Firefox to support Theora video

Video in the browser, at least for Linux, has always resorted to somewhat clunky solutions—Flash plug-ins or external programs—but that is likely to change in Firefox 3.1. Recent commits to the Firefox development tree have added support for the HTML 5 <video> and <audio> tags as well as native Ogg Vorbis and Theora support. Providing multimedia support directly in a free browser, with no plug-in required, is a huge step forward both for Linux and for the royalty-free codecs.

The battle over video and audio formats is an ugly one, largely because they are patent minefields. The "mainstream" formats, MPEG-4 for video and MP3 for audio, are licensed on a royalty basis to companies that want to implement playback. Obviously, Mozilla is not in a position to pay a per-installation royalty, so that leaves various ad hoc methods using Javascript and plug-ins—that users have to track down—to make audio-video playback work in its browser.

Trying the new feature (seen at left) on one of the recent nightly Firefox builds seemed to work pretty well given that it is still under development. The video played smoothly, but the audio was not functional, only producing a rumbling, clicking soundtrack. The Wikimedia Commons video collection was used to test as it is a nice collection of Theora videos.

Some have seen the lack of Theora content currently on the web as a reason to downplay Firefox's support for the format, which is unfortunate, as Mozilla hacker Robert O'Callahan was quick to point out. Unlike the current situation, once a Firefox with video support is released, there will be one format that all content producers can be sure will be available for Firefox. Depending on whose numbers you believe that means that somewhere between 10 and 25% of web surfers (or more than 100 million people) will be using it.

Even with the dominance of Internet Explorer, the plethora of codec plug-ins has made it somewhat difficult for content providers to decide upon which video formats to support. With a substantial fraction of browsers supporting a particular free format, that situation may change. Wikimedia will certainly help by providing reasons for those not using Firefox to demand Theora plug-ins—if not integrated Theora support—for their browsers. As more content is available in that format, the pressure will build on Microsoft and Apple. As we mentioned in an article on web video formats last December, more content is the key to Theora support.

Some have argued that Vorbis and Theora are just as likely to be patent-encumbered as the more mainstream codecs, but so far that is unproven. There is no licensing authority that claims to have patents covering those codecs. Though Mozilla has some depth to its pockets—largely due to its deal with Google—patent holders might be loathe to attack a free software browser. In many ways, patent holders risk upsetting their entire apple cart if their attacks rise too high into the public consciousness. Though, clearly, Mozilla will be taking on some amount of risk with this move.

There have also been arguments that the Theora codec produces inferior video compared to those used by MPEG-4 and others. There is certainly truth to that assertion, but there is ongoing work to bring Theora more in line with the quality of its competitors. Due to the fact that it isn't controlled by a licensing authority with little or no interest in improving it, there is hope that Theora, or some descendant of it, could produce superior results some day.

Dirac—also known by the name of its C language implementation Schrödinger—is another royalty-free codec that is being looked at for inclusion into Firefox. There are currently some performance issues with decoding, but if those get resolved, there might be two free choices for video codecs in Firefox.

There are lots of entrenched interests that would like to see Theora, Vorbis, Dirac, and others like them disappear. They are quite happy with the current state of affairs. For the most part, though, users are not. Even on "well supported" platforms, video—and to a lesser extent audio—is a confusing jumble of plug-ins and formats that make it somewhat painful to use. Flash and Silverlight are supposed to "solve" these problems, but they do it in a not-quite-free way that still requires plug-ins. If web users start to find it easier to use the video formats embedded in their browser, and content producers take notice, it could completely change video on the web.