Google opens VP8 codec, aims to nuke H.264 with WebM

[Lordbob75]

Google opens VP8 codec, aims to nuke H.264 with WebM

Ever since Google announced its purchase of video codec company On2 in August 2009, there's been an expectation that On2's VP8 codec would someday be open-sourced and promoted as a new, open option for HTML5 video. An open VP8 would offer comparable quality to H.264, but without the patent and royalty encumbrances that codec suffers. Last month, this speculation seemed confirmed, with inside sources claiming that Google would announce the open-sourcing of the VP8 codec this month at the company's I/O conference.

Source: Google opens VP8 codec, aims to nuke H.264 with WebM


The last bit about the nuclear option made me laugh maniacally.


~Lordbob

 

[swarfega]

Earlier today, Google has announced a developer preview of WebM, which is essentially an open source media format, designed for World Wide Web, that uses VP8 codec.

In response to such announcement, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer General Manager, Dean Hachamovitch said: “In its HTML5 support, IE9 will support playback of H.264 video as well as VP8 video when the user has installed a VP8 codec on Windows” … “We want to be clear about our intent to support the same markup in the open and interoperable web, and to do so in a manner consistent with our view broad view of safety and security”

The WebM is already supported by 40+ companies, such as: Mozilla, Opera, Google, Logitech and many more.

......

 

[swarfega]

Google has made available for download a new release of its open source browser designed to support what is being advertised as the future of video on the Internet, namely the WebM media format. Version 6.0.412.0 of Chrome is already offered to early adopters, but, in all fairness, the release is actually Chromium, the underlining open source project at the base of Google Chrome. Users should be aware of the fact that Build 6.0.412.0 of Chromium is nothing more than a nightly build, certainly not intended for use in production environments, but only for testing.

​

“WebM is an open, royalty-free media file format designed for the web. WebM files consist of video streams compressed with the VP8 video codec and audio streams compressed with the Vorbis audio codec. The WebM file structure is based on the Matroska media container,” an excerpt of the project’s definition reads.

All major browser vendors, including Opera, Mozilla and Microsoft, have put their weight behind WebM, and especially VP8 in search of a general consensus on a single video codec for HTML5. At the same time, various experimental versions of Chrome, Opera and Firefox are already available for early adopters looking to test-drive VP8. Microsoft announced that Internet Explorer 9 would support VP8 via a Windows installable codec, although the technology won’t be integrated by default into the next iteration of Internet Explorer.

“WebM was built for the web. By testing hundreds of thousands of videos with widely varying characteristics, we found that the VP8 video codec delivers high-quality video while efficiently adapting to varying processing and bandwidth conditions across a broad range of devices. VP8’s highly efficient bandwidth usage and lower storage requirements can help publishers recognize immediate cost savings. Also, the relative simplicity of VP8 makes it easy to integrate into existing environments and requires comparatively little manual tuning in the encoder to produce high-quality results,” it is added on the WebM’s FAQ page.

Chromium 6.0.412.0 is available for download here.

Opera 10.54 Build 21868 Beta with HTML5 WebM VP8 video support is available for download here.

Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) Platform Preview 2 Build 1.9.7766.6000 is available for download here.

Source