Jobs Responds to Google's WebM Video Standard Announcement as Patent Questions Begin to Surface

[andiwm2003]

when does the patent for H.264 expire? in 2016 they might charge users which I doubt because collecting the money would be a pain. in the worst case you pay through the costs for the OS. the patent should expire by 2024 or so?

since there will be substantial hardware support for the standard I hope they get their act together and simply all use h.264. if the patent holders get too greedy then it would take at most a year to come up with alternatives and break the h.264 dominance. so in the end the patent fees for h.264 won't be very high.

 

[Gepper]

I'm glad Google is behind this new open video standard. In contrast to Theora, they have the resources to improve it technically and, most importantly, throw some money around on patent claims and such.

As for H.264: It's a fine standard, it has the potential to become very popular, but I'm afraid it will end up the same way the .GIF format did.

Potential of being popular? Do you realize how much media is encoded using it? Or how much hardware is avaliable for it?

The *only* drawback of H.264 is the patents, and at the moment there's nothing better avaliable.

 

[AtHomeBoy_2000]

Yeah Mr.Jobs guess you felt great sticking your
chest out in a attempt to bash and bully Adobe....

haha go Google

I find it rather ironic that Google is doing to h.264 what Apple is doing to flash... but now Apple has a problem with the tactics.

 

[ValSalva]

Talk about the necessity for patent reform. What a mess.

 

[Small White Car]

if the patent holders get too greedy...

The thing is, the MPEG has it in their contract that they can't raise prices more than 10% per contract upgrade (which isn't every year).

And that's just an "up to 10%" thing...they don't even HAVE to raise it that much. It may just stay the same. But even if they do decided to "get greedy" it's not like they can just double the price or anything like that.

People have to pay for H.264, but at least you can feel safe that you know how much you'll be paying and it's not going to drastically change on you.

 

[roland.g]

Am I still at GoogleRumors?

 

[Gepper]

I find it rather ironic that Google is doing to h.264 what Apple is doing to flash... but now Apple has a problem with the tactics.

They are not, they are pointing out a potential flaw in this new "free" codec.
And you can't compare flash with H.264, the codec is truly open (but not free, ie. patents) Vs. Flash wich is neither open or free.
Also the H.264 spec is locked, as in they cant change it as it will break hardware. Flash can be tinkered with anyway Adobe seems fit.

 

[Small White Car]

I find it rather ironic that Google is doing to h.264 what Apple is doing to flash... but now Apple has a problem with the tactics.

If a single company owned H.264 it would be ironic since that's Apple's problem with Flash.

But since that's not the case, it's not really a good comparison.

 

[addicted44]

And besides, having a patent free video codec wont hurt Apple one single bit, in fact they will benefit from it like everyone else.

Good point.

http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2010/05/19/another-follow-up-on-html5-video-in-ie9.aspx

In this blog post by an MS IE engineer (which incidentally, is also part of the H.264 licensors), the engineer notes that despite getting royalties for H.264 usage, MS probably pays more in royalties than it receives.

This is probably true of Apple also, since they have to pay royalty on nearly every copy of iTunes bundled with Mac OS, or every iPod sold.

 

[SandynJosh]

The more I read about what Google announced, the more theoretical it seems. It just seems to be a pre-alpha attempt to steal some attention instead of something thought out and completely coded. Totally jury-rigged...like their pointless Chrome commercials.

 

[KnightWRX]

I disagree. The US is already far too litigious as it is, especially in commercial disputes. I'm fed up with frivolous lawsuits and having watched one major ruling after another become overturned I dispute your contention that anything is ever truly "settled" in court. Even the Supreme Court can be overruled by NAFTA, which is even more opaque and less predictable than the SCOTUS is.

At least lawsuits require actual evidence to be presented at some point. The MPEG-LA is known for FUD tactics like these, which only serve as link-bait for Apple zealots. Quote the OSnews piece :

The MPEG-LA has been very busy the past decade or so to infect every level of the video toolchain, down from the very hardware level all the way up to your browser, and along the way, they continuously threatened competing codecs, such as Theora, without ever actually acting upon those threats. The classic fear, uncertainly, and doubt tactic.

Empty threats. FUD. Show your hand or leave the table.

 

[Small White Car]

The more I read about what Google announced, the more theoretical it seems. It just seems to be a pre-alpha attempt to steal some attention instead of something thought out and completely coded. Totally jury-rigged...like their pointless Chrome commercials.

Ha ha...yeah, I often feel that of all the stuff Google talks about, only 50% are "real" things that they are taking seriously and the other half are just them goofing off.

At least Apple had the decency to tell us the Appel TV is a 'hobby' for them. Sometimes I wish Google would do the same. Like, they don't really care about Chrome, do they? I'm pretty sure the Android OS is going to replace it. But who knows?

 

[KnightWRX]

Google doesn't seem to be too concerned about hardware support for it, saying that doing it in software is good enough, so we'll see if anything happens there or not.

You work for the MPEG-LA right ? Seeing how you're spreading this bit of FUD again. It seems you like being wrong and misrepresenting what people say :

Google vice president of product management Sunder Pichai announced that the company has open sourced On2's VP8 codec under a royalty-free license.

...

The project is also backed by hardware partners such as AMD, ARM, and Nvidia. "Hardware acceleration is extremely important," said Pichai.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/05/19/google_chrome_announcement/

 

[daxomni]

Has "free" and "open" ever won? Hasn't worked for Linux yet.

Actually, Linux is huge. If you go to our hosting facilities it's there. If you go to our local server rooms it's in there too. It's also out at our job site servers. It's in our networking equipment. Some of our Windows systems are actually virtualized on top of Linux. It's all over the place, right below your nose. Just because it keeps a low profile and doesn't have Steve Jobs constantly defending it doesn't mean it's not "winning" in the areas it excels at. It honestly surprises me how little respect Linux seems to get among Apple fans. I mean, it's the ultimate counter to the Microsoft model, both technically and legally. Something to admire I would think.

Google is promising a lot but hasn't delivered yet.

Nor has Google failed to deliver.

 

[roland.g]

My need for Google starts and ends with a search engine.

 

[Gepper]

At least lawsuits require actual evidence to be presented at some point. The MPEG-LA is known for FUD tactics like these, which only serve as link-bait for Apple zealots. Quote the OSnews piece :



Empty threats. FUD. Show your hand or leave the table.

What the hell does Apple have to do with all this? I think they have one patent for H.264, i think Microsoft have more then that. Might as well bash the MS zealots then..

 

[Gepper]

Actually, Linux is huge. If you go to our hosting facilities it's there. If you go to our local server rooms it's in there too. It's also out at our job site servers. It's in our networking equipment. Some of our Windows systems are actually virtualized on top of Linux. It's all over the place, right below your nose. <Snip>

Not to mention BSD, CUPS etc. (OS X).

 

[KnightWRX]

The more I read about what Google announced, the more theoretical it seems. It just seems to be a pre-alpha attempt to steal some attention instead of something thought out and completely coded. Totally jury-rigged...like their pointless Chrome commercials.

VP8 has been around since 2008. This isn't pre-alpha. VP8 is also not the first of its line, being there was VP7, VP6, etc.. before it. VP3 was given away to the Xiph Foundation and eventually became Theora.

On2 is not some kind of new player that got bought out based on a cool idea. They have been around and have been shipping stuff for a while.

 

[whatever]

This really affects free speech.
Christian

Are you serious.

No it does not. What are you going to say next that ISP's are affecting free speech because they charge for their pipes?

If I work hard creating technology, don't I have the right to protect my IP?

Google needs support from either Apple or Microsoft to make this work.

Just wait until Google announces that in order to use this codec you must server your content on their servers.

Google is up to no good.

 

[ghostface147]

Ugh, fragmentation of the codecs. What's behind door #1? #2? #3? Codecroulette.

 

[MorphingDragon]

Actually, Linux is huge. If you go to our hosting facilities it's there. If you go to our local server rooms it's in there too. It's also out at our job site servers. It's in our networking equipment. Some of our Windows systems are actually virtualized on top of Linux. It's all over the place, right below your nose. Just because it keeps a low profile and doesn't have Steve Jobs constantly defending it doesn't mean it's not "winning" in the areas it excels at. It honestly surprises me how little respect Linux seems to get among Apple fans. I mean, it's the ultimate counter to the Microsoft model, both technically and legally. Something to admire I would think.


Nor has Google failed to deliver.

Being a large player in a small market does not make you huge.

Im sorry, but linux sucks major ass outside the realm of servers. Its going to stay that way until they adopt something like the MIT or BSD license.

 

[KnightWRX]

What the hell does Apple have to do with all this? I think they have one patent for H.264, i think Microsoft have more then that. Might as well bash the MS zealots then..

Someone missed Steve Jobs' comments in the article devoted to them it seems.

Ugh, fragmentation of the codecs. What's behind door #1? #2? #3? Codecroulette.

We've had 3 dozen or so image formats for the last 20 years. No one died. There is nothing wrong with having more than 1 choice.

Being a large player in a small market does not make you huge.

Im sorry, but linux sucks major ass outside the realm of servers. Its going to stay that way until they adopt something like the MIT or BSD license.

Oh please, the license sure helped FreeBSD gain a lot of traction on the desktop... oh wait...

Seriously, Servers aren't a small market. They're a huge multi-billion dollar industry. Linux is very big there.

 

[till]

I don't think anyone has seriously claimed that VP8 is immune to all patent claims. As mentioned in the past, neither is Theora. The key differences with Theora are that 1) it's about as good as H.264, and 2) Google is behind it.

You can bet good money that anyone sued over VP8 usage will have the full support of Google. This doesn't absolutely guarantee against bad outcomes - nothing does, with the stupid broken patent system in the US - but it means any frivolous or malicious crap will be shut down very quickly, if it even starts. And for any serious claims, deals will likely be made with Google.

Patent holders may extort some money from Google. But VP8 won't go away.

 

[Gepper]

Being a large player in a small market does not make you huge.

Im sorry, but linux sucks major ass outside the realm of servers. Its going to stay that way until they adopt something like the MIT or BSD license.

Do you have a router? A NAS? Media box? etc... Chances are high they are running Linux or some form of open OS coupled with other OSS solutions.

The desktop market is probably very small compared to the other total markets you will find OSS on. And don't forget OS X which is a decent chunk of the desktops.

 

[tkatz]

As for H.264: It's a fine standard, it has the potential to become very popular, but I'm afraid it will end up the same way the .GIF format did.

Exactly how is h.264 already not popular? Google uses it, Adobe/Flash uses it, there's a lot of hardware support for it, etc...

In terms of ending up like the .GIF format, do you mean that another codec with larger color support and better compression will replace it? Its quite possible, but can you point out a codec that already fits that bill?

GIF supports only 256 colors and no alpha channel. It also uses lossless compression. For an "line art" style image with a limited number of colors its great. As you add more colors to it the compression isn't as good and the file sizes grow. JPEG and PNG came around and replaced it as the "most used" format due to the larger color support and much higher level of compression (at a cost of reduced image quality). Incidentally, GIF is still the only image format (of the bunch at least) to support animations.

Sure there were patent "issues" with GIF, but that all ended years ago.

So sure, h.264 will probably be replaced sometime in the future for similar reasons to GIF, but I doubt it will be due to patent/licensing issues. (My opinion only)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphics_Interchange_Format