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Which Apple product is it that VP8 copies ? Apple never produced or shipped a video codec.
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Google Announces 'WebM' Open-Source Video Format, Plans for Android Television Integration
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Which Apple product is it that VP8 copies ? Apple never produced or shipped a video codec.
I'll tell you why I rated it negative: because the industry has already standardized on H.264, because it's available in all video editing and encoding packages, because it has massive hardware support, because it incentivizes competition between encoders, which actually makes the codec better over time as people get more out of it (the bitrate requirement for "broadcast quality" MPEG-2 dropped from 6-8 Mbps to 2-3 Mbps over a few years because of this), because professional compressionists already understand what 264 does to images and know how to sweeten their source and settings to get the best results, etc.
H.264 is patent-encumbered and royalty-bearing, but it is most certainly not proprietary. Interested parties can license it from MPEG-LA. The money involved seems like a lot to you and me, but it's insubstantial compared to the costs of being in video production and distribution at all.
The "religious idiot contingent" is the F/OSS types who can't understand that there is a world beyond webapp software development, and that people who actually create video for a living don't have a problem paying for patent-encumbered stuff, or even proprietary stuff, as long as it's excellent. Tell the boss at CNN or Dreamworks about this great patent-free open-source codec and they'll reply "so what?" It accomplishes absolutely nothing for them.
Thought exercise: would a patent-free car really do you any good? A patent-free microwave oven? You're never going to dick around with these things, you just want them to work, and you're willing to pay for it. So why are video codecs different?
This announcement will make disproportionate waves on navel-gazing web, but I don't think it's going to dislodge H.264's gains online, and it's certainly unlikely to get adopted anywhere but the web.
And before that, they had standardized on MPEG-2 and before that, MPEG-1...
Seriously.
Well, maybe it is not better than H.264 and it is still subject to patent lawsuits if it ever becomes popular. You can get the details here:
http://x264dev.multimedia.cx/?p=377
Performance wise he claims it is comparable to H.264 Baseline Profile, but worse than H.264 Main or High Profile. Encoding is much slower, but Google claims it can be improved in the future. However, here is the kicker: He says a good chunk is the same as H.264. Those portions are supposedly covered by patents, but currently free of charge if you use H.264.
By the way, Google apparently does not indemnify anybody against lawsuits, so if your company implements or use VP8 and start generating sizable income, you may end up dealing with patent suits. Then, you might as well use or licence H.264 instead.
I think the opposite, it will encourage video sources who are reluctant to re-encode out of flash to h.264 to wait and see what happens. This will slow down the flash migration.
Don't forget the large installed base of older browsers (IE6, etc) which won't support either and are a significant drag on any movement to a newer codec.
The responses here to the Microsoft blog posting seem way too optimistic about adoption of VP8. Read what he actually said. He didn't say Microsoft would be implementing VP8. Or pushing it. What he did say is that IE9 will support plug-ins (which we know) and that IF the user has a VP8 plug-in then IE9 will use it. He very carefully doesn't say that IE9 will natively support VP8 and he doesn't say that Microsoft will be providing a VP8 plug-in.
Safari has exactly the same support for VP8 already. If the user installs a VP8 quicktime plug-in, Safari can use it to display video encoded in VP8.
I don't think this will revolutionize web video at all. But it's still a great move by Google. What it will do is force the h.264 licensing group to clarify its licensing planes and extend the current royalty free distribution rights permanently.
vp8 certainly has a better shot at tackling h.264, but ultimately it's far more likely to replace flash and theora as fallback to h.264. the only thing the webm team could do (if microsoft throws in with them, but it looks like they still prefer h.264) is discontinue support for h.264 in their browsers and/or vp8 becomes so demonstrably better in performance, quality and supported hardware acceleration that h.264 is becomes a technically inferior choice and consumer unfriendly.
other than that though vp8, like theora will be playing catch-up to a moving target of literally hundreds of millions of devices and software installs (apart from the obvious, ipads, iphones h.264 is used in broadcast television, blu-ray, most consumer video recorders and cameras and a whole host of devices outside of the internet - which i might also point out mpeg-la's patent holders only care about license fees from these companies not any sort of playback via the internet, the FUD surrounding the licensing is amazing, even from theoretically credible sources, but that's a separate topic altogether)
keep in mind if mpeg-la ever feels vp8 is becoming a threat they can do what google has just done and release h.264 under a bsd style license. mpeg-la has already moved on to h.ngvc
other than that though vp8, like theora will be playing catch-up to a moving target of literally hundreds of millions of devices and software installs (apart from the obvious, ipads, iphones h.264 is used in broadcast television, blu-ray, most consumer video recorders and cameras and a whole host of devices outside of the internet - which i might also point out mpeg-la's patent holders only care about license fees from these companies not any sort of playback via the internet, the FUD surrounding the licensing is amazing, even from theoretically credible sources, but that's a separate topic altogether)
keep in mind if mpeg-la ever feels vp8 is becoming a threat they can do what google has just done and release h.264 under a bsd style license. mpeg-la has already moved on to h.ngvc
I think this pic says it better.
Plenty of hardware partners from the get go.
Well in computers and hand held chip makers they got it pretty well covered.
For computers all they need is to get Intel on board and all the hardware acceleration will be done. Hand held are covered with the major chip set makers.
But Apple is (reportedly) part of the H.264 patent pool, I wouldn't rule out the possibility they push for shutting down VP8 legally. Depends on what business strategy they decide on.
Well for web browsers over 25% of the market will not support h.264. Firefox alone controls nearly 25% if not more for the majority and with Opera it is enough to push it well over 25%.
Of the ones not supporting it you are at less than 5% of the market who might not support WebM vs 25% of the market not supporting h.264. That kind of stings.
And it all starts with the web. The web is what most here care about. Because without open video standard, open browsers like Firefox will be buried under fee demands and die.
Remember, even Steve Jobs was arguing in his Open Letter against Flash (and against competition) that open standards are better.
BTW, H.264 didn't get popular overnight, and it didn't get wide hardware support until fairly recently.
I'd rather root for an OPEN format, which is comparable to the proprietary H.264, and will only get better.
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; U; Android 1.6; en-us; Archos5 Build/Donut) AppleWebKit/528.5+ (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.2 Mobile Safari/525.20.1)
I was wondering about the lack of intel on that chart. Do they have any reason to snub it?
Rodimus Prime said:
I was wondering about the lack of intel on that chart. Do they have any reason to snub it?
point is, VP8 has better shot than H.264, since it covers 30% more internet users. Firefox include the codec in the software packages. Thats 300m + users.
My use of the word 'but' should have clued you in, but to spell it out more explicitly: It's true that Google hasn't copied an Apple codec. What they have done is bought one that copies someone else that Apple has an interest in. i.e. Apple is part of H.264 patent pool which has demonstrated in the past an interest in going after VP3 Theora. So, it's not much of a stretch to think they might do the same with VP8.
Err. Apple has a single patent in H.264 patent pool, just enough to get them a good deal on licensing terms.
However, they have invested a lot in H.264 in terms of their applications, devices and the iTunes Store (.m4v container with DRM, album art, etc) although I don’t think it would take too much to support VP8 since most of their programs reference QuickTime.
They’ll wait it out though. There’s no way they’ll jump on it this early.
Could someone clarify something for me?
Is the released spec for WebM final? Is the spec open-source or Google's implementation of the spec open-source or both? If the spec can change, are the changes part of WebM or WebM v2? Because if the spec for WebM can be changed by anyone, what assurances are there of interoperability?
Is the released spec for WebM final? Is the spec open-source or Google's implementation of the spec open-source or both? If the spec can change, are the changes part of WebM or WebM v2? Because if the spec for WebM can be changed by anyone, what assurances are there of interoperability?
http://www.webmproject.org/license/software/
Software License
Copyright (c) 2010, Google, Inc. All rights reserved.
Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:
THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS “AS IS” AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT HOLDER OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.
Subject to the terms and conditions of the above License, Google hereby grants to You a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive, no-charge, royalty-free, irrevocable (except as stated in this section) patent license to make, have made, use, offer to sell, sell, import, and otherwise transfer this implementation of VP8, where such license applies only to those patent claims, both currently owned by Google and acquired in the future, licensable by Google that are necessarily infringed by this implementation of VP8. If You or your agent or exclusive licensee institute or order or agree to the institution of patent litigation against any entity (including a cross-claim or counterclaim in a lawsuit) alleging that this implementation of VP8 or any code incorporated within this implementation of VP8 constitutes direct or contributory patent infringement, or inducement of patent infringement, then any rights granted to You under this License for this implementation of VP8 shall terminate as of the date such litigation is filed.
http://www.webmproject.org/license/bitstream/
VP8 Bitstream Specification License
Google hereby grants to You a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive, no-charge, royalty-free, irrevocable (except as stated in this section) patent license to make, have made, use, offer to sell, sell, import, and otherwise implementations of this specification where such license applies only to those patent claims, both currently owned by Google and acquired in the future, licensable by Google that are necessarily infringed by implementation of this specification. If You or your agent or exclusive licensee institute or order or agree to the institution of patent litigation against any entity (including a cross-claim or counterclaim in a lawsuit) alleging that any implementation of this specification constitutes direct or contributory patent infringement, or inducement of patent infringement, then any rights granted to You under the License for this specification shall terminate as of the date such litigation is filed.
---------------
All Rights Reserved. I'll let Cmaier expound upon how much this is not the FOSS/GPLv3 license people are proclaiming. This is a Google covers their Butts license and you're on your own when something/anything hits the fan.
Software License
Copyright (c) 2010, Google, Inc. All rights reserved.
Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:
- Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
- Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
- Neither the name of Google nor the names of its contributors may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without specific prior written permission.
THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS “AS IS” AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT HOLDER OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.
Subject to the terms and conditions of the above License, Google hereby grants to You a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive, no-charge, royalty-free, irrevocable (except as stated in this section) patent license to make, have made, use, offer to sell, sell, import, and otherwise transfer this implementation of VP8, where such license applies only to those patent claims, both currently owned by Google and acquired in the future, licensable by Google that are necessarily infringed by this implementation of VP8. If You or your agent or exclusive licensee institute or order or agree to the institution of patent litigation against any entity (including a cross-claim or counterclaim in a lawsuit) alleging that this implementation of VP8 or any code incorporated within this implementation of VP8 constitutes direct or contributory patent infringement, or inducement of patent infringement, then any rights granted to You under this License for this implementation of VP8 shall terminate as of the date such litigation is filed.
http://www.webmproject.org/license/bitstream/
VP8 Bitstream Specification License
Google hereby grants to You a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive, no-charge, royalty-free, irrevocable (except as stated in this section) patent license to make, have made, use, offer to sell, sell, import, and otherwise implementations of this specification where such license applies only to those patent claims, both currently owned by Google and acquired in the future, licensable by Google that are necessarily infringed by implementation of this specification. If You or your agent or exclusive licensee institute or order or agree to the institution of patent litigation against any entity (including a cross-claim or counterclaim in a lawsuit) alleging that any implementation of this specification constitutes direct or contributory patent infringement, or inducement of patent infringement, then any rights granted to You under the License for this specification shall terminate as of the date such litigation is filed.
---------------
All Rights Reserved. I'll let Cmaier expound upon how much this is not the FOSS/GPLv3 license people are proclaiming. This is a Google covers their Butts license and you're on your own when something/anything hits the fan.
Speak for yourself on that one! I don't want to pay a patent troll company to make my own videos.
It accomplishes plenty. No license fees.
If you tell a CNN, Hulu, youtube, or Netflix CEO that they can avoid paying hundreds of thousands of dollars (or more) in licensing fees, they will take notice. The almighty dollar demands attention!
The number of patents doesn't matter. What matters is this:
But other than that, I agree with the wait and see, probably. Who knows.Steve Jobs said:
The industry more or less standardized on Flash until Jobs said "screw you" and championed h.264
