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google to open source VP8google to open source VP8Posted Apr 12, 2010 23:51 UTC (Mon) by Webexcess (subscriber, #197)Parent article: Interesting times for Video on the Web
Seems related to this article
http://newteevee.com/2010/04/12/google-to-open-source-vp8...
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google to open source VP8 Posted Apr 13, 2010 3:54 UTC (Tue) by Kit (guest, #55925) [Link]
That just makes this whole situation make even less sense! If Google was already planning on open sourcing VP8 (and, I assume, a patent pledge), then why bother with Theora? It would seem that Google would want to get VP8 support into Chrome, Firefox, and YouTube (at a minimum) as soon as possible, and try to kill of Theora in an attempt to prevent a multiplication of codecs.
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For that matter, what *audio* codecs does the video tag support anyways? I'd assume it's currently Vorbis/Theora and AAC/H264, but what would VP8 be paired with?
google to open source VP8 Posted Apr 13, 2010 7:52 UTC (Tue) by njs (guest, #40338) [Link]
There have been rumours about Google open-sourcing VP8 for months; I'll believe it when I see an announcement from Google, not yet another "my private sources claim" like that article. Hopefully we're just waiting for them to transcode Youtube or something to make the announcement more exciting, but it's a curiously long silence.
That said, even if they do release VP8, I can certainly see benefits to putting resources into both it and Theora. "But there's nothing out there in VP8!" "Yeah, but there is in Theora, you can use that." "But Theora isn't as good as H.264!" "Yeah, but VP8 is, you can use that." Repeat until critics are dizzy and confused. (I'm joking... I think?)
Presumably VP8 would be paired with Vorbis? Does anyone even have any real complaints about Vorbis?
google to open source VP8 Posted Apr 13, 2010 8:12 UTC (Tue) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]
besides which, can't you just see what the cry would be if they opened VP8 and didn't also support Theora?
"Google is an evil monopoly pushing their solution on everyone else" or words to that effect.
supporting both, while running the risk of fragmentation between the two options also means that if anything happens with one of them people still have the option of using the other.
google to open source VP8 Posted Apr 13, 2010 13:43 UTC (Tue) by SEJeff (subscriber, #51588) [Link]
But some people will always hate other people/companies more successful than themselves. In reality, if google open sources VP8 and ends the "IE/Safari vs Mozilla" war over the codec for html5, they are a win for interoperability and the net as a whole.
VP8 will be open-sourced, but it'll not end the debate Posted Apr 14, 2010 6:46 UTC (Wed) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link]
I'm pretty sure Microsoft finally accepted H.264 because of Google's On2 acquisition. They hoped for the long time to push their own proprietary standard, but when faced with possibility of getting free one they decided that patent-encumbered standard is not as good as Microsoft-controlled one but still better then FOSS-friendly free VP8.
I'm pretty sure speech-writers in both Apple and Microsoft are investigation right now the ways to present refusal of VP8 as boon to the users. We'll be interesting to see what they cook up - what I'm not expecting is acceptance of the free codec.
VP8 will be open-sourced, but it'll not end the debate Posted Apr 14, 2010 12:06 UTC (Wed) by SEJeff (subscriber, #51588) [Link]
But no matter what Micro/Apple say... If Google makes VP8 the preferred codec for youtube and gently nudges *cough* forces users to start using it more then there isn't much of anything the dynamic duo can do.
Users will freak out if youtube stops working. Where else will they find videos of dogs skateboarding?
google to open source VP8 Posted Apr 13, 2010 13:35 UTC (Tue) by bawjaws (guest, #56952) [Link]
There's so many possibilities that there's not much benefit in speculating until Google actually shows their hand. It could get even more confusing than it is now.
Will they release VP6 and 7? The former is supported in Adobe Flash and the latter is used in Skype. VP8 isn't used anywhere yet, therefore backwards compatibility is moot, so will Google rewrite the spec to suit their own particular needs and plans? Have they had time to do that yet, or are they just going to announce what they're planning to do over the next few years?
Despite many geeks focussing on the simplistic comparisons of complex and tricky benchmarks, the business relationships are going to make or break any new codec just like they have done for MPEG codecs. Are the patent worries real or is that just a convenient smokescreen for companies that have decided to throw their lot in with MPEG because there isn't corporate-friendly competitor? I guess we'll find out.
My personal guess is that freeing VP8 as-is would only make sense if they convince Adobe to roll out support in Flash. Otherwise they'd be best playing the long game and getting a royalty-free standard based on it passed by ISO or whoever.
There's some good analysis of what freeing VP8 would involve here:
http://blog.gingertech.net/2010/02/20/googles-challenges-...
Regarding your question on Vorbis, I believe it's the only real candidate for such a role, it is technically very good and I've seen people who are incredibly paranoid about video patents have no issue with it. I'm surprised more fuss wasn't made about this at the time it was removed from the spec. It appears that on the web audio only matters if accompanied by video.
google to open source VP8 Posted Apr 15, 2010 0:57 UTC (Thu) by kjp (subscriber, #39639) [Link]
I think Google should petition the FCC to buy out the H264 patents and set them free.
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