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HTML5 video element codec debate reignitedOn January 20, YouTube publicly unveiled a video player that allows site visitors to watch videos embedded directly into each page as HTML 5 video elements, replacing the plugin-based Flash player — and second-tier video sharing site Vimeo quickly followed suit. But both sites serve up HTML 5 video files only in the patented and royalty-collecting H.264 format. By sheer coincidence, the announcement neatly overlapped with the release of Firefox 3.6, and was followed days later with Apple's press event showcasing its iPad gadget, which lack H.264 and Flash support, respectively. What followed was a furious multi-way debate all about Flash, licensing, web video, and H.264 versus Ogg Theora. For the open source community, there is nothing to celebrate yet, but the high profile of the argument has opened the door for discussion of the real underlying issue: patented web standards. RewindThe root of the entire controversy is HTML 5's video element, which allows a web developer to include video content in a web page in any file format, obviating the need to wrap such content in a Flash player useful only because of the Flash plugin's ubiquity. But it is up to the browser to include support for the formats it chooses in its built-in video player. The HTML 5 standard does not mandate that support be included for any particular format in order to qualify as compliant, however, so a public war is underway between format proponents for de-facto dominance. On one side is the ISO Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG), pushing for adoption of its H.264 format. The H.264 codec is part of the broader MPEG-4 family, is patented, and all parties wishing to include support for it are required to pay licensing fees to the patent holders through a consortium called the MPEG-LA — the licensing requirement applies to encoders and decoders, hardware and software, and includes both original manufacturers and downstream redistributors. Many on the other side are supporters of the free Theora format, which requires no royalties to implement in hardware or in software, thanks to irrevocable free licenses on the original patents granted by its original creator. The reference encoder and decoder are developed by Xiph.org and are available under a BSD-style license. Theora proponents emphasize the need for HTML 5 to include a free-to-implement format, insulating the next decade of web development from the nightmare caused by the GIF patent enforcement debacle. H.264 supporters claim that Theora's quality-per-bitrate performance is behind H.264's, and that some unknown third-party might hold secret patents on one or more techniques used in Theora, and subsequently sue implementers for patent infringement if the format is made part of the standard (the so-called "submarine" patent threat). The major web browsers are divided on format support. Apple's Safari ships with H.264 support only, Google's Chrome supports both H.264 and Theora, Firefox and Opera support only Theora. Microsoft's Internet Explorer does not support HTML 5 video at all. Confusing the mix slightly is the fact that both Safari and Chrome implement H.264 playback because their parent companies pay licensing fees to MPEG-LA; consequently the open source browser projects WebKit and Chromium do not support H.264, because the license fees paid do not cover these downstream derivatives. PlayersThat, then, was the situation when YouTube and Vimeo announced their H.264 HTML 5 video player support. What should have been a red-letter day for open web standards instead resulted in complaints to Mozilla from users (and pundits) that Firefox 3.6 "did not support HTML 5." In fact, Firefox has supported HTML 5 video since version 3.5, but it does not include an H.264 decoder. Video expert Silvia Pfeiffer traced the problem back to numbers. According to Statcounter's market share statistics, Firefox accounts for 22.57% of the browsers in the world, with Chrome and Safari totaling 8.53%. Thus, of all the HTML 5-capable browsers in the field, Firefox makes up nearly 73% — and that 73% could not watch any of the YouTube or Vimeo video. It should be no surprise, then, that some of those users complained. Mozilla's Christopher Blizzard responded to the news with a detailed analysis of the H.264 ownership and patent problem. The situation is precisely the same as the GIF disaster of a decade earlier, and as the MP3 situation from the early 2000's — but with considerably higher stakes. H.264 is patented, pure and simple, and the patent owners charge royalties today and will continue to do so until their patents expire. If H.264 becomes a de facto standard, the patent owners will have the freedom to hike the price of licenses, and they will no doubt do so. Blizzard goes on to examine the terms of H.264 licensing and its effects on corporate and independent producers of web content. To include an H.264 decoder in Firefox, Mozilla would have to pay a license fee (perhaps $5 million per year), but such a move would also undermine Mozilla's founding principles of supporting and promoting free formats and standards. Flash, we hardly knew yeThe other big news from the last week of January was Apple's iPad launch party. The iPad, like its diminutive siblings the iPhone and iPod Touch, uses a Safari-based web browser, and includes Apple's licensed H.264 decoder for HTML 5 video. But also like the smaller devices, the iPad does not include Flash support. Coming from Apple, that decision was hailed by some in the media as a death knell for Flash. Once the preferred format for incorporating animation and interactive page elements into web content, in recent years its usage has shrunk to the point where it is used almost exclusively as a platform to deliver online video (and for irritating advertising, of course, although strictly speaking that would not be considered "content" by most). No one seems to lament the possibility of Flash's demise. Apple has suggested that Flash is the cause of most of the Safari crashes reported through its OS X Crash Reporter utility. Mozilla said in October of 2009 that third-party plugins cause at least 30% of all Firefox crashes, a statistic supported by the popularity of Flash-blocking add-ons. Apple's Steve Jobs even went so far as to publicly call Flash too buggy for use in a town hall meeting last week, declaring HTML 5 the way of the future. What's a site owner to do?Flash may indeed have no fans remaining outside of Adobe, a fact that magnifies the importance of HTML 5 video codec battle. The plugin has survived as long as it has for one reason alone: its availability on almost every browser on almost every operating system. Long after AJAX became popular for interactive content functionality, a web developer could implement video playback in a Flash element and feel secure that it would work on virtually every browser that would encounter it. The same cannot be said of HTML 5 video, and certainly not of HTML 5 video with H.264 content. If Theora becomes the dominant format (or officially sanctioned in the HTML 5 specification), it will be possible again, but that is simply not true of H.264. Both encoders and decoders require licensing; a fact often overlooked in the debate about browser support, but one which Blizzard addresses in his blog entry. Anyone can set up a site delivering CSS, HTML, and even Theora using free, legal tools, and without asking or signing for permission; H.264 would change that. The only question is whether or not the web development community will recognize that and rally behind Theora or another free alternative. The H.264 patent owners' attacks on Theora are not substantive; the quality comparison is highly subjective (and, in fact, comparing video encoding quality is inherently subjective), and as Xiph.org points out, submarine patents are an equal threat to free and non-free codecs alike. The original patents on Theora technology are known and licensed freely; if a patent owner possessed sufficient evidence to kneecap Theora with an infringement lawsuit regarding other patents, it surely would have happened already. Moreover, the HTML 5 video element includes support for multiple source files, so content providers can offer each video in multiple formats; the fight is only the H.264 patent holders trying to prevent a rival format from being blessed as part of the standard. Those patent holders would take the same tactics with any other video format. Some critics have suggested that another free video codec is needed, and Theora is certainly not the only option. Sun has been developing its own patent-avoiding video codec through the Open Media Commons project for several years, although the project is rather quiet. Blizzard suggests that Google may have a video patent play of its own in mind with its recent attempts to acquire On2, the company that developed the VP3 codec from which Theora descended. Dan Glidden, formerly of the Open Media Commons project, is a proponent of the MPEG-RF movement to change MPEG policy to establish a royalty-free option as a "baseline" codec for MPEG-4. The debate is far from over. YouTube and Vimeo may have changed one aspect of it, however — unlike in years past when the fight took place almost entirely within World Wide Web Consortium working groups, this time it is being fought in public. Consequently, more people are getting a look at what HTML 5 video is in practice, and can better understand the difference between the HTML element and video format delivered, which can only be a good thing. In the meantime, small web developers who want to serve up HTML 5 video content still have choices. The simplest option is to include multiple video source files, but a better alternative is to use the Cortado applet from Xiph.org; a streaming media Java applet that decodes Theora. It is open source, works transparently on any platform that includes Java support, and does not require encoding multiple source files — so there is no inadvertent spreading of unnecessary H.264 content required. But no one should hold their breath waiting for YouTube to implement it, of course. (Log in to post comments)
Sun OMS Posted Feb 4, 2010 3:33 UTC (Thu) by gmaxwell (subscriber, #30048) [Link] My understanding is that the Sun OMS developers were laid off at the start of the Oracle acquisition, shortly after the release date of the code was pushed back. :-/ No code was ever released, and the website now returns an error.The core licensing strategy of any encumbered format, media codec or otherwise, *must* be to set the costs for each party to be just under what their own cost of transition to something royalty-free would be, then depend on network effect to bring in the money. It's worked well for MPEG they claim responsibility for over $66 from every person on earth. (Also, checkout their development man-hour estimates. It's rather daunting to go up against that) The startup costs for producing a new format, getting it tuned, building tools, and driving adoption is pretty enormous and the competition can just adjust their price schedule to reflect the new, lower, transition costs. I'd like to be hopeful about there one day being a real MPEG royalty free baseline, but encumbrances in standards is a much bigger issue than just media codecs and the Internet. Consider the Rambus litigation, for example. This is a complicated and super-political issue which doesn't appear to have the resolution in sight. It seems to me that solving this in the standards body will require a complete overhaul of the status-quo, and there are a lot of organizations making a lot of money from the way things operate now. The best I can see to do is to work quietly, implementing around the mess, and hope that where free formats can't gain ground that their viability drives lower prices for those that do pay. What gives me hope for all this is that I can think of *no* area where a unencumbered format (like JPG or HTML) has become widely adopted that has ever been taken back be an encumbered format. Unencumbered + Network effects seems to be an unbeatable combination.
Sun OMS Posted Feb 5, 2010 16:57 UTC (Fri) by giraffedata (subscriber, #1954) [Link] It's worked well for MPEG— they claim responsibility for over $66 from every person on earth. (Also, checkout their development man-hour estimates. It's rather daunting to go up against that) This is highly misleading. I checked out the link (which is just the visual aids for a presentation I didn't see, so take even this clarification with a grain of salt). The $66 is for all products that use MPEG-2 in some way. It would be a mistake to say that MPEG-2 is responsible for all that value. And it's pretty arbitrary, because e.g. it includes the cost the screen in my TV, but not of the couch in my TV room. The man-hour estimate given is one million people working for 15 years. That's obviously not people working on MPEG-2. My guess is it's people working on developing and delivering products that use MPEG-2 in some way, like the guy who created the injection molds for my TV's case.
iPad does in fact support H.264 Posted Feb 4, 2010 4:32 UTC (Thu) by bvdm (guest, #42755) [Link]
Minor point, but the article is incorrect in stating that the iPad will not support H.264. See this page: http://www.apple.com/ipad/specs/
iPad does in fact support H.264 Posted Feb 4, 2010 5:00 UTC (Thu) by n8willis (editor, #43041) [Link] The statement is that Firefox doesn't support H.264, and the iPad doesn't support Flash.Nate
iPad does in fact support H.264 Posted Feb 4, 2010 6:25 UTC (Thu) by bvdm (guest, #42755) [Link]
I apologize, you are right. But man, that is a awfully clumsy sentence. Way too many clauses.
iPad does in fact support H.264 Posted Feb 4, 2010 14:35 UTC (Thu) by n8willis (editor, #43041) [Link] I love clauses; the more, the merrier -- and for that I apologize to no one.Nate
iPad does in fact support H.264 Posted Feb 5, 2010 11:34 UTC (Fri) by DonDiego (subscriber, #24141) [Link]
I would like to politely and constructively suggest to refrain from such elaborate sentence construction. Many of your readers are not native speakers and will have trouble grokking what you are trying to say. I myself had to reread the sentence although I think I can claim with some confidence that, for a non-native speaker, I have an above-average command of the English language.
iPad does in fact support H.264 Posted Feb 10, 2010 10:00 UTC (Wed) by marcH (subscriber, #57642) [Link]
Wow, now I realize what this weird "respectively" meant!
I do not think that the use of English makes much difference; this sentence is just too convoluted (in any language).
Otherwise a very interesting summary.
iPad does in fact support H.264 Posted Feb 4, 2010 6:38 UTC (Thu) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]
It would be very bizzare to have a Apple product not support H.264. Apple
is a member of the MPEG-LA group that gets royalties from H.264 usage.
http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/AVC/Pages/Licensors.aspx
So it's pretty obvious why they are pushing it.
------------------------------
If Firefox/Mozilla folks want to establish HTML5 as a viable standard for
Sorry. That is just not how it works.
I support the use of Theora over H.264 very much. But it is not something I
The issue with H.264 and what to do about supporting 'patent encumbered'
As far as other platforms XP does not support H.264 out of the box, but
iPad does in fact support H.264 Posted Feb 4, 2010 10:08 UTC (Thu) by roc (subscriber, #30627) [Link]
> There are effective and widely used
> solutions in place for dealing with these issues... it's just a matter of > Mozilla taking advantage of them. (My favorite is of course Gstreamer + > ffmpeg gstreamer plugin)
In many countries, the MPEG-LA could sue you (and win) for using *or distributing* ffmpeg's H.264 decoder. Is that the kind of regime you want to live under?
> As far as other platforms XP does not support H.264 out of the box, but
Vista doesn't.
iPad does in fact support H.264 Posted Feb 4, 2010 15:56 UTC (Thu) by DonDiego (subscriber, #24141) [Link]
> In many countries, the MPEG-LA could sue you (and win) for using *or distributing* ffmpeg's H.264 decoder. Is that the kind of regime you want to live under?
The MPEG LA has never sued an end-user to date. While in theory they could do that in the future, it's about as likely as getting killed by a meteor hit. Microsoft could also sue you for using Linux. You never know, they do have patents that cover it.
If you are afraid of distributing an H.264 decoder, fine, leave it to others and use what is available on the system.
> > As far as other platforms XP does not support H.264 out of the box, but Vista and Windows 7 does.
> Vista doesn't.
Who uses Vista? ;-p
Seriously, how big a slice of your userbase uses Vista? For the FFmpeg and MPlayer websites I see less than 20% of the Windows users on Vista, most are still on XP and likely to skip Vista on their upgrade path.
So what are the statistics? How many of your users do not have access to a system H.264 decoder and how many will not in five years time?
iPad does in fact support H.264 Posted Feb 4, 2010 16:44 UTC (Thu) by blitzkrieg3 (subscriber, #57873) [Link]
> The MPEG LA has never sued an end-user to date.
They would not sue an end user. End users have no money. They would sue a Red Hat, or a SUSE for giving you access to ffmpeg package.
iPad does in fact support H.264 Posted Feb 4, 2010 16:48 UTC (Thu) by quintesse (subscriber, #14569) [Link]
RedHat doesn't distribute ffmpeg exactly for that reason I guess.
iPad does in fact support H.264 Posted Feb 4, 2010 20:59 UTC (Thu) by roc (subscriber, #30627) [Link]
> Who uses Vista? ;-p
Some people. I was just correcting an error in the poster's facts.
> So what are the statistics?
I believe currently around 60% of our users are on WinXP. Not sure how many are on Vista. The fraction of those people who have installed a DirectShow H.264 code is probably tiny, so we can expect that somewhat less than 40% of our users have an H.264 codec on their system.
iPad does in fact support H.264 Posted Feb 4, 2010 21:09 UTC (Thu) by roc (subscriber, #30627) [Link]
> The MPEG LA has never sued an end-user to date. While in theory they could
> do that in the future, it's about as likely as getting killed by a meteor > hit.
There's no way to tell. Five years ago you could have said the same thing about the RIAA suing individual file-sharers, but then they started doing it.
Fundamentally it's a bad idea to bet on the MPEG-LA being lenient forever. Their job is to bring in licensing revenue for patent holders. At some point in the future, if suing users is a convenient way to scare people, or to destroy free competition to products that actually generate license revenue, there's no reason to believe they won't do it. Keep in mind that the optimal revenue-generation strategy changes over time: it pays to be lenient at first, to get the format maximally entrenched, and then you can squeeze the licensees for all you can get (modulo contractual restrictions). History is instructive.
Plus, let me remind you that your guess about the intention of the MPEG-LA to "not require" licenses for free software proved to be completely wrong. Betting on such guesses, no matter who makes them, would be foolish.
iPad does in fact support H.264 Posted Feb 5, 2010 10:50 UTC (Fri) by DonDiego (subscriber, #24141) [Link]
> There's no way to tell. Five years ago you could have said the same thing about the RIAA suing individual file-sharers, but then they started doing it.
The RIAA is not a patent pool, this is a straw man.
> Plus, let me remind you that your guess about the intention of the MPEG-LA to "not require" licenses for free software proved to be completely wrong. Betting on such guesses, no matter who makes them, would be foolish.
I never said any such thing. The MPEG LA patent license question rests on the depth of your pockets, not on the type of software you use.
iPad does in fact support H.264 Posted Feb 7, 2010 22:08 UTC (Sun) by roc (subscriber, #30627) [Link]
> The RIAA is not a patent pool, this is a straw man.
The point is that "<Large Corporate Entity> would never sue end users, because they have no money" is an argument that has failed in the past.
>> Plus, let me remind you that your guess about the intention of the
http://lwn.net/Articles/371439/
Suing individual users of H.264 Posted Feb 8, 2010 2:07 UTC (Mon) by jhhaller (subscriber, #56103) [Link]
Suing end-users would be dependent on the particular domestic law. In the US, my understanding (IANAL) is that practicing a patent does not require a license, only importing or distributing. Certainly, if I were to write my own H.264 decoder, I am not infringing. Now, if I were to distribute a software decoder, that would require a license under current case law. Surprisingly, there has been no effort as of yet to stop US-based mirrors of distributions containing FFMPEG. Of course, this case law is under review by the US Supreme Court, so this uncertainty could be inhibiting bringing of lawsuits, as they could make such lawsuits easier or harder. This leaves the typical method of getting H.264 software, importing it into the US. The International Trade Commission can block import of products containing patented technology, although how that would play out against multiple, independent importers could be interesting.
Suing individual users of H.264 Posted Feb 8, 2010 4:01 UTC (Mon) by Trelane (guest, #56877) [Link] "In the US, my understanding (IANAL) is that practicing a patent does not require a license, only importing or distributing." The USPTO Sez (http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/doc/general/#patent) The right conferred by the patent grant is, in the language of the statute and of the grant itself, the right to exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, or selling the invention in the United States or importing the invention into the United States. What is granted is not the right to make, use, offer for sale, sell or import, but the right to exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, selling or importing the invention. Once a patent is issued, the patentee must enforce the patent without aid of the USPTO. Relevant portions bolded and italicized by me. (See also the the MPEG-LA's response to my query in the other article comments. Certainly, if I were to write my own H.264 decoder, I am not infringing. Yes, you would. That would be the non-bolded "making" above, which precedes the bolded "using". Now, if I were to distribute a software decoder, that would require a license under current case law. Perhaps under current case law (IANAL), but not under a strict reading of the USPTO's talk (as long as it's not for sale, sold, or brought into the US).
Suing individual users of H.264 Posted Feb 8, 2010 20:50 UTC (Mon) by roc (subscriber, #30627) [Link]
> In the US, my understanding (IANAL) is that practicing a patent does not
> require a license, only importing or distributing.
Incorrect. Practicing requires a license.
> Certainly, if I were to write my own H.264 decoder, I am not infringing.
Incorrect. If you used it, you would be infringing.
Suing individual users of H.264 Posted Feb 8, 2010 21:10 UTC (Mon) by Trelane (guest, #56877) [Link] If you used it, you would be infringing. If you used an encoder/decoder that you wrote, you'd be infringing twice (see the USPTO link above; the act of making a patented idea is prohibited, as is using an implementation without a license).
iPad does in fact support H.264 Posted Feb 7, 2010 12:01 UTC (Sun) by man_ls (guest, #15091) [Link] While in theory they could do that in the future, it's about as likely as getting killed by a meteor hit.Meteors scare me, man! Just the thought of them makes me afraid. Often fear (not likelihood) is enough to prevent people from doing things.
iPad does in fact support H.264 Posted Feb 10, 2010 13:00 UTC (Wed) by marcH (subscriber, #57642) [Link]
> Just like PNG and Jpeg are not mutually exclusive.
OK this is off-topic but... JPEG and PNG serve two very different purposes. The former is for photographs while the latter is for computer images. Use the wrong one and you will get poor quality or poor compression or both.
You probably meant: "just like GIF and PNG are not mutually exclusive".
HTML5 video element codec debate reignited Posted Feb 4, 2010 8:50 UTC (Thu) by danieldk (subscriber, #27876) [Link] The debate is far from over. YouTube and Vimeo may have changed one aspect of it, however unlike in years past when the fight took place almost entirely within World Wide Web Consortium working groups, this time it is being fought in public. Consequently, more people are getting a look at what HTML 5 video is in practice, and can better understand the difference between the HTML element and video format delivered, which can only be a good thing. I am not so sure. It is pretty clear that using H.264 for Youtube is beneficial for Google, since it potentially gives Chrome more market share now taken by Firefox and Internet Explorer. And given that 90%+ of the market does not care about licensing of video codecs, as long as their browser/system can play Youtube videos, I am not too positive that a lot of people now get a better feeling of HTML 5 video in practice. Let's call it by its name: it is a major blow for Theora. What I expect to see happen: if the HTML5 standard does not specify a codec, H.264 becomes the standard. And then we will see many years of grey areas: GNU/Linux users will use free H.264 implementations (like DeCSS and MP3 encoders previously). No end users get sued, some companies do get in trouble (especially when they are competing with H.264 patent holders). At the moment, I can only see two positive turns of events: 1. swpats get practically killed in the USA or EU, 2. there is so much bad press for H.264 that the will make licensing looser, and allow for royalty-free use in FLOSS software. (2) would be quite nice, but not perfect, (1) will stop all of this madness, and will be very good for innovation and business.
HTML5 video element codec debate reignited Posted Feb 4, 2010 14:00 UTC (Thu) by micka (subscriber, #38720) [Link]
> 1. swpats get practically killed in the USA or EU,
Not really dead in EU yet, but it only does reflex movements, now.
HTML5 video element codec debate reignited Posted Feb 4, 2010 19:14 UTC (Thu) by anton (guest, #25547) [Link] [...] using H.264 for Youtube is beneficial for Google, since it potentially gives Chrome more market share [...]The other side of the medal is that a competitor of Youtube who supports formats supported by Firefox can increase their market share at the cost of Youtube.
HTML5 video element codec debate reignited Posted Feb 4, 2010 9:09 UTC (Thu) by niner (subscriber, #26151) [Link]
What the article is missing in my eyes, is that H.264 is actually an open
and standardized format. It is certainly no less so than for example Theora. The whole discussion about H.264 vs. Theora and the MPEG LA really only concerns a small part of the world. The big rest of the world has no reason whatsoever not to use the ISO/IEC standard that's also technically better than Theora.
So is it really the way to go to drag the whole world down to an inferior
HTML5 video element codec debate reignited Posted Feb 4, 2010 10:11 UTC (Thu) by Jonno (subscriber, #49613) [Link]
The problem is that those "few countries" are 149 out of the 203 sovereign
states in the world, at least in theory. In many of them, including my home country Sweden and most of the rest of the EU, software patents are valid and are regularly granted, but you can't enforce them in court, making them mostly useless. However, there are talks of making them enforceable in all of EU in the near future, and while such plans has been beaten back before, there are no guarantees that will happen this time, or the next time, making betting on the status quo quite risky...
HTML5 video element codec debate reignited Posted Feb 4, 2010 11:03 UTC (Thu) by niner (subscriber, #26151) [Link]
Where did you get that 149 countries figure from? That would include the
EU, which is still wrong. Yes, software patents are granted in the EU, but that does not mean that this is legal, valid or enforceable. It is not.
And yes I'm willing to bet my money and my existence on this, because
Just because the EPO and certain lobbying groups want it so, does not make
And that's why I'm strongly opposed to give in and act like software
This does not work by declaring the cause lost.
HTML5 video element codec debate reignited Posted Feb 4, 2010 12:37 UTC (Thu) by gmaxwell (subscriber, #30048) [Link] Yes, the EU. A typical codec patent doesn't look like a typical "software patent", they speak of machines performing concrete transformations to signals. ::shrugs:: I'm not sure how the "software patent" boundary looks in Europe, but codec patents are surely created there, granted there, and enforced there.Even if it were somehow a US only thing it's hard to do business on any scale without bumping into the US or at least someone who wants to appease US interests. It truly is a world-wide issue.
HTML5 video element codec debate reignited Posted Feb 4, 2010 10:17 UTC (Thu) by roc (subscriber, #30627) [Link]
"Standardized", yes. "Open" is poorly defined. "Free as in freedom", definitely not.
Apart from the obvious issues with free software, there are all kinds of interesting restrictions even on licensed H.264-related software:
> The whole discussion about H.264 vs. Theora and the MPEG LA really
Yeah, just the USA, Europe, and parts of Asia.
> So is it really the way to go to drag the whole world down to an inferior
I'm not sure what you mean by "fix the real problem". Get all software and method patents invalidated? Somehow persuade the MPEG-LA to license the H.264 patents royalty-free (giving up billions of dollars of potential revenue)? Those sound hard.
HTML5 video element codec debate reignited Posted Feb 5, 2010 10:58 UTC (Fri) by DonDiego (subscriber, #24141) [Link]
> > The whole discussion about H.264 vs. Theora and the MPEG LA really
> > only concerns a small part of the world.
> Yeah, just the USA, Europe, and parts of Asia.
A lot of things are patented in all kinds of countries. The question is whether or not these patents can actually be enforced. I'm looking forward to you posting proof of enforcement outside of the USA.
HTML5 video element codec debate reignited Posted Feb 13, 2010 1:29 UTC (Sat) by robert_s (subscriber, #42402) [Link]
"A lot of things are patented in all kinds of countries. The question is whether or not these patents can actually be enforced."
When a legal situation becomes this close, it actually boils down to this: if the MPEG-LA decide to drag this backwards and forwards through court, who do you think will run out of money first, MPEG-LA and its industry backers or you / mozilla.org / EFF / etc.?
It won't be the MPEG-LA.
HTML5 video element codec debate reignited Posted Feb 13, 2010 12:29 UTC (Sat) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]
It's a very sad commentary on the US legal system that it's turned into a
game of 'who will run out of money first' so damn often. Nobody even *mentions* justice anymore.
HTML5 video element codec debate reignited Posted Feb 10, 2010 14:16 UTC (Wed) by marcH (subscriber, #57642) [Link]
> I'm not sure what you mean by "fix the real problem".
Fix the software patents problem in Europe and use H.264 here. Then not care care about the US and let it deal with its own mess. Not easy but doable.
Submarine patent threat still valid? Posted Feb 4, 2010 10:18 UTC (Thu) by nettings (subscriber, #429) [Link]
Regarding the alleged threat of "submarine patent claims" against Theora, I wonder: Theora has been used to serve content to a large public audience for a long time and, where used, has usually been advertised very visibly.
IANAL, but don't most if not all patent legislations contain clauses that patents have to be *enforced* or else be invalidated? Which submarine patent holder could plausibly claim at this point that s/he has heard of Theora only since its inclusion in HTML5? It's clear that there has been no financial gain in suing current Theora users before its widespread inclusion in commercial browsers (and imagine the PR disaster in trying to put Wikipedia out of business), which is why nobody has stepped forward until now. But haven't any alleged patent holders already forfeited their claims by not acting? In short: shouldn't it be easy to identify the submarine patent myth as the smokescreen that it is?
Submarine patent threat still valid? Posted Feb 4, 2010 10:28 UTC (Thu) by wingo (guest, #26929) [Link]
Hi Jörn,
I could be wrong, but I don't think patents are like that. You have to protect trademarks for them to remain "valid", but patents no.
Corrections welcome of course...
Submarine patent threat still valid? Posted Feb 4, 2010 15:17 UTC (Thu) by gmaxwell (subscriber, #30048) [Link] Right, patents are not "use it or lose it" like trademarks. However, estoppel is a general principle of law and some have proposed more aggressive use of estoppel as a general tool to deal with the risk of non-disclosed patents gumming up the creation and adoption of standards. (I highly recommend that paper: it provides a good view 'down the rabbit hole' of the current mess that exists between patents and standards)
Submarine patent threat still valid? Posted Feb 5, 2010 21:38 UTC (Fri) by giraffedata (subscriber, #1954) [Link] But we're not talking about nondisclosed patents here. A submarine patent is a patent that doesn't exist yet.So you'd have to go further with estoppel and find a duty of an inventor to meet some standard of effort in getting the patent office to grant the patent quickly. It would be rather difficult to prove that the patent didn't issue sooner because the inventor wanted people to use the invention royalty-free during that time.
Submarine patent threat still valid? Posted Feb 4, 2010 22:24 UTC (Thu) by AndreE (subscriber, #60148) [Link]
Well the submarine patent argument is a bit of a strawman because it is equally valid for PATENTED software as well.
Look on MPEG-LA page where they state that licensing the patent from them doesn't guarentee against litigation by other parties.
Also cross reference the Alcatel-Lucent v. Microsoft case where AL sued Microsoft for mp3 patent infringement despite Microsoft already paying Thompson license fees.
Software patents are such a joke because no one is absolutely sure who own the patents to what exactly. It looks very much like a cartel managed by "legitimate businessmen" if you know what I mean
HTML5 video element codec debate reignited Posted Feb 4, 2010 10:52 UTC (Thu) by bfeeney (guest, #6855) [Link] Another interesting wriggle is that that Apple provides no software that would allow someone to encode h.264 video for a commercial website - be it a donation seeking blog like daringfireball.net, or a news media site like cnn.com (or even lwn.net). As mentioned on Ben Schwartz's blog the licensing for Final Cut Pro specifically states that the h.264 codec is LICENSED HEREIN ONLY FOR THE PERSONAL AND NON-COMMERCIAL USE OF A CONSUMER TO (i) ENCODE VIDEO IN COMPLIANCE WITH THE AVC STANDARD (AVC VIDEO) AND/OR (ii) DECODE AVC VIDEO THAT WAS ENCODED BY A CONSUMER ENGAGED IN A PERSONAL AND NON-COMMERCIAL ACTIVITY As an aside this is rather bizarre for a "Pro" tool, it's like Adobe Photoshop's license precluding its users from using the resulting images on magazines, websites or any other commercial media. It's fair to assume that Quicktime Pro and Quicktime X also have similar restrictions. Equally, as mentioned in the same blog post above, Windows 7's video encoding capabilities also are for personal and / or non-commercial use only. There is no easy, legal way of creating h.264 video. People like John Gruber who have uploaded such video to their commercially funding blogs are likely guilty of infringement. Moreover, it is by no means clear how such users would actually get the rights to produce h.264 video. I would imagine it involves spending a lot of money either on a properly professional tool, or on negotiations with MPEG-LA. Whereas it's quite easy to encode Ogg Theora video. There is a patent portfolio held by the foundation to defend against spurious patent infringement claims, and as a patented well known codec developed in an open manner over close to a decade, with plenty of publicity, there is no reason why Ogg Theora is any more or less likely to be affected by a submarine patent than h.264. However there are also no hardware encoders for Ogg Theora, unlike h.264, and given the processing constraints on Apple's ultra-portable device range, I suspect that may be the real reason they're holding back; which is a pity, as they're holding everyone else back as well.
HTML5 video element codec debate reignited Posted Feb 4, 2010 15:49 UTC (Thu) by Simetrical (guest, #53439) [Link] This article perpetuates a common and insidious myth about the video format war: The HTML 5 standard does not mandate that support be included for any particular format in order to qualify as compliant, however, so a public war is underway between format proponents for de-facto dominance. The cause-and-effect given here is exactly backwards. HTML5 does not mandate any format because the war is underway. The editor, Ian Hickson, is not willing to add anything to the standard if a major player refuses to implement it, because then it's not a standard, it's a work of fiction. Apple refuses to implement Theora support, and Mozilla refuses to implement H.264 support, regardless of what the spec says, so it would be pointless to try mandating either – it would just make the spec less useful to anyone who expects it to be consistently implemented as written. Your own duplication of Ian's mailing list post says this (emphasis added: . . . I have reluctantly come to the conclusion that there is no suitable codec that all vendors are willing to implement and ship. . . . I have therefore removed the two subsections in the HTML5 spec in which codecs would have been required . . . Please fix this error to avoid confusing anyone further. Some other minor errors:
HTML5 video element codec debate reignited Posted Feb 5, 2010 13:02 UTC (Fri) by DonDiego (subscriber, #24141) [Link]
* Opera also uses system codecs, so H.264 support is available if you have a codec installed on the system.
HTML5 video element codec debate reignited Posted Feb 5, 2010 19:36 UTC (Fri) by Simetrical (guest, #53439) [Link] Not true according to this blog post by the implementer:
On Windows (and presumably on Mac when support for that is added), Opera supports only Theora for video. On Linux/BSD, it uses system GStreamer libraries and will support anything they do.
HTML5 video element codec debate reignited Posted Feb 5, 2010 13:12 UTC (Fri) by DonDiego (subscriber, #24141) [Link]
Another correction:
> H.264 supporters claim that Theora's quality-per-bitrate performance is behind H.264's
This is not a claim but a technical fact that not even the Theora developers dispute. The question is whether or not Theora is good enough for the proposed uses and whether or not other tradeoffs make Theora preferable over H.264.
HTML5 video element codec debate reignited Posted Feb 5, 2010 19:00 UTC (Fri) by gmaxwell (subscriber, #30048) [Link] Yes. As a format H.264 has a lot of attractive things in it and among those tools in H.264's collection is basically a superset of Theora. If your technical comparison points are only quality-per-bit and not decoder computational complexity, decoder implementation complexity, licensing, or... "Assume an ideal spherical encoder in a frictionless market" H.264 has more signal processing tools in the decoder, so it will win that kind of comparison.Though it's important to note that what we can actually compare the quality-per-bitrate of is encoders, not formats. Quoting Timothy Terriberry, "There are _so_ many things you can do wrong in an encoder that do much more harm to quality than a clever optimization scheme or a complicated, patented scheme can improve it. Most encoders do some or all of them, and the original VP3 encoder was no exception. With Thusnelda we're doing things a lot smarter than we used to be, and that will only get better." Libtheora doesn't beat the quality-per-bit of best H.264 encoders (such as x264), and won't if they also keep improving, but it does very well against some very popular ones. So thats another layer to question of 'good enough for the proposed uses and whether or not other tradeoffs make Theora preferable': "You're already using an inefficient H.264 encoder, Theora isn't worse than that. Why not use Theora and help contribute to a world without format royalties?"
YouTube Ogg/Theora comparison Posted Feb 9, 2010 12:02 UTC (Tue) by dwmw2 (subscriber, #2063) [Link] This comparison may be of interest.In reference to Chris DiBona's comments on WhatWG about Theora and YouTube, it says the following: "While different files may produce different results, the allegation made on WhatWG was so expansive that I believe a simple comparison can reliably demonstrate its falsehood.
HTML5 video element codec debate reignited Posted Feb 5, 2010 19:01 UTC (Fri) by n8willis (editor, #43041) [Link] The cause-and-effect given here is exactly backwards. HTML5 does not mandate any format because the war is underway. The editor, Ian Hickson, is not willing to add anything to the standard if a major player refuses to implement it, because then it's not a standard, it's a work of fiction. Apple refuses to implement Theora support, and Mozilla refuses to implement H.264 support, regardless of what the spec says, so it would be pointless to try mandating either it would just make the spec less useful to anyone who expects it to be consistently implemented as written. I don't agree. I don't think it's cause-and-effect, for starters -- these two activities are intertwined and simultaneous. The H.264 stakeholders know and accept that W3C will not include a royalty-collecting format in a standard; they are not seeking to have H.264 be declared part of the standard, they are trying to prevent any competing format from becoming part of the standard, because that decision would seriously hurt them in the ongoing de-facto war for dominance. Nate
HTML5 video element codec debate reignited Posted Feb 5, 2010 19:31 UTC (Fri) by Simetrical (guest, #53439) [Link]
It really is simple cause-and-effect.
1) The spec used to require Theora support. Apple said they wouldn't
2) When the requirement was removed from the spec, the reason given by the
Apple never asked for the requirement to be removed, as far as I know. They
Mike Melanson on HTML 5 video Posted Feb 4, 2010 17:41 UTC (Thu) by DonDiego (subscriber, #24141) [Link] I cannot help but post Mike Melanson's take on HTML 5 Video, the codecs used therein and how it competes with Flash. Humorous quote:Another aspect I have to appreciate about the debate surrounding HTML5 video is the way that it brings out the positive spirit in people. Online discussions are normally overwhelmingly negative. But advocates of the HTML5/Xiph approach truly believe this could all work out: If Apple decides to adopt the Xiph stack, and if some benevolent hardware company would churn out custom ASICs for decoding Xiph codecs, and if those ASICs were adopted in next quarters array of mobile computing devices and netbooks, and if Google transcodes their zillobytes of YouTube videos to the Xiph stack, and if Google throws the switch and forces the 60% of IE-using stragglers to either change browsers or go without YouTube, and if Google thereby forgoes many opportunities to monetize their videos, then absolutely! HTML5 video could totally unseat Flash video.Ironically Mike is both the main person working on the Linux port of Adobe Flash and the original author of the VP3 spec on which Theora was based. He always had a weak spot in his heart for fringe multimedia formats, but he surely had no idea what kind of genie he was letting out of the bottle there...
HTML5 video element codec debate reignited Posted Feb 4, 2010 19:24 UTC (Thu) by kov (subscriber, #7423) [Link] Using a Java applet is not a good idea. Java is not well supported in many platforms, and overall does not work well, in my experience. About Youtube's move, it was funny reading their announcement; they said they were moving in that direction as an answer to the most voted feature "idea", but totally ignored the 'open formats' part of the request they claimed to be responding to.
HTML5 video element codec debate reignited Posted Feb 4, 2010 22:14 UTC (Thu) by dr@jones.dk (subscriber, #7907) [Link]
Regarding non-java alternatives: Please consider mentioning http://camendesign.com/code/video_for_everybody
HTML5 video element codec debate reignited Posted Feb 5, 2010 4:43 UTC (Fri) by wookey (subscriber, #5501) [Link]
Hey that's great - it actually works in my browser! As an 'optimist' who has been persevering with gnash for the last year or two, I dont see much video: currently youtube flash doesn't work and youtube html5 h264 doesn't work either. BBC iplayer doesn't work, and most video embedding on random other sites doesn't work either. Sadly sites very rearely provide a nice 'download the video' link anymore (which works just fine). I normally only ever get to see things via get_iplayer, clive, youtube-dl and the like.
So, yes vfe looks good from here.
HTML5 video element codec debate reignited Posted Feb 8, 2010 23:04 UTC (Mon) by brettle (guest, #34988) [Link]
Has Microsoft taken any stand either the <video> element or Theora? If they added support <video>+Theora they might be able to:
1. Help defeat Adobe Flash.
HTML5 video element codec debate reignited Posted Feb 10, 2010 2:07 UTC (Wed) by skissane (subscriber, #38675) [Link]
On a related issue, I would really like the HTML5 standard to require a minimum <audio> and <video> codec, even if its something really old and dumb. There are lots of bit-rate applications (sound in web applications, animations) where something old and dumb is all that's needed, and it would be nice to have some requirement in this area, even if we can't agree on one for the higher-bitrate applications?
For example, an uncompressed or low compression audio format (e.g. some variant of .WAV) is great for adding custom alert noises to a web app, so support for such a format should be mandatory. Similarly, if some old/dumb video format was mandatory, it might be unusable for real video, but still might work perfectly well for animations, presentations, etc.
HTML5 video element codec debate reignited Posted Feb 12, 2010 3:11 UTC (Fri) by jrincayc (guest, #29129) [Link]
Motion JPEG is widely supported (Gstreamer good, Quicktime and Media Player), and is patent free. However, it requires something like 10+ times the bandwidth that theora does. MPEG-1 is or will be soon patent free (ignoring the MP3 portion), but it is probably at least a little worse than Theora for bandwidth.
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