
Skype goes VP8, embraces open video codec - nextparadigms
http://gigaom.com/video/skype-vp8-video-conferencing/
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sriramk
I'm pretty confident that when the acquisition closes, Mr.John Luther (the
author of the blog post) is going to get a nice mail from MSFT LCA (legal and
corporate) on the implications of using VP8 :)

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lysol
Does it really matter that they're using an open video codec when their
protocol itself is not? It's at least of little utility to anyone else that
they use an open video codec.

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wmf
It doesn't matter from a user's perspective, but it does show that VP8 is good
enough for Skype to use it.

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notatoad
Skype has been using the VPx codecs for as long as they have done video
calling. if VP7 was good enough for them, there's no reason why the new and
improved VP8 wouldn't be. they aren't moving to any new technology here, nor
are they embracing VP8 because it's open. they are merely upgrading to the
latest version of the same codec they have always used.

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wmf
Ssssh, you're screwing up Google's PR. :-)

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hannibalhorn
Interesting that, at least according to the article, Skype has adopted and
released VP8 for video chat before Google itself (for Google Talk and Google+
Hangouts.)

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pedalpete
This is surprising based on Microsofts support of h.264.
[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)

Could this be a strategy to challenge Apple's (apparently) open standard
FaceTime which uses h.264?

Other reasons?

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kenjackson
This is a myth that MS doesn't support WebM. They do. They just don't ship it
in the box. But if you have it on your system, they'll use it. MS doesn't ship
a lot of its own technologies in the box -- it doesn't mean they don't support
it.

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ajross
How depressing that an operating system being able to run third party software
is now held up as notable enough to count as "support" of that software.

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pyre
More along the lines of "Internet Explorer's <video> support will use WebM if
you install a 3rd party codec because it hooks into Windows' video codec
system" vs "Internet Explorer only supports h264 for <video> because it's all
linked in directly to the browser." Unless you were referring to IE as the
'operating system.'

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ajross
In exactly the same way that running Chrome hooks into Window's "program
execution system", or installing a new video card hooks into windows "driver
extension system".

Microsoft provided an API, and the WebM plugin implements it. That's how this
sort of thing is _supposed_ to work. That it doesn't any more (at least, not
in the world dominated by a particularly popular mobile device vendor who
shall remain nameless lest I be flamed into oblivion) is what I found
depressing.

