back to article Google plugins force-feed open codec to IE and Safari

Google will soon release plug-ins for both Internet Explorer and Safari that play nicely with WebM, the open source and royalty-free video codec that Apple and Microsoft aren't inclined to adopt on their own. The move comes two days after Google announced that its Chrome browser would no longer support H.264, the royalty- …

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  1. Henry Wertz 1 Gold badge

    a few points

    firstly, don't see google "force-feeding" anything here. Force-feeding the plugin to me would be if they had like auto-installed it with googleearth for instance. They didn't, they just make it available and recommend it.

    regarding hardware acceleration -- chips don't accelerate mpeg2, h.264, mpeg4, etc., they accelerate idct, motion compensation, deblocking, rescaling, etc. So if webm uses those functions it can be accelerated. The acceleration apis for linux (va-api for instance and i think xvmc too) directly expose these, can't speak for windows.

  2. Arion

    Pretentious Gits

    It looks like there are a lot of pretentious gits out there who want to slate Google, and aren't going to let reason or logic get in the way.

    Other than being part of the MPEG LA Patent Pool, which licences H.264, I can't see any logical reason to object to Flash without objecting to H.264. From the other perspective, if you're OK with H.264 ( and aren't a H.264 patent holder ), then there's no reason to object to Flash.

    1. Doc Spock

      Flash vs h.264

      "Other than being part of the MPEG LA Patent Pool, which licences H.264, I can't see any logical reason to object to Flash without objecting to H.264"

      It's very simple really. Anyone can obtain the complete h.264 spec and build a fully compliant encoder and decoder (e.g., the x264 guys). This is not possible with Flash. The OpenScreen project is only a partial spec - it does not cover any of the DRM aspects of Flash.

      Consequently, the only company that can build a fully compliant Flash player is Adobe. If this were not true, Gnash would be a lot better and would be used by a lot more people. If you believe anyone can create a fully compliant Flash player, please answer the following question: why is it the case that, even after so many years, has not a single person or group in the worldwide open source community has produced such a product yet (remember, Gnash does not support Adobe's DRM).

  3. Tom 7

    Judging from the opposition

    there's a lot of people going to loose a lot of money with this.

    Presumably they were going to ask me to pay for their 'free' option and will try and make Google pay in the courts.

    Good luck with that - Google will just fight back and not crumble under extorton demands and software patents will go to the wall. G

    And you can get a job providing a service and not a tollbooth. You'll fell better in the long run.

  4. DrXym

    Now how about opening up Firefox, Chrome & Opera

    It is absurd see the codec being forced through for browsers. WebM might be an okay codec but it's not the industry standard (which is also an open standard) and applying lossy compression to lossy compression is plain stupid. Shunning a codec which has universal hardware support and is built into virtually consumer and broadcast piece of kit is just plain stupid.

    Opera, Firefox and Chrome all support the NPAPI. If they want to ship WebM by default then fine, but open up the video tag. Define a video plugin extension (being NPAPI + well defined interfaces) whereby any users may install additional video codecs as they see fit. The irony is seeing Google write an ActiveX control for IE to play a foreign codec, but not opening up their own browser to do the same.

    Better yet enable the browser to ask the operating system's built in media framework to play unrecognized content. Linux has GStreamer. Windows has DirectMedia. OS X has Quicktime. Those frameworks exist for a reason. Most people already have an H264 codec sitting their in their media framework or can acquire one. Browsers could and should be using those frameworks to play content.

    In summary, state WebM is the web standard but don't shut the door on other codecs especially one as important as H264. It's in nobody's interest to see browsers engage in this pointless little war.

  5. TeeCee Gold badge
    Grenade

    Definition of "free".

    There are enough of those around already, so did we really need a new one:

    Free, as in: Until Google use the words "leverage our assets"......

  6. stewski

    is HTML5 a standard?

    Odd that people skirt around the idea that webM is a standard, despite open specification documents and source for encoders and decoders. Often h.264 gets the defacto standard applied without figures for its adoption on web video encoding and then HTML5 is described as a standard (which I'd agree with) but it is yet to become a candidate recommendation from the w3c and has not been agreed by ITU or ISO (which is where h.264 supports suggest standards come from).

    In fact HTML wasnt iso/itu agreed for 9 years and xHTML and a bunch of w3c tech still isn't.

    -

    Either way, w3c recommend only royalty free tech for a good reason, the idea that users will mostly be able to access such tech for video is not bad thing!

  7. Doug Glass
    Go

    So? What's You Point?

    Don't like it? Don't use it. Simple choice a person can make. We on this side of the pond call that freedom of choice. The only Evil Google product worth using is the search engine, and even then TrackMeNot is running full bore. Meh, BFD.

  8. Jethro Q. Bunn Whackett Buzzard Stubble and Boot Walrustitty
    Paris Hilton

    Just don't get

    all the ranting about this.

    Surely open source has proved itself over the years to develop top quality applications etc (Chrome funnily enough being one of them). Unless of course people think that the developers of h264 are the only ones capable of designing a quality codec.

    Surely this is the best opportunity to make the web just that bit freeer(?). The idea that webm "isn't good enough" as a reason not to use it is pure bullshit. khtml wasn't perfect when I first started using it years ago but boy is it good now.

    As for flash, well surely one of the ideas behind html5 is that proprietary plugins such as this will not be needed once all the browsers are supporting canvas etc... Surely, we don't want to rid ourselves of one proprietary system (and noone can argue that flash is really what we want) just to replace it with another that is also proprietary. Flash's days are numbered and so should h264's.

    Paris: because, like me, she can't figure out what the f%$^ing fuss is all about

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    h.264 isn't proprietary...

    It's a completely open standard. It's not free (as in beer) though.The fuss is about Google dropping support for it in their browser in favour of their own codec, of which they are refusing to indemnify third parties from submarine patents, suggesting that they are aware of infringements and further muddying the details of the proposed <video> tag in the developing HTML5 standard and taking us closer to a similar situation of the original format and browser wars. *NB* HTML5 detractors; this does not mean that HTML5 is not 'ready' to use. Go and read http://www.diveintohtml5.org and educate yourself.

    This codec, named WebM, was a developed privately and subsequently open-sourced by Google. *NB* Open source != open standard. h.264 is an ISO ratified industry standard HD video codec. Pretty much /everybody/ uses it.

    Google have left in support for the closed, proprietary Flash plug in from Adobe, which is seen by many as hypocritical of Google and goes to highlight that this move isn't as altruistic as Google would have you think. Flash, developmentally, has more in common with the proprietary WebM (yes WebM /is/ proprietary) codec than the open h.264 standard. Obviously a royalty free solution would be ideal, but one that offers sufficient quality (no, it's not bullshit. Video compression is not the same as HTML and CSS rendering at all) and that doesn't infringe on existing patents hasn't been presented, and I doubt it ever will. It's a politically and finically motivated move by Google that could be seen as anti-trust as they are arguably doing this to leverage contral over internet and mobile video (via Android) thus leveraging one market to control another. Do no evil my arse. Not that difficult to understand really.

    1. Oninoshiko

      h.264 cannot be implemented by anyone, only those with a license, and even then...

      MPEG-LA will not indemnify third parties from submarine patents either. By your own logic that suggests "that they are aware of infringements." The reality is that submarine patents are too high of an unmitigatable risk that NOONE indemifies. To put is in perspective, the last group to make that as an argument was SCO, look where they are today.

      WebM and OGG are being preposed as a BASELINE. If there h.264 may be *A* video standard, but it is *NOT* a web standard, ie it is not required to be implemented by the <video> tag. Google is makeing a browser that supports HTML 5. HTML 5 has a <video> tag. That <video> tag does not require support for any particular codec, so Google is fully complient with WEB STANDARDS. It's worth noting that, whatever their reasoning, the effect is that there is one more browser that is only implementing the codecs that anyone can implement, free-as-in-beer. Whatever the modivation, the effect is that they stand in solidarity with Mozilla and Opera. It's not that difficult to understand really.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Stop

        @Oninoshiko

        "MPEG-LA will not indemnify third parties from submarine patents either."

        This is wrong. MPEG-LA *does* indemnify licensees from submarine patents. It is Google that does not indemnify WebM licensees from third-party legal action.

        This is why large companies are happy to pay the h.264 license fee - because they know there will be no surprise fees on top of it. WebM doesn't have that kind of security.

        1. Oninoshiko
          FAIL

          I just LOVE the ACs....

          No, an MPEG-LA only licenses the patents that it represents. A MPEG-LA license does not indeminify you against patents they do not control. If you bothered to actually look at the MPEG-LA's web site, you would know that.

          " In addition, as discussed above, users who take MPEG LA’s license may have to negotiate licenses for essential patents that are not included."

          -- http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/AVC/Pages/FAQ.aspx

  10. Mikel
    Thumb Up

    Netflix on H.264

    H.264 and the MPEG-LA patent pool are tools that Microsoft uses to prevent open platforms like Linux from legally having video players shipped with them. You have to add them, or you have to download them from outside the US and so in some instances break the law. This is just a replay of the .GIF submarine patent fiasco, and we all know how that worked out. Obviously it's in Microsoft's best interest if competing platforms can't do something critical like video as an integrated core feature.

    Reed Hastings is the founder, CEO and Chairman of the Board of Netflix. He also sits on Microsoft's board of directors: http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/bod/hastings/default.aspx Of course he's going to take Microsoft's side on this. Netflix is also going to disrespect Android from time to time, like they do here: http://blog.netflix.com/2010/11/netflix-on-android.html

    About all browsers letting the OS handle video codecs like IE does: yeah, that's not going to work. Windows has a long tradition of not working at all for applications that Microsoft has decided to compete with - going all the way back to Windows 3.0 and Lotus 1-2-3. And of course who can forget the glorious decade-long antitrust suit for killing Netscape that got Microsoft to invest in a George Bush presidency to finally get some relief? Do I need to summon the ghost of WordPerfect here to be a witness? You don't let Microsoft's OS have any more of your application's functionality than you absolutely must if you want the app to live for very long.

    So yeah, Google owns the WebM tech. They paid $106M for it. If they want to make it free and open that's their right. If they want to make browser plugins for all the other browsers, more power to 'em. And if they want to omit the H.264 support in their own browser and OS and so both make them more shareable and also save on some H.264 licensing costs, well, that's their right. They're not obliged to keep paying MPEG-LA licensing fees if they have their own video codec. They don't need H.264 - they already bought a codec, and it's quite good, and they've let us all use it any way we like. What evil controlling jerks they are to give us hundreds of millions of dollars worth of intellectual property for free! The hardware builders will come along with hardware acceleration in good time, if they haven't already. If somebody wants to pay the license and make an H.264 codec plugin for Chrome, it's not like the API for that isn't published with everything else in Chrome - with source code and examples even. You want it? Build it. Knock yourself out. Nothing is stopping you. No doubt somebody will before long.

    I'm going to close this with one of my favorite quotes from RAH:

    "There has grown in the minds of certain groups in this country the idea that just because a man or corporation has made a profit out of the public for a number of years, the government and the courts are charged with guaranteeing such a profit in the future, even in the face of changing circumstances and contrary to public interest. This strange doctrine is supported by neither statute or common law. Neither corporations or individuals have the right to come into court and ask that the clock of history be stopped, or turned back." - Robert A Heinlein, Life-Line, 1939.

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