Google Open Sources VP8 Video Codec, Packs It Into WebM Video Format - Already Available On YouTube

If VP8 is going to be supported by as many browsers as it looks like it will, then this could solve the HTML5 problem.

And maybe a few more. If, as Jobs says, Theora infringes on all the MPEG patents, then VP8 does too. And Google is a much more money-worthy (and more threatening) litigation target than... whatever behind Theora. So maybe we'll see this issue resolved once and for all in courts.

I can't wait to see that!

Yup, I smell a patent fight. Good timing too. I was afraid I'd be bored now that SCO was buried.

you know, thats a boredom level I can live with.

Quoting: [...] now that SCO was buried.

[seriously] I must have missed it, when? However, no matter how many links and quotes you show me, I cannot believe that SCO will not arise from the dead and litigate with vigor (if lacking sense or reason) again and again and ... [/seriously]

YBT

P.S. Whatever you can say about them or impune their motives and methods, they never bounced a check. Ah, I will miss them.

Some things don't add up, at least in my experience.

Microsoft owns ~40 patents on h.264, which mean they receive some money for every h.264 license sold. Then why are they adding VP8 support to IE9? Surely, they don't, as the Windows customers have to download the codec theirselves. But IE9 condoning the HTML5 video element whenever combined with a codec that's not theirs, it all sounds odd to me.

Sounds like EULA strategy to me: Embrace till Ubiquity, then License and if not, Anticipate going to court.

Quoting:Good timing too. I was afraid I'd be bored now that SCO was buried.

Hey, I have this excellent idea!

Why not send h.264/VP8 to ISO and start two competing standards condoned by two different consortia? When done, start VideoShots.org, where users can compare video quality and 'converters' of uploaded vids.

Quoting:Whatever you can say about them or impune their motives and methods, they never bounced a check.

Right, they never wrote the checks to begin with.

> Then why are they adding VP8 support to IE9?

There's a big assumption behind your question. You are assuming they have a choice. YouTube is important to just about every computer user. Other sites will quickly adopt an open source, royalty-free codec. IE9 would be left behind (not that that is a bad thing, mind you). Failure to keep up with Firefox would be the death of IE.

There's also a second element to this. VP8 may be the fastest way to kill Flash. Killing Flash would be another step in the direction of killing Adobe, which Microsoft wants to do.

Also, MS may be planning on getting royalties from VP8. Remember that threat from Jobs two weeks ago about an allegiance going to challenge open source codecs? I bet that was aimed at VP8, not Theora. There's no money to be had from Theora. Google has money though and MS would like a cut.

I would not be surprised if MS puts VP8 in IE9 just to encourage Google to use VP8 on Youtube, then turn around and hit them with a patent suit.