/news/googles-web-video-ambitions-run-into-industry-reality/

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jkn
There is an odd contrast between this article and the announcement in January
of broad support for VP9 from hardware manufacturers:

 _As Google announced today, however, virtually all major hardware vendors
will soon support VP9 natively in their products and allow Google’s YouTube to
stream HD content up to 4K directly to computers, TVs and mobile devices._

 _These new hardware partners include ARM, Broadcom, Intel, LG, Marvell,
MediaTek, Nvidia, Panasonic, Philips, Qualcomm, RealTek, Samsung, Sigma,
Sharp, Sony and Toshiba._ [1]

I wonder if the VP9 situation changed for the worse since January, or if the
article is simply misleading. It's hard to tell as the quotes in the article
are mostly anectodal.

[1] [http://techcrunch.com/2014/01/02/googles-vp9-video-codec-
get...](http://techcrunch.com/2014/01/02/googles-vp9-video-codec-gets-backing-
from-arm-nvidia-sony-and-others-gives-4k-video-streaming-a-fighting-chance/)

~~~
m_eiman
Given a release announcement and an article citing multiple independent
sources, I'd guess the article is more likely to give a balanced view of
reality…

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clockwerx
If the test of a technology/codec is its ability to transport pornography; I'd
say this is being successfully adopted via webm.

[http://blog.4chan.org/post/81896300203/webm-support-
on-4chan](http://blog.4chan.org/post/81896300203/webm-support-on-4chan)

~~~
cm3
It's also replacing GIF in places and seems to nullify the claims that missing
support in Safari or IE is a problem. My gut feeling is that Microsoft and
Apple have competitive (destroy Google) or ulterior motives and financial
gains in mind in terms of actively blocking WebM. This stinks of anti-
competitive behavior in need of regulation. If Google had actually acted on
their plans to push WebM and phase out H.264 it could have either destroyed
YouTube (highly unlikely) or fixed the video codec situation.

~~~
yaur
Both of those companies have been around long enough to remember the hell
caused by there being a bunch of competing codecs in the 90s before the two
main bodies that make video standards agreed to go the same direction. Google
is the new kid that wants them to try something they have already watch fail
again.

~~~
cm3
If you want one standard for everybody it better not exclude innovators
without deep pockets and require licensing fees to use the standard
everybody's supposed to use. The world doesn't just consist of TV stations,
video production workstations and iPhones or Samsung TVs all licensing H.26*.
Participators in creating a technical standard must be compensated for the
their work but if it's a standard for everyday use by everyone what are the
arguments for requiring licensing fees?

~~~
yaur
Having a license pool incentives continued research into video compression and
provides a less risky environment for all participants (this a problem that
Google bought their way out of).

Overall the licensing structure and costs are reasonable IMO except that
software decoders that are given away for free shouldn't incur licensing
costs.

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zz1
Not a single word about daala: too bad.

[https://gigaom.com/2013/10/15/monty-montgomery-joins-
mozilla...](https://gigaom.com/2013/10/15/monty-montgomery-joins-mozilla-for-
daala/)

~~~
riffraff
was there any news of daala recently?

~~~
zz1
Good question: not that I know, but I don't think this should imply anything
about the project.

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ksec
I think HEVC, or H.265 is moving to much better terms in licensing. Instead of
requiring license fees for Software decoder, They are collecting a small fees
for Hardware decoder / encoder. Since every Mobile devices will be getting it
and devices are going to ship units in billions in the life time of the codec.
It is going to get back all the investment. Meanwhile a free ( in price )
software decoder can be included in Browsers / Software.

 _Correct me if I am wrong on the licensing issue._ And BTW VP9 / 10 isn't
patents free, Google is just paying for it and you get to use it for free.

And aside of patents issues, VP10 doesn't stand against HEVC in quality. VP9
quality never got close to H.264 AVC best encoder. And even VP10 will come
close or exceed it, HEVC is here already. VPx ( The one after VP10, For some
reason they dont call it VP11 ) will _hopefully_ rival HEVC.

~~~
nitrogen
What metric is being used to compare VPxyz with H264 and HEVC? PSNR? SSIM?
Double-blind tests? Encode/decode performance? Hardware complexity? Patent
encumbrance?

~~~
xooyoozoo
There's a recent paper comparing subjective performance between HEVC and VP9.

[http://www.scribd.com/doc/238049197/HEVC-H-265-VP9-AVC-
subje...](http://www.scribd.com/doc/238049197/HEVC-H-265-VP9-AVC-subjective-
comparison)

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stephenr
The idea of producing new codecs every 18 months seems to fly in the face of
the idea of getting broad hardware support.

~~~
lutusp
Not if the new versions preserve compatibility. But it's true that the
technology with the longer view, with fewer major changes, might prevail on
that basis alone.

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ZeroGravitas
The broadcast media is absolutely H.264/5's home ground. Even if Google's
codec play is wildly successful, this will be last place to fall.

Google has been fairly forthright about this e.g. WebM project has Web right
there in the name, not TVM or BroadcastM or PlasticDiscM.

And as such, regular refreshes of the codec is a very Webby, a very Googly,
and a very Open Source-y thing to do.

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michaelt
It seems odd that Google would expend effort to make web video patent-free
while at the same time pushing for closed-source DRM in HTML5.

~~~
AndrewDucker
Patent-free video is good for the web, and makes it more likely to get broad
support. So good for Google.

DRM in HTML5 means that you don't need Flash/Silverlight to play Netflix, etc.
Which means that you can support video more easily. So good for Google.

~~~
threeseed
Except that VP9 isn't patent-free. MPEG LA and other patent holders simply
haven't bothered to flex their muscles because VP9 adoption is pretty much
non-existant.

That's why I much prefer H.265. It is a defacto standard.

~~~
patrickaljord
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VP8#History](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VP8#History)

> In March 2013, MPEG LA announced that it had dropped its effort to form a
> VP8 patent pool after reaching an agreement with Google to license the
> patents that it alleges "may be essential" for VP8 implementation, and
> granted Google the right to sub-license these patents to any third-party
> user of VP8 or VP9.[26][27] This deal has cleared the way for possible MPEG
> standardisation as its royalty-free internet video codec, after Google
> submitted VP8 to the MPEG committee in January 2013.

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cm3
Right now HEVC encoding is slow as molasses as is VP9. If Google improves
libvpx encoding and pushes it into the same ballpark as libx264 there's a much
higher chance of adoption. VP8 encoding is also slow and I don't know why
Google can't manage to speed up libvpx with a team of experts vs the libx264
dev team.

~~~
patrickaljord
I think it's because Google is trying to avoid patents, libx264 doesn't.

~~~
astrange
x264 doesn't use any more patents than other encoders. It's simply better
because the volunteer/contracting development model is better for software
quality than corporate closed-allocation.

You're freed from short term thinking and team headcounts, so everyone who
works on it can be a world-class expert… if you can find them.

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alimoeeny
I'd say, it is more of a bandwidth problem not a compression problem, web
video is not as widespread as it could have been because people don't have the
bandwidth to stream it, not because google failed to compress 4k video.

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jacquesm
Every couple of years we seem to have to re-learn the lessons from the VHS
versus BetaMax wars.

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vermooten
I wonder what it's Weissman score is :)

