Google Announces 'WebM' Open-Source Video Format

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tengo

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Google announced the launch of The WebM Project, a new open-source, royalty-free video file format that appears set to take on Apple-backed H.264 for the future of Web-based video. The WebM project is based on VP8, a file format from long-time video format firm On2 Technologies, which was acquired by Google earlier this year.

http://www.webmproject.org

FAQ:
http://www.webmproject.org/about/faq/
 
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Flash is being replaced by the HTML5 <video> tag. There is no official HTML5 video codec standard, it was left open. Theora and h.264 were the contenders.

Google refused to use Theora because of possible patent issues it could face.
Apple refused because it owns h.264.
Theora is an open codec, no royalty fees, so Opera and Mozilla supported it.
h.264 would allow Apple to charge everyone from browser devs to websites royalty fees.

Google bought On2, owners of VP8, for 124 million $. Google released VP8 as open source, royalty free to gain support from websites + mozilla + opera. Youtube will be switching to VP8. Microsoft agreed to use VP8 in IE9.

Basically, Apple was this || close to being the kings of internet video and making untold millions in royalties.
Google just killed that dream, and all it cost them was unlimited good press with everyone but mackids and $124m.
 
jason.adams said:
This can be said about many Apple ventures.
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'hey billy whats this windoze ur working on?'
'oh nothing dont worry about it'

seriously however, i believe apple charges waaay too much for hardware, and their licensing practices seem counterproductive; if apple were to even triple their licensing fees for non-apple branded machines, i feel it would not only justify but cover expenses for many interested parties, our company included. we work in both mac and windows environments, and i cannot justify the equivalent of a new office and studio setup for 2 machines from apple; but i would gladly pay 3 or 4 times the current apple licensing fee to use their programs on non-apple machines running both mac OS's and programs. we continue to move forwards in windows environments, but are reluctant to really dole out the cash for apple products, which is a shame considering our talent base (i'd hate to let my mac guys go)

apples' draconian approach to 3rd party hardware really turns me off to them as an ongoing partner; its something even microsoft doesnt attempt; yet apple gets away with it. open source really isnt accepted yet (linux), but collaboration and consumer/3rd party cooperation and innovation have worked favorably for microsoft; it could work wonders for apple too.
 
monte said:
Flash is being replaced by the HTML5 <video> tag.
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This is the Anti-Flash dream, but I have big doubts about this actually having any real long term impact.

I see big pluses in the Flash camp:

1- VP8 playback is going to be built in to the next Flash plug-in/player update.

2- There is a huge web workforce that is very comfortable developing with Flash.

3- Flash is far more than just a video CODEC. Flash brings a programming language, vector based graphics, dynamic alpha-channel compositing, and other desireable items to the table... And can be delivered dynamically ( FLEX ) or statically as a single highly compressed streamed file. Can HTML5 do all of this ?

...I know that many people hate Flash web-advertising, but I can't see them liking the same advertising any better when it is delivered with another web technology. I think that what these people really mean is that they hate web advertising, and not Flash per say...
 
TheDingo said:
I think that what these people really mean is that they hate web advertising, and not Flash per say...
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I for one mean that I hate Flash. Not as a technology, but because of its EULA. If Adobe would simply make the Flash Player available without restrictions, it wouldn't be so bad. Not ideal, certainly, but bearable. But providing a "free" player that you can use and redistribute "most of the time" is just unnecessarily confusing and silly.

I think Flash is on the way out, however, mostly due to mobile devices, not politics. Since it clearly requires much more hardware power to work properly, it isn't ideal for battery life, etc. Plus there isn't any hardware acceleration for it, like there is for h.264 and hopefully coming for VP8. Look how many smartphones and PDAs there are that don't support Flash.

Regardless, this is huge news. Adding another Free video codec to the likes of Theora, and Dirac is big enough -- the fact that it is being pushed by Google, who actually has the power to make a difference is an even bigger deal.

I'd read that Google initially plans to use VP8 for all videos 720p or larger on YouTube. If that proves successful, they might end up using it for everything -- and with YouTube being such a huge hit, that would basically mean every OS and mobile device would end up incorporating VP8. And why wouldn't they? Unlike h.264, there aren't any royalties to be paid, so it costs them nothing to implement other than manpower.

And most importantly, its possible that Free software and GNU/Linux operating system distributions will finally be able to legally work with a popular, widespread video format. Theora is great and all, but it clearly hasn't ever taken off outside of the Free Software world aside from Wikipedia and the likes (which really is part of the Free Software world, I suppose).

Assuming they work properly, we plan on adding VP8 DirectShow codecs to our FreedomSampler CD, and will add support in our Nexradix GNU/Linux distro as soon as GStreamer plugins become available.

Combined with the announcement of Lightworks going open source, this is a good year for those who value freedom in the video world.
 
TwistedLincoln said:
I think Flash is on the way out, however, mostly due to mobile devices, not politics. Since it clearly requires much more hardware power to work properly, it isn't ideal for battery life, etc. Plus there isn't any hardware acceleration for it, like there is for h.264 and hopefully coming for VP8. Look how many smartphones and PDAs there are that don't support Flash.
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Adobe isn't stupid, so expect hardware acceleration to be incorporated into Flash mobile technology. As for performance, CS5 was to utilize ( I don't know if it still does ) native cross-compiling for mobile apps ( which freaked out Steve Jobs, and has been forbidden on the Apple mobile platforms ) so that the final mobile Flash app should not be much slower than a native binary app. Properly optimized for each platform, this could change the picture of Flash performance on mobile devices. ( I admit that the few times I've tried Flash-lite on mobile devices I've been very under-impressed with the performance. It sucked big time. )

I also expect mobile CPU/GPU performance to eventually become a non-issue over the coming 2-3 years. This is like when the first PC laptops started showing up in the old 8086 / 80286 / 80386 days, which were dog slow in the beginning, but once we hit Pentium era, performance wasn't as big an issue to the average user. ( developers and media editors will always lust for extreme power no matter how fast the computer is )
 
I'm actually fairly pro Flash, but that's probably because I come at it from a software developer's perspective. That said, here's a very interesting, very technical article from one of the developers of x264, the popular open source H.264/MPEG-4 encoder:

The first in-depth technical analysis of VP8

The patent issues around VP8 are a touch frightening, particularly without Google indemnifying folks. And I do hope Google relents and lets the spec get fixed - apparently they're already denying bug fixes. :(
 
monte said:
Google refused to use Theora because of possible patent issues it could face.
Apple refused because it owns h.264.
Theora is an open codec, no royalty fees, so Opera and Mozilla supported it.
h.264 would allow Apple to charge everyone from browser devs to websites royalty fees.
...
Basically, Apple was this || close to being the kings of internet video and making untold millions in royalties.
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Bollocks. Apple does not own h.264 by themselves. It's in a patent package administered by MPEG LA which is currently owned by these companies.

Apple Inc.
DAEWOO
Dolby Laboratories Licensing Corporation
Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute
France Télécom, société anonyme
Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft zur Förderung der angewandten Forschung e.V.
Fujitsu Limited
Hitachi, Ltd.
Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V.
LG Electronics Inc.
Microsoft Corporation
Mitsubishi Electric Corporation
NTT docomo
Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation
Panasonic Corporation
Robert Bosch GmbH GmbH
Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.
Scientific-Atlanta Vancouver Company
Sedna Patent Services, LLC
Sharp Corporation
Siemens AG
Sony Corporation
Ericsson
The Trustees of Columbia University in the City of New York
Toshiba Corporation
Victor Company of Japan, Limited
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MPEG LA is by intent constructed so none of the involved companies alone can gain control of the codecs and their licensing. Flash on the other hand is owned solely by Adobe and can be viewed as their attempt to monopolize video and other rich media on the internet. Which would leave hardware makers, producers, distributers and users at Adobe's mercy. Which in turn explains why Adobe are so peeved by Apple's decision to leave out Flash from their mobile devices.

As for Google managing to really make a codec that's A) better than h.264 and B) really not infringing on existing patents is really unclear right now. VP8 sure ain't there. They've really only been successful at two things so far; A) with a decent search engine turn our wish to find stuff on the web to a marketing machination and B) with a decent webmail system turn our wish for a simple to use everywhere email to a marketing machination and in that process they are making untold millions in ad fees. Anybody thinking Google is a more 'good' company than other big cooperations is seriously deluded or have no knowledge in how capitalism works.
 
Martti Ekstrand said:
Flash on the other hand is owned solely by Adobe and can be viewed as their attempt to monopolize video and other rich media on the internet. Which would leave hardware makers, producers, distributers and users at Adobe's mercy. Which in turn explains why Adobe are so peeved by Apple's decision to leave out Flash from their mobile devices.
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Hmmm... I thought Adobe Flash ( or it's previous incarnation as Macromedia Flash ) used licenced video CODECs, and thus did not solely own anything other than the parts of Flash that were developed by either FutureSplash / Macromedia / Adobe themselves.

...As for Adobe being peeved at Apple, I personally think that Adobe has a case here, as Apple banning the use of cross-compilers for products developed for it's mobile products makes Apple / Steve Jobs look like vengeful control freaks. Cross-compilers have been used for decades on all kinds of platforms, and do not necessarily equate to poor application performance.

The real reason why Steve Jobs hates Flash
 
I like what Google's doing.

I will say one thing about Apple's letter. Reading it reminds me that we should give Apple an open letter worded almost the same way telling them how Blu-Ray is getting everywhere and that they should change "DVD Studio Pro" to "Blu-Ray Studio Pro" At least Adobe fully supports Blu-Ray. I want to say that I'm in Apple's side over the flash issue but I just can't get over the Blu-Ray situation.
 
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i dont think adobe plans to monopolize with flash as i do feel if flash becomes accepted all over it will become an open standard much like adobe's PDF
 
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