

Microsoft backs H.264. - dansingerman
http://techcrunch.com/2011/02/02/microsoft-h264/

======
tomlin
> At first, they touted the maneuver as being all about supporting “open”
> formats. But if that’s the case, why not pull support for the Flash plug-in
> baked into every version of Chrome currently?

This is the single shittiest argument I've ever heard, and continue to hear.

1) Adobe isn't charging browser makers royalty or licensing fees to use Flash.

2) Are we really going to pull the "all or nothing" argument with a bunch of
programmers and developers who, maybe more than anyone, are constantly driven
by the force known as _evolution_? Just because they haven't removed Flash
today doesn't mean they won't in the future. The probability of Google dumping
Flash in the next 5 years is likely, perhaps not high. Furthermore, YouTube's
HTML5 implementation doesn't exactly come across as _fear_ for HTML5 video.

WebM needed to be here 5 years ago. H.264 should have been dumped before it
got traction. Better late than never, no? Or in this case, off course - but
constantly correcting.

~~~
knowtheory
It is _very_ frustrating to hear this constantly touted as hypocrisy.

It is not.

Users and developers are free to use any and all Flash components. Flash
itself is a published standard (although proprietary). You can create
alternative VMs largely w/o caveat (the only one i've heard raised was some
DRM junk having to do with Flash Media Server, which no one should use
anyway).

There is no threat of patent licensing hovering over people who use Flash.
That is not the case with H.264 encoding.

Furthermore, it is obnoxious that Flash is always uncritically trotted out as
the only example of proprietary components in Chrome. What about Java plugins?
Anything you want to say about Flash you can say about Java applets.

Please stop spreading FUD.

Also, Google didn't _own_ WebM 5 years ago. It's hardly sensible for
criticizing them for not moving more quickly on the issue.

~~~
tomlin
> It's hardly sensible for criticizing them for not moving more quickly on the
> issue.

I'm not criticizing Google. I realize there was a time where WebM was VP8.

When I say _WebM needed to be here 5 years ago_ , that's all I'm saying. No
one company, standards body, org. is to blame.

> There is no threat of patent licensing hovering over people who use Flash.
> That is not the case with H.264 encoding.

Agreed. The individual _user_ is not effected. The browser, and those who
encode en masse for profit are exposed to _potential_ pitfalls of the
licensing. I'm not saying these royalties are debilitating or that the web
will cripple into a video-less nothingness.

What I am saying is: _If we can replace something proprietary with something
more open, that is a good thing._

> Please stop spreading FUD.

It really seems as though you're spreading FUD by ascertaining my opinions as
allegiance to one camp or another.

I'll admit I have a slight distaste for those who insist that H.264's
penetration is reason alone to continue using it. Especially when I, up until
a few years ago, was a lead Flash developer. Mainly due to Apple's insistence
that Flash was the devil. I want you to see the ignorant, double-standard
here. Flash and H.264 _both_ have high penetration rates. _Both_ are used
extensively on the web and beyond. Yet only _Flash_ must die? See how this is
completely asinine?

Instead of pointing a finger at Apple and declare them the enemy of _my camp_
, I examined the situation for benefits instead of fear.

Many thousand Flash developers will eventually hang up their tried-and-true
tools in search for a _better way_. A more open, standards-abiding, creative
community.

If we (Flash developers) can do it, I'm sure H,264 blowhards can do the same.

~~~
knowtheory
Sorry, my comment wasn't terribly clear, i am mainly agreeing with you!

I actually work in online video development, and the company i work for has
determined even prior to the WebM hubbub that we were going to have to stick
with a flash based player definitely for the short term, most likely for the
medium term, and the long term is yet to be determined.

The thing is, that for all the monstrosities inflicted on the web by Adobe and
Macromedia (may their children be afflicted with irritating skin diseases),
they're neither business nor developer hostile (except through neglect).

They _want_ people to use their products, and their existing revenue
generating business is based around high penetration. The structure of their
business and their incentives are such that pissing off the entire developer
community would be a very bad thing (and you can see this in the fact that
people like you are now _former_ flash developers, and next to no one is
willing to cop to being a _current_ flash developer).

MPEGLA's incentives are different and their revenue sources are exclusively
through licensing and enforcement.

So the bit of FUD that i find frustrating is the notion that the Flash or Java
plugins are similar to codecs. They really aren't, except superficially.

------
contextfree
The IE blog post in question
([http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2011/02/02/html5-and-
web-...](http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2011/02/02/html5-and-web-video-
questions-for-the-industry-from-the-community.aspx#comments)) seems more
interesting than the media stories suggest - here's what appears to be the
most substantive paragraph:

"Ultimately, Microsoft remains agnostic in terms of HTML5 video as long as
there is clarity on the intellectual property issues. To make it clear that we
are fully willing to participate in a resolution of these issues, Microsoft is
willing to commit that we will never assert any patents on VP8 if Google will
make a commitment to indemnify us and all other developers and customers who
use VP8 in the future. We would only ask that we be able to use those patent
rights if we are sued first by somebody else. If Google would prefer a patent
pool approach, then we would also agree to join a patent pool for VP8 on
reasonable licensing terms so long as Google joins the pool and is able to
include all other major providers of playback software and devices."

The question of indemnification seems pertinent to me, but I've only been
superficially following this issue - maybe it's a red herring and Google has
good reason not to offer indemnification etc. I'm curious to see the case for
that.

~~~
nitrogen
Indemnification is unheard of in codecs. Microsoft and SMPTE don't indemnify
users of VC-1. MPEG-LA doesn't indemnify users of H.264. Google offering
indemnification for WebM would effectively be suicide. They'd be painting
themselves with a giant target and taunting every money-grubbing patent troll
in existence.

------
cgranade
I get really tired of people saying that the patents on H.264 are a "red
herring." How is open source software like Firefox supposed to use H.264 if
they have to pay massive licensing fees? That enforcement thus far has been
weak to non-existent doesn't imply that it will continue to be so in the
future.

~~~
alanthonyc
H.264 patents are a red herring because WebM is not known to be patent free
either. The assumption is that patent holders are waiting for WebM to gain
traction before springing the lawsuits.

The devil you know versus the devil you don't.

~~~
haberman
> The devil you know versus the devil you don't.

You don't know the H.264 devil any better. It's just as likely that some lone
patent wolf will come forward and go after H.264. It's simply FUD to say that
WebM is somehow more susceptible. Just because MPEG-LA makes you pay for their
set of patents doesn't mean they're protecting you against patents they
_don't_ hold.

~~~
kenjackson
I'd say you know the H264 devil a little better. Why? Because its spec and
patents have been extremely well documented for a decade (or so), commented
on, and implemented (there are at least 10 implementations I know of).

Whereas WebM's details first came to light less than a year ago.

You're right that it is possible that either still violate some patent out in
the wild. BUT if you were to weigh the odds -- a nearly decade old open
standard technology that has openly solicited and worked to get all potential
patent holders in the pool OR a technology closed and proprietary until last
year. You really call even money on that?

~~~
ZeroGravitas
It seems to be widely accepted that WebM is a minor variation on H.264 with
changes specifically designed to avoid the H.264 patents, which as you mention
have been openly published and well documented for years.

Since large segments of H.264 were simply dropped for WebM, apparently there's
only about 49 H.264 patents total (out of over a thousand) that could even
remotely apply. That seems a reasonable number for On2 to work around, and for
Google (and everyone else listed on their supporters page)'s lawyers to double
check.

So now we are speculating about a random patent troll who happens to hold a
patent that doesn't read on H.264 but does read on a simplified version of
H.264 with some minor patent avoiding variations. Seems to me that if you're
arguing H.264 is clean, then so is WebM.

~~~
kenjackson
Your interpretation doesn't match those of people who have analyzed it. The
problem with WebM is that it may infringe on H264 patents! And its not clear
they have done enough to avoid the problems. H264 has come together to form a
very strong patent pool. None of the patents can be asserted against H264 (nor
can the partner companies in general), but any of them can be asserted against
WebM.

Read JGG's account, which is still the best account to date at:
<http://x264dev.multimedia.cx/archives/377>

Some quotes:

"But as noted in my previous post, merely being published by Google doesn’t
guarantee that it is. Microsoft did similar a few years ago with the release
of VC-1, which was claimed to be patent-free but within mere months after
release, a whole bunch of companies claimed patents on it and soon enough a
patent pool was formed."

"VP8 is simply way too similar to H.264: a pithy, if slightly inaccurate,
description of VP8 would be "H.264 Baseline Profile with a better entropy
coder". Even VC-1 differed more from H.264 than VP8 does, and even VC-1 didn’t
manage to escape the clutches of software patents."

"Most importantly, Google has not released any justifications for why the
various parts of VP8 do not violate patents, as Sun did with their OMS
standard: such information would certainly cut down on speculation and make it
more clear what their position actually is."

And not about patents, but the quality of the spec:

"The spec consists largely of C code copy-pasted from the VP8 source code up
to and including TODOs, optimizations, and even C-specific hacks, such as
workarounds for the undefined behavior of signed right shift on negative
numbers. In many places it is simply outright opaque. Copy-pasted C code is
not a spec. I may have complained about the H.264 spec being overly verbose,
but at least it’s precise. The VP8 spec, by comparison, is imprecise, unclear,
and overly short, leaving many portions of the format very vaguely explained.
Some parts even explicitly refuse to fully explain a particular feature,
pointing to highly-optimized, nigh-impossible-to-understand reference code for
an explanation. There’s no way in hell anyone could write a decoder solely
with this spec alone."

But maybe Google will fix it? Ummm think again;

"Update: it seems that Google is not open to changing the spec: it is
apparently "final", complete with all its flaws."

I just don't see how one can feel equally comfortable with WebM.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
Here's an analysis, which builds on the analysis in your link. I think it's
obvious which one makes more sense if you read both:

[http://carlodaffara.conecta.it/an-analysis-of-webm-and-
its-p...](http://carlodaffara.conecta.it/an-analysis-of-webm-and-its-patent-
risk/)

Some highlights:

 _"Dark Shikari makes several considerations, some related to the
implementation itself, and many related to its “patent status”. For example:
“VP8’s intra prediction is basically ripped off wholesale from H.264″, without
mentioning that the intra prediction mode is actually pre-dating H264;
actually, it was part of Nokia MVC proposal and H263++ extensions published in
2000, and the specific WebM implementation is different from the one mentioned
in the “essential patents” of H264 as specified by the MPEG-LA.

If you go through the post, you will find lots of curious mentions of “sub-
optimal” choices:

[big list of the identical features with minor differences between H.264 and
VP8]

What we can obtain from this (very thorough – thanks, Jason!) analysis is the
fact that from my point of view it is clear that On2 was actually aware of
patents, and tried very hard to avoid them. It is also clear that this is in
no way an assurance that there are no situation of patent infringements, only
that it seems that due diligence was performed. Also, WebM is not comparable
to H264 in terms of technical sophistication (it is more in line with
MPEG4/VC1) but this is clearly done to avoid recent patents; some of the
patents on older specification are already expired (for example, all France
Telecom patents on H264 are expired)."_

There's also a follow up here which discusses the thought process behind the
49 potential H.264 patents:

[http://carlodaffara.conecta.it/on-webm-again-freedom-
quality...](http://carlodaffara.conecta.it/on-webm-again-freedom-quality-
patents/)

~~~
kenjackson
That's not an analysis, but a commentary on the work Jason did.

But he says a lot of BS, like, "In fact, one of the most brain damaged things
of the current software patent situation is the fact that if a company
performs a patent search and finds a potential infringing patent it may incur
in additional damages for willful infringement (called “treble damages”). So,
the actual approach is to perform the same analysis, try to work around any
potential infringing patent, and for those close enough cases that cannot be
avoided try to steer away as much as possible. So, calling Google out for
releasing the study on possible patent infringement is something that has no
sense at all: they will never release it to the public."

Patent law makes it VERY clear that treble damages occur with WILLFUL
infringement. Good faith efforts, the inevitably fail, won't be subject to
treble damages.

It seems like he's bending over backwards to show that Google shouldn't
disclose anything, which is absurd.

His opinion that the suboptimal choices means that WebM has avoided the H264
patents seems very suspect to me. And contradictory, because if they did do
what he said, and did accidentally infringe, by his (incorrect) logic they'd
be liable for treble damages. Blech.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
Mozilla's on the record as being told by their counsel not to openly publish
patent research they did for Theora. They weren't happy about it, because it
opens them up to FUD, but we all know patent law is messed up, one more
absurdity shouldn't surprise us.

------
kenjackson
The IE blog post, [http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2011/02/02/html5-and-
web-...](http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2011/02/02/html5-and-web-video-
questions-for-the-industry-from-the-community.aspx#comments), also mentioned
something I'd never seen before. MS indemnifies Windows users for included
software, which would include H264. And is probably an obvious reason why WebM
isn't shipped as part of Windows (client and server).

That'a s pretty big frickin deal. I thought indemnification was off the table,
but reading this Google has at least got to say that end users of WebM are
indemnified. I honestly don't think they are willing to take that risk given
the patent state of WebM.

[http://download.microsoft.com/download/9/D/0/9D0A6265-A509-4...](http://download.microsoft.com/download/9/D/0/9D0A6265-A509-416C-80AE-
BB6C0A9D1B99/IP%20Indemnification%20Policy.docx)

------
latch
And they just released a Chrome plugin (like they recently did for firefox):

[http://blogs.msdn.com/b/interoperability/archive/2011/02/01/...](http://blogs.msdn.com/b/interoperability/archive/2011/02/01/greater-
interoperability-for-windows-customers-with-html5-video.aspx)

------
carson
The link to the actual post referenced in the techcrunch article but not
linked to: [http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2011/02/02/html5-and-
web-...](http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2011/02/02/html5-and-web-video-
questions-for-the-industry-from-the-community.aspx)

------
beej71
> by turning their back on H.264, Google is ensuring that Flash will continue
> to remain the dominant force in web video for years to come

Even if Google didn't support the video tag at all, people can still use IE
and Safari, right? Its looking like H.264 is going to be the dominant codec,
after all, so IE and Safari will support it. If you want it on another
browser, you'll need a plugin, sorry. That could be Flash, or it could be
something else.

> but the issue here is that we need the HTML5 standard to fully support
> H.264, and that’s simply not going to happen without Google on board.

No. The answer is no, with or without Google. It's a bad idea to have a per-
unit fee for distributing a standards-compliant browser. Go ahead and buy it
for the browser you're building--I'm fine with that--but don't make it a
requirement.

And to anyone who says, "$0.20 isn't that much", you must agree to back it in
cash. If you say you'll personally cover the licensing fees for anyone who
asks, well, then I'll reconsider.

------
powrtoch
Here's what I'm not clear on: why did we scrap the whole Ogg Theora thing in
favor of WebM at all? Isn't Ogg _actually_ unencumbered by lawsuit-fodder?

~~~
mcritz
Ogg (like mp4 or mov) is actually a container format that can have Theora or
WebM compressed media inside.

~~~
robin_reala
WebM is a container format for VP8. Ogg can’t contain WebM but could contain
VP8 as well.

------
akmiller
Of course Microsoft and Apple support H.264. They both stand to benefit:

<http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/AVC/Pages/Licensors.aspx>

~~~
griftah
Of course Firefox and Opera support WebM. Revenues of Mozilla Foundation and
Opera Software depend on Google.

~~~
nlogn
Firefox and Opera had chosen VP8 in favor of H.264 before Chrome did.

~~~
griftah
But not before Google.

------
pedanticfreak
Until the W3C officially adopts a royalty free codec as part of the HTML
standard, Google and Mozilla should assume HTML video is dead. They might as
well make the <video> tag inoperable by default. Just parse it and ignore it.

Of course, Google owns VP8. So they are pushing it so it might become a
defacto standard that later gets officially adopted. Despite meeting the
requirements to be part of the HTML spec, without the official backing of the
W3C it is no different than any other out of spec extension to HTML.

~~~
eli
Maybe this is a dumb question, but what difference does it make what's in the
spec? People will pick the browser that plays the videos they want to see over
the one that follows the spec every time.

~~~
pedanticfreak
[http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/biz/2009/09/123_52401.h...](http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/biz/2009/09/123_52401.html)

South Korea built vast infrastructure around IE6 and ActiveX. Just a year ago
a full 60% of Korean traffic still came from IE6. Why? Because they relied
heavily on features that were not in the spec that Microsoft deprecated and
nobody else can or will implement.

An extreme example. But it highlights the importance of sticking to specs that
can be freely implemented by anyone. Five years from now when MPEGLA decides
to throw down the crap hammer do you want to have to keep around old Safari
binaries just for sites that migrated to h264 while the rest of the web moved
on?

~~~
eli
That sounds like an argument for free and open formats in general more than an
argument for strict obedience to the W3C, but I see your point.

At the time those Korean sites were built, I'm guessing there was no spec nor
open alternative to do what they were trying to do.

------
vampirical
Let me consult my list of companies which make money from being MPEG LA
licensors: Apple Cisco Daewoo Dolby Fuijitsu HP Hitachi Philips LG _Microsoft_
Mitsubishi NTT Panasonic Samsung Sharp Siemens Sony Ericsson Toshiba
Reference: <http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/AVC/Pages/Licensors.aspx>

I am SHOCKED to hear that Microsoft would like to continue receiving royalties
from all those H.264 license fees and doesn't give a toss about open
standards.

~~~
itg
Let me consult my list of companies which would benefit from WebM: Google

Don't pretend for one second this is actually about "open standards".

~~~
jokermatt999
Actually, Mozilla and Opera would also benefit from not having to license
H264. Other than the lack of license fees, how would Google benefit?

~~~
kenjackson
They get to screw Apple. Apple has built an existing HW ecosystem and has a
highly tuned sw tools for H264. With WebM Google gets to say, "Throw all that
away -- now you're behind us technologically Apple."

~~~
ZeroGravitas
Regarding Apple's "highly tuned sw tools for H264", you know that their H.264
encoder in Quicktime/iTunes is abysmal, right?

There's an x264 plugin for Quicktime which is much preferable to the encoders
built into most proprietary products, but Apple's is particularly bad.

