The State of Video on the Web
videos

The State of Video on the Web

on Jan 14th 2011 with 79 comments

A few days ago, Google announced that they were dropping support for the H.264 video codec in its popular browser, Chrome. In light of that, today, we’re going to take a look at the ramifications and current state of video on the web.

A Little History

Thanks to fast internet connections and the cost of bandwidth plummeting rapidly, serving video over the internet has become quite popular. That said, playing videos on the web remained an extremely messy affair. There was a mess of codecs and containers to deal with and no direct way to stream content. This void was filled by three solutions: Windows Media, QuickTime and Real Media; they quickly took over the entire market.

Windows Media

I definitely remember this!

Few expected the trio to be dethroned, never mind this early. And yet, that’s what happened when Flash video completely took over the entire web streaming market — practically making the others vanish, sometime around 2005. The others are still alive and kicking, of course, but up until a recently, Flash video was pretty much the only fool-proof, compatible and easy way to get your streaming content on a web page.

Introducing the HTML5 Video Element

Sublime

Sublime Player – one of the pioneers.

Developers all over the world recognized the gaping hole that Flash exposed in the HTML specification and devised the HTML5 spec to fill in the void. The web needed a first class citizen for video, much like images, that browsers could play natively –without having to rely on a plugin, be it Flash, Silverlight, Quicktime, or something else.

And thus, the video element was born.

HTML5 defines a standard way to embed video content in your web sites: through the video tag.

Support for this standard, both among browsers and content distributors, like Youtube and Vimeo, has been increasing at a rapid pace. Needless to say, this element, along with canvas, has almost been the face of HTML5.

The Competing Codecs

This is where things have gotten a bit dicey. The HTML5 specification doesn’t specify which video formats, containers or codecs the browser should support through the video tag. Each browser maker is free to choose, and support, any format which they deem appropriate.

Ogg Theora was initially the forerunner for the standard video format but was later removed from the specification, replaced with a more vague specifications. Currently, there are three main codecs that are vying for you attention today:

  • H.264
  • VP8
  • Theora

I’ll talk more about the most relevant codecs: H.264 and VP8. Theora, while a contender, isn’t really in the running for the lead so we’ll skip over it. I don’t think we’ll need to go over the concept of a video container today as well.

H.264′s Background

H.264

H.264, also popularly knows as AVC, was developed as a collaborative effort of a number of groups, including the famous MPEG.

It is currently one of the more technically advanced codecs available and provides better frame quality at a much lower bitrate. For the non-techies, you get superior quality at much smaller file sizes.

This is the primary reason why H.264 is used in a large number of places, chief among them being your television stations that broadcast in high definition and high definition optical media, like BluRay.

In addition to quality, H.264 has a number of other things going for it. Content compressed with this codec can be played back by a number of non-PC devices. Reading this on an iPhone? Yep, you can watch H.264 content. Your gaming consoles? Absolutely!

Another point to note is that a lot of said devices have dedicated hardware to decode this type of content. This is why your portable devices have such impressive battery lives. Without hardware support, their CPUs would simply wilt.

VP8′s Background

WebM

VP8, a relatively new codec, is the brainchild of On2 — the same guys behind Theora. Google acquired On2 in 2010, and opened up all the underlying patents for the codec into the public domain.

WebM, the container of choice for most current browsers, utilizes VP8 for compressing its video content and Vorbis for its audio. It produces content similar in quality to H.264.

It is completely royalty free, now and for the future. On the downside, though, it has limited hardware decoding support as well as third party device/mobile support.

Google’s Decision to Drop H.264

As mentioned in the excerpt, Google recently removed support for H.264 from the Chrome browser. This throws a monkey wrench into H.264′s growth among web videos and leaves Internet Explorer and Safari as the only remaining browsers backing the codec. Google’s statement below:

We expect even more rapid innovation in the web media platform in the coming year and are focusing our investments in those technologies that are developed and licensed based on open web principles. To that end, we are changing Chrome’s HTML5 <video> support to make it consistent with the codecs already supported by the open Chromium project. Specifically, we are supporting the WebM (VP8) and Theora video codecs, and will consider adding support for other high-quality open codecs in the future. Though H.264 plays an important role in video, as our goal is to enable open innovation, support for the codec will be removed and our resources directed towards completely open codec technologies.

Google’s Decision: A Brief FAQ

We’ll take a quick look at some questions you might potentially have.

Why the sudden change of heart?

Issues of licensing, royalties and openness. H.264 requires royalties for specific scenarios while VP8 and Theora are completely open.

I’ve heard that H.264 is free for a lot of uses. Is there more to it?

While currently free, if the content is distributed free of charge, it isn’t set in stone. Remember that MP3 had quite liberal licenses early on as well. H.264′s licenses change periodically, 5 years or so, so something that’s free today may not necessarily be so tomorrow. There are no such issues with VP8.

Is this a way of Google trying to control which format the web uses?

Not really, no. WebM is already supported by Opera and Firefox [upcoming versions]. It is also backed by a good portion of the web community. It is much more a question of openness than control.

Editor’s Note: That said, is it not fun to watch the silent slaps in the face that Apple, Google, and Microsoft throw? Tensions between Google and Apple have increased quite a bit in recent months.

What if Google suddenly becomes evil and starts charging royalties?

VP8 is under a BSD license. It is also under an irrevocable free patent license. This is about as close as you can get to free. You won’t have to fess up royalties, now or in the future. Period.

Firefox users can already view H.264 content with a plugin. So what’s new here?

Plugin is the keyword here. Instead of becoming a first class element, video is, again, delegated to plugins. If you’re going to install a plugin to watch H.264, why not just use Flash? It’s not as bad as people make it to be!

So I can use plugins to watch H.264 content?

Absolutely, Pipe it through Flash or Silverflight or whatever floats your boat. There’s just no native support.

Google already bundles Flash, a closed platform. Logic failure?

Nope, not even close. Flash, the player, doesn’t require royalties. In fact, you can take the specification and create your own player. Chrome just comes bundled with Flash for easier logistics.

H.264 is everywhere, goshdarnit!

It sure is. But I believe a contender must be chosen, based on merits and licensing, not just the former. This applies even more for the web, a messiah of openness.

But, but, I shoot all my videos in H.264. Encoding it with another codec is annoying.

You’re probably already compressing it before uploading it to the video service of your choice. Why not simply compress it with VP8? Also, if you are the provider, you’re already re-converting user uploaded videos. Just convert to VP8 now!

But WebM converters suck!

Touche, my friend. Compared to H.264, the tools at hand are sparse. We need to wait it out while someone fills the market’s demand.

Why remove support for it now?

Because the spec, and the war, isn’t over, not by a long shot. Google can afford to make a change here and prevent a H.264 monopoly in the future.

What this Means for a Regular User

To a regular Joe web surfer, nothing changes for you. As long as you use a modern-ish browser, you can continue consuming web video content, be it YouTube or Vimeo – as long as the provider transcodes the content and server them efficiently and effectively. In fact, you don’t even have to use a modern browser if the provider provides decent fallbacks

In your world, nothing changes. It’s just a bunch of geeks talking about things that you can’t even vaguely comprehend.

If you’re a mobile user, though, you’re in for a world of trouble. With most mobile platforms locked down so hard [Apple, I'm looking at you], changing browsers on your every whim is hard. Additionally, most mobiles only have hardware to decode H.264, not VP8. This means two things:

  • Possible choppy performance: Without dedicated hardware decoding, performance may possibly suffer for higher quality videos.
  • Worse battery life: As your CPU continues to thrash trying to decode your content, your battery life is going to take a big hit.

Yes, I know it sucks.

What it Means for a Web Content Producer/Distributor

For desktop users, it really doesn’t change much for you either. If you’ve been already serving content appropriately encoded for every browser, you should be alright for now. Remember, you’ve already had to serve WebM or Theora content for Firefox and Opera; so nothing changes for desktop users.

For mobile users, it, again, is a mess. No mobile browser supports WebM or Theora as of now, while almost every mobile has dedicated hardware for H.264. In order to accomodate everyone, you’ll need to have two version: one encoded with H.264 for mobile users, and another with WebM/Theora for everyone else.

You’ll have to face doubled computational costs and storage. Or you can choose to skip HTML5 video altogether and go with Flash for serving content but, uh-oh, iOS devices can’t play Flash content.

If you have to serve video content for mobile users and are facepalming right now, we can understand your plight and you have our sympathies. Fight on, soldier!

What it Means for Flash and HTML5 Video

In the short term, further adoption of the video element can suffer as developers wait for the dust to settle before making a decision regarding implementation. You’d probably not want to go with a technology that may be doomed to fail. This also means that usage of Flash for video content will possibly spike over the next few months, ironically.

In the long term, it will lead to a stronger and more open web. No one wants a repeat of the GIF or MP3 fiasco and I feel it’s right that Google has finally dropped support for the codec. Props to Mozilla as well for not giving in amidst uproar over not supporting the codec.

Codec Support in Modern Browsers

WebM

Universal pricing table from GraphicRiver.

This is how the compatibility chart will read a month from now, when Chrome drops H.264 and Firefox and Internet Explorer adopt WebM.

With mobile browsers, the situation is simple enough to not warrant a chart. Every mobile browser support H.264 and nothing else.

That’s a Wrap

I hope that you’ve found this write-up interesting. We’ve tried to go with a slightly different topic today, diverging from our usual web development content. I’m sure there are lots of perspectives I’ve missed in this article, so remember to chime in with your comments. Thank you so much for reading!

Siddharth is Siddharth on Codecanyon
 
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Hola! I'm the associate editor here, editor of Windows.AppStorm, the lead reviewer at CodeCanyon and a reviewer at ThemeForest. When I'm not working for Envato, I'm a web developer/designer with expertise in JavaScript, PHP and Ruby . I am passionate about web technologies and video games and I really think code *is* art. It's a well known fact that following me has brought people great fortune and a lot of cuddles!  

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  • http://laroouse.com esranull

    very good post thanks a lot

  • http://www.andredublin.com Andre Dublin

    I’ve played around with the video element a little bit, but the only problem that I foresee for the future is security and digital rights management.

    With a video tag in use, users can download videos directly from the source. However a defense against this is the canvas tag, in which one will have to create video controls via javascript (someting I’m working on). This is the only solution that I can think of to prevent videos from being downloaded freely.

    • Chris Sanders

      Really? I’m not sure of your logic here… I am very interested in it though. What about the canvas tag that I am missing would allow for some type of DRM ala FLASH?

      • http://www.andredublin.com Andre Dublin

        With the video tag, users can download the video file directly from the source. However using both the video and canvas tag together can overcome this problem.

        Here’s an example that I learned from Introducing HTML 5

        video {
        display:none
        }

        var canvas = document.getElementById(‘dance’); //get the canvas
        var video = document.getElementById(‘video’); //get the video

        if (canvas.getContext) {
        ctx = canvas.getContext(’2d’); //set the context if .getContext exists
        }

        ctx.drawImage(video, 0, 0, 200px, 400px, 0, 0, 200px, 400px);

        //drawImage(source,source x,source y,source width,source height,destination x,destination //y,destination width,destination height)

        All I need to do is add eventListeners for when the data is loaded, do I either autoplay, or have wait for the using to click a play button and other interface items generated with javascricpt. And if javascript is disabled then I can embed a flash object within the video tag.

      • http://www.andredublin.com Andre Dublin

        Let me try that again

        With the video tag, users can download the video file directly from the source. However using both the video and canvas tag together can overcome this problem.

        Here’s an example that I learned from Introducing HTML 5

        &ltsource src=”example.mpg” type=”video/mpg”&gt

        &ltscript type=”text/javascript”&gt
        var canvas = document.getElementById(‘canvas’); //get the canvas
        var video = document.getElementById(‘video’); //get the video

        if (canvas.getContext) {
        ctx = canvas.getContext(’2d’); //set the context if .getContext exists
        }

        ctx.drawImage(video, 0, 0, 200px, 400px, 0, 0, 200px, 400px);

        //drawImage(source,source x,source y,source width,source height,destination x,destination //y,destination width,destination height)

        &lt/script&gt

        All I need to do is add eventListeners for when the data is loaded, do I either autoplay, or have wait for the using to click a play button and other interface items generated with javascricpt. And if javascript is disabled then I can embed a flash object within the video tag.

      • http://www.andredublin.com Andre Dublin

        Gah!

        All I’m trying to show is that there is two elements canvas, and video in the html body, and video style is set to display none.

      • http://www.ssiddharth.com Siddharth
        Author

        Just use jsbin and link to it here? The comments strip out some code.

  • Pieter

    Nice post! It’s clearly written by a very opinionated writer though.
    I’m not sure but isn’t the situation with WebM on IE9 that you’ll have to install a plugin to play it. That’s what I heard and I think that if that’s true the codec support table is giving a wrong impression.

    • http://www.ssiddharth.com Siddharth
      Author

      Oh yes, I’m clearly opinionated. I should have added a disclaimer, just to be sure.

      I’m not anti-H.264, mind you. I consume content encoded with the codec on a daily basis. I just don’t think it should be the basis of an open web.

      • Joao

        The way this article is presented is EXTREMELY misleading. It is presented as a “All you need to know” but in reality it’s a heavily opinionated piece that just assumes the rest of the web is going to conform to Google’s wishes. You are presenting many your opionions as fact without even exploring the opposing side.

        There should be a HUGE disclaimer at the top letting people know that this is an editorial AND the title should be retooled.

      • http://www.scott-sports.com LockHouseJim

        I’m really not sure why people are freaking out over how you wrote this. I had no idea what was going on with this Google dropping H.264 business….and now I feel more informed. Which is the point. Opinionated piece or not…I got Googles response on the matter and I’m cool with that.
        Cheers to a well written piece.

      • Park

        Completely agree with LockHouseJim.
        The contents were informative. I don’t see any misleading parts.

  • http://drho.ro DrHo.ro

    What other tools besides firefogg do you recommend?

  • http://www.umbraprojekt.pl mingos

    Google has the balls and the resources to be able to permit themselves such a move. I applaud that.

    And what does the codec support table you posted say now? VP8 scores 4, Theora 3 and H.264 only 2. Plus, since IE9 supports VP8, the only browser left out is Safari – used by a minority of internet users, by the way. So, uh… either Mr. Jobs decides to add VP8 support to Safari, or he’ll effectively make some Mac users (mostly) change their browsers. As a web developer, I’ll happily skip support for Safari if I ever use HTML5 video, and I assume there’s a bunch od people out there who share my point of view. Just as we often decide not to compensate for the lack of CSS3 support in Internet Explorer or intentionally ignore the IE6 (R.I.P.) bugs.

    Wider support for VP8 decoding is just a matter of time, if (as soon as) it becomes the de facto standard.

    • Al

      What would you say regarding all of the hardware out there that doesn’t have hardware decoding support for vp8? Specifically all the phones (android and iphone), where even if they find a way to run a vp8 encoded video, they will be killing their battery in a matter of an hour or two.

      To me the ramifications of this vp8 support is very minimal on full blown computers. Its on all the other hardware in the world where its going to make a big difference. If Youtube for example decides to stop offering h.264 encoded video, nearly all current generation web enabled tvs/bluray players, appletv, roku, and all mobile phones will be basically screwed out of viewing video unless they have a beefy enough cpu to suffice.

      Google’s change might be for the best for an “open” web, but if they have enough currency to make everyone change to vp8, they are killing a ton of current generation hardware in the process. I don’t think enough people realize this.

  • http://paulirish.com Paul Irish

    If you’re doing HTML5 video, you should be publishing in Webm, Ogg theora, and h.264. In 8 months or so, FF3.6 might be dead and we can drop ogg by the wayside.

    In the meantime, use this tool: http://mirovideoconverter.com/

    It handles all your conversion for you; total piece of cake.

    • Chris Sanders

      Ogg Theora is a grossly inferior product. I would never recommend that to anyone. I strongly support an open web but only if the product is a superior product.

      • http://www.ssiddharth.com Siddharth
        Author

        Absolutely! It became a two horse race between H.264 and VP8 a while ago. Quality wise, Theora isn’t even in the same ballpark.

    • w1sh

      Thanks for solving this dilemma for me Paul Irish.

    • http://www.lavalleecreative.com Stephen

      Hey, thanks for the link….just what I was looking for.

  • jkandei

    Yes, very good! Something different. Thank you very much

  • Donald Allen

    What a horribly short-sighted article. Stick to web dev tutorials.

    • nuku

      Could you elaborate on why this article is short-sighted or are you just trolling around?
      Patents on H.264 are a real issue!

    • http://www.ssiddharth.com Siddharth
      Author

      My, my! The rage!

      Maybe if you actually tell me why this article is short sighted, I’d listen to you. Right now, you’re just going ‘nuh-uh’ and I have no idea why.

      • nike dorian

        It is short-sighted because he wants to disrespect you and make you think twice before posting browser news on a tutorial site.

        So this being said…. please stick to tutorials. That’s why I visit the site.

      • http://www.ssiddharth.com Siddharth
        Author

        I think that we publish enough high quality tutorials to warrant an opinion piece once in a while. :)

  • nuku

    I agree that hardware acceleration for VP8 is – right now – not existent. But so was hardware acceleration for H.264 two years ago! If manufacturers decide to build VP8 into their devices (be it smarphones, consoles or whatever), your next smartphone might just come with hardware-accelerated VP8-playback!

  • kris

    H.264 is a better codec than VP8. Plus most likely VP8 infringes some of the patents in H.264 at which point they might be worst off than using H.264 in the first place.

    Plus it’s not a matter of just skipping safari. You’d be skipping all iOS users as well. Not something too many big companies would pass on.

    • nuku

      There has been a lot of work on VP8 – both quality- and speedwise since it was first introduced!

      Concerning your second point – how does the patent situation make H.264 any better? Am I right if I say you’d rather use a codec that is patented like mad than use one that isn’t, but may infringe some patents of the other, held by a cartel? I’m sorry, I don’t follow.

      Lastly, how much of the video streaming market is taken up by current iOS devices? Mobile devices still don’t make up all that much of that market. As you can see, Google thinks that’s not worth it (Youtube uses VP8 in HTML5 mode). And trust me, if Apple just wanted to, future iOS devices would come with VP8 hardware acceleration. But why would they want to – they own patents on H.264!

      • kris

        Apple doesn’t own the patents. MPEG LA owns them which is made up of several different companies.
        Google went and bought a company whose codec possibly infringes on those patents and now they open it up to everyone. You think those companies that own the patents are just gonna sit there and let that happen?

        Firefox and Google could easily afford to pay the royalties to distribute the decoder in their browsers.
        I really don’t care which one we use the thought of encoding something only once is really how it should be though. Having everything in h.264 would have been perfect.

        I like open source stuff as much as the next person but let’s not pretend the open source community has answers for everything. You want something good? It might come riddles with patents. That’s just the way things are…

      • http://www.ssiddharth.com Siddharth
        Author

        MPEG LA doesn’t own any patents. They merely broker the royalities. The actual patents belong to the individual companies.

      • Chris Sanders

        Don’t they have to split it like 40 ways. Apple only owns a few patents in it. It’s insignificant to their bottom line. Also Steve Jobs commented on this back in may 2010… http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/05/20/steve_jobs_says_no_to_googles_vp8_webm_codec.html

      • http://www.ssiddharth.com Siddharth
      • nuku

        kris: “Firefox and Google could easily afford to pay the royalties to distribute the decoder in their browsers.”
        NO THEY CAN’T! They distribute their products in source code (Google via chromium). There is no way the distribution can ever be controlled (because it’s not meant to!).
        Plus, no, Mozilla WON’T ever pay for that. If you think they eventually will, get yourself ready for a disappointment. You’re missing their principles.

        Further, codecs should not be rated solely based on the image quality at a specific bitrate. The best codec isn’t much use if you cannot use it because of patents.

        And, of course, Apple DOES own the patents, like Siddharth said.

        Chris Sanders: The site you linked says “VP8 can’t currently support Apple’s needs as a mobile-optimized codec for its iPods, iPads and iPhones, nor is it suitable for high definition video encoding.” – Please excuse me if I laugh. Apple’s mobile devices support H.264 Baseline and Main only, no High Profile.

      • Chris Sanders

        Currently VP8 doesn’t have hardware support for the devices that are currently available on the market whether it be android or iOS. That’s just a fact. Among the reasons for having hardware support for a video codec is battery life.

        Do you mean High Definition and not High Profile? It doesn’t even matter the bottom line is that h.264 isn’t as advanced from a technological standpoint as h.264. I only somewhat support google in this move because I don’t know if it’s logical to be purist. I agree with the sentiment that web technologies should be free of patents so anyone can implement. However, I have a problem with both Apple and Google trying to force me into using their codecs for their browsers and I have a problem when the technology they are trying to force on me is inferior to what’s already available. The free argument isn’t strong enough for me to want to support something that’s inferior. The cream of the crop should rise to the top IMO.

      • Chris Sanders

        Whoops I mean WebM isn’t as technologically advanced as h.264.

  • http://www.robinandeer.com Robin

    Great overview! Longing for a flash free internet it sure is worrying if this is going to hinder HTML5 adaption in favor of more plug-ins. I must admit thought that you do make some compelling arguments for why Google is making the right move and Apple sure looks kinda lonely on that chart, so it will be interesting to see Jobs pushing H.264 in the future.

    • Chris Sanders

      Yeah I generally like this move but I’m hoping Apple just accepts VP8 and gives it hardware support. However, Google is dating all devices that don’t have VP8 hardware support currently even it’s own.

  • Jacob Bennett

    Great article. It has been a few months since I have been back to the web game and its good to get a quick catch up on whats going on with the state of video on the web. Very informative! Thanks again!

  • http://www.jakswebdesign.com Adam

    Good thorough post, had to do a lot of digging to write what could’ve been summed up in a line (which was interestingly enough somewhat included in your article) – total corporate slap to Apple…..I think the most interesting thing about this whole fiasco that google just started is if/when/how Apple will choose to respond.

    It would behoove them to move forward for once and say, as you have so eloquently pointed out, “yeah, we’ll go with VP8 too, it’s obviously the better choice…” Are they going to do that? Fat chance!

    Are they going to keep quiet and continue to forge ahead with H.264 hoping that Macs will suddenly get 90% market share and google’s choice just won’t have support anymore? Fat chance!

    Are they going to make an equally non-subtle, yet passive-aggressive public comment regarding google’s recent decision (quite possibly during the January 18 earnings call)? Ding! Ding! Ding!

    Get some popcorn everybody, this is going to be a fantastic show to sit back and enjoy.

  • http://taylorhutchison.com Taylor Hutchison

    One thing that I haven’t heard much about in the reaction across the Web is the advantage of WebM to deliver near the same quality as h.264 but take up less disc space and bandwidth. Surely Google is thinking about the petabytes that could be saved over the next 10 years by this move.

    • Joao

      “near the same quality”

      Not even close.

  • denny eng

    well written, great read. thank you for the post!

  • Chris Sanders

    I’ve never heard of the browsers only supporting one type of video. It’s like supporting only .png picture files accept that WebM is not as advanced as h.264….and we don’t know if WebM is patent free. The courts haven’t made a ruling yet. I think Safari and web browsers in general should be supporting as many formats as possible and let the developers and users decide what is in their best interest to use. I guess the next logical step is for Google to put out some sort of web imaging standard to compete with the png or the jpg.

    • Chris Sanders

      What happened to users choosing what’s the best format for their videos to be shown in?

  • Chris Sanders

    You should note in your article that google is releasing WebM plug-ins for Safari and IE. I just thought I’d let everyone know.

    http://blog.chromium.org/2011/01/more-about-chrome-html-video-codec.html

  • Alexandre Mercier

    Hi everybody,

    @Chris Chanders : the “web imaging standard to compete with the png or the jpg” you are thinking about might become reality very soon, and it’s called webp (pronounced “weppy”) : http://code.google.com/intl/fr-FR/speed/webp/
    I haven’t been playing with it myself but it sounds really promising. I hope implementation will follow soon

    Considering the patents issue, don’t forget that patents only exist in the US. Well, you’re right, all the major companies are US-based. Personnaly, using a non-patent-free piece of software won’t prevent me to sleep \’-)

    • Chris Sanders

      @Alexandre Mercier

      Web Imaging sounds interesting. I hope it gets extremely fast compression compared to jpg and png. I want it to be of superior quality to both .png and .jpg and a much smaller size.

  • http://tedlee.net Ted

    If the world only contained the desktop browsers you listed in your table, your analysis might be more accurate. But we also have mobile versions of those browsers, and mobile devices need hardware decoding to be able to play back these codecs.

    At the present moment, there is somewhere around 150 million+ mobile devices that have hardware support to playback H.264 (All iOS devices, all current Android devices, BB 6.0+ devices, Windows Mobile Devices).

    The current number of hardware devices that have hardware decoding to play back WebM? Zero.

    Your analysis also completely misses the point that content providers do not want to encode their media in two different formats. H.264 encoding allows delivery via MP4 or Flash. WebM requires a whole other file to be created, encoded, stored and served up. How many content providers (other than YouTube) are going to go through this exercise? I doubt many.

    All Google has done is sabotage a move away from Flash. I wouldn’t be surprised if Adobe is in some way involved in this move. For a company that’s mantra is “Don’t be evil”, this is antithesis of that statement.

    • http://patareco.tumblr.com/ Patareco

      Adobe is not in anyway involved. This however means that flash will be around for many years to come, but it would either way since Firefox did not support H.264 nor it had any plans to do so. The video tag was broken from the start in desktop devices, luckily that wasn’t true on the mobile side.

      As long has Google doesn’t interfere with video on android I don’t see any problem in dropping H.264 support for Chrome.

  • http://antimatter15.com/ antimatter15

    I’m not sure if another commentator has already said this, but the way IE9 and Safari implement web video, is they support whatever codecs are supported by the multimedia engine of the underlying operating system. Both Windows Media and QuickTime are pluggable, and so whatever plugins are installed to play codecs can be used. This is different from Opera, Firefox and Chrome which bundle customized versions of ffmpeg into the actual release to play certain video codecs. Microsoft has said that only H.264 will be supported in IE9 natively, because Windows 7 (and presumably Vista) has the H.264 codec built-in. QuickTime has H.264 built in as well.

    There’s already a plugin for Theora on QuickTime. Google already released a plugin for WebM on ffdshow/Windows Media. And it seems the WebM team plans to create QuickTime plugins as well.

    Note that these plugins are of a lower level than the plugins that Adobe Flash or the Java Applet runtime is. It’s plugging into the multimedia engine, and there’s virtually no difference compared to a “native” codec.

  • http://itspice.net Vijay

    Some how I am in inclined to Google’s decision on this. more openness is needed anyway in H.264. Nice post ! thanks Sid.

  • Riley

    “What if Google suddenly becomes evil and starts charging royalties?”

    Seriously Google has been evil for a very long time. I don’t trust the “OPEN” BS card they constantly play.

    I would rather have the web choose which video format wins instead of Google telling me which format they want to win.

    btw I don’t use any Google services or products. I refuse to support spyware.

  • Daniel

    I totally disagree with the “openess” argument the writer of this post thinks he knows about. The writer is clearly uninformed. Flash is not an open standard it’s a closed standard run by Adobe. Even if it doesn’t have licensing issues, Googles whole argument about dropping h.264 was to use only “open” standards. If thats true than flash should no longer be bundled in Chrome. Clearly if you put on your reality goggles and get off your high perch of lofty moralities you’ll see the danger through the thick layer of “open” fog Google has laid to confuse you. This is an attack on Apple alone, they are feeling threatened because they are now fighting for the same money. Open your eyes. Don’t take my word for it, half the internet is saying the same thing:

    http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/Iy7v7wwi1GY/

    http://www.zdnet.com/blog/burnette/chrome-users-are-the-latest-casualty-in-googles-crusade-against-apple/2158

    http://daringfireball.net/

    http://arstechnica.com/web/news/2011/01/googles-dropping-h264-from-chrome-a-step-backward-for-openness.ars/

  • http://newarts.at Drazen Mokic

    What, IE will support WebM? Are you sure? I just read an article on my ipad, i think it was frm TechCrunch or Mashable where they said Safari and IE are not supporting WebM. hm

    • Chris Sanders

      MSFT has said IE9 will support both h.264 and WebM. http://techie-buzz.com/tech-news/internet-explorer-9-vp8-web.html

      The issue here is you can support hit all devices with h.264 but you can only hit some devices with WebM. To me that’s a hole in google’s strategy. However, I think Safari should support it since Apple has already expressed that they are willing to pay the patents for h.264. I don’t see how there is risk to them from patents should a law suit occur regarding h.264.

      • http://newarts.at Drazen Mokic

        Ok i see thanks, nice. The only crap is that the user has to install the VP8 codec, why they don`t just push an update on Win 7 to make it available by default? …

  • http://onthejvm.com Arthur

    Wow, great story. Very well written and very insightful. Couldn’t agree more.

  • http://wplancer.com Banago

    This is one of the most well-written articles I’ve read on Nettuts. Well done Siddharth!

    I, the same, feel like the Google decision to drop H.264. is right and beneficial for the future of openness of web.

    • Joao

      It’s an opinion piece presented as “an all you need to know”.

      • http://www.ssiddharth.com Siddharth
        Author

        I’m pretty sure I’m not presenting it as an ‘all you need to know’. I’m merely trying to sum up the current situation. Sorry if I gave you the feeling that this is anything but an opinion piece.

    • Codie

      This is not beneficial to the web right now. Not one bit.

      Google dropped H.264 in means of openness yet still include Flash with there bundle? Just a tad hypocritical. By dropping h.264 they are just forcing people to view content through flash.

      All these big companies like MLB, Netflix, Hulu, Amazon etc have all invested a lot of money and resources into the h.264 codec due to devices like the iPhone and iPad. It was the bare minimum they could do to include and target these devices. If these services began encoding in WebM as well it would double bandwidth and encoding charges as everything would have to be encoded twice. This isn’t going to happen as if your browser doesn’t support h.264 you will still be served the video via flash instead.

      These companies have invested a lot into h.264 both legally, since h.264 isn’t infringing on any patents, and in encoding hardware and bandwidth. There is no way for these companies to justify adopting WebM, and there is no way they will drop h.264 cause lets be honest, apple won’t ditch h.264 on any of its iOS devices.

      Now i’m all for ‘openess’ but I do not see what is wrong with h.264. Its a safe format and its clearly written in the legal terms of the document that if prices are to increase on the patent they can’t do so by a 10% ever 5 years at its renewal. So the argument of the codec having a cloudy future is just mis-information. Lets not forget about the billions of devices that have hardware to decode the codec and devices that shoot in it.

      And yes I am biased towards h.264

      • http://www.ssiddharth.com Siddharth
        Author

        Flash is a plugin and doesn’t require fees to bundle in. H.264 has to be baked in to the core and requires said fees. As I mentioned, you’re more than welcome to use a plugin for H.264 playback.

  • http://mrkdevelopment.com.au M R K

    I think this is a lifeline to flash for video because they support h264.

    Flash can always be used for this for many years to come, the main problem is Apple, they refuse to support flash or other codec’s and they will have to make a choice or people will stop using their products.

    I personally would just like to see some flash support for IOs.

    The other interesting thing will be when the new tablet PCs are released over 2011. They will all be using this video codec and that will certainly be interesting to see if it impact on the success.

    Time will ultimately tell if this decision will change the internet or not.

  • http://patareco.carbonmade.com/ Patareco

    What it Means for a Web Content Producer/Distributor? You will continue to use H.264 through flash on the desktop browser and through the video tag for mobile devices for many years…

    • Chris Sanders

      At the very least you have to support two different things. I am just thinking about linking people up to the non-flash plug-ins for h.264 for the time being. WebM isn’t ready yet IMO even though I somewhat support this move by google.

    • http://www.brettjankord.com/ Brett

      @Patareco: This is what I’ll probably be doing too until things settle down, serve H.264 through flash on the desktop and use the video tag for mobile devices. It seems like with this you will be able to serve up video to a wide enough audience. Thanks for the article Siddharth, it was very informative.

  • http://www.cms-center.com Jack Tatum

    Wasn’t this suppose to be a tutorial site? I really don’t like this kind of articles.

    • Chris Sanders

      Don’t like it. Don’t read it. It’s totally relevant to this site.

      • http://www.ssiddharth.com Siddharth
        Author

        Since we primarily cater to the web dev crowd and this is related to the field, I think this is highly relevant.

        But thanks for your opinion, anyways. :)

  • The Insaint

    Totally wrong decision done by google.
    Also totally wrong assumption from many users here regarding a “free web”.
    Using a “thing” in the sense of using a finished product (like a video is) doesen’t create any “license issues”.
    As for many codec formats in the video development, not the “player” costs money, but the “creator”. So, playing a video with a H.264 codec can’t cause any licening, only the creation of it. The “regular” user, who consumes those products, is therefore not blameable.
    And the ones, who create those videos, already paid for the license in the form of using the corresponding software, where the license is already payed by the software company (Adobe, Sorenson, etc.). So, no license issue here either.
    And overall this, removing a (meanwhile) important technology for the favor of a (wrong stated) “free web”, isn’t going to make the web “free”, it makes it limited and unusable and costing more.

    Just think about only the costs in using a video with H.264 alone and have the work finished with everyone happy and using _not_ H.264 und have to:
    Recode several times to serve other browsers
    Use more space to store the (multiple) videos
    Use more time (and therefore money for the client) for making double or triple the work
    Fear, that everyone can see the product, therefore you _can’t_ guarantee your customers tthat his product can be seen by everyone
    [...]

    I don’t think it’s worth (more it’s silly and shortsighted) and google should declare their statement as a very early april’s fool announcement …

  • http://javedweb.com/blog/ Javed Gardezi

    Very informative article…!!

  • http://www.dustinschmidt.com Dustin

    Ahh the brutal inconsistencies of the web standards community enters it’s next phase of hypocritical progressivism. Call me bitter, but there are just way too many vested interests and competing technologies in this space to garner mass appeal.

    It’s too funny. Whether it’s the W3C, or brand names like Google and Internet Explorer as much as everyone passionately stands by the credo, “open community” there is so much gridlock when it comes to universal adoption of standards that address usability, semantics, quality, and performance.

    It started with HTML 4, then xhtml (strict vs. transitional) and Flash (remember swf object?), and now which video codecs will be supported by browsers in HTML 5. As a designer/developer all you can do is your best when it comes to cross-browser compatibility. It is virtually impossible to please all of the people all of the time. This debate has been going on for at least a year and I don’t expect it to calm down anytime soon.

  • Chris Sanders

    I know the focus here is tutorials but I was wondering if you guys could do a video or post about WebM and WebP themselves. I like the idea of an “open standard” on multimedia on the web.

  • http://phildawson.co.uk Phil

    Nice Article, I enjoyed reading this. I couldn’t believe it when I first heard the news, very ballsy move by Google. I think in the long run they have done a good thing rather than waiting. I think the next year of so will be very interesting to see what happens with Apple.

    It’s such a shame VP8 looks like crap atm. :(

  • Z A K

    Thanks for the 411. I am getting video site up now, and this information came at a good time in our project!

  • http://www.bionicworks.com Thai Bui

    Dropping support for h.264 could be a hasty move but an open source video codec could mean it’ll be community driven. So now I have to install something else in order to play mp4 on Chrome?

  • Subvert

    Very informational, good overview!
    Clears things up and shows the way to go, imho

  • http://www.rickgrossman-blog.com Rick Grossman

    Competing video formats drive me nuts. Adobe Flash cannot be played on an Apple machine so what are we to do?