More about the Chrome HTML Video Codec Change (The Chromium Blog) [LWN.net]

More about the Chrome HTML Video Codec Change (The Chromium Blog)

Posted Jan 17, 2011 12:00 UTC (Mon) by mosfet (guest, #45339)
In reply to: More about the Chrome HTML Video Codec Change (The Chromium Blog) by jmorris42
Parent article: More about the Chrome HTML Video Codec Change (The Chromium Blog)

There are more video portals out there than only Youtube. If Google decides to drop H.264 and cancel the contract with Apple (native iOS app), Apple will choose another platform. Frankly, I would welcome this decision. Youtube is a near monopoly, (real) competition is good for the market and everyone.

I still find it very unlikely that any non-Google Android implementor will ever choose to boycott H.264 (without pressure from Google), so Apples Youtube competitor will have a good chance.

Another point: Relative data in a growing market are misleading. Apple may not grow as fast as Android, but Apple grows in huge numbers absolute. Also "Android" is not a single vendor like Apple, but a platform. If you compare these numbers it's a bit like comparing the combined sales of automobiles from GM, Ford and Chrysler to Toyota.

Apple does not need to be the smartphone market leader to be a very successful driving force. It is good that with Google Android there is another force to compete against, but until now Google has not said a single word about removing H.264 from this platform. I suspect it's because they can't. It's open source. They are not the main implementors. Maybe Google can force them with a secret back room deal to drop H.264 (and call it "Open Alliance" or something). But without force: Fat chance.

And there is the tablet market, Google is not doing well there, I think there will not be a serious competitor until 2012 or 21013. When Google finally finishes Android 3 and the first tablets will appear, Apple already has the iPad 2 out. Google has a long way to catch up. Like any other competitor they will find it hard do deliver a *complete* and *consistent* system. Some parts are easy.

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More about the Chrome HTML Video Codec Change (The Chromium Blog)

Posted Jan 20, 2011 20:11 UTC (Thu) by cmccabe (guest, #60281) [Link]

> There are more video portals out there than only Youtube. If Google
> decides to drop H.264 and cancel the contract with Apple (native iOS app),
> Apple will choose another platform. Frankly, I would welcome this
> decision. Youtube is a near monopoly, (real) competition is good for the
> market and everyone.

Youtube is not a monopoly. There are a ton of streaming video sites out there. By some measures, Hulu is already doing better than Youtube.

> I still find it very unlikely that any non-Google Android implementor will
> ever choose to boycott H.264 (without pressure from Google), so Apples
> Youtube competitor will have a good chance.

Implementors will be happy to support all the formats. The important question is which ones are going to get hardware acceleration. Google is probably hoping to make the answer "WebM" by leveraging their control of Youtube, Google video, Google Chrome, and Firefox.

As I understand it now, you currently can't watch YouTube on iOS through Safari. Instead, you have to use a separate app. If Google re-encodes with WebM, that situation can continue, except that the separate app can use (not-hardware-accelerated) WebM. Problem solved.

> Another point: Relative data in a growing market are misleading. Apple may
> not grow as fast as Android, but Apple grows in huge numbers absolute.
> Also "Android" is not a single vendor like Apple, but a platform. If you
> compare these numbers it's a bit like comparing the combined sales of
> automobiles from GM, Ford and Chrysler to Toyota.

Yeah, it's like comparing Macs to PCs. We all know that the proprietary standards Apple designs, like NuBus, ADB, Apple Display Port, and so on always wipe out the standard PC designs like PCI, VGA, and DVI. Oh, wait.

To be fair, sometimes Apple leads the market in adopting a standard technology like USB. But from the beginning, USB was a joint effort between HP, Microsoft, Intel, and others.

> And there is the tablet market, Google is not doing well there, I think
> there will not be a serious competitor until 2012 or 21013. When Google
> finally finishes Android 3 and the first tablets will appear, Apple
> already has the iPad 2 out. Google has a long way to catch up. Like any
> other competitor they will find it hard do deliver a *complete* and
> *consistent* system. Some parts are easy.

The reality distortion field must have blocked out the news that this year at CES was the "year of the tablet" and Android was the star of the show. The first Android tablets will appear in about -1 years (i.e., the past).