blog/Chrome_plan_to_drop_H_264_support_for_HTML5__lt_video_gt_.html

   1 <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
   2           "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
   3 <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" dir="ltr">
   4   <head>
   5     <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" />
   6     <title>Petter Reinholdtsen: Chrome plan to drop H.264 support for HTML5 &lt;video&gt;</title>
   7     <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" media="screen" href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/style.css" />
   8     <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" media="screen" href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/vim.css" />
   9
  10
  11   </head>
  12   <body>
  13     <div class="title">
  14  <h1>
  15      <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/">Petter Reinholdtsen</a>
  16
  17  </h1>
  18
  19 </div>
  20
  21
  22     <div class="entry">
  23       <div class="title">Chrome plan to drop H.264 support for HTML5 &lt;video&gt;</div>
  24       <div class="date">12th January 2011</div>
  25       <div class="body"><p>Today I discovered
  26 <a href="http://www.digi.no/860070/google-dropper-h264-stotten-i-chrome">via
  27 digi.no</a> that the Chrome developers, in a surprising announcement,
  28 <a href="http://blog.chromium.org/2011/01/html-video-codec-support-in-chrome.html">yesterday
  29 announced</a> plans to drop H.264 support for HTML5 &lt;video&gt; in
  30 the browser.  The argument used is that H.264 is not a "completely
  31 open" codec technology.  If you believe H.264 was free for everyone
  32 to use, I recommend having a look at the essay
  33 "<a href="http://webmink.com/essays/h-264/">H.264 – Not The Kind Of
  34 Free That Matters</a>".  It is not free of cost for creators of video
  35 tools, nor those of us that want to publish on the Internet, and the
  36 terms provided by MPEG-LA excludes free software projects from
  37 licensing the patents needed for H.264.  Some background information
  38 on the Google announcement is available from
  39 <a href="http://www.osnews.com/story/24243/Google_To_Drop_H264_Support_from_Chrome">OSnews</a>.
  40 A good read. :)</p>
  41
  42 <p>Personally, I believe it is great that Google is taking a stand to
  43 promote equal terms for everyone when it comes to video publishing on
  44 the Internet.  This can only be done by publishing using free and open
  45 standards, which is only possible if the web browsers provide support
  46 for these free and open standards.  At the moment there seem to be two
  47 camps in the web browser world when it come to video support.  Some
  48 browsers support H.264, and others support
  49 <a href="http://www.theora.org/">Ogg Theora</a> and
  50 <a href="http://www.webmproject.org/">WebM</a>
  51 (<a href="http://www.diracvideo.org/">Dirac</a> is not really an option
  52 yet), forcing those of us that want to publish video on the Internet
  53 and which can not accept the terms of use presented by MPEG-LA for
  54 H.264 to not reach all potential viewers.
  55 Wikipedia keep <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML5_video">an
  56 updated summary</a> of the current browser support.</p>
  57
  58 <p>Not surprising, several people would prefer Google to keep
  59 promoting H.264, and John Gruber
  60 <a href="http://daringfireball.net/2011/01/simple_questions">presents
  61 the mind set</a> of these people quite well.  His rhetorical questions
  62 provoked a reply from Thom Holwerda with another set of questions
  63 <a href="http://www.osnews.com/story/24245/10_Questions_for_John_Gruber_Regarding_H_264_WebM">presenting
  64 the issues with H.264</a>. Both are worth a read.</p>
  65
  66 <p>Some argue that if Google is dropping H.264 because it isn't free,
  67 they should also drop support for the Adobe Flash plugin.  This
  68 argument was covered by Simon Phipps in
  69 <a href="http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/simon-says/2011/01/google-and-h264---far-from-hypocritical/index.htm">todays
  70 blog post</a>, which I find to put the issue in context.  To me it
  71 make perfect sense to drop native H.264 support for HTML5 in the
  72 browser while still allowing plugins.</p>
  73
  74 <p>I suspect the reason this announcement make so many people protest,
  75 is that all the users and promoters of H.264 suddenly get an uneasy
  76 feeling that they might be backing the wrong horse.  A lot of TV
  77 broadcasters have been moving to H.264 the last few years, and a lot
  78 of money has been invested in hardware based on the belief that they
  79 could use the same video format for both broadcasting and web
  80 publishing.  Suddenly this belief is shaken.</p>
  81
  82 <p>An interesting question is why Google is doing this.  While the
  83 presented argument might be true enough, I believe Google would only
  84 present the argument if the change make sense from a business
  85 perspective.  One reason might be that they are currently negotiating
  86 with MPEG-LA over royalties or usage terms, and giving MPEG-LA the
  87 feeling that dropping H.264 completely from Chroome, Youtube and
  88 Google Video would improve the negotiation position of Google.
  89 Another reason might be that Google want to save money by not having
  90 to pay the video tax to MPEG-LA at all, and thus want to move to a
  91 video format not requiring royalties at all.  A third reason might be
  92 that the Chrome development team simply want to avoid the
  93 Chrome/Chromium split to get more help with the development of Chrome.
  94 I guess time will tell.</p>
  95
  96 <p>Update 2011-01-15: The Google Chrome team provided
  97 <a href="http://blog.chromium.org/2011/01/more-about-chrome-html-video-codec.html">more
  98 background and information on the move</a> it a blog post yesterday.</p>
  99 </div>
 100
 101       <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/standard">standard</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>.</div>
 102
 103
 104     </div>
 105
 106
 107
 108
 109     <div id="sidebar">
 110
 111
 112
 113 <h2>Archive</h2>
 114 <ul>
 115
 116 <li>2015
 117 <ul>
 118
 119 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/01/">January (6)</a></li>
 120
 121 </ul></li>
 122
 123 <li>2014
 124 <ul>
 125
 126 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/01/">January (2)</a></li>
 127
 128 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/02/">February (3)</a></li>
 129
 130 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/03/">March (8)</a></li>
 131
 132 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/04/">April (7)</a></li>
 133
 134 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/05/">May (1)</a></li>
 135
 136 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/06/">June (2)</a></li>
 137
 138 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/07/">July (2)</a></li>
 139
 140 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/08/">August (2)</a></li>
 141
 142 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/09/">September (5)</a></li>
 143
 144 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/10/">October (6)</a></li>
 145
 146 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/11/">November (3)</a></li>
 147
 148 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/12/">December (5)</a></li>
 149
 150 </ul></li>
 151
 152 <li>2013
 153 <ul>
 154
 155 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/01/">January (11)</a></li>
 156
 157 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/02/">February (9)</a></li>
 158
 159 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/03/">March (9)</a></li>
 160
 161 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/04/">April (6)</a></li>
 162
 163 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/05/">May (9)</a></li>
 164
 165 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/06/">June (10)</a></li>
 166
 167 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/07/">July (7)</a></li>
 168
 169 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/08/">August (3)</a></li>
 170
 171 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/09/">September (5)</a></li>
 172
 173 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/10/">October (7)</a></li>
 174
 175 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/11/">November (9)</a></li>
 176
 177 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/12/">December (3)</a></li>
 178
 179 </ul></li>
 180
 181 <li>2012
 182 <ul>
 183
 184 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/01/">January (7)</a></li>
 185
 186 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/02/">February (10)</a></li>
 187
 188 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/03/">March (17)</a></li>
 189
 190 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/04/">April (12)</a></li>
 191
 192 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/05/">May (12)</a></li>
 193
 194 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/06/">June (20)</a></li>
 195
 196 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/07/">July (17)</a></li>
 197
 198 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/08/">August (6)</a></li>
 199
 200 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/09/">September (9)</a></li>
 201
 202 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/10/">October (17)</a></li>
 203
 204 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/11/">November (10)</a></li>
 205
 206 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/12/">December (7)</a></li>
 207
 208 </ul></li>
 209
 210 <li>2011
 211 <ul>
 212
 213 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/01/">January (16)</a></li>
 214
 215 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/02/">February (6)</a></li>
 216
 217 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/03/">March (6)</a></li>
 218
 219 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/04/">April (7)</a></li>
 220
 221 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/05/">May (3)</a></li>
 222
 223 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/06/">June (2)</a></li>
 224
 225 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/07/">July (7)</a></li>
 226
 227 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/08/">August (6)</a></li>
 228
 229 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/09/">September (4)</a></li>
 230
 231 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/10/">October (2)</a></li>
 232
 233 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/11/">November (3)</a></li>
 234
 235 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/12/">December (1)</a></li>
 236
 237 </ul></li>
 238
 239 <li>2010
 240 <ul>
 241
 242 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/01/">January (2)</a></li>
 243
 244 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/02/">February (1)</a></li>
 245
 246 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/03/">March (3)</a></li>
 247
 248 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/04/">April (3)</a></li>
 249
 250 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/05/">May (9)</a></li>
 251
 252 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/06/">June (14)</a></li>
 253
 254 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/07/">July (12)</a></li>
 255
 256 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/08/">August (13)</a></li>
 257
 258 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/09/">September (7)</a></li>
 259
 260 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/10/">October (9)</a></li>
 261
 262 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/11/">November (13)</a></li>
 263
 264 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/12/">December (12)</a></li>
 265
 266 </ul></li>
 267
 268 <li>2009
 269 <ul>
 270
 271 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/01/">January (8)</a></li>
 272
 273 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/02/">February (8)</a></li>
 274
 275 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/03/">March (12)</a></li>
 276
 277 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/04/">April (10)</a></li>
 278
 279 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/05/">May (9)</a></li>
 280
 281 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/06/">June (3)</a></li>
 282
 283 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/07/">July (4)</a></li>
 284
 285 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/08/">August (3)</a></li>
 286
 287 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/09/">September (1)</a></li>
 288
 289 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/10/">October (2)</a></li>
 290
 291 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/11/">November (3)</a></li>
 292
 293 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/12/">December (3)</a></li>
 294
 295 </ul></li>
 296
 297 <li>2008
 298 <ul>
 299
 300 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/11/">November (5)</a></li>
 301
 302 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/12/">December (7)</a></li>
 303
 304 </ul></li>
 305
 306 </ul>
 307
 308
 309
 310 <h2>Tags</h2>
 311 <ul>
 312
 313  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/3d-printer">3d-printer (13)</a></li>
 314
 315  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/amiga">amiga (1)</a></li>
 316
 317  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/aros">aros (1)</a></li>
 318
 319  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bankid">bankid (4)</a></li>
 320
 321  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin (8)</a></li>
 322
 323  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem (15)</a></li>
 324
 325  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bsa">bsa (2)</a></li>
 326
 327  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/chrpath">chrpath (2)</a></li>
 328
 329  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian (109)</a></li>
 330
 331  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu (151)</a></li>
 332
 333  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/digistan">digistan (10)</a></li>
 334
 335  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/dld">dld (15)</a></li>
 336
 337  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook (12)</a></li>
 338
 339  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/drivstoffpriser">drivstoffpriser (4)</a></li>
 340
 341  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english (266)</a></li>
 342
 343  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami">fiksgatami (22)</a></li>
 344
 345  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fildeling">fildeling (12)</a></li>
 346
 347  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture (14)</a></li>
 348
 349  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox (9)</a></li>
 350
 351  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/frikanalen">frikanalen (11)</a></li>
 352
 353  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju (41)</a></li>
 354
 355  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram (10)</a></li>
 356
 357  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/kart">kart (19)</a></li>
 358
 359  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap (9)</a></li>
 360
 361  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lenker">lenker (8)</a></li>
 362
 363  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lsdvd">lsdvd (2)</a></li>
 364
 365  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ltsp">ltsp (1)</a></li>
 366
 367  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/mesh network">mesh network (8)</a></li>
 368
 369  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia (32)</a></li>
 370
 371  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk (257)</a></li>
 372
 373  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug (170)</a></li>
 374
 375  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/offentlig innsyn">offentlig innsyn (14)</a></li>
 376
 377  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/open311">open311 (2)</a></li>
 378
 379  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett (50)</a></li>
 380
 381  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern (81)</a></li>
 382
 383  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/raid">raid (1)</a></li>
 384
 385  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reactos">reactos (1)</a></li>
 386
 387  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reprap">reprap (11)</a></li>
 388
 389  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rfid">rfid (3)</a></li>
 390
 391  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot (9)</a></li>
 392
 393  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rss">rss (1)</a></li>
 394
 395  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ruter">ruter (4)</a></li>
 396
 397  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/scraperwiki">scraperwiki (2)</a></li>
 398
 399  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet (41)</a></li>
 400
 401  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sitesummary">sitesummary (4)</a></li>
 402
 403  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/skepsis">skepsis (4)</a></li>
 404
 405  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard (46)</a></li>
 406
 407  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stavekontroll">stavekontroll (3)</a></li>
 408
 409  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stortinget">stortinget (9)</a></li>
 410
 411  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance (29)</a></li>
 412
 413  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sysadmin">sysadmin (2)</a></li>
 414
 415  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/usenix">usenix (2)</a></li>
 416
 417  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/valg">valg (8)</a></li>
 418
 419  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video (47)</a></li>
 420
 421  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/vitenskap">vitenskap (4)</a></li>
 422
 423  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web (34)</a></li>
 424
 425 </ul>
 426
 427
 428     </div>
 429     <p style="text-align: right">
 430  Created by <a href="http://steve.org.uk/Software/chronicle">Chronicle v4.6</a>
 431 </p>
 432
 433   </body>
 434 </html>