open video codecs discussion at Mozilla ✩ Mozilla Hacks

I didn’t at first understand Davis Freeberg’s point about it not being H.264 vs. Theora. Nearer the end he restates it as being about creating an ecosystem where it makes sense for new folk to enter with their own codecs.

This is similar to the current IETF working group on “internet codecs” which lie somewhere between voice and hi-fi audio but require very low delay. By suggesting that such a standard be created you not only get a Xiph codec called CELT which has always been developed as the open choice but also representatives of Broadcom, Skype, and Spirit all step forward with codecs that were and are used commercially and in proprietary software but which those companies are happy to donate as royalty free open source either in whole or as building blocks for a new super-codec standard.

If Mozilla and others aren’t there to fight for a royalty free standard, then there’s no opportunity for these other codecs to enter the fray. So he’s right, it’s not about rejecting H.264 and choosing Theora, it’s about rejecting royalty bearing codecs and embracing the future of royalty free codecs of which Theora is just a current front runner.

(Liked the video by the way, very inspiring)

11 comments

Theodorix wrote on July 30th, 2009 at 5:43 pm:

Flash video is soooo dead. It is just so convenient being able to download the videos as we please without any retarded hacks.

dave wrote on July 31st, 2009 at 9:04 am:

I didn’t at first understand Davis Freeberg’s point about it not being H.264 vs. Theora. Nearer the end he restates it as being about creating an ecosystem where it makes sense for new folk to enter with their own codecs.

This is similar to the current IETF working group on “internet codecs” which lie somewhere between voice and hi-fi audio but require very low delay. By suggesting that such a standard be created you not only get a Xiph codec called CELT which has always been developed as the open choice but also representatives of Broadcom, Skype, and Spirit all step forward with codecs that were and are used commercially and in proprietary software but which those companies are happy to donate as royalty free open source either in whole or as building blocks for a new super-codec standard.

If Mozilla and others aren’t there to fight for a royalty free standard, then there’s no opportunity for these other codecs to enter the fray. So he’s right, it’s not about rejecting H.264 and choosing Theora, it’s about rejecting royalty bearing codecs and embracing the future of royalty free codecs of which Theora is just a current front runner.

(Liked the video by the way, very inspiring)

Anonymous (*) wrote on July 31st, 2009 at 11:41 am:

58:02? Oh… Any chances for text version somewhere?..

gatolandia wrote on August 2nd, 2009 at 5:00 pm:

They only have to resolve a little problem with the implementation of the video tags: in a lot of systems the audio part used in a video tag get a lot of distortions.
In my particular case with the video from this webpage happen, but if i download the video and play with a standalone videoplayer is play fine.

Fx 3.5.1, WXP

Pingback from Sound distortions on August 3rd, 2009 at 7:50 pm:

[...] without problem. >>> >>> Fx 3.5.1, WXP >> For example this video: >> http://hacks.mozilla.org/2009/07/open-video-codecs-discussion/ > > At the beginning, the noise in the first 10-15 seconds sounds like > someone dropped [...]

dave wrote on August 5th, 2009 at 6:33 am:

Well, Davis Freeburg is looking pretty prescient with the news that Google has just bought On2 and their statement makes it pretty clear they intend to release some kind of royalty free video codec:

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/08/innovation-in-video-on-web.html

ozzysong wrote on October 1st, 2009 at 3:26 pm:

By the way, I don’t know if this was answered before but, why there’s not fullscreen support?

I suppose because it’s HTML element but can anyone explain?

Christopher Blizzard wrote on October 5th, 2009 at 5:52 pm:

We’ll have full screen video support in our next release (Firefox 3.6.) Thanks!

ozzysong wrote on October 6th, 2009 at 12:29 am:

Cool, nice to heard that.

May I ask how full screen is achieved?

I mean, only the viewport or true full screen?

Georgi Kolev wrote on July 5th, 2010 at 8:31 am:

It will take at least 5 years until the HTML5 videos are fully supported by most browsers. Ogg Theora is a lame codec. This stupid fight between Google (Chrome) and Mozilla (Firefox) about which codec is better only will slow down the process even more. So in next let say 6-7 years HTML5 will not be able to be used (There is no version of IE which supports this and even if IE9 supports some small fragments IE7 & IE8 will be in use for long time ,just IE9 can’t be installed on XP )

The discussion here is pointless…

terrysemox wrote on January 19th, 2011 at 9:22 pm:

I like full screen video support

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open video codecs discussion at Mozilla

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