Microsoft adds H.264 for Chrome

[whs]

A couple weeks back, Google announced that future versions of its Chrome browser would no longer support the H.264 video codec, causing quite a stir among developers and video content producers. The move left Microsoft's Internet Explorer 9 and Apple's Safari browsers as the only ones to support the video standard and a lot of people were upset about this.

Today, Microsoft has fired back, releasing a Chrome browser extension that re-adds H.264 support to the Chrome browser.

More...

 

[cloud8521]

....weeeeird

 

[Gornot]

:roflmao:

Seriously? Dude, this is, like, the biggest day in MS history lol
*dies laughing*

 

[mickey megabyte]

 

[andyparks]

Why would they do this

 

[z3r010]

Why would they do this

Payback for chromeframe?

 

[Gornot]

My thoughts exactly...
Besides, they respect the anti-trust laws and stuffs, so instead of advertising IE9 to Chrome users who aren't satisfied with h264 being dumped, they offer an extension instead xD

But I just can't stop laughing, seriously, this is epic xD

 

[Gornot]

I apologize for the double post, but this little ad that I saw on WLM reminded me of this thread, and then made me lmao



:roflmao:

 

[Rhammstein]

Ah....ahahha, haha, aaahahha, yeah that's funny. Very interesting..

 

[StalkeR]

Windows Media Player HTML5 Extension for Chrome

The Windows Media Player HTML5 Extension for Chrome is an extension that enables Chrome users to play H.264-encoded videos (aka MP4) on HTML5 pages by using the built-in capabilities found in Windows 7. Supported Platforms

• Requires Chrome 8.0 or later
• Windows 7

Downloads
Install the Extension
Windows Media Player HTML5 Extension for Chrome Release Notes
License
A copy of the license agreement is available here (A copy of the file is also installed with the Add-on).
Release Notes for Developers
This Extension is based on a Chrome Extension that parses HTML5 pages and replaces Video tags with a call to the Windows Media Player plug-in so that the content can be played in the browser. The Extension replaces video tags only if the video formats specified in the tag are among those supported by Windows Media Player. Tags that contain other video formats are not touched.
The Extension also checks if the browser version already supports MP4 (H.264) video codec, if so the extension is not used.

The current version of the Extension still uses the Windows Media Player Plug-in APIs to control video playback, so there are some differences between the methods/properties defined in the emerging HTML5 standard and those available in the Windows Media Player plug-in. We are working to fix this limitation in the next release.