i try to look at how things might be in 5 years if x happens or y doesnt happen etc. i wouldnt discourage any efforts to make a premium open standard especially if a widely popular web browser will give you native support of that format. look back, and what did we have for video on the web? RealMedia ( http://real.com). they owned audio/video on the web. back then, flash was a joke. now barely anyone thinks about Real and all focus is on Flash. point is, anything can change. the future wont show us flash being obsolete. but it certainly can give us a competing open format that can co-exist and like i said, potentially be a critical component for open media producers to leverage if/when the current crop of formats that are not open become costly to use for profit.
sull On Tue, Jan 27, 2009 at 5:28 PM, Steve Watkins <st...@dvmachine.com> wrote: > It will be tough to displace h.264... > > Its everywhere now, new DivX for Windows is h.264 based (though uses > .mkv file wrapper format). And from what I can tell both Windows 7 and > Silverlight 3 will support h.264. Increasingly, hardware that we > record and watch video on supports h.264. > > And as you point out, its hard sell the open stuff because of lack of > practical advantage to most, an even tougher problem now than when we > had these discussions a few years back. > > Mozilla want an open standard because one of the most interesting > aspects of the new generation of browsers, based on new standards for > html and friends, is embedded video tags. But there needs to be a good > format available that browsers support, for there to be much reason > for developers to use such tags. > > It would have been easier for them to get somewhere with that if Flash > had not come to support h.264. But it does, so its likely to remain > the dominant in-browser way to deliver video to the widest range of > users, different operating systems & browsers. > > Its a mess. And the codec itself will struggle to beat h.264 for > quality/filesize/cpu use balance, because so many of the things that > made h.264 better than mpeg4 are patented, which defeats the whole > point of the open codec. > > And its not like the license fee issues of h.264 trap enough people to > cause a large enough stink and legal inconvenience / something that > feels like the trampling of our freedoms. Youtube didnt get where it > is today because of h.264 licensing issues preventing the competition > from existing. > > If something beyond normal video, eg interactivity, genuine multi > media, really captured the public imagination, there would be a chance > to try to fight that battle in that space. But it hasnt really > happened, and even if it did, flash & h.264 platforms run by some web > 2.0 startup would move quickly to provide the winning user experience > on that front. > > Personally the only battle I think is worth the effort in the browser > video space, is the issue of energy consumption. There is some > sizeable waste here that can be eliminated by sane use of existing > technology, whether open or not. h.264 decoding built into computer > chipsets exists, but needs to be pushed harder, especially for > netbooks. And I havent seen an implementation thats working > in-browser, I know flash tries to use some GPU for certain parts of > the decoding but much more needs to be done. Theora will struggle to > get dedicated decoding stuff for their format into chipsets, but they > might be able to harness GPU's really well with their browser video > players, if they choose to go in that direction. I might investigate > pushing that agenda. > > Cheers > > Steve Elbows > > --- In videoblogging@yahoogroups.com <videoblogging%40yahoogroups.com>, > Jay dedman <jay.ded...@...> wrote: > > > > On Tue, Jan 27, 2009 at 2:30 PM, Brook Hinton <bhin...@...> wrote: > > > My only concern is that we don't have ANY high quality web video > codecs yet, > > > and I fear the results of settling for mediocrity as a standard > prematurely. > > > I mean h.264-level quality in an open video format would be great > for now, > > > but even h.264 has to be carefully encoded to get "acceptably > mediocre" > > > results for anything beyond news, straight documentation, and > talking head > > > videos, and even that's at data rates many people can't download. > As a video > > > artist who looks to the web as a new format and venue, this > concerns me. > > > > Yep...the video creators are WAY ahead of the developers. > > But I think we just got to jump in. > > we need a community of FOSS (free and open source) developers who > > become as passionate about video codecs as you do, Brook. > > it's going to probably take 5 years for a solid foundation is built so > > open source codecs can be at the cutting edge. > > > > I know a big question is simply: why should I care about open codecs? > > aren't codecs free now? > > Flash and quicktime are monetarily free for the most part. > > Its difficult to find arguments for this now. > > The concern is when either/both these codecs become totally > > dominant...and web video is the new TV for lack of a better word. > > We need an open codec to either challenge the status quo...or be a > > solid alternative. > > > > Ars has a good summary of today's news: > > > > http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2009/01/mozilla-contributes-100000-to-fund-ogg-development.ars > > > > Jay > > > > -- > > http://ryanishungry.com > > http://jaydedman.com > > 917 371 6790 > > > > > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
