Does HTML5 die here?

Story: HTML 5 drops open source video codecTotal Replies: 6
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chalbersma

Jul 06, 2009
4:43 AM EDT
So is this the beginning of the end of HTML5 dreams?
jacog

Jul 06, 2009
5:51 AM EDT
This is a potentially grey issue. HTML is a markup standard, so should it really be able to define media format standards? I do feel there need to be open/free media standards for the web, since the web is supposed to be for everyone, but perhaps this is not the place to declare/define it.
Sander_Marechal

Jul 06, 2009
6:39 AM EDT
Quoting:HTML is a markup standard, so should it really be able to define media format standards?


I see no reason why not. It does for many other things (CSS3 font resources, SVG, etcetera). Mandating Ogg Theora/Vorbis means that there will be at least a single common denominator across all platforms.

Apple and Google are both just being anal (pardon my french). There was an excellent artiocle posted a short while ago here on LXer that disproved Googles statement that Off Theora wasn't good enough for Youtube.

Apple is just scared to loose their iTunes and Quicktime lock-in.
Sander_Marechal

Jul 06, 2009
6:40 AM EDT
PS: The article disproving Google's statements is here: http://people.xiph.org/~greg/video/ytcompare/comparison.html
hkwint

Jul 06, 2009
6:54 AM EDT
I've been trying to follow the debate lately. Please note that I'm not an expert by any means, I'm more a 'noob'. I only read the messages in the mailing list, but those are quite educational.

http://lists.whatwg.org/htdig.cgi/whatwg-whatwg.org/2009-Jun... (June - when the Theora vs. Google & Apple debate seems to have started) http://lists.whatwg.org/htdig.cgi/whatwg-whatwg.org/2009-Jul... (That's for this month)

Please note people from Xiph made arguments why theora is just as good or better than h.264, and that S. Pfeiffer made some good comments about why there's not much legal threat when it comes to theora vs. MPEG LA and the like.

The pattern I notice is, after people made comments in the direction of Chris Dibona & Apple, there's an alarming silence coming from those two companies. Sure, Chris DiBona is traveling a lot, but that didn't prevent him from answering in June. Ms. S. Pfeiffer blamed Apple for not incorporating theora in Quicktime, one Apple-employee responded that's not the whole truth, Ms. Pfeiffer asked for Apple to cooperate to clear the issue and no response. Same for Goolge: They told theora files would be too big for youtube, two people made webpages with examples showing that's not entirely true or not at all, and no response from them.

I find it very sad to hear the video tag is withdrawn from HTML5, I'm afraid this will only continue the Video-codec madness - in favour of MPEG LA, Microsoft, Apple, Adobe, those selling converters (mainly on Windows platform; on Lin they are mostly free) and those other companies benefiting from the proprietary mess that's video codecs today.

Wonder what will happen with the video tags now. Will FF & Opera provide support anyway - even if Safari (and maybe Chrome) don't?

Probably this will lead to a 'hybrid' solution where web-devs can choose between four ways to deliver video. Cortado, Flash, native theora support, all mess embedded in avi; probably it will be pretty messy.

Sander_Marechal

Jul 06, 2009
7:20 AM EDT
PPS: The second test that Hans speaks of is this one: http://people.xiph.org/~maikmerten/youtube/
hkwint

Jul 06, 2009
1:09 PM EDT
AFAIK the second test has been on LXer too.

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