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   6     <title>Petter Reinholdtsen: The video format most supported in web browsers?</title>
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  14  <h1>
  15      <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/">Petter Reinholdtsen</a>
  16
  17  </h1>
  18
  19 </div>
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  23       <div class="title">The video format most supported in web browsers?</div>
  24       <div class="date">16th January 2011</div>
  25       <div class="body"><p>The video format struggle on the web continues, and the three
  26 contenders seem to be Ogg Theora, H.264 and WebM.  Most video sites
  27 seem to use H.264, while others use Ogg Theora.  Interestingly enough,
  28 the comments I see give me the feeling that a lot of people believe
  29 H.264 is the most supported video format in browsers, but according to
  30 the Wikipedia article on
  31 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML5_video">HTML5 video</a>,
  32 this is not true.  Check out the nice table of supprted formats in
  33 different browsers there.  The format supported by most browsers is
  34 Ogg Theora, supported by released versions of Mozilla Firefox, Google
  35 Chrome, Chromium, Opera, Konqueror, Epiphany, Origyn Web Browser and
  36 BOLT browser, while not supported by Internet Explorer nor Safari.
  37 The runner up is WebM supported by released versions of Google Chrome
  38 Chromium Opera and Origyn Web Browser, and test versions of Mozilla
  39 Firefox.  H.264 is supported by released versions of Safari, Origyn
  40 Web Browser and BOLT browser, and the test version of Internet
  41 Explorer.  Those wanting Ogg Theora support in Internet Explorer and
  42 Safari can install plugins to get it.</p>
  43
  44 <p>To me, the simple conclusion from this is that to reach most users
  45 without any extra software installed, one uses Ogg Theora with the
  46 HTML5 video tag.   Of course to reach all those without a browser
  47 handling HTML5, one need fallback mechanisms.  In
  48 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">NUUG</a>, we provide first fallback to a
  49 plugin capable of playing MPEG1 video, and those without such support
  50 we have a second fallback to the Cortado java applet playing Ogg
  51 Theora.  This seem to work quite well, as can be seen in an <a
  52 href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20110111-semantic-web/">example
  53 from last week</a>.</p>
  54
  55 <p>The reason Ogg Theora is the most supported format, and H.264 is
  56 the least supported is simple.  Implementing and using H.264
  57 require royalty payment to MPEG-LA, and the terms of use from MPEG-LA
  58 are incompatible with free software licensing.  If you believed H.264
  59 was without royalties and license terms, check out
  60 "<a href="http://webmink.com/essays/h-264/">H.264 – Not The Kind Of
  61 Free That Matters</a>" by Simon Phipps.</p>
  62
  63 <p>A incomplete list of sites providing video in Ogg Theora is
  64 available from
  65 <a href="http://wiki.xiph.org/index.php/List_of_Theora_videos">the
  66 Xiph.org wiki</a>, if you want to have a look.  I'm not aware of a
  67 similar list for WebM nor H.264.</p>
  68
  69 <p>Update 2011-01-16 09:40: A question from Tollef on IRC made me
  70 realise that I failed to make it clear enough this text is about the
  71 &lt;video&gt; tag support in browsers and not the video support
  72 provided by external plugins like the Flash plugins.</p>
  73 </div>
  74
  75       <div class="tags">Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>.</div>
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