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Microsoft Looks to a Future of H.264-Based HTML5 for Web Video Content

Trexznl said:
Lol, M$ is really sucking up to Apple here..

Can you guys imagine how left out Adobe must feel at the moment? They must be feeling pretty low at the moment, for that even M$ -for friggin' sake- is following Apple's example.
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Wrong. Take off your fanboy blinders.

Killing flash gives Silverlight a big step up.

daxomni said:
I'm no fan of Flash, in fact I hate that trash, but I wonder if it will be as simple a task to cut out all the annoying web advertisements once they've all been converted into H5?
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That's actually a really good question. Can content be removed from html as easily? Doesn't sound like it.

The sad part is, H.264 is also proprietary, and they WILL start charging for it in a few years, once they've sold it well to the mass of idiots.
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Excellent point. I don't think people around here realize that.
 
kendrid said:
Microsoft and Apple own the patents to H.264. Of course they want it to be the new standard, they are going to be making a boat load of money on licensing fees.

Anyone that uses the encoder and makes money has to pay licensing fees. Right now, until 2015 the client side is free but it does not have to remain that way.

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

Licensing terms (written last year, the 2010 date they mention for the grace period has been moved up to 2015).
http://www.streamingmedia.com/Articles/ReadArticle.aspx?ArticleID=65357
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I'm glad you pointed that out. I'm disappointed how many "experts" here don't know or understand the financial incentive for Apple and Microsoft behind H.264

This is well worth reading for people who actually want to understand the issues for a neutral perspective.

For anyone who cant be bothered to read the article here's the point...

Apple is part of the MPEG-LA, as is Microsoft. This means that the more people license H264, the more money Apple and Microsoft get, since their patents are in the patent pool.
 
I am really happy for this. Flash is an old and bloated dinosaur that needs to fall into a tar pit somewhere. With Microsoft on the bandwagon now I feel more comfortable supporting Apple in their decisions with Flash.
 
Mattie Num Nums said:
I HATE IE6!!!

IE8 isn't much better though :\
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I do web development for a living, and I think IE 8 is miles ahead of IE 6 (and IE 7 for that matter) - as long as you stay away from "compatibility mode". IE 8 is nowhere near as advanced as gecko- and webkit-based browsers in terms of support for more advanced CSS and the DOM, but I've been surprised how little extra coding I've had to do to get stuff working correctly under IE 8.

Fortunately I've already got the go-ahead to say "sorry, we only support the most recent version of IE" to our internal users. Our default browser is Firefox, however we don't force its use. While outward-facing pages have to be compatible with IE 7 as well, I don't generally have to do anything particularly "fancy" with those anyway. The complex pages are pretty much all for internal consumption only.
 
Although Flash is a very inefficient format, it makes me a bit sad to see all the hate on Adobe. After all, Adobe has brought, and continues to bring, huge contributions to creative media.

In fact, it surprises me quite a bit to see such negative sentiments coming from people who use Macs exclusively. Maybe I'm incorrect, but I thought that Adobe and Apple got along quite well in the past. After all, Apple had the most aesthetically pleasing, productive operating system and Adobe provided the best tools for any creative pro to work with.

So.. what up, guys?:confused:
 
winninganthem said:
Although Flash is a very inefficient format, it makes me a bit sad to see all the hate on Adobe. After all, Adobe has brought, and continues to bring, huge contributions to creative media.

In fact, it surprises me quite a bit to see such negative sentiments coming from people who use Macs exclusively. Maybe I'm incorrect, but I thought that Adobe and Apple got along quite well in the past. After all, Apple had the most aesthetically pleasing, productive operating system and Adobe provided the best tools for any creative pro to work with.

So.. what up, guys?:confused:
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Easy - Steve said Adobe is bad so the drones repeat it. :rolleyes:
 
I don't see this as Microsoft "agreeing with Steve Jobs". Supporting HTML5 and voicing that it's a better option going forward for video is very different, in my mind from "No Flash whatsoever". I don't care what format video plays in. I'm all for moving towards HTML5. But that doesn't mean *everything* Flash has to be thrown on the chopping block.
 
ABG said:
I'm glad you pointed that out. I'm disappointed how many "experts" here don't know or understand the financial incentive for Apple and Microsoft behind H.264

This is well worth reading for people who actually want to understand the issues for a neutral perspective.

For anyone who cant be bothered to read the article here's the point...

Apple is part of the MPEG-LA, as is Microsoft. This means that the more people license H264, the more money Apple and Microsoft get, since their patents are in the patent pool.
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That was a great reading
sadly like usual, no body bothers to read our comments and simply believes how great :apple: is
 
ranReloaded said:
It won't be any good as long as IE 8, 7 and (ouch) 6 are still in the wild and in large numbers. Specially all those corporate/IT who are stuck in the past because of legacy/compatibility issues with 3rd party solutions. MS has really done a huge ammount against web standards and opennes, nothing they can do now will clear their name. But thanks for the Flash coffin nail anyway.
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Perhaps that is why MS is backing HTML 5. If MS wants to push IE 9, and if IE 9 is necessary for HTML 5, then backing HTML 5 would be beneficial to MS. Does anyone know which version(s) of IE supports HTML 5?
 
keiths29 said:
Can't wait to hear Adobe's video response lambasting Microsoft's operating system as the cause of the problem. Anyone hear from Red Hat or Ubuntu on their feelings on Flash?
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I'm a Ubuntuphile and judging by the way Firefox (Ubuntu's default browser) makes you click on a flash section of a page just to activate it, its pretty clear that Ubuntu wants flash out of the picture ASAP.

Good mother ***** riddance.

Jobs' essay on flash made me smile, Microsoft's diss made me jump for joy!


"Ding dong, the witch is dead."
 
winninganthem said:
Although Flash is a very inefficient format, it makes me a bit sad to see all the hate on Adobe. After all, Adobe has brought, and continues to bring, huge contributions to creative media.

In fact, it surprises me quite a bit to see such negative sentiments coming from people who use Macs exclusively. Maybe I'm incorrect, but I thought that Adobe and Apple got along quite well in the past. After all, Apple had the most aesthetically pleasing, productive operating system and Adobe provided the best tools for any creative pro to work with.

So.. what up, guys?:confused:
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My guess is that *most of the negative comments are from your web surfers/Jobs worshippers (probably the same folks who want blue ray for watching Star Trek at Starbucks) who deal with the webs annoying ads that are developed with Flash 99.9% of the time. They probably subconsciously think that no more Flash = no more annoying ads.

Yes, Flash can be a resource hog and is in many instances. But just because something is written to an open standard doesn't mean it's well written. I can create 2 identical looking basic webpages using HTML 4 with one requiring much more system resources can I not? The same will occur with HTML 5 when/if it's used for more than just video. Time will prove me right.
 
tempusfugit said:
I'm a Ubuntuphile and judging by the way Firefox (Ubuntu's default browser) makes you click on a flash section of a page just to activate it, its pretty clear that Ubuntu wants flash out of the picture ASAP.

Good mother ***** riddance.

Jobs' essay on flash made me smile, Microsoft's diss made me jump for joy!


"Ding dong, the witch is dead."
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But there's one thing you don't know
Microsoft and Apple only supports H.264 among all video codecs, which is proprietary that neither Ubuntu or Firefox supports
 
Winni said:
Of course the two evil empires are in agreement here: Flash is a multi-platform technology, and it actually is one of the very few multi-platform solutions that actually work: The content looks and behave identical on - all - supported platforms.

That is something that neither Silverlight nor HTML nor Java nor anything else EVER achieved. And the worse thing is that Flash even has a small foot print.

So, naturally, the company that developed its own "Flash killer", Silverlight, and the other company that wants to push its mobile application and downloadable video/music sales through its iTunes AppStore, Flash is a living nightmare that needs to be killed as quickly as possible.

Has nobody here ever wondered how it can be that Google seems to be happy with Flash? Unlike Microsoft and Apple, Google - IS - an Internet company. And we've never heard anything negative about Flash from ANY Internet company. Why? Because Flash solves a lot of their problems.

But kiddies, be happy with your censored and selected little iGadget apps and restricted and limited web content. Really. I can understand that you don't like to see all those plugin placeholder graphics on your crippled DRM players, but that's no excuse to want the rest of the world to experience the same pain that you have to suffer.

Stop bashing a technology whose importance and potential you don't even remotely grasp or understand. It's getting annoying, and most of you Flash haters don't have any argument except for "Steve told us so". You should know how that makes you sound.
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Maybe Google is happy with flash because of its use for (sometimes annoying) advertisements from which it gleans profits?
 
/dev/toaster said:
I believe we have officially found the first sign of the impending apocalypse ... Microsoft getting behind something that Apple said.
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The key word is behind...you think the Apple CEO knew this was imminent as a corporate Microsoft policy (maybe an Apple mole @ Microsoft?) and "timed" his 4/29 anti-Flash posting on the Apple site? Granted, he's been trash talking about Flash for some time (and has backed it up by refusing to implement on Apple's mobile devices) but the timing of his post was interesting. Up to that point, it was all verbal and easy for the Apple PR types to claim he was "misinterpreted/misquoted" if need be. But he came out on the record...a few hours ahead of Microsoft.
 
icecone said:
But there's one thing you don't know
Microsoft and Apple only supports H.264 among all video codecs, which is proprietary that neither Ubuntu or Firefox supports
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Isn't Ubuntu's default browser Konqueror?

Anyhow, I hate flash ads too. I dont even like Ubuntu (i only use it for work). Although I wouid like to see compatibility with Linux variants be almost as good as Mac/Windows, it's never going to get there. Can they use x.264 to read instead of h.264?

I just recently got my first mac (15" MBP) last month, and the mac crowd based on forums are totally different compared to the PC crowd.
 
Val-kyrie said:
Maybe Google is happy with flash because of its use for (sometimes annoying) advertisements from which it gleans profits?
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Do you really think Google sweats what tool is used to design the ads they gleen profits from???

If I can charge sum X for my widgets and people are buying, do I care how my widgets are delivered?
 
I don't see what the problem is with Apple and Microsoft wanting to make money. Many of you seem to think them pushing for H.264 is a bad things. They're businesses, of course they're trying to make money. None of these are open standards anyway - only multi-platform. Besides, what really matters, for me as a consumer at least, is the end-user experience, and in that regard, Flash is a pain in the ass.
 
I am pretty sure Adobes stock just went down to pennies lol. Flash is going down and I am glad to see it. I am excited for a day when I can browse the web wether I am on my mac, pc or linux desktop. My iPad, iphone, ipod I am tired of flash crashing!
 
Val-kyrie said:
Maybe Google is happy with flash because of its use for (sometimes annoying) advertisements from which it gleans profits?
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google was against flash until apple was against it. now they like it as a counterweight to apple and MS
 
JakeTheMac said:
I am pretty sure Adobes stock just went down to pennies lol. Flash is going down and I am glad to see it. I am excited for a day when I can browse the web wether I am on my mac, pc or linux desktop. My iPad, iphone, ipod I am tired of flash crashing!
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Yep, because then poor coding will be a thing of the past!!! HTML 5 eliminates that, does windows and washes dishes also!
 
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