Jobs drops hint on Google open video codec

weaker is a relative term

he says it's better than theora, for example, and it seems to be better than h264 _used_ to be

it's the patent-encumbrance that's the real killer though.. there should be a law like with trademarks where if you see someone violating your patent, you can't just hide until a bigger target comes along, you have to take action

Once again....

Once again good ole Stevie boy cites another reputable source as to why something is bad or good. The last time it was some hack blogger. Now he cites a 3rd year college student whose opinion should obviously be taken over the geniuses at Google that did what I'm sure was an extreme amount of research before committing $125 million for VP8. Keep up the good work Steve so that eventually the intelligent masses will simply start to ignore you.

AFAIK...

VP8 is worse than H.264 videos encoded with the "high profile" mode...but it is worse than the baseline profile, which is used for youtube and it's the mode implemented in iphone. So youtube video quality is going to _improve_ with the change....

How it got to this?

W3C has a history as one of the staunchest defenders of thorough, well-conceived and well-developed standards free from contamination by self-interested outside parties. As such, it's a bit surprising that they would let pressure from the likes of Apple deflect them from their stated intention to specify a particular codec for the official HTML5 video tag, chosen, in part, because it's not proprietary. It might be another story if concerns about Ogg/Theora's performance led to a decision to hold off on the spec while they kept looking for a better solution, but I'm sure they must have realized that the decision to omit the codec from the spec altogether would leave the door open to abuses such as the standoff that Google appears to have finally broken, particularly given the long and well-established history of the two 800-pound gorillas in the scene of using their muscle for just this kind of advantage.

If they aren't doing so already, agencies with the responsibility to issue specifications like this one need to dedicate some amount of time and effort to look for flaws like this one that could be exploited by certain parties for lock-in or some other advantage, and make that very clear to any and all who might be tempted to twist things their way that they will do so.

All revenue is sacred

Ohhhh, Google upset Steve's revenues from MPEG-LA's licensing of X.264. Cry me a river Steve.

As for patents, who knows? VP8 has a longer heritage than X.264 so patent litigation has a fair bit of risk attached.

A little terse

Stock replies to e-mails are one thing, but this is a bit terse. No hi, no bye, no "thanks for mailing." In a bad mood, Steve? Did Google ruin your week?

Besides, it's kind of ridiculous to take an x264 developer's opinion of a rival codec and treat it as a balanced enough opinion on which to position your company in the market. Developer of established codec thinks it is better than rival codec that just appeared yesterday. In other news, bears shit in woods.

We all know what Steve is *really* thinking, and it is down to two things: control of content, and money.

As a side note, I am sat across from Mr Bloe here in Leeds, and he is grinning like the Cheshire Cat at seeing his name splashed across the tech sheets. You've made his day, El Reg. ;-)

While the C code isn’t half bad, the assembly is clearly written by retarded monkeys.

That is my favorite line from the article :-P

Fallacious argument

The article Steve Jobs referenced (from an H.264 developer -- perhaps not the most impartial judge of things?) is fallacious as it uses "straw man" arguments to try and convince people that the patent-encumbered H.264 codec is "better" than the free, open-source VP8 codec from the WebM project.

- The H.264 developer is comparing the performance of a beta release of the VP8 code to the current H.264 code.

However, the WebM project page specifically states that “there is more work to be done...some features of the WebM format are not yet complete...we expect to achieve better visual quality and performance in an official release soon...the performance of VP8 is very good in software, and we’re working closely with many video card and silicon vendors to add VP8 hardware acceleration to their chips”.

- The H.264 developer states that the VP8 specification is *final*.

However, the WebM project page specifically states that “the code and tools can evolve and improve for many years without requiring changes to the core specifications. We’ll maintain a separate branch of the code, however, for bold new ideas that could alter the specifications. If there are significant improvements to warrant a new revision we might adopt them, but only after careful consideration and after discussing suggested changes with the WebM community.” Open source code really never is “final”, and group consensus can agree to improve things while retaining as much backward-compatibility as possible. Google asks for code improvement suggestions on the WebM project page.

- The H.264 developer avoids mentioning the royalty penalties associated with using the H.264 codec, and that all these royalties are subject to change in 2015. And there is nothing “free” about H.264 -- someone somewhere is always paying royalties to MPEG-LA. Thus, MPEG-LA is effectively asking the world's citizens to slip the H.264 noose around their necks by allowing H.264 to become a web standard, with absolutely no guarantees that H.264 royalties will not skyrocket in 2015, or be preferentially enforced to effectively exclude certain people or agencies from being able to exchange information using that format.

In any case, MPEG-LA is obviously worried, as WebM including VP8 – combined with the recent announcement of a Digital Agenda by the EU for open, interoperable digital standards -- has the power to completely wipe proprietary, patent-encumbered file formats off the world-wide web. And that would be a good thing IMHO,for the sake of free and open communication between all the world's peoples. I think that Apple, Microsoft, and other MPEG-LA special-interest groups may continue their half-hearted FUD attacks against WebM, but would think more than twice about attempting a patent attack (and thus remove themselves from the ability to support and use a codec that will most likely be supported by the EU and the rest of the world, according to the clever license chosen for VP8).

Apple has a history of attacking competitors (and even ex-business partners like Adobe) with any tools at hand, so allowing a time bomb like H.264 to be adopted as a "rich peoples' club" web video standard would probably not be in the world's best interest, again in IMHO.

There is a simple way around this problem for MPEG-LA: just open-source H.264 with a BSD-style license similar to what Google used for VP8. Get rid of the royalties, and provide it free to the world. But the money-grubbing patent holders and MPEG-LA seem to be too greedy and too power-hungry to follow Google's example and make a gift of free speech and free communication to the world. So I for one will look forward to a WebM-centric web.

http://www.webmproject.org/about/faq/

Silly bickering

Of course if a compression method is better, it will run slower! Duh!

Did he have to study for 3 years to come up with that?

The thing that google is planning on, is the constant increase of our CPU power..

So, soon what appears sluggish today will be lightning fast -- except if you still use Windows, of coıurse :)

-turgut

İzmir İnstitute of Technology

Turkey

h264, x264, standard & implementation; VP8

Some of you doesn't seem to notice that MPEG-4 AVC (aka h.264) is a _standard_ which happens to have a reference implementation, which ISN'T x264. x264, instead, is an _implementation_ for the video encoding process compatible with the h.264 standard.

And AFAIK, x264 doesn't pay any royalties nor licences the h264 spec from MPEG-LA, despite their willing to do so in the future and sell their licences to anyone willing to use their encoder commercially, as the h264 MPEG-LA licence states the free (as in gratis) use is non-commercial only.

Also, some of you doesn't notice that like x264 (the encoder) and many h264 decoders (e.g. ffmpeg's) are in fact open-source and free, much as VP8 is. But they aren't patent-free, as they publicly encode/decode bitstreams compatible with the h264 standard. On the other hand, VP8 claims to be it is patent-free, but it couldn't be because no one made a patent trial yet.

Regarding VP8, I think Google would do better if they paid developers to work on Dirac standard/Schroedinger codec and develop a next-gen codec/standard.

Confused

"This probably can’t be improved that much," he says, referring to VP8 decoding capabilities. Google is unlikely to change the VP8 spec, but it and partners will continue to develop the software itself.

So H.264 has some implementations that are far better than the others (according to the article) yet VP8 probably can't be improved that much? Just because he cannot see how doesn't mean it cannot, especially given the variance in H.264 implementations. I'm sure when others get their hands on it improvements will come. Let's not forget that H.264 is a pig on lower spec'ed hardware and needs GPU offloading - atoms struggle/fail with 1080p and Ions don't.

I can't see Google having pissed $125m up the wall for nothing.