
HTML 5 drops open source video codec - acangiano
http://www.zdnetasia.com/news/software/0,39044164,62055739,00.htm?scid=rss_z_nw
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w1ntermute
If both Mozilla and Google (alongside H.264, but still) are willing to support
Ogg, why didn't they just go with Ogg? Since Firefox has the largest market
share of the <video>-supporting browsers and Google is running YouTube, there
should be enough Ogg support for it to win. Why is Apple's opinion even
relevant? Safari's market share certainly isn't large enough to make a big
difference.

Moreover, the efficiency concerns regarding Ogg will be solved in the future,
so that shouldn't be a concern in the long run (which is what this standard is
for).

~~~
ubernostrum
"Safari's market share certainly isn't large enough to make a big difference."

Sigh.

Please read this:

[http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2006/05/13/cluster...](http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2006/05/13/cluster_effects.html)

If you're too busy to read it, a good summary applied to this situation would
be that small-market browsers do indeed matter if they're being used by the
sorts of critical early-adopter/well-connected people who make or break your
service through their social connections. And remember that Safari is on every
single iPhone out there, and so is the mobile browser used by lots and lots of
those people.

~~~
w1ntermute
" _small-market browsers do indeed matter if they're being used by the sorts
of critical early-adopter/well-connected people who make or break your service
through their social connections. And remember that Safari is on every single
iPhone out there, and so is the mobile browser used by lots and lots of those
people._ "

I still don't feel that this even comes close to matching the massive impact
that Firefox has. It is also popular among early adopters, and were Ogg to be
made the standard and implemented on YouTube as the sole <video> codec, I
think it would be possible to force Apple's hand on the issue.

~~~
ubernostrum
"I still don't feel that this even comes close to matching the massive impact
that Firefox has."

The question is not "is X bigger than Y". You have to stop thinking in those
terms if you want a successful service built on social networking effects. You
simply _cannot_ afford to lock people out, period.

"were Ogg to be made the standard and implemented on YouTube as the sole
<video> codec, I think it would be possible to force Apple's hand on the
issue."

No, it wouldn't, because YouTube is run by people smart enough to realize that
punishing millions of users to try to stick it to one of your business
partners is not a good plan. And even if they went Theora-only (which they're
not going to do), they'd have to provide a fallback for IE, which would
probably end up extended to Safari as well.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
ubernostrum: "And even if they went Theora-only (which they're not going to
do), they'd have to provide a fallback for IE, which would probably end up
extended to Safari as well."

I'm not bothered about the actual format shipped, let the market sort that
out. What I want is to be able to publish a webpage with a video and know that
all standards compliant browsers will play that media.

Safari doesn't have to only use Ogg Theora, YouTube doesn't have to stop using
flash.

Keeping the openness of the web means allowing content creators a path to
create content unencumbered by license disputes IMO. They should go back and
specify it for HTML5 standard compliance and let Safari fail compliance.

~~~
ubernostrum
"What I want is to be able to publish a webpage with a video and know that all
standards compliant browsers will play that media."

Your proposed remedy does not accomplish this. Putting language in the spec
and "letting" browsers "fail compliance" leaves you in the same situation as
not putting language in the spec.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
Well all compliant browsers will play the media, by definition, so the remedy
is effective. Safari wouldn't fail compliance they'd suddenly find the time to
implement Ogg Theora as a fall back and if they've any sense the chip
manufacturers would be falling over themselves to offer an optimised stack to
court Apple.

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eli
Well, it's that they gave up on picking a codec in the standard, not that they
abandoned Ogg for something else

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seldo
It's not clear why Apple would refuse to support Ogg -- hardware support seems
a silly reason from Apple, who manufacture their own hardware, and the "patent
landscape" for the open-source Ogg seems even less likely. Do they still cling
to a dream of Quicktime becoming the web standard, after the <video> tag kills
Flash?

The only people who should be pleased with this announcement are Adobe. Moving
away from Flash will be an uphill struggle, and this makes it just a little
bit harder.

~~~
tptacek
I like the idea that anyone who has any hardware capability, or even
significant hardware capability, can just whip up an Ogg chipset and roll it
out to millions of installed devices. Hey, why doesn't Centrino 2 support Ogg?
Intel must be clinging to some krazy dreams.

~~~
seldo
The mass adoption of all elements of HTML 5 is 5 years off; far longer than
Apple's hardware product cycle. If Apple wanted to start supporting Ogg, they
could build it into their hardware in that timeframe.

Also, it's not like their hardware can't support it right now; Ogg video in
Firefox 3.5 runs just fine on my Mac.

~~~
ubernostrum
Please write on the blackboard 100 times: "HTML5 has to be something that
works well on mobile devices, not just on desktop/laptop machines."

And right now that's going a long way toward killing Theora; mobile devices
need a power-efficient hardware decoder to do video, and if they don't get one
for Theora they're not going to run everybody's battery life into the ground
by using software decoding.

~~~
vetinari
Well, HTML5 is not going to be adopted by tomorrow. The adoption will take
longer than the mobile devices lifespan.

It means, that if TI/Qualcomm/etc start developing Theora DSPs this year, they
will be on the market and in the devices before HTML5 goes mainstream.

Standardizing on Theora is pretty good incentive to have it hardware
accelerated.

~~~
henrrrik
Well, Safari supports it today including on the iPhone as of verison 3.0. If
YouTube rolls out HTML5 support in the next six months, that covers what, a
third of all the video on the web (on YouTube itself and embedded on blogs)?

~~~
vetinari
Safari supports HTML5 video element, but not HTML5 per se. It is not finished
yet.

Interestingly, when YouTube supported only Sorenson, Apple didn't care for
that and went on ignoring YouTube. Why it is suddenly a problem?

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anigbrowl
See also: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=688995>

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onreact-com
All those greedy bastards just want to push their own codecs, especially Apple
the king of proprietary media solutions. That's their business model.

~~~
sbt
Yes, this is like a soap opera where everyone has their own obvious interests
in mind but are still willing to put on a charade.

I'm a Linux user and I'm getting pretty tired of not having an open source
codec standard for the browser. Mozilla (and Opera) has my full support in
this.

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TweedHeads
Ian Hickson should continue supporting Ogg Theora as the only free solution.
It leaves a lot to be desired from his decision to drop the ball right now
when firefox 3.5 just released, knowing that more than 100 million users
support Theora.

Ian, you're on my watch list, I don't want to ever know you were bribed by
greedy bastards or criminal monopolists.

It just takes a million dollars to buy a soul.

