Google opens VP8 video format for HTML5

[jda]

Email I got from the FFII:

[ Technology / Patent / Web ]
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FFII welcomes Google's move to open VP8 video format
=====================================================================

Berlin, May 19th 2010 -- Today Google announced it would make the VP8
codec open source and royalty-free as part of their WebM project. The
codec is on par with other video codecs for high video quality and can be
used in the emerging HTML5 web standard for playing video content natively
in a web browser. HTML5, the VP8 video codec and Vorbis audio codec are
open standards and thus require no royalty-bearing patents license.

"The web is based on open standards, a patent-unencumbered world, allowing
developers to create applications without patent toll gates", explains
FFII board member Stephan Uhlmann. "We are happy to see Google use its
market force to keep the web open."

The Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII) had called on
the company behind the video site Youtube to support a patent free video
codec for the upcoming HTML5 technology. The video codec VP8 was acquired
by Google together with On2 technologies.

HTML5 will be the next generation of the world wide web, but the standard
has been delayed by a clash over streaming video patent licensing
conditions. In a controversial move Microsoft and Apple indicated they
would support the H.264 video codec only, which is encumbered by more than
1000 patents.

"Support for the VP8 video codec by their popular web browsers Internet
Explorer and Safari is only a matter of time", says FFII board member
André Rebentisch. "In the Web openness always prevails".

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Links
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FFII call to support open video fromats in HTML5
http://press.ffii.org/Press%20releases/Radio%20stations%20awarded%20for%20usage%20of%20open%20standards

The WebM project: high-quality, open video format for the web
http://www.webmproject.org/

FFII Open Standards Working Group
http://action.ffii.org/openstandards

Permanent link to this press release:
http://press.ffii.org/Press%20releases/FFII%20welcomes%20Googles%20move%20to%20open%20VP8%20video%20format

=====================================================================
Contact
=====================================================================

FFII Office Berlin
Malmöer  Str. 6
D-10439 Berlin
Fon:  +49-30-41722597
Fax Service: +49-721-509663769
Email:  office (at) ffii.org
http://www.ffii.org/

=====================================================================
About FFII
=====================================================================

The FFII is a not-for-profit association registered in twenty European
countries, dedicated to the development of information goods for the
public benefit, based on copyright, free competition, open standards. More
than 1000 members, 3,500 companies and 100,000 supporters have entrusted
the FFII to act as their voice in public policy questions concerning
exclusion rights (intellectual property) in data processing.

_______________________________________________
FFII Press Releases.
(un)subscribe via https://lists.ffii.org/mailman/listinfo/news, or contact media@ffii.org for more information.

[Gabbe]

What is this stuff?

[ultifd]

Gah...google... 
html5 huh? cool...maybe I should get the pre alpha of firefox 4 to try... 

[modman]

Well, if HTML5 is a substitute for Java Flash, then this may spell death for Java's Flash, especially since we know Apple also doesn't like Java.  Damn, if Java can't get on anyone's phone, that's a whole sector it's missing out on!

[zombiepirate]

Well, if HTML5 is a substitute for Java Flash, then this may spell death for Java's Flash, especially since we know Apple also doesn't like Java.  Damn, if Java can't get on anyone's phone, that's a whole sector it's missing out on!

Uhhh... Are you talking about Adobe? Java is a Sun (now Oracle) technology and has nothing to do with flash.

Awesome news though that Google is going to open up the codec hopefully it gets integrated into all the major browsers so there will be none of this H.264 vs Vorbis nonsense that has started up between browsers.

[Omega]

Ooh, very cool!


I put the chances of HTML5 replacing Java or Flash (they are separate programs) at next to zero. There won't be full support for HTML5 for at least 5+ years, depending on Microsoft's laziness (number one rule of web design: it should work on all browsers). After five years... we'll see.

[jda]

What is this stuff?

It basically means Google is making it possible for every and any webbrowser to be able to legally display webvideos nativelly, not dependent on, possibly royalty-requiring, third parties (JAVA, Flash, whatever).

Ooh, very cool!


I put the chances of HTML5 replacing Java or Flash (they are separate programs) at next to zero. There won't be full support for HTML5 for at least 5+ years, depending on Microsoft's laziness (number one rule of web design: it should work on all browsers). After five years... we'll see.

HTML5 will be the next generation of the world wide web, but the standard
has been delayed by a clash over streaming video patent licensing
conditions. In a controversial move Microsoft and Apple indicated they
would support the H.264 video codec only, which is encumbered by more than
1000 patents.

Which basically means you are right about Microsoft (and Apple). Still, that is not exactly so out of Microsoft and Apple's offices... Remember them "Internet Explorer only" sites, the ones that actually had that displayed on their pages?...
Well, on M$'s part that was exactly what you are saying and it wasn't laziness at all, it was really a way to cut all other browsers out of the competition (those IE only sites were designed with Microsoft Frontpage, of course).
All the other browsers (including Apple's Safari) did however stick to the official HTML standards, the ones coming from the W3C. The mozilla suite becoming leaner by puting each of its parts into separate independent applications (Firefox, Thunderbird, ...), along with good marketing, made it possible for Firefox to quickly and significantly conquer marketshare off IE. The result was an increasingly higher number of people demanding webdesigners to drop icrosoft's monopoly-stand in favour of the open standards Firefox (and most every other webbrowser) followed.
So, yeah, what you say is what Microsoft (and aparently Apple too now) want. Doesn't mean it's what will happen. It's a three force dynamics: webbrowsers' projects, webpage authors and final clients. We'll see.