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Google Announces 'WebM' Open-Source Video Format, Plans for Android Television Integration

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Google today is making a number of major announcements at its Google I/O conference in San Francisco, with several of them directly related to Apple's offerings and supported standards.

First, 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 V8, a file format from long-time video format firm On2 Technologies, which was acquired by Google earlier this year.

WebM not only has the significant backing of Google, which will be building support for the format into its Chrome browser and YouTube, but also Mozilla and Opera, which will be including support for it in their browsers. It is unknown at this time whether Apple will support WebM in its Safari browser, although it appears likely it will given the strength behind the new format.

Second, Bloomberg notes that Google will be teaming up with Intel to bring its Android software to television sets and other home entertainment equipment, seeking to obtain a dominant position in the rapidly-growing connected TV industry.
"This is a new frontier for Google," said Ray Valdes, an analyst at Gartner Inc. "It's a return to traditional mass media concepts."

To attract consumers, Google will need to provide a broad variety of easily searchable programming and let viewers chat or post comments about it online, on a single screen, Valdes said.
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The report pegs Google's effort in contrast to Apple's attempts in the arena with the Apple TV, which has seen only limited success in what the company has repeatedly referred to as a "hobby". Google's effort will seek to move beyond the standalone Apple TV box directly into Web-connected televisions, which have begun to take hold with consumers. According to one study cited in the report, an estimated 46% of flat-panel televisions shipped in 2013 will be Web-connected, up from 19% today.

Article Link: Google Announces 'WebM' Open-Source Video Format, Plans for Android Television Integration
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2010/05/19/google-announces-webm-open-source-video-format-plans-for-android-television-integration/
This is huge, but expected news.

h.264 is under crushing licensing and patent restrictions that VP8 is not. This will free internet video from the MPEG LA stranglehold and actually push HTML5 forward.

Open source, patent free, support from Google and Mozilla. Today is a good day. :D
 
Minimoose 360 said:
Like we need another video format. :rolleyes:
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Agreed. Ugh.

Tell me, Google: Do you already have hardware chips designed and ready to go that will encode and decode this stuff the same way H.264 is done on many computers and cell phones?

Because coming out with a format and putting that part off for 'the future' isn't very helpful.

I haven't read everything yet, do they say ANYTHING about that?
 
Integrating stuff into a tv is not the way to go.

Bad idea, and always has been. The TV needs to remain a display device, that accepts input from other devices that can manage such things that can be more easily replaced and updated.
 
Does anyone know anything about the new codec's specs? how does it compare to OGG theora, other than the obvious licensing advantages?
 
I don′t look forward to the new video standard..ahh..I like H264

So would this only be used for video on the web?
 
aiqw9182 said:
Ogg isn't open enough for you Google? :rolleyes:
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Ogg is a container format. We're talking about codecs here.

Theora, the video codec usually used in Ogg files, is VP3, an older version of the same codec discussed here, which is VP8.

So in essence, you're asking Google why they want to open source and promote the new version when there's an old one floating around. Guess why they want the newer version... :rolleyes:
 
LinMac said:
This is huge, but expected news.

h.264 is under crushing licensing and patent restrictions that VP8 is not. This will free internet video from the MPEG LA stranglehold and actually push HTML5 forward.

Open source, patent free, support from Google and Mozilla. Today is a good day. :D
Click to expand...

That is my though on it. Hopefully at least MS will sign on to it and really push it forward and push Apple do it as well.
Firefox is not support h.264 due to the licensing cost of it. It have to look for work around to off load it on to something else instead of the cost of license it. h.264 licensing would cost Mozilla $5 million a year. That is a huge chunk of change and it will increase so it becomes very costly.

It is understandable why they are supporting it.
 
chuckles:) said:
Does anyone know anything about the new codec's specs? how does it compare to OGG theora, other than the obvious licensing advantages?
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any codec is better than theora. supposedly there is not enough bandwidth in the entire world to support theora
 
KnightWRX said:
Ogg is a container format. We're talking about codecs here.

Theora, the video codec usually used in Ogg files, is VP3, an older version of the same codec discussed here, which is VP8.

So in essence, you're asking Google why they want to open source and promote the new version when there's an old one floating around. Guess why they want the newer version... :rolleyes:
Click to expand...
I know very much what Theora and Vorbis are. I was just too lazy to type them out.
 
I like this part :

"If I have a video card that accelerates video playback, will it accelerate VP8?

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."

So it doesn't have hardware acceleration.
 
The only reason I am happy about this is because it will force Apple to start taking the Apple TV more seriously.
 
I think this is great news. The web needs a good, free video codec.

Skype uses VP7 (previous gen of On2's VP8 codec) for video conferencing, and iChat uses H.264. I have noticed that Skype uses my available bandwidth considerably better than iChat -- video conferences always look better in Skype. Much better at low bandwidth. This is largely due to the different video codecs.

Bottom line is that I think VP8 would be technically superior to H.264, particularly for web-based video.

BTW - here is a link which has some technical details of the new video format:
http://lachy.id.au/log/2010/05/webm

edit: also from On2: http://www.on2.com/index.php?599

edit 2: more details about encoding/decoding efficiency: http://www.dspdesignline.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=214303691
 
I dont mind companies pushing more standards, open or otherwise, nobody forces you to use them and over time things change.

Just looking back at all the codecs that have been, it's not done harm in the past and has given people lots of options when creating video stuff, so.. Yay?
 
Peace said:
I like this part :

"If I have a video card that accelerates video playback, will it accelerate VP8?

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."

So it doesn't have hardware acceleration.
Click to expand...

Just as I thought. Bass-ackward.
 
Wow, talk about putting Apple in between a rock and a hard place. Apple has already touted themselves as hardcore supporting open-source, but they've invested a lot into h.264. So essentially they have to support this new standard very well, or risk going back on their word and looking like huge hypocrites.

Peace said:
I like this part :

"If I have a video card that accelerates video playback, will it accelerate VP8?

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."

So it doesn't have hardware acceleration.
Click to expand...

Are you kidding me? Did they all just get together and talk about this last night and decide to announce it today? They're bats--t crazy if they think consumers are going to happily go along with it and just re-buy a bunch of hardware that supports it.
 
Peace said:
I like this part :

"If I have a video card that accelerates video playback, will it accelerate VP8?

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."

So it doesn't have hardware acceleration.
Click to expand...

I just watched a 720p video on YouTube using the new format on my mid-year 2008 MacBook. With Flash (.H264), my computer would stutter and barely be watchable. With Google's format, it worked without any problems. I haven't compared it to a non-Flash .H264 video but I had good results with only software acceleration of 720p video.
 
This is good news - as a practical open source alternative to Flash for video.
 
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