

Google and H.264 - Far From Hypocritical - bensummers
http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/simon-says/2011/01/google-and-h264---far-from-hypocritical/index.htm

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ZeroGravitas
It's interesting that Apple-centric folks think H.264 is popular because of
them, when in reality the major, basically only, reason it's used on the web
is because of Adobe Flash, which of course they have all been trained to hate.
This leads to many strange opinions, including the one discussed here.

So globally, in a couple of months when Google turns off H.264 in Chrome the
HTML5 support for H.264 will stand at 5% (yes, that's not a typo) including
all mobile browsing i.e. iOS which contributes less than a percent. Even in
the US where Apple is strongest it only reaches 10%. Meanwhile in Europe WebM
in HTML5 after Firefox 4 is released will be up at 60% (50% worldwide, 40%
US).

So with numbers like 60% vs 5% why isn't WebM going to totally wipe the floor
with H.264? How can people be complaining about Google ruining things and
causing them so much extra work by taking away their 10% of the measly 15%
share that H.264 has now? Short answer: Flash.

Flash currently delivers H.264 to 98% of the web. They've promised but not yet
released VP8 support and can rapidly get it to a good 85% of the web within a
year of release. What Google does with Chrome is really irrelevant in the face
of that. It's more about sending a message. A message that roughly says "H.264
in HTML5 cannot work without Flash as a fallback or shiv, so a strategy to
promote WebM via pushing people to Flash in the short-term is no less (or
more) ridiculous". Apple's position is only tenable because of the actions of
their two arch-frenemies: Adobe and, to a much lesser extent but growing as
IE9 comes online, Microsoft and either or both may just see this as a chance
to stick it to Apple and steal some glory for themselves.

~~~
pohl
_when in reality the major, basically only, reason it's used on the web is
because of Adobe Flash_

Could you elaborate on this or provide a citation? I thought Flash video was
almost exclusively a proprietary variant of the H.263 (yes, that's not a typo)
standard until the most recent release of Flash.

~~~
knowtheory
The other thing to remember about Flash though, is that they achieve something
like 97% penetration very quickly. There are very few devices sitting out
there w/ flash9 or earlier.

See this:
[http://www.adobe.com/products/player_census/flashplayer/vers...](http://www.adobe.com/products/player_census/flashplayer/version_penetration.html)

~~~
pohl
Exactly, which raises the question of why Adobe would bother transitioning a
market that they completely dominated from one codec to another if they
weren't feeling the pressure of H.264 from the mobile space (ZG's assertion
appears to be that mobile in general — or, at least, iOS in particular —
exerted no such pressure).

~~~
ZeroGravitas
I think Adobe rarely gets accused of having their finger on the pulse of the
mobile market around the year 2007. Instead H.264 was just an obvious choice,
they would probably have gone with it in 2005 if the licensing situation was
better, they certainly got abuse from some quarters for not doing so at that
time.

My contention was that serving H.264 became feasible the day Flash started
supporting it. The day before VP6 was a better choice because everyone had it
installed and could therefore actually watch your video. The same is true now
of H.264, it may be a wonderful codec and used in Blu-Ray and blah, blah, blah
but the reason you can put it on a website and have 98% of people watch it is
because it's supported by Flash. Sure Apple can force you to install Quicktime
to watch their keynote, Microsoft can do the same with Silverlight, everyone
else uses what's already out there on basically every machine, which is, and
has been for a while, Flash.

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knowtheory
Another telling point (and an easy way to identify Apple fanbois) is that this
isn't a complaint about proprietary plugin usage. This is a complaint about
_Flash_. And that's where the sour grapes are. Anything that fanbois want to
say about the inclusion of Flash in Chrome can be said about Java Applets, but
there hasn't been the merest hint of a peep about Google's relationship with
Oracle.

~~~
raganwald
To be perfectly honest with you, your comment reads far better without the use
of the word _fanboi_. That's name calling, and it sits at the lowest rung of
Paul Graham's "how to disagree" scale.

~~~
knowtheory
Duly noted for future use.

I however do intend some derision for what i view as a piece of fairly serious
intellectual dishonesty.

Not sure whether it'd be better to leave the comment up intact, given that
you've commented at this point, or edit the term out.

~~~
raganwald
Leave it there. The rest of your point is valuable, and Hn readers ought to be
(ha!) open-minded enough to:

a) Read your point and agree with it even if "fanboi" isn't their favourite
word, or; b) Read your point and respectfully dissent even if "fanboi" is
their favourite word.

This isn't a "tea party."

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erichsu
Of course it's a business decision by Google. It would be negligent to their
shareholders if it weren't a good-faith business decision for Google. It makes
plausible strategic business sense for all the reasons others have outlined.
(I think it's a bad move, but hey I'm not running the billion dollar company.)

Same with Apple. It is too simplistic to say "Apple dumped Flash". There were
three great business reasons for Apple to not have Flash on iOS. (1) A decent
speed/energy Flash didn't exist, and Apple had no leverage to get Adobe to
make one, (2) Apple does not want to depend on any outsiders to advance their
platform, (3) Apple wants to differentiate iOS, so they want to have software
target advanced iOS features and be exclusive. Cross-platform tools like Flash
defeat that.

Folks, these are the biggest tech players in the world. I don't think either
one gives a crap about standards or the free software movement any farther
than it advances their business model. We've been in a lucky stretch where
both Apple and Google want to commodify web access, so they've support
(mostly) open standards. Now they turn their guns on each other and will seek
to commodify each other's core products (for Apple, hardware; for Google,
advertising).

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calebgilbert
Google fan boys can try and rationalize this decision all they want, but a few
things are known.

1\. Most people saw this announcement as 'business' decision by Google

2\. This was not a decision driven by what is best for the average
computer/online user

3\. Yay, Flash video! :(

~~~
knowtheory
1\. that's totally projecting. Read what they wrote, not what you think they
mean. But if you really want to play that game, same can be said for Apple's
decision to drop flash.

2\. And dropping flash was good for average users?

3\. Regardless of how much we all hate flash, flash video wasn't dead to begin
with, or even dying yet. Sorry to pierce the reality distortion field.

------
radley
I know I'm taking to a wall for most of you, but anyone with an open mind and
more than 3 years of experience knows:

The reason we moved to H.264 is because it's a standard in the video world. It
unified online video really well - everyone uses it and we were all tired of
the fragmentation.

Flash is also a standard, particularly for multimedia. You can't have 99.7%
penetration and not be a standard.

With all due respect to web standards: a standard is something that everyone
uses. I think this is the best and most ironic line in the article:

"HTML5 is an emerging standard and anyone dealing with it has to expect change
constantly."

~~~
pohl
_With all due respect to web standards: a standard is something that everyone
uses._

It depends upon your priorities. Others would say that a standard is something
that is completely & unambiguously specified so that interoperable
implementations can be made. The terms under which such implementations are
created is yet another concern. We probably need 3 orthogonal axes to plot
various standards: ubiquity, specification, licensing terms. A "defacto
standard" would score high in ubiquity but might have no specification (let
alone one of quality) and might have bad or undefined licensing terms. Other
things may have excellent specifications but niche existance. Something like
H.264 has a specification, high penetration, but licensing terms that require
certain participants to pay. Something like WebM is shooting for very liberal
licensing terms, they are currently a niche but are angling for penetration —
although I'm not sure if they have/intend-to-have a specification upon which
interoperable implementations can be based.

Edit: there are also those who seems to put the greatest importance upon who
controls the specification. They wouldn't accept PostScript as a standard, for
example, because it isn't controlled by a standards bureaucracy —despite the
clarity of its specification. I personally believe that unless we can openly
acknowledge all of these components of the concept of "standardization" we'll
have a lot of heat & no light when we're discussing it.

My personal leanings: I value a complete & ambiguous spec above all else, and
loathe _de facto_ standards that thrive in absence of one. I don't feel
standards bodies are a must-have, but acknowledge that they can be nice. I
also acknowledge that standards bodies can give the illusion of community
control when in fact they provide no such guarantee. I'd rather not have to
pay to implement a spec, but in some problem domains (such as codecs) I can
understand why some would want to be rewarded for their work.

~~~
radley
I say _tomato_ , you say _Nix v. Hedden_...

=)

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5teev
This further complicates building video into web sites with a significant IE
user base. I've already seen mushrooming complexity with fellow devs trying to
get Ogg into the mix using <video> tags, wanting to "do the right thing", and
still ending up with a Flash fallback for Windows users.

HTML5 as we currently find it isn't making this simpler at all.

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pedanticfreak
Flash and h264 are completely different and are not at all equivalent.

Google doesn't support Flash. Google supports BROWSER PLUGINS. And Flash is by
far the most popular plugin to the point of being ubiquitous. Google CAN'T
drop support for Flash without dropping support for plugins. Google could,
symbolically, stop bundling the Flash plugin. But really they believe in an
open plugin standard which allows for browser extensions.

By comparison h264 is more like a proprietary, out of spec superset of the
HTML standard. Building h264 support directly into the browser is equivalent
to supporting IE specific markup. Or maybe even ActiveX. It just exposes
Google to patent suits.

The real problem is the W3C needs to recommend a codec for the HTML5 video
tag. Until they do there is no chance for standards compliant implementations
to exist because there is no standard. h264 is not a solution because it's not
part of the standard. And it won't become part of the standard until it loses
the patent encumberance.

