Chris, as much as I love you man, I still don't like having words put in my mouth any more than when anyone else does it - putting the record straight below.
On May 12, 7:31 pm, Chris Adamson <invalidn...@gmail.com> wrote: > Seemed like there was some confusion and misstatements regarding video > support in the weekly anti-Apple tirade. Let's see if we can clear > some of that up. > > I'm going to fork this conversation for the sake of two readerships. > > FOR LINUX ADVOCATES: > > This entire discussion is pointless, because everything should be in > Ogg. Also, nothing should cost anything, "Serenity" was the best > movie ever made, unicorns really exist, and they fart rainbows. > If this was directed at me - you are wasting your time. Do I want a standard that works on Linux in addition to Windows and Mac OS X? You bet, and that standard should work on Android, Palm, hell any device out there that can get on the internet, if it is to be called completely open. At no time have I held up ogg theora as the way it must be, nor will I, however if ogg theora works everywhere I am for it, in the same way that if Apple's proposed standard doesn't - I am against it. My argument is against the (assumed on my part) hypocrisy of Jobs' long article on openness. I am pretty sure Apple is going to be implementing DRM for their vision of the open video internet they are pushing, and if they do I am damn certain it won't work on Linux. If I am wrong, so be it (and I will be delighted), but if not - people need to see the "flash isn't open" argument for the misdirection it is, and decide whether they want Flash proprietary but somewhat widely available, Apple proprietary DRM (and much less available), or something else. Also - Serenity wasn't the best movie ever made, but firefly was a damn good series - and I am glad they got to tie the story up. If you haven't watched firefly you owe it to yourself to do so - you are missing out otherwise. Can't speak to the unicorn issue though. > FOR EVERYONE ELSE: > > H.264 is just a video codec, a patent-encumbered, widely-licensed > scheme for encoding and decoding video streams. Saying something is > in H.264 implies nothing about platforms or transport technology. H. > 264 is used, among other things, as one of the three video codecs for > Blu-Ray (the others are MPEG-2 and VC-1, which is Windows Media 9 as > ratified by a standards body), and is used by DirecTV for HD local > channels in most markets. It is also supported in hardware by many > mobile devices, and is even supported by Flash, where it is largely > displacing "FLV" (usually meaning Sorenson Spark or VP6) as the go-to > codec for reasons of quality, widespread client-side support, and > encoder expertise. Frankly, people who are paid to know this stuff > called the race for H.264 years ago > (consider:http://www.streamingmedia.com/Articles/ReadArticle.aspx?ArticleID=65306 > ). Theora advocates register with media professionals pretty much the > same way Intelligent Design advocates come across to genuine > biologists. > > Dick is right that he can't buy a video off the iTunes store and play > it in Linux, not because it's H.264, but because [aside from the fact > that everything should be in Ogg, unicorns and ponies, and all that…] > iTunes videos are wrapped in an Apple-proprietary DRM called FairPlay > that the company does not license out to third parties. If not for > the DRM, iTunes movies and TV shows would be widely playable beyond > the Apple ecosystem. Will that ever happen? Well, they used to sell > music wrapped in FairPlay, but convinced the record labels to agree to > go DRM-free. But nobody expects video to lose the DRM encumbrance > anytime soon. Rights-holders still think it's awesome (they also > believe in unicorns, ponies, etc.) I totally know this - I also have videos on my netbook right now that use H.264 and they look fabulous. Interestingly I had to rip them from the DVD copies that I own because the digital copy included in the package of blu-ray, DVD and digital copy is DRM'd and only works on windows or mac. If this is the "open" standard that Steve is peddling to replace flash (which does play nicely on Linux and many other platforms - not all for sure, but more than Apple's stuff) - I ain't buying or even downloading for free. > > The HTML5 <video> tag doesn't say anything about DRM. Indeed, it > doesn't even specify what payloads should/must be supported. Most > commercial interests, including Apple and Microsoft, support H.264, > while Firefox has vowed support for Theora and not 264. Firefox already supports H.264 (without DRM) on my linux boxes as well - it does this a couple of ways - Flash decoding of H.264 through a software flash player, or the VLC plugin which works great and is open source. Of course, I still can't watch anything from Apple's store, or Netflix for that reason - Hulu works nicely though. H.264 will work just fine on firefox whether or not support is built into the browser. I would argue that it makes total sense for firefox to go with an open source implementation of a supported video codec since they are an open source project. If the H.264 crowd want to donate some source and throw in some patent indemnification, I am sure they would add that to the codebase too. Until then, plugins will have to do. Also - on your follow up message about Google and On2, I agree it's *probably* pointless for Google to try and push On2 instead of H.264 (UNLESS they do it to to combat H.264 with DRM as the only option), but don't assume Google could not pull it off if they wanted to at least establish it as a second standard, perhaps even one that wins over time. If open and sufficiently available, they already have a huge driver in YouTube to get it out there for people to use (wanna watch this in YouTube, just let us download this plugin quickly for your browser and away you go - bingo - you are now On2!). After all it worked well for flash (quick download, flawlessly executed). As Steve seems to have worked out, in this new world order content is king, and Google has quite a lot of content now... Cheers Dick -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "The Java Posse" group. To post to this group, send email to javapo...@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to javaposse+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/javaposse?hl=en.
