Google shows once more that they are visionary company with long-term outlook and an outlook on business that allows them to invest in things that benefit everybody and not just them.
Video on the web is popular hence it's important. It's also the only part of the web where the de-facto standard (h264) is owned by a commercial entity which has a grip on the technology not through continuous technological excellence but by a patent grab.
It's a huge disaster waiting to happen. It has happened in the past (see gif patent and the money grab that ensued). It's naive to think that mpeg la consortium is not aware of how much money they could possibly make by starting to enforce their licensing. And when they do, that will be bad for everyone creating and publishing video on the web. Web video on the web is currently living on a good will of commercial entity who might just think of it as freemium model: make them dependent on your product until they can't use an alternative and then make them pay.
Google (along with Mozilla) should be commended for spending millions of dollars to decrease the probability of such a disaster happening. Even if WebM doesn't surpass h264 it might just be enough insurance to make mpeg la not start a money grab in fear of loosing completely to WebM.
We need a free standard for video on the web, just like we have them for everything else, and Google is spending considerable resources to make it happen.
As to Gruber: he has no credibility asking Google tough questions. His pro-Apple and anti-Google biases are bigger than iceberg that sank titanic.
More important question is: when will Apple and Microsoft start helping us avoid future video disaster on the web?
And where is Gruber asking "who is happy about this" when Apple continuously censors App Store and refuses to allow developer publish apps that users want to use? When Apple is more interested in their petty vendetta against Adobe than in what they users want. Etc. If you want to ask tough questions, then ask them, just not selectively.
As a person who deals in video on the web, they want to instantly double my cost to encode video by fragmenting the near ubiquity H.264 currently offers.
As an iOS device and xBox owner they want to obsolete my hardware.
As a Chrome user, they want to force me to use the crappy Flash player to view H.264 content.
I don't understand why they can't promote and improve WebM and maintain H.264 compatibility. Which browsers stopped rendering GIFs when it became an issue?
This is a short term thinking. Let's go back and time, say before December 24, 1994. A time when GIF is used for majority of graphics on the web and PNG is just a blimp. You would have used exactly the same reasoning to say that GIF is just fine, PNG doesn't benefit you right now and PNG supporters just want to force unnecessary work to convert GIFs to PNGs.
And then on December 24, 1994 "Unisys stated that they expected all major commercial on-line information services companies employing the LZW patent to license the technology from Unisys at a reasonable rate, but that they would not require licensing, or fees to be paid, for non-commercial, non-profit GIF-based applications, including those for use on the on-line services".
And then "In August 1999, Unisys changed the details of their licensing practice, announcing the option for owners of Billboard and Intra net Web sites to obtain licenses on payment of a one-time license fee of $5000 or $7500.[18] Such licenses were not required for website owners or other GIF users who had used licensed software to generate GIFs."
Before Unisys decided to start enforcing the patent, everything was fine with using GIF and there was no need to do the work. But after they did decide to start enforcing it, potentially every person using GIF to publish images on the web was liable for GIF licensing fees. Web luckily survived that one without major disruption and after the fact PNG is now the standard used.
WebM is a defensive weapon to make sure that the history won't repeat itself, this time with video format.
The tactic used by Google is risky but on the other hand if no one takes a stand, we will never get rid of h264 as de-facto dominant standard and we'll get a GIF-like money grab.
You have just told us that you're only interested in short-term convenience even if it'll cost you big time in the future. That's understandable and most people will act exactly the same.
Which is why the only way to replace proprietary h264 with an open, royalty-free technology is to make it inconvenient for people to use h264 and more convenient to use WebM. Google is doing exactly that.
I'll repeat my question, which browsers stopped rendering GIFs when it became an issue?
I'm all for WebM. Let me know when consumers can use it and until then it's in your user's best interest to support H.264 because that's what the content I want to watch today is encoded in.
Seconding this. I'm running 2.2 and it seems any application (for instance Google reader) coming across a animated GIF, gets just that: An animated GIF.
I don't think the GIF story is proving what you think it's proving.
The problem with GIF is that everyone thought it was open and free, and then Unisys turned around and started enforcing the patents.
Paying MPEGLA up front for indemnity is precisely the type of thing a company would do to avoid being sued by people who hold submarine patents on video encoding.
If there's a lesson to be learned from GIF, it's: don't use encoding formats with questionable IP.
Whether you or I think WebM is patent free is, quite frankly, irrelevant. Not many companies, besides Google apparently, are going to be willing to take that risk, precisely because they remember the GIF fiasco.
WebM has zero chance of replacing h264 as the dominant video standard. The time it would take to do that is longer than the remaining lifetime on the h264 patents, and once the patents expire there is no reason for anyone to use WebM.
Really? You're guaranteeing zero chance of any event happening in IT until 2028? 17 years from now? In the same industry in which 17 years ago it was 1994 and Yahoo! wasn't called Yahoo! yet? In the same web space in which 6 years ago it was early 2005 and Youtube wasn't created yet?
May I borrow your crystal ball for a couple of minutes, please?
> Sorry, should I have used VHS, DVD and Blu-Ray as examples instead?
All examples of a technology being replaced (or partially replaced) by a better technology. WebM is not better than H.264 technologically. At best, it is almost as good as the lower H.264 profiles.
H.264 might conceivably be replaced as the dominant de facto video standard, but the replacement will not be WebM.
(BTW, I don't necessarily accept the 2028 number for when the relevant H.264 patents expire. That's when the last of the patents expire, but many of the patents are on the more recent enhancements to H.264. We only need the patents that cover the main profile to expire).
World is ripe with examples of technology being replaced by a challenger due to non-technical factors. The rise of MP3 and other lossy standards in favour of CDs is an obvious example. Early LCDs were not as good in terms of image quality as contemporary CRTs. It doesn't have to be better, it just has to be good enough technically and attractive for other reasons.
Widespread support of WebM is likely to influence the chance of H.265 (the next one) either being royalty-free or at least having a royalty-free profile (and if not, then having a royalty-free competitor in the form of WebM version 2 or 3 in the early stages of its adoption). If Chrome uptake continues and Flash hurries up with their WebM support then a royalty-free subset of H.264 isn't entirely out the question, they've already softened their licensing once in response to competition.
"Short-term thinking" can easily mean five or ten years on the web. Should I be happy as a user when Google makes my situation worse to make it better five years later?
Why does it double your encoding cost? Support the majority of the market first, then the minority if you can squeeze it in in your cost structure. iOS devices are the minority devices, they naturally come second.
Supporting some single or low double digit market share at the expense of the vaster share doesn't make any sense. It's like owning a fuel station that only offers electricity and hydrogen and then complaining that it'll increase your costs to stock regular old petrol and diesel.
What part of his line of questions would you deem "obviously inappropriate" or lacking "good faith"?
I can understand Google wanting to push open standards, but there are some very glaring hypocrisies on display here. Everyone questions Apple's agenda when they leave Flash out of iOS, but somehow Google gets a pass?
> Everyone questions Apple's agenda when they leave Flash out of iOS, , but somehow Google gets a pass?
One is not like the other. Apple didn't let other people provide Flash support for iOS. Google is merely choosing not to support something internally. No one expected Apple to write a Flash plugin and officially support it.
As for hypocrisy...
> Chrome currently bundles an embedded version of Adobe’s closed source and proprietary Flash Player plugin.
And I'm sure if Google had to implement Flash, they wouldn't.
> Android currently supports H.264. Will this support be removed from Android? If not, why not?
Different environments. The web is based on open standards. It's like asking why Android is written in C instead of HTML5 and JS.
He then goes on to ask other stupid questions equally baseless.
Essentially, he's demanding that Apple support Flash by building their own Flash player for their devices.
> Who is happy about this?
Anyone who cares about open standards and protocols.
> What part of his line of questions would you deem "obviously inappropriate" or lacking "good faith"?
Listen, I'm not anti-Gruber. I read his stuff and take it for what it's worth. But it's fairly clear his line of questioning isn't genuine. They are constructed to make a point: that a vendor should be required to support plugins even if they don't want to, except for Apple of course.
Google isn't keeping anyone from writing an H.264 plugin for Chrome, they're choosing not to support it. Apple has the luxury of those being the same thing (not supporting = not allowing) on iOS.
Are you implying that Gruber isn't biased? It's really neither here nor there, but I've been on HN enough to simply see the headlines with (daringfireball) next to it to roll my eyes at that notion.
(Note, I think John brings up some great questions. I think almost all the complaints about WebM, voiced here on HN, are ignorant of browser compatibility and Flash's support for WebM (though I still think the hardware decoding points that have been brought up are very valid), but the questions of timing and consistency across Google's product intrigue me)
If it's implied it's not intentional. I'll state forthright that Gruber's bias is worn on his sleeve. You'd have to be a fool to argue otherwise. But even someone with bias can ask straight forward questions. While Google and Apple may be engaged in some perceived "battle to the death", it doesn't mean that someone with an Apple bias can't ask valid questions about Google's decisions.
The OP accused Gruber of having an inappropriate agenda and not acting in good faith. I didn't read that between the lines in Gruber's post, so I'm curious why he/she did.
Video formats are extremely complex and require huge amounts of expertise to make.
With your logic, why should I pay money for content? So far, it seems to be impossible to prevent ripping and transcoding, so maybe the answer would be "you shouldn't".
> Video formats are extremely complex and require huge amounts of expertise to make.
And yet, we have volunteers with knowledge who are constrained by patents (I'm sure x264 guys could come up with an awesome codec, and Theora team could do much better if they weren't limited to technology they got patents for),
And we have companies willing to support development of codecs (BBC Dirac, Google) which, again, are constrained by patents.
The one that gets me is paying to move a file across the internet. I've still not seen a good explanation of how that is possible even given the existence of patents on the process of creating or displaying the file at either end. (And note, you still have to pay this if you charge for access to the video or your site as a whole).
They make it a condition of licensing you the ability to encode or decode the video — contract law.
If you read the EULAs and such on even a piece of 'professional' software like Final Cut Studio or Avid, it'll describe how the encoder is only licensed for personal use and that someone else in your distribution chain needs a different contractual arrangement with them, along with whoever's on the playback end.
I find it a bit sad that this comment has almost more votes than the parent post, which has several insightful points. This comment picks out only a single issue (although an important one), but does ignore all the other statements. I would hope people stop upvoting such a comment at 20 points max.
I can't seem to find it, but there was once a comment or page by PG which explained the core of good follow-up comments: not picking out a single item which is easy to criticise, but rather responding to the core of the parent comment.
I realize Gruber is very pro-Apple, but this article makes no mention of them. In fact, it seems this article is solely in terms of Google (and just slightly Adobe, and a few content providers).
Imagine, if you will, this was written by someone who wasn't pro-Apple. Does it not all ring entirely just as true?
Gruber is very pro a lot of things, but Apple fits in well with what he's championing in life. If he comes across as biased it's that he's enthusiastic about the same things Apple embraces.
If you switched the byline to someone else, like John Dvorak, and showed this to people they might have trouble refuting it once their ad-homeneim attack option is gone.
No, he comes off as biased because whenever Apple flip-flops in an opinion Gruber is always standing by to defend them, even when the switch is, by all standards, incoherent.
Four years ago Apple was all about claiming UI superiority through consistency. Now it's "old". If Apple had had tighter supervision on iOS UIs I'm sure Gruber would have never said what he did. This is but one example among many.
My problem is that Gruber is being hypocritical. Apple apparently can decide what to support in their browser and on their devices, but Google is required to support things in their browser based on other's demands?
It's also the only part of the web where the de-facto standard (h264) is owned by a commercial entity
Flash is still used for video more than H.264 both for historical reasons and because it has some (albeit rudimentary) content protection. Goolge is supporting/promoting Flash in Chrome. Ostensibly for security reasons, but it is not an easy move to explain.
Google is dropping H.264 in their browser for strategic reasons.
The rudimentary copy protection of Flash/Silverlight can't be overlooked with this decision. I can't imagine the likes of Hulu or Netflix to ever seriously think that they would be allowed to support a HTML5 player. Only the likes of Youtube and Vimeo will seriously have to think about this issue in the short-term.
> And where is Gruber asking "who is happy about this" when Apple continuously censors App Store and refuses to allow developer publish apps that users want to use?
Gruber has consistently been highly critical about Apple's App Store policies:
...to name just a few. I don't know how you could read his work and not realize that. And I really get sick of people making these sort of snide and outright false comments about Gruber.
> [...] the de-facto standard (h264) is owned by a commercial entity which has a grip on the technology not through continuous technological excellence but by a patent grab.
Who?
> It's naive to think that mpeg la consortium is not aware of how much money they could possibly make by starting to enforce their licensing.
> All other royalties will remain in place such as the royalties for products that decode and encode H.264 video.[12] The license terms are updated in 5-year blocks.[13]
Secondly 'end users' by their definition doesn't include content creators who distribute or encode video. The consortium is going after the supply side, not the demand side.
To me, this is a good idea because suppliers are typically large or at least static entities that can easily be identified, and charged. Trying to catch end-users is a fools errand, and makes one a target for hatred ala the RIAA.
The people taking videos of their kids won't be doing H.264. Their videocams and/or their Youtubes will be doing the encoding, and their browsers will be doing the decoding. In both cases, larger organizations which are easier to bill.
Your videocamera's license for H.264, if you actually read it, is likely quite restrictive. If you use it to film a video, post the video on youtube, and get any revenue from the ads on the resulting youtube page, you're in violation of the license terms, for example, for every single video camera I've seen.
If the MPEG-LA decides to make people pay royalties for encoding, content producers can decide to use WebM.
I'm just saying that all browser should support WebM and it is probably right to support is as the open video format for the web. But there is no point in removing H264 support for browsers, which is not incompatible with supporting WebM. It's not like Blu-Ray vs. HDDVD.
I think this is not ideological, but strategic. They are leveraging the non-negligible Chrome market share to force content producers to support WebM.
Even if the format is open, they have quite a few months of strategic advance wrt competitors (Apple?) in designing the hardware support for mobile devices. I'd say that even if Apple decides to support WebM in hardware, it wouldn't be ready before a couple of generations (1.5-2 years?)
That's why comments like
> Google shows once more that they are visionary company with long-term outlook and an outlook on business that allows them to invest in things that benefit everybody and not just them.
Right. Because end users are the only people who matter, and it's not like the MPEG-LA could start charging ridiculous fees to anyone who, I don't know, wants to build a decoder from source or something.
The main point of Grubers' criticism is that Google is being hypocritical by dropping H.264, but still keeping Flash.
If Google would really be visionaries with such great long-term outlooks, then why would they allow Flash, which is owned by a single company which has shown time and again that they can not handle that product responsibly?
Granted, Google is currently making every effort to sandbox the Flash player as tightly as possible. But they are still shipping Chrome with it.
sounds like you think WebM is not patent encumbered. that's actually an open question. the only thing Google has done is sent users back into Adobe's arms for h.264 playback.
Money quote, from the conclusion: "With regard to patents, VP8 copies too much from H.264 for comfort, no matter whose word is behind the claim of being patent-free. This doesn't mean that it’s sure to be covered by patents, but until Google can give us evidence as to why it isn’t, I would be cautious." There are examples given throughout the post.
This comment in response to that post makes an interesting point; the most similar bits are likely the most carefully vetted, and may be written deliberately to avoid patent infringement. Patents on standards can be very narrow; as long they cover exactly what's in the spec, then any implementer of the standard still has to pay up:
"Patents are about _details_ so the mere fact that something does something like something else, isn’t necessarily something at all.
As we’ve pointed out before, many codec patents are exceptionally easy to work around: They specify every little detail because it makes it _much_ easier to get through the examination but doesn’t harm the patent’s ability to read on the final standard because the standard specifics exactly the patented behaviour.
D_S, for all his undeniable H.264 experience isn’t an expert on patents or even the H.264 patents. We can assume that in cases where VP8 looks similar to H.264 those would have been exactly the cases where care was taken to differ in the right places. I’d expect the primary risks for VP8 to be anywhere _but_ there."
I saw this analysis when it came out. He certainly may know what he's talking about but I think it's more likely that Google's due diligence would have caught these legal issues than an x264 developer. Not guaranteed, but likely.
As much as I suspected that WebM would be too hot to touch, the fact that the MPEG consortium hasn't done much more than posturing and clucking about the whole affair would seem to indicate that either WebM isn't covered by patents, or (more likely) that Google has some useful patents of their own that's keeping the hordes at bay.
It is a patent owned by a corporation that has chosen to license them in a royalty-free way, in the exact same way that MPEG-LA has chosen not to charge fees for end users of MPEG4. The main distinction would be source code access, but as stated by others, that is no guarantee of infringement of others' intellectual property rights. Stated another way: if you had the source code to the MPEG4 codec, would your objections remain?
You're probably right; I can't imagine that Google would have been careless enough to not have an army of lawyers look over everything before releasing it.
Do you feel that Google is going to get companies to make hardware decoders for WebM? Can you point to any statement from Google, given that WebM is similar to H.264, that explains how WebM manages to avoid all H.264-related patents and/or will indemnify users from patent claims?
Your patent FUD: any software can be potentially sued for patent infringement. You can't prove the opposite. See Oracle vs. Google on Java patents and a number of other examples.
Pointing that out about WebM software specifically is not insightful. You can make the exact "but can you prove it doesn't infringe patents" statements about any software product.
There are, however, reasons to believe that WebM does indeed avoids patents.
1. It's a technology that has been created and commercially licensed by On2 for years. In all those years no one sued On2.
2. On2 licensees (including Adobe) were confident enough about the technology being patent-free to pay good money for the license.
3. Google, presumably, is not stupid and didn't pay hundreds of millions of dollars without doing a technology evaluation, including potential patent issues.
4. Even if someone sues WebM, Google has a better chance than most to defend it.
So while no one can ever satisfy people demanding impossible proof of WebM being safe from patent threats, there are very good reasons to believe it is indeed safe.
1. On2 never went to market with VP8 before the sale to Google. To say that they weren't sued for something they didn't release doesn't prove anything, especially since VP8 was marketed as a evolution of VP6.
2. See #1, they licensed VP6 not VP8/WebM.
3. No doubt!
4. Google does not indemnify users of WebM (http://www.webmproject.org/license/software/). If someone were to sue you for WebM, it's not an attack on Google and they have no reason to pick up your legal bill. Sure, it's not unreasonable to assume that if many large companies adopt a technology it's safe to use, but it doesn't protect you from being attacked individually.
There's a difference between hardware designs and actual hardware... Google doesn't offer indemnity for use of the format so why do you think they'd be the only defendant? If Google's so smart like you say, if they're so kind hearted, then why aren't they offering indemnity?
Perhaps because the MPEG-LA does not offer indemnity, either. See the Alcatel-Lucent lawsuit against Microsoft, or the fact that WMV became more visibly patent-encumbered when Microsoft submitted it to SMPTE for certification as VC-1, to see how this sort of problem affects the "other guys," too.
tldr: The simple answer to John's questions is that sometimes, when you act in the real world, in order to achieve things you have to make compromises and cannot be ideologically pure.
In more detail:
1. Because, like it or not, Flash is an established part of the web at present and it would be unacceptably frustrating for users if numerous websites stopped working. This would be the result because these sites often do not have a fallback option for users who are not using Flash. On the other hand, sites which only serve h.264 content with no fallback option are rare (non-existent?).
2. I, too, am interested in the answer to this question but not because I'm trying to prove that Google isn't ideologically pure.
3. I don't see how it wouldn't be better for open innovation if YouTube served video in an open format. Perhaps what John is really getting at is what does YouTube intend to do for platforms that will not support Flash or WebM?
4. Why isn't it valid to have Flash as a fallback option? This is only invalid if you work from the assumption that Flash is unacceptable (either because of performance or for ideological reasons). Utilising a ubiquitous closed technology while you help establish a new open technology is not an ideologically pure strategy but it may be one that will work.
5. People who are concerned about video codecs being controlled by for-profit corporations are happy about this but I don't think that's most people. I also don't think those same most people care.
I think John's frustration is really with Google wanting to make decisions on the basis of ideology (open is good/don't be evil) only when it is in Google's financial interest to do so (John has given examples in the past that open doesn't seem so good when it comes to Google's proprietary search algorithm). I think this is a fair frustration to have but it doesn't mean that everything that Google does is irrevocably tainted and can never be good. Establishing an open standard for video on the web is a good thing long-term. The way they are going about it isn't as pure as one might hope but sometimes this is how things work in the real world (see Obama and tax cuts/repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell).
Establishing an open standard for video on the web is a good thing long-term.
Why is that a good thing? It's not a bad thing, but is it worth a lot of churn? Virtually none of the media formats in wide use today are open, yet it hasn't really been a problem, from Flash to MP3 to MPEG-2 to even WMA/WMV. The ability for users to transcode is virtually limitless. I don't have a single media file that I can't get to any other format.
I don't think this is about the long-term good of the web. I think it's about the long-term good for Google.
It's long-term good in the sense that it means your freedom to produce video that other people can play back is no longer at the convenience of others.
At present, you can do most of the things you do because the people that control the intellectual property rights are allowing you to do that at a minimal or no cost. As the GIF example demonstrates, it's not always wise to rely the charity of for-profit companies when it comes to this type of thing.
What are the chances of this being a problem in the future? I don't know. I believe it's good long-term in the same way that I believe insurance is good long-term. Taking out insurance doesn't always pay off -- in fact most of the time you'd hope it doesn't -- but that doesn't mean it's not a good thing to do.
This is to Google's benefit and, as I said in my original comment, I believe this is at the heart of John's problem with Google. Google positions its actions within a moral framework that never mentions that the actions which it takes are of financial benefit to Google. I don't disagree that Google is doing that and that it's frustrating -- only that basically every company does it.
Take for example, Apple. Apple only lets users download apps through the App Store. This is good for users because it means that users can trust the software and developers can easily charge for software and make a living from it. But Apple also does it because it's good for Apple. They make money this way on software that's sold and they can also limit apps which would otherwise compete with their own software.
Does the fact they have an ulterior motives mean that it's not good for users? I'd say no. John says no, too. Well at least he does when it's Apple. When it's Google, he seems upset by the dishonesty. I don't mind if John wants to be upset with dishonesty but I think you should make it clear why you're not upset at Apple's similar dishonesty (the reason might be because Apple doesn't frame what they do in such moral terms as Google).
Let me throw some FUD your way... equally likely (or unlikely). WebM does violate a patent in the MPEG-LA pool. At that point Google needs to rev every instance of WebM, from browser to every video encoded with WebM. MPEG-LA could go after anyone who encoded a video with WebM. And given MPEG-LA's patent pool size (which includes H264, VC-1, MPEG-2, etc...).
In contrast for H264 to violate it patent it would have to violate something not in the patent pool, and something not held by a licensor, e.g., WMV or Quicktime (as these would in good faith be in the patent pool). That list is LOT smaller. Most people think that they likely own al
And note, Google does NOT offer indemnification. If they did, and they should, that would change the equation on this FUD a fair bit.
Who offers indemnification against unexpected patent threats in their codec licenses? Expecting Google to indemnify WebM users or MPEG-LA to indemnify H264 users are equally ridiculous. It's uncountable downside with very little upside.
Re #3: Performance is reason enough. The fact that a dual-core MacBook Pro can't even play back a 360p Flash video without dropping frames is completely unacceptable.
Ok here, are some answers, off the top of my head. They are not Google's answers, but what I imagine Google would say if they felt like being honest.
1. No Flash wont be dropped. Why must we be forced to the extreme absolutist position in one direction or another? We try to do what is right, but we are also practical, and will not attempt things that will cause too much trouble for their benefit. It is always easier to affect the path of technology in its infancy than after it has been established. Flash is established; we will not try to fight it and will let it die a natural death. HTML 5 video is in its infancy and we will try our best to guide it in the right direction.
2. We will probably leave that up to the manufacturers. However, once the WebM hardware accelerators start shipping, we expect h.264 support to drop because no manufacturer likes to pay per phone licensing fees.
3. Youtube will still retain h.264 support to allow compatibility with iOS devices, until iOS devices start supporting WebM.
4. They will have some time to think about it. First we are not dropping h.264 support immediately. Even after we drop support, they can still use flash to support their h.264 video (as most of them already do) so they do not lose anything. But we are making it clear that we are throwing our weight behind WebM, and they will eventually figure out that they are paying h.264 license fees for no good reason.
5. We are. Lots of people on the web are. Many people that have to write checks to MPEG-LA are. Many people that are thinking of doing a video startup but are worried about the licensing costs are.
I'm surprised Gruber didn't also pose a question about the murky patent landscape re: WebM. If Google decides to throw their full weight behind WebM, it wouldn't be at all surprising to see some legal action on the part of MPEG-LA.
That said, the "Who is happy about this?" question smacks as slightly unfair given Gruber's unabashed approval of Apple's decision to not support Flash (albeit, I too support this decision as a web developer).
Addendum: whereby I mean to say that there are undoubtedly numerous users who have been "harmed" (whether they know it or not) by the lack of Flash on iOS devices (e.g., because they could not view a given website on their device), even if the removal of Flash will be good for the web in the long term.
> That said, the "Who is happy about this?" question smacks as slightly unfair given Gruber's unabashed approval of Apple's decision to not support Flash (albeit, I too support this decision as a web developer).
The "Who is happy" test for Flash passes, though. I, for one, have desperately yearned for the death of Flash for years before Apple partisans took up the mantle. Why? I was partly responsible for maintenance and analytics of a terrible flash website that, superficially, looked kind of neat. All you have to do is have this trash plugged into something mission critical to start wishing for its demise.
And I'm not alone. Flash is a crappy, frustratingly ubiquitous technology whose marginalization is a godsend for anyone who cares about a usable web. Anyone who has ever tried to use a restaurant website is happy about the end of flash.
For one, millions of people play Flash games. They would not be happy if Flash was gone.
For a long time Flash was the best way to deliver video on the web. People who watched those videos would not be happy if Flash was gone.
Flash succeeded on the web based on merits, despite being in a relatively hostile environment (as every plugin is by the virtue of not being bundled with a browser and needing a separate action to install it).
The fact that it became ubiquitous is evidence that most people wanted it to have hence would be not happy if they didn't get it.
Your position on flash is valid as a personal opinion but you're wrong that Apple's decision to not support Flash passes "happy" test for their customers and users. It's just one more example of Apple's doing what Apple wants, users be damned; of arrogance born out of success.
"Who would be happy?" != "Would a majority be happy?"
I didn't assert everyone would be over the moon with Flash gone. I'm saying that you don't have to look hard for people who would be. Killing H.264, a popular format, in a growing browser is much more of a headscratcher.
>Apple's doing what Apple wants, users be damned; of arrogance born out of success.
I think you've got that mixed up. Apple's success is a function of its arrogance. Every smash hit they've had came from arrogance, whether you pick the iMac, with its embrace of USB, to iTunes, with its crazy, user-friendly licensing, or the iPod, with its paltry storage space and simplistic UI, or the iPhone, with its lack of a keyboard or stylus... etc.
Apple's success comes from having the balls to say "Fuck you guys, we're doing it this way, because it's better." As usual, they got it right with Flash. And history has shown that in the end, users were at the very center of those decisions, even if the consequences were initially unfamiliar.
Killing H.264, a popular format, in a growing browser is much more of a headscratcher.
H.264 is not open. WebM is. WebM also has the technical quality to rival H.264 (which Theora does not) Certainly there are downsides to this decision but doesn't seem like a total headscratcher to me.
And history has shown that in the end, users were at the very center of those decisions, even if the consequences were initially unfamiliar.
You realize you could say the exact same thing about Google's decision now?
Has mp3 not being "open" prevented people from making, listening to, and sharing music? Have Linux MP3 players been erased from the face of the earth by evil patent trolls?
I'm aware that the software world, and FOSS in particular, frequently bumps heads with this patent nonsense. But throwing existing technical solutions out the window to deal with a broken legal/economic complex seems backwards.
(There are parallels that could be drawn to Apple's blocking of Flash, but that arguably has as much to do with quality as openness/control. Flash's performance and stability is contentious at best. H264, on the other hand, is typically regarded as a best-of-breed codec.)
Just as an interesting datapoint, SanDisk (the number two "mp3" player manufacturer the last time I checked) has dropped AAC support from some of their recent models, while still supporting free formats like Vorbis and FLAC, as well patented ones like as mp3 and WMA. Obviously the fees can have an impact even on big names.
> Anyone who has ever tried to use a restaurant website is happy about the end of flash.
Anyone in the small user segment who knows what Flash is and can discern when they are or are not using it? My mother has been using the internet regularly for 10 years and I doubt she knows what Flash is or is impeded by sites using it.
I'd like for Flash to disappear, too, but don't buy this notion that it's hated beyond certain geeks and special cases.
In a similar vein, anyone who cares about being build their own encoder or decoder for web video (or even just anyone who wants to compile from source their own build of a codec) is happy about having an unencumbered web video format instead of H.264.
> it wouldn't be at all surprising to see some legal action on the part of MPEG-LA
It would be pretty unlikely actually. MPEG-LA has been threatening about Vorbis for the last 11 years and nothing has happened so far, same thing with theora. The last thing MPGEG-LA want is to reveal what patents exactly are being used by WebM (if any), they'd rather spread FUD and make companies pay for licenses out of fear like they always have as the patent troll that they are. I (and probably Google too) would actually love for them to start suing so we can finally debunk those patents, which is why they probably won't.
The difference being that Vorbis has almost no commercial traction. If large, popular services (like YouTube, for instance) decided to go with a codec like WebM, the MPEG-LA might finally decide to make good on those threats.
YouTube announced months ago that they're transcoding pretty much everything they have to WebM. They've been working on it ever since; a significant fraction of YouTube videos are available in WebM right this second.
Vorbis is being used in many of the biggest games, the gaming industry is a multi-billion dollar one, why not sue them? Doesn't make sense unless they really secretly hate google and only want to sue them...
True, but Vorbis is an audio spec, not a video one. Theora, which would arguably be more on MPEG-LA's radar, is used in only a handful of titles: http://wiki.xiph.org/Games_that_use_Theora
* Apple has a very well documented case that Flash contributes to significant instability on their platform, hence they didn't want it on iOS
* Flash was/is a significant consumer of CPU cycles, resulting in reduced battery life, which didn't allow them to meet performance targets
Regardless of your position on Flash as a proprietary piece of software, its presence would have had a very real impact on the performance and reliability of Apple's product at launch. That's not to say there wasn't an ideological component, because Steve Jobs himself included one in his anti-Flash rant, but I find it a little easier to excuse apple for leaving Flash out in the cold on iOS than I do Google shutting the door on H.264.
Not disagreeing with Apple's case against Flash, but at the same time Google also has pretty strong reasons to actively try to bring H.264 down, both as a browser maker and a video site operator.
Most people install flash anyway, regardless of whether or not it's preinstalled. Ideally, everyone could just kill flash and that would be awesome, but a huge amount of content is already made in flash and there are a few areas where standards are not implemented consistently or at all (eg. the Device API for accessing webcams and microphones, though a version of Android does support that and the ConnectionPeer interface for peer-to-peer connections). Flash isn't used exclusively for video.
When it's 2028 and all the h.264 patents finally expire, it would be great if Google were to add h.264 back to the chrome browser, but of course, the browser landscape would probably be so vastly different that it would be hardly relevant.
YouTube is reencoding the videos in WebM. But it's doubtful that the h.264 videos will be removed because of Apple's stubbornness in only supporting a single format (However, I'm quite sure Safari plays whatever videos are supported by the pluggable QuickTime engine, so once someone makes a QT plugin that adds WebM, it'll play in Safari. The same way IE9 implements video codecs).
Gruber only lists 4 or so companies that use H.264 with <video>. There probably aren't too many more that exclusively use h.264 with <video>. Certainly far less than the number of people who use flash video.
Once you get past the PR and spin I think this is just another strategic move in the battle between these corporate giants. Remember that Google re-encoded all of Youtube to mp4 so that it could be shown on the iPhone, they were partners, but then Jobs got mad and started a war by suing HTC over Android. I believe Apple was dumb in starting this war because they have a lot more to lose than Google, if the iProducts lose Google's YouTube/Maps/Gmail/Search/Voice/Goggles, etc it would put them at a big disadvantage. Consumers will be collateral damage as this battle continues to escalate.
> will Flash Player support be dropped as well? If not, why?
Flash has no easy replacement available yet. We will see with HTML5 and beyond. Realistically it will take a few more years.
> Android currently supports H.264. Will this support be removed from Android? If not, why not?
My guess is that future Nexus phones will have hardware WebM decoding included. I don't know if Google will remove H.264 anytime soon though.
> YouTube uses H.264 to encode video. Presumably, YouTube will be re-encoding its entire library using WebM. When this happens, will YouTube’s support for H.264 be dropped, to “enable open innovation”? If not, why not?
It will be dropped. Why not?
> Do you expect companies like Netflix, Amazon, Vimeo, Major League Baseball, and anyone else who currently streams H.264 to dual-encode all of their video using WebM?
Sure. They all have enough money for a few gigs per movie, the distribution system would stay the same. Btw. Netflix uses Silverlight and adding WebM decoding to Silverlight should be rather easy.
> Who is happy about this?
Given the counter-scenario and a few years: everyone!
I take it you are a Flash supporter? Because Flash plays H.264, and Google ships Chrome with Flash. So Google Chrome has not lost the ability to play H.264, it just does so through Flash now. If Google were to stop shipping Chrome with Flash that would be saying something.
Do you understand what Google has done with "Flash"?
Since 99% of their users WILL have Flash installed anyway Google decided they would make sure their users would have the most up to date version without the user being involved at all. No other browser does that.
In Chrome 9 the Flash plugin is sandboxed.
Google's moves are 100% pragmatic.
Why the hell is there so much support for a software patent cartel among Hacker News members? I thought software patents were a major danger to startups...
Do you encode video for the web? Do you know how long it has taken to reach a point where there is almost a ubiquitous codec? I've been in the business for 10 years. Yesterday may have been the peak of ubiquity.
This is a selfish move by Google to put the screws to Apple. There's no question it's going to hurt users in the short term because they'll have to rely on Flash to playback H.264. And users are going to be using Flash a lot because the people like me who are in the business of encoding and hosting video will not be switching to WebM anytime soon. The millions of iOS devices and the higher ups who own them will dictate this for years to come. This is where your idealism meets reality.
So only iOS counts? Because that is the only platform <video> matters on right now.
I'm glad to see Apple calls the shots and Google is in the wrong for making a move in its own interest. And in the interest is places that don't want to pay a software patent cartel for permission to innovate.
No, but Apple is the biggest factor. I'm willing to bet more corporate decision makers have iPhone's than Androids (which also don't support WebM by the way) and when you're selling a video hosting and asset management service that matters.
These are the other extremely popular devices that support H.264 and most will not be supporting WebM anytime soon so why would I encode in WebM until they do.
Android devices.
Sony PSP.
Sony Playstation 3.
Xbox 360.
Blackberrys.
Some Symbian Phones.
Windows Phone 7.
I'll jump on the WebM bandwagon as soon as more then 50% of the popular consumer devices support it. Taking away support for an established and popular codec just makes you an asshole and will be nothing more then an inconvenience as long as Flash player supports it and is included with Chrome.
It'll be one of those things where time will tell.
I have sympathy for those involved in encoding but one has to remember that disruptive technologies are called disruptive for a reason. If WebM takes off its going to cause someone pain during the process... :)
Since you edited I'll edit too:
Which of those devices will still be around and usable in 5 years? Which ones won't be replaced by shiny new hardware? Your timeframe is a bit different than Google's.
But why do you care so much? Google did what they think is right for them and the web long-term. They're not in the business of making your job easy and certainly aren't in the business of extending ubiquity of what they feel is a harmful codec.
You don't have to agree. If you don't want to re-encode to WebM then don't. The users using browsers that don't support H.264 natively will get the Flash wrapper. If they don't like it they can use a different browser that does H.264 natively or go to a different content provider who will encode in WebM. Free market.
If WebM proves popular and wins the format war, we get a (FUD aside) license free codec. If it doesn't, at worst we get status quo of part-Flash, part-H.264 video experience, and at best we get your dream of H.264 ubiquity. Where's the loss?
I care because I like Chrome and was enjoying using it to play H.264 video. I may switch to Safari.
I also care because I was very excited about the near ubiquity a video codec had finally reached in 2010. I don't want to go back to encoding for multiple formats (I hate you 3GP). I won't encode multiple formats until I have to, but the transition to a new standard is always painful and time consuming. If WebM "wins" I get to re-encode thousands of videos and since we now outsource that to Zencoder that means thousands of dollars to do so.
Switching away from a browser is realistically the most powerful way you can influence a browser maker's decisions these days. Do it if you feel strongly about the situation.
(As an aside, price for outsourced video encoding is on order of magnitude close to dollars per video? I did not know that.)
It's priced $.02 to $.05 per minute so depends on how long the content you have is. We have lots of training and event content which is typically longer then a YouTube clip.
The dependence is already there. The only reason people even noticed <video> is because of iOS. Everyone not on iOS hasn't noticed or cared yet.
From Google's point of view getting everything switched from Adobe's proprietary platform to a platform controlled by a software cartel consisting of Microsoft and Apple isn't progress. You're just handing your nuts to be crushed by a different party.
Google's strategy seems to mitigate the harm now (Flash's security history) with an eye to getting everything on a standard not controlled by its rivals.
> In addition to supporting H.264, Chrome currently bundles an embedded version of Adobe’s closed source and proprietary Flash Player plugin.
For one, I am a little tired of the hyperbole surrounding Flash. Yes, it isn't quiet open source, but it's not quiet "closed source", either. Since I can download an open source Flex SDK and compile without the need of any Adobe tools. I can't fork the player API, but this rant seems like sensationalism. Secondly, Flash player handles much more than just video. I'm not saying it is used in the best way, but it definitely caters beyond video render. Removing H.264 doesn't have the same impact as removing an embedded Flash player.
Apple fought a bitter, public battle with the MPEG-LA over MPEG 4 part 2 video and the crazy licence fees they were planning to charge for it (and AAC) a good few years back. They refused to release Quicktime 6 until the licence fee structure was changed to allow more cost free usage. Not out of the goodness of their hearts, but because uneconomical fees could (and did) open the door to competitors like VP6 which, via Flash, become the dominant web format for a while. Could have been pre-Daring Fireball though. (edit: I checked, the argument was summer 2002, DF started that fall).
A question missed is the following; The dropping of H.264 seems more motivated by their acquisition of On2 and their VP8 codec than it does about the licensing terms of H.264. Who within Google pushed for this, and to what extent was the need to show a realization from On2's acquisition a factor?
1. No, Flash isn't just about video playback, the technology is used in a variety of ways on a variety of sites and it's not analogouse to a video codec.
2 - 4. Transitioning the web to WebM encoded video is the ultimate goal but that will have to happen gradually.
Chrome ships with Flash, which is a good thing. Not because Flash is a good thing. But because if you're going to run Flash it might as well be up to date and running as a separate process in a sandbox.
It's because it's the best codec we have for moderate-resolution video, and it already has almost %100 of the market (played back via Flash). Making it available in <video> would allow people to drop the Flash part.
Dropping Flash for video playback would be nice, yes.
But making the shift from plugin-based playback to HTML5 video is an opportunity. And it's really the only chance that the web as a whole is going to get - if Flash video dies and H.264 through <video> becomes the dominant format, then the web is going to be stuck with that, and the MPEG-LA will rake it in from anyone who wants to make a product that involves web video. That is a terrible position to be in.
The best option is to make a clean break here and now, and leave patent-encumbered video codecs behind at the same time as Flash for video playback is left behind. Playing through a Flash container is fine for legacy videos, and long-term there's no real downside to pushing unencumbered formats for HTML5.
While free is generally better than not free, the cost of licensing from MPEG-LA is relatively cheap. Terms may have changed last I looked, but it's something like twenty five cents per paid subscriber per year, the first 50,000 subscribers are free with a $1M cap. The same goes for sold encoders/decoders.
So companies like Google, Adobe, and Microsoft have to pay $1M per year at most. A smaller site that charges, like PluralSight, probably pays $0.
This really isn't about money. It's about control.
Last time I checked it was capped at roughly $5million per year and had been increasing by 10% (the maximum allowed) per year, every year since the licensing began (though in two-year steps, i.e. just over 20% each two years).
I have seen multiple people claim that it's only allowed to go up by 10% every five years. You obviously are claiming a different scheme again. Just the fact that there's so much confusion about price is in itself a mark against this method of creating (so-called) RAND standards.
Video on the web is popular hence it's important. It's also the only part of the web where the de-facto standard (h264) is owned by a commercial entity which has a grip on the technology not through continuous technological excellence but by a patent grab.
It's a huge disaster waiting to happen. It has happened in the past (see gif patent and the money grab that ensued). It's naive to think that mpeg la consortium is not aware of how much money they could possibly make by starting to enforce their licensing. And when they do, that will be bad for everyone creating and publishing video on the web. Web video on the web is currently living on a good will of commercial entity who might just think of it as freemium model: make them dependent on your product until they can't use an alternative and then make them pay.
Google (along with Mozilla) should be commended for spending millions of dollars to decrease the probability of such a disaster happening. Even if WebM doesn't surpass h264 it might just be enough insurance to make mpeg la not start a money grab in fear of loosing completely to WebM.
We need a free standard for video on the web, just like we have them for everything else, and Google is spending considerable resources to make it happen.
As to Gruber: he has no credibility asking Google tough questions. His pro-Apple and anti-Google biases are bigger than iceberg that sank titanic.
More important question is: when will Apple and Microsoft start helping us avoid future video disaster on the web?
And where is Gruber asking "who is happy about this" when Apple continuously censors App Store and refuses to allow developer publish apps that users want to use? When Apple is more interested in their petty vendetta against Adobe than in what they users want. Etc. If you want to ask tough questions, then ask them, just not selectively.