WebM

[Rys]

I am curious about the situation with IMG and Intel. I have seen random stuff suggesting that IMG will be supporting VP8 but they are not on the list of partners.

Is anyone around here in a position to clarify?

http://www.webmproject.org/about/supporters/

Hardware section, big IMG logo And as Aaron points out (and without speaking for IMG officially and without checking VXD's particulars to be 100% sure), supporting it won't take much work since we already support H.264.

 

[rpg.314]

http://www.webmproject.org/about/supporters/

Hardware section, big IMG logo And as Aaron points out (and without speaking for IMG officially and without checking VXD's particulars to be 100% sure), supporting it won't take much work since we already support H.264.

IMG was missing in the initial version of this
http://webmproject.blogspot.com/2010/05/introducing-webm-open-web-media-project.html
so I asked.

BTW, what in the name of God is Oracle doing on that list?

 

[rpg.314]

http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2010-May/047795.html

 

[aaronspink]

Who else uses vp8? I mean is there anyone out there already using this codec?

no one. it is entirely substandard, hence no one has really used it in the past.

 

[aaronspink]

http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2010-May/047795.html

Raw/hardly out of development = pushed by the company for multiple years/developed over many years. The xiph people are going to defend it tooth and nail, but the fact is that the codec just is substandard compared to what is already available and widely supported (and fully supported throughout the industry as compared to what is likely from most hardware vendors just exposing the motion est block from their H264 hardware).

 

[rpg.314]

no. it is entirely substandard, hence no one has really used it in the past.

Well, we have YT and Adobe using/offering it now. Let's see where it goes.

 

[aaronspink]

BTW, what in the name of God is Oracle doing on that list?

Anybody can be on that list. It is important to understand what a low bar it is. It is likely that oracle will be able to recognize the codec in their DB, which is like, um, yeah, not hard. Same goes for most of the software support list: Skype? you mean they are going to support a codec for which they have to do almost no/completely no work since they just use a 3rd party library for encode? Amazing.

Hardware is likewise, most of the hardware vendors probably will just say, hey we support motion estimation acceleration we support VP8 which is a far cry from things like the bitstream/etc support in a lot of hardware for H.264. H.264 has much more incentive to support since it is used both in streaming and non-streaming modes as the primary video codec worldwide with every platform supporting it.

 

[aaronspink]

Well, we have YT and Adobe using/offering it now. Let's see where it goes.

you mean adobe who it has taken 4+ years to get flash to not work on mobile devices? Then again, if it takes adobe their normal timetables, all the patents around H.264 will have expired by then.

YT will support H.264 as well. Why would I want to stream in a substandard format like VP8 which doesn't have support on just about all systems out there, likely won't ever have hardware acceleration comparable to H.264, etc.

 

[rpg.314]

you mean adobe who it has taken 4+ years to get flash to not work on mobile devices? Then again, if it takes adobe their normal timetables, all the patents around H.264 will have expired by then.

TBH, Adobe's tale of Flash screwup will be taught in B-schools not too long from now.

YT will support H.264 as well. Why would I want to stream in a substandard format like VP8 which doesn't have support on just about all systems out there, likely won't ever have hardware acceleration comparable to H.264, etc.

We'll see.

 

[Jawed]

Google’s “Royalty-Free” WebM Video May Not Be Royalty-Free for Long

http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/...-webm-video-may-not-be-royalty-free-for-long/

JP: Let me ask you this: Are you creating a patent pool license for VP8 and WebM? Have you been approached about creating one?
Larry Horn: Yes, in view of the marketplace uncertainties regarding patent licensing needs for such technologies, there have been expressions of interest from the market urging us to facilitate formation of licenses that would address the market’s need for a convenient one-stop marketplace alternative to negotiating separate licenses with individual patent holders in accessing essential patent rights for VP8 as well as other codecs, and we are looking into the prospects of doing so.

For what it’s worth, Google seems to believe that it has done its due diligence here and has the necessary patent clearance for VP8. Said Google product manager Mike Jazayeri: “We have done a pretty thorough analysis of VP8 and On2 Technologies (VP8’s developer) prior to the acquisition and since then, and we are very confident with the technology and that’s why we’re open sourcing.”

 

[rpg.314]

http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/...-webm-video-may-not-be-royalty-free-for-long/

All he said was that some people had asked for a patent pool.

Even if the pool were to be formed, it would be interesting to see how many of the non-trolls in the pool would be willing to actually sue, given the poison pill.

 

[MfA]

There is always a real risk of actually losing a patent ... which is rather painful if it's making you buckets of money by being included in the AVC patent pool.

For instance Dark Shakiri mentioned intra prediction. I took a look and intra prediction AFAICS is substantially derived from Nokia's MVC proposal ... published in may 2000. None of the intra prediction patents were published with a priority date within a year of that, which in and of itself doesn't say much ... but none of them included MVC as prior art either, seeing as the lot of them were part of the H.26L process even if their claims described an ever so slightly different method it still seems a bad faith omission of prior art.

If it weren't for the fact that infringement is judged by a jury of Texans too stupid to get out of jury duty I wouldn't see those patents stand up in court.

 

[Bludd]

WebM - good container, bad codec, ugly name.

 

[Blazkowicz]

the name makes it clear what it's about.

I think the codec's output looks good enough, but the CPU usage is a disappointment. H264 also sucks because of a very high CPU usage. (first time I watched a h264 movie, 480p, it would skip on a athlon 900 processor).

well, even "low-grade" flash video is too much CPU hungry already, but I'm tired of seeing more and more of the web locked out from old computers and cheap general purpose CPUs that power some < 10W computers and netbooks.

even html 5 controls that seem to appear aren't nice, non-standard and slow - eventually I might try to get a html 5 blocking extension, just like the flashblock extension .