Have you read about the BBC Domesday Project (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC_Domesday_Project)?, no?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Dark_Age or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_obsolescence the open source community are only one who can keep project going for decades eg: unix started in 1969 and is still going today Corporations fold or merge ever 5 years tom_a_sparks --- On Mon, 7/6/10, adammerc...@att.net <adammerc...@att.net> wrote: From: adammerc...@att.net <adammerc...@att.net> Subject: [videoblogging] Re: WebM Project To: videoblogging@yahoogroups.com Received: Monday, 7 June, 2010, 5:31 PM Great discussion. I've been asked to present at the Orange County Multimedia Web Video SIG next week on this subject and this post has been an invaluable resource. Thanks to everyone for sharing links and opinions. Its interesting and exciting to see progress made with these tools, but I still dont quite get the whole open source movement. Why is it such a big deal, especially in regards to web video? Or any content for that matter? In my opinion H264 is so great (and it is) because some very smart people were paid to develop the algorithms. If VP8 is only kinda sorta as good as the very worst part of H264, where is the incentive for it to be improved? Or any open source software for that matter? I'm happy to pay a fee for commercial software, or a license therein as part of any fee. My experiments with open source software I have tried lead me to the conclusion its mostly crap. I use photoshop, for example, and not GIMP because GIMP is crap. It is. I'll happily pay a huge corporation for the right to use their software because it works. Well. Maybe I'm barking up the wrong open source tree here, so forgive me and correct me. Regarding Flash, and rich user interface. Why is it cool if HTML5 or WebM can create a rich UI with full screen video, or the browser as a canvas for video to play on? Flash has done that for years. My complaints about Flash on the web are not political, but practical. Flash causes more browser crashes than anything else. I'd be happy to use Flash for web video, if it worked. So i guess, if an open source solution arises that can solve that issue I'm for it. But H264 has already got that solved so HTML5 has Flash beat, and the game is won. I looked over these pages and its a great primer http://www.apple.com/html5/ but I'm not sure where the open source codecs fit in to the equation, why it would be better. Lets face it, without Flash, there would be no web video as we know it today. There would be no Vimeo, or Blip. There would be no videoblogging community as large and healthy as it is. Frequently I hear many of the top posters on this group bagging on Flash. Sounds like biting the hand that feeds is all. I just wonder why... All that grumbling said, WebM looks like a good move in the right direction. And further proof web video is now, it is the future, it is here to stay, it is best platform for distributing content, everything we've all been saying for years. I'm sure Google will put all their might behind it and it will improve in the months and years to come. As the X264 blogger wrote, it is all part of the larger Google web video advertising platform. Which makes me wonder which huge corporation is really the enemy of truth and choice, but thats a whole other discussion :) Erm, Navigaya...I only have so much negativity I can share in one day so i'll avoid comment on this for now :P Cheers, i look forward the continuation of this discussion and rebuttals and opinions -adam --- In videoblogging@yahoogroups.com, Michael Verdi <mich...@...> wrote: > > Oh and I forgot to post the link to the WebM discussion group: > https://groups.google.com/a/webmproject.org/group/webm-discuss/topics > > On Fri, May 21, 2010 at 1:22 PM, Michael Verdi <mich...@...> wrote: > > On Thu, May 20, 2010 at 1:15 PM, elbowsofdeath <st...@...> wrote: > > > >> Meanwhile apparently someone that knows a bit about the tech of video > >> codecs had an initial look at VP8 and was quite concerned about some > >> similarities in certain functions to h.264. This leaves the door open for > >> patent woes for WebM, although it is far too early to tell if that will > >> become an issue at some point. At the very least we should not get too > >> complacent about WebM, its future is not completely assured, but hopefully > >> it will all work out ok. > >> > > > > What I've heard from codec people is that that stuff is exactly what > > NOT to be worried about. The codec patents are really specific and the > > stuff in VP8 that's "like" H.264 is exactly where they did something > > different to avoid infringing their patent. Remember that most of the > > anti-WebM stuff so far is from people heavily invested (either in $ or > > time) in H.264. My suspicion is that Google didn't spend $120 million > > willy nilly. And remember, their plan is that they're going to use it > > for YouTube so they can save money. Oh and companies are working on > > hardware support. > > > > FWIW, if you didn't know, I now work for Mozilla and have been a > > supporter of open codecs for while now so of course I'm biased. I'd > > just caution you to take it all with a grain of salt. WebM was just > > announced 2 days ago. Give it time. > > > > The best way to know the future is to invent it. So if you'd like to > > WebM succeed, vote with attention. Start playing with stuff and talk > > to the people making it. > > You can grab a WebM capable beta of Firefox here: > > http://nightly.mozilla.org/webm/ > > Miro just put out there super easy video converter with webm support: > > http://www.mirovideoconverter.com/ > > > > I just tried it out and posted something here: > > http://reports.graymattergravy.com/2010/05/21/webm/ > > > > - Verdi > > > > > > -- > > Training for a triathlon and raising money for The Leukemia & Lymphoma > > Society. > > http://training.michaelverdi.com > > > > > > -- > Training for a triathlon and raising money for The Leukemia & Lymphoma > Society. > http://training.michaelverdi.com > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
