
Google's dropping H.264 in Chrome is not a step backward for openness. - martythemaniak
http://my.opera.com/haavard/blog/2011/01/13/openness
======
mikeryan
This is a pretty poor rebuttal to what was actually a fairly well written
(like it's opinion or not) article by Ars. Ars fairly clearly delineated the
difference between "open standards" and "open/free to use" and this one mixes
them up continuously

This statement _"Indeed, most sites offer different bandwidth options and
video sizes. They are already converting the video!"_ shows a pretty clear
lack of understanding on how most site's encoding processes work (you
generally encode once at different bitrates, not once at one and others as you
need them)

~~~
DjDarkman
I have to disagree, the article points out a lot of flaws in the Ars. article.
The premise of the article is self-contradictory: H.264 is patent encumbered,
open web means open/free to use for anybody, these two don't relate to each
other.

I find it dubious to suggest the following: we should use it, just because
most other people use it. Google dropping this codec actually helps prevent
h.264's monopoly.

~~~
tomlin
Those who seem to be opposed to Google's decision are often in the Apple camp
(disclosure: I am in the Apple camp) but are also the same people who wish
Flash to die because of it's closed/proprietary nature.

So why can't we just envision ourselves embracing H.264 and picture what it'll
be like in 10 years? Which camp will be trying to push it out the door because
of licensing issues? There _will_ be licensing and royalty issues. MPEG LA is
a business at heart. Google is as well, certainly. But WebM could be _ours_
instead of _theirs_ , no?

I think what people miss about WebM is that it isn't perfect - and no one is
saying it is. It's not fully developed, but shouldn't we participate in fully
developing WebM under an open source/royalty-free vision?

Can't we all just get along?

~~~
kenjackson
_There will be licensing and royalty issues._

When a big company in Redmond says stuff like this, its called FUD. This is
FUD, plain and simple.

What technologies have patents, fees and/or licensing around them?

H264, MP3, Flash, USB, Java, HDMI, CDMA, GSM, LTE, WiMax, Firewire, CD, DVD,
BluRay, MP3, AMOLED, and many more.

To argue that computing is going to collapse with the existence of all these
is pure FUD. Its FUD when MS does it. It's FUD when Google or the Google camp
does it.

UPDATE: And I forgot a biggie, MPEG-2.

~~~
tomlin
Not so fast. These licensed technologies you speak of are not _embedded
within_ web browser standards. It's a big difference. Flash, for one, is a
plugin. It hitches a ride with the browser, it's not part of its standardized,
internal workings.

Google probably _will_ benefit financially from this change and the rhetoric
from Google's camp probably is FUD. No different than what Apple is doing with
it's proprietary App Store process or it's closed source OS or how Apple's
camp (again, I'm apart of this camp) manages to stick-shift through an
uncomfortable conversation about open source beyond WebKit.

The difference is that WebM might also help open source as well. Just because
it benefits a corporation doesn't necessarily mean it's the devil.

~~~
redial
How is bundling flash any different than bundling H.264 in Chrome? none of
those are part of the HTML5 specification.

And in Chrome, flash is part of the internal workings. You can't update (or
remove) the flash player inside.

~~~
stanleydrew
I can tell you exactly how, as many others already have in this and other
discussions: flash is a plugin; h.264 support is native browser code.

Google bundles flash for one reason only: to make sure that users aren't given
the chance to shoot themselves in the foot by not upgrading. Everyone
downloads the flash plugin because sites require it. It has 98% penetration
(perhaps less now with more people using iDevices, but still very high). But
people never update the plugin, which is a major security issue. Google has
solved that problem in chrome.

And you are mistaken that flash is part of the internal workings of chrome.
You can disable it: see about:plugins. And there is no need to update it since
chrome takes care of that for you.

------
grayrest
All the outcry over this I've read is basically a complaint that you can't
ship one codec for HTML5 video, which you've never been able to do. That's
what the whole argument over the video tag has always been about.

The only difference this makes is that this cements the split instead of
everybody expecting Firefox and Opera to give up and adopt H.264. If you were
willing to ship just H.264 and flash fallback for Firefox/Opera, why wouldn't
you be willing to ship H.264 and flash fallback for Chrome?

~~~
MiguelHudnandez
On desktops, falling back to flash for H.264 decoding is a pretty good
strategy.

On mobiles, though, Google's change has a bigger effect. Flash is abysmal (if
existent) on Android devices--and now there is no clear solution that doesn't
involve serving multiple encodings.

Before this change, you could be comfortable that your H.264 HTML5 video would
play on the majority of smartphones; the flash fallback was only necessary for
desktop browsers.

~~~
eordano
There is no Chrome for smartphones, and so far no one has said anything about
dropping H.264 on Android (although you can see it happening as soon as WebM
extensions for ARM start being more popular).

(edited: typo)

~~~
MiguelHudnandez
You are correct, but why would you imagine Google would treat Android
differently? Even though they haven't announced any changes specific to
Android, I expect Google's left and right hands to work together...
eventually.

~~~
DrHankPym
Because Android is open and developed with the cellular carriers and
manufacturers. If they want to add a H.264 chip, why would Google stop them?

~~~
ZeroGravitas
They'll almost certainly have an H.264 chip but the standard Android browser
(and Firefox and Opera Mobile) might not take advantage of it when faced with
an HTML5 video tag.

Maybe we'll see Apple and Microsoft release browsers for Android!

------
prewett
I'm kind of curious... It seems like the MPEG-LA is doing great work by
creating all these video and audio compression codecs. MP3 is used by
everybody, MPEG2 was good for the day, and now H.264 is even better. Plus,
nobody else seems to be coming up with something compelling. Sure, there's
WebM and VP8, but if I recall correctly, they are, at best, at parity with
H.264. It seems like here's a good case of patents being useful: the MPEG
people do research and create great codecs and we all pay them a $1 (or
something) in licensing fees so we get small video. I'm all for open standards
and free and Free software, but it seems like H.264 is a net will, compared to
what we'd have without it. (Remember the days of huge .wav files and
electronic .mod files before MP3 came out?)

------
Entlin
You know what we actually need? A h.264-buyout. Let's ask MPEG-LA how much
they are planning to earn by the time their licence runs out (2024?). It will
probably be ~200 Million or so. Then ask the whole internet to chip in.

Result: all the open source people are happy, and we all get to use the higher
quality codec in any application we can imagine. And we also get to keep our
devices with their battery efficient dedicated h.264-decompression chips.

~~~
jarek
Or we could just use VP8. All the open source people are happy, the codec will
quickly improve, and the vast majority of your devices with their battery
efficient dedicated H.264-decompression chips will be replaced by devices with
battery efficient dedicated VP8 and H.264-decompression chips within three
years. We also save 200 mill.

~~~
recoiledsnake
>the codec will quickly improve

I am sorry, but codecs don't work like regular software. Fixing bugs and
issues in the encoder could make the resulting video incompatible with older
decoders (decoders and encoders are not easily updateable in firmware devices
such as consoles, set top boxes, mobile devices etc.).

Therefore it's important to have a proper spec in place and then improve
encoders and decoders. A dump of C code is not a spec like Google did with
VP8.

~~~
jarek
Fair enough. Then all of the above minus codec improving and plus video
quality slightly worse than H.264.

I mean, if you want to pitch in to buy the better one, be my guest. Maybe
start a Kickstarter or something.

------
cletus
This is a weak article.

> It's called bait and switch.

Not really. If anything, it's the eventual use of market power for
profiteering.

> But it would become another closed de facto standard, just like IE6.

Huh? IE6 is a _browser_ not a _standard_.

> This is comparing apples and oranges. Flash is a plugin,

This is splitting hairs and a straw man. The user does not care or typically
doesn't differentiate between something that's part of the browser and
something that is a bundled plug-in. The user experience is basically the
same.

So any argument using a criteria about building in a proprietary and closed
standard to the browser versus bundling a proprietary and closed plug-in is at
somewhere between fatuous and disingenuous.

> If you want to do any kind of video on the web, you don't have a choice.
> Flash is needed.

WRONG. Bizarrely wrong in fact since we're arguing about the HTML5 container
for video and supported codecs. Flash isn't involved. This isn't vapourware
either. Modern browsers already support it.

> it is much more likely that an open format will prevail in the end.

If there are two dominant standards, sites will be faced with a choice:
double-encode everything or pick one. Many have already picked H.264. What's
more likely? Double-encoding or simply delivering H.264 to Chrome via a Flash
(rather than HTML5) container?

If anything, this move prolongs the existence of Flash.

> Just because a format is widespread offline does not mean that it is
> suitable for use on the web.

Is the author _really_ suggesting H.264 a) isn't widespread on the Web and/or
b) isn't suitable for use on the Web? Really?

> In other words: The processing will always be there, and instead of re-
> processing to a slightly more compressed H.264 file for online play, it can
> be converted to an open format.

If the author thinks this move will displace H.264 they are sadly mistaken.
For one, the license fees for using H.264 are negligible for the largest
players. For another, there is an _enormous_ installed base of devices with
hardware H.264 decoding. Hundreds of millions in fact, most notably the
various Apple iDevices.

These provide a compelling use for the continued use of H.264 in the long
term.

> As already explained, videos are typically re-encoded or processed in some
> way anyway.

Yes but double the processing and double the storage are real issues.

> Notice the word "plugin". It means that we're basically removing HTML5
> video, and returning to plugins. All the benefits of native video disappear
> just like that

What benefits are those exactly? At least for now the user experience, HTML5
video is still playing catch up to Flash video in terms of _user experience_.

> If I am not mistaken, the share of open standards based browsers is growing
> at the expense of Internet Explorer.

Worst case for IE is still about ~50%. That still makes it the single largest
browser. Chrome's share exceeds Safari's (AFAIK) but the latter is still
significant and I can't imagine it getting WebM support anytime soon. Apple
are very much wedded to H.264 support by virtue of their devices if nothing
else (anecdote: I played 6 hours of video on a plane on my iPad using 10% of
the battery).

> it is H.264 which takes away choice.

By definition, not giving someone a choice takes away choices.

All of the arguments for this move seem to be focused on the long term. That's
fine but in the short term it will unarguably cause users and sites headaches.

> I also find it puzzling that Google is being accused of giving users fewer
> choices, while Microsoft and Apple aren't even mentioned.

Hold yourself to a higher standard (and, more importantly, preach those
standards to others) and you will be the recipient of greater scrutiny.

At best, the author's argument descends to "two wrongs make a right".

Note: I'm saying arguing in favour of Flash. In fact, I consider the lack of
Flash on my iDevices to be a _feature_ rather than a limitation.

Ironically this moves will likely prolong Flash and slow the adoption of HTML5
as a result.

~~~
jawee
> But it would become another closed de facto standard, just like IE6.

Huh? IE6 is a browser not a standard.

Well, neither can H.264 be a standard, it is a non-free codec for video. The
key was de facto..

Internet Explorer 6, at the peak of its dominance, became the standard that
many web developers developed for. Even though it wasn't a standard, when it
had over 90% of the market, it was often the only browser that was developed
for and other browsers were locked out or suffered. Browsers like Opera
spoofed as IE by default, Netscape had quirks to behave similar to IE in some
respects...

It's saying that everyone who wasn't on H.264 would suffer or be forced to
conform, as was the case with IE6 for some time.

~~~
cletus
> Well, neither can H.264 be a standard

Let's not split hairs. Browser != data format.

I can see the point you're arguing (or at least what the author is trying to
argue, whether or not it's your opinion as well). But it's at best a stretch.

In the IE6 "glory" days, it wasn't just a case that Websites wouldn't be made
to work for other browsers (meaning they were never tested or, if they were,
it was beyond scope to fix). It was worse than that. Sites would deliberately
look at the user agent and simply not work if it was a non-IE browser. This
_still_ happens. I still come across sites that not only warn you they're
optimized for IE and FF (ie proceed at your own "risk" when using Chrome).
Some go further and simply _won't work_ if you try and use Chrome. It's
thankfully rare but it still happens.

Anyway, the point here is the IE6 displayed HTML/CSS content differently than
other browsers and had JS differences too. It took effort to make things
cross-browser and it was (and arguably still is) a big deal.

So the stretch of comparing H.264 to IE6 is twofold:

1\. We're talking about the entire Web vs the narrow context of Web-based
videol so it's a question of _scope_ ; and

2\. Converting video from one format to another can be automated. Converting a
site designed for IE6 to work on other browsers cannot.

So not only aren't the problems analogous but the author is engaging in
scaremongering to try and equate H.264 with the (stipulated) horrors of IE6.

~~~
lukeschlather
>2\. Converting video from one format to another can be automated. Converting
a site designed for IE6 to work on other browsers cannot.

Sure it can. You run it through IE6 and print to an image format of your
choice.

>1\. We're talking about the entire Web vs the narrow context of Web-based
videol so it's a question of scope; and

Yes, and thanks to the narrower scope it's not as big a deal to convert
between video formats, but there's still going to be a marked loss of quality.

>So not only aren't the problems analogous but the author is engaging in
scaremongering to try and equate H.264 with the (stipulated) horrors of IE6.

Viewing a website designed specifically for IE6 is likely to cause similar
loss of fidelity to viewing a video transcoded from VP8 to H.264, or vice
versa.

>Let's not split hairs. Browser != data format.

The data format in question is the HTML accepted by IE6. That data format
actually works fairly well with modern web browsers, much like VP8 decoders
will likely be bundled with H.264 encoders once the patents run out and H.264
can properly be called an open standard.

------
eddanger
As a rant this was mediocre, as a rebuttal this was lame.

~~~
prumek
It's not a rant. It cleanly refutes the Ars Technica article.

No rebuttal was really needed because most of the AT article was a red
herring. The question is about openness, and h264 fails at that.

------
asnyder
I'm actually curious about the differences in the formats. Is H.264 a better
format? If so, does that mean that the web will always choose "free" over
quality, if so, is there any incentive to create better embedded technologies,
if a "free" albeit technically worse "knockoff" is available regardless of how
open the other tech is, simply because it wants to be compensated when used by
commercial entities that plan to profit off their work. For example, if they
had non-commercial, GPLv2 and commercial licensing options.

~~~
prumek
H264 is a closed format owned by an industry cartel.

Webm is an open format owned by an open-source project.

The web ALWAYS needs to choose open over everything else, because that's the
whole foundation of the web.

You want people to create html knockoffs? CSS knockoffs?

------
juiceandjuice
The main problem with WebM/VP8 vs. H.264, especially in the face of the mobile
internet device explosion, is hardware acceleration.

Once devices start coming with native WebM acceleration, it won't be an issue.
Given that Android is so popular and Google is looking to abandon H.264, it's
inevitable that hardware acceleration will come to phones, probably in
conjunction with H.264 acceleration (just like H.264 and H.263 right now) At
that point, any ARM platform with a H.264 acceleration will include a WebM
acceleration, and it would be more than trivial for Apple/Microsoft/whoever to
implement WebM in their mobile browsers.

A more interesting day will be when Google says "Android 3.x phones must have
WebM acceleration"

~~~
prumek
Most hardware will soon have webm support. All future Android devices, for
example.

------
Derbasti
Quite simply, what most people are missing here is that Chrome is _removing_
H.264. How does removing a capability of a browser enhance its capabilities?

Its nice that they _add_ WebM, but there is just no practical reason for
_removing_ H.264.

~~~
jasonlotito
> Its nice that they add WebM, but there is just no practical reason for
> removing H.264.

They don't want to support H.264. You can add an H.264 plugin, but they don't
want to support it internally.

Put another way: Why should Apple be required to support Flash if they don't
want to?

------
bbuffone
This line here creeps me out ->

"The market share of browsers that support H.264 exceeds WebM capable
browsers"

Google's online advertising monopoly is working on overdrive to ensure that
won't happen.

------
brisance
What about video support for existing Android devices? AFAIK WebM is only
available for Gingerbread, which means the large majority of Android devices
would have to fall back on Flash for Android. And that's not fully-baked yet.

I can't see why this won't be turned into a lawsuit w.r.t. intentional
degradation of performance/battery life.

------
Timmy_C
I like his point that the core of the debate should really be about choice.
But then he lost me when he characterized the MPEG-LA as a ruthless cartel.

------
recoiledsnake
>I also find it puzzling that Google is being accused of giving users fewer
choices, while Microsoft and Apple aren't even mentioned. They refuse to
support WebM, after all.

Err, Microsoft has already declared that WebM will be supported if a
compatible plugin codec is installed on the machine. They just don't want
patent trolls (successfully) suing them for shipping hundreds of WebM
decoders. After all, Google is not indemnifying users of WebM from
patents(like Android OEMs like HTC were left on their own when Apple decided
to sued) like Microsoft does with Windows Phone 7.

Opera is being disingenuous by spinning this as if Microsoft blocks WebM from
being used in IE9 for the HTML5 video tag.

~~~
k33l0r
It's worth pointing out that MPEG-LA also doesn't offer patent indemnification
on H.264 or any of its other formats.

I can't find where I originally read this, but EETimes mentions it at the end
of this article: [http://www.eetimes.com/design/other/4012977/MPEG-
licensing-b...](http://www.eetimes.com/design/other/4012977/MPEG-licensing-
basics?pageNumber=1)

"Also, MPEG LA does not offer any indemnification guaranteeing that its
patents do not infringe someone else's patent rights."

~~~
alanh
Worth pointing out? Sure, but let’s not forget that what MPEG-LA actually does
is _license_ to you all the patents which H.264 is known to use — so you’re
_probably not_ infringing anything, barring of course the insanity the USPTO
perpetuates… If you have a patent for part of the H.264 process, chances are,
you’re part of the MPEG-LA and getting royalties through that organization
already, legitimately, without suing anyone.

~~~
vetinari
Microsoft also thought that they properly licensed MP3, until they were forced
to pay additional $1.52B to Alcatel-Lucent...

MPEG-LA does not provide any protection agains patent holders coming out of
the blue.

~~~
recoiledsnake
Very true. But by shipping WebM, MS would be vulnerable not to the patent
holders coming out of the blue on H.264, but also ALL the mpeg-la companies
AND patent holders coming out of the blue. It would greatly increase their
risk.

I think they have reached a good compromise by developing support for IE9 to
pickup WebM codecs installed by the user and playing HTML5 video through it.

~~~
vetinari
The WebM patent grant contains insurance against this. If any "new" patent
holder sues anyone or makes available their patents for suing by other party,
he will be excluded from the (VP8) patent grant.

Any CE or IT company will think twice, whether it is worth it. Can you imagine
Samsung or LG suing someone over VP8 and in return losing access to VP8
content on Youtube? What it will do to their CE business?

~~~
alanh
Fascinating. I did not know this. Sounds like a clever, or at least smart,
legal move!

------
pedanticfreak
Chrome is 100% compliant without extraneous h264 support. The HTML5 spec
contains no requirement for h264. If you want to blame anyone then blame the
W3C working group for not specifying a codec.

As of now h264 is on the same level as ActiveX and VBScript so you might as
well ask for Chrome to support those, too.

Granted, in this respect WebM is not perfect either. But at least WebM is
meets the criteria to be a part of the W3C spec without modification whereas
currently h264 does not.

tl;dr Don't complain if Chrome uses WebM for <video>. My browser will only
support Dirac and we're both right.

------
eddieplan9
If Google is truly whole-heartedly after the openness of web video, they
should go ahead and disable H.264 playback in the bundled flash plugin in
Chrome. It's technically just a simple wrap around the stock flash plugin.
Given their cozy relationship with Adobe, they might even get a special binary
from adobe, cut down the download size of Chrome and save bandwidth cost
(which I believe is a greater saving than the $6.5 million)!

