Google planning to open the VP8 video codec

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fuddam
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Joined: Nov 19 2005
mooblie
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Joined: Apr 27 2001

I had no idea Google bought On2 and their technology. A next-generation video playback codec for the web (beyond Flash) that gets adopted universally too - would be a good thing. It's a shame H.264 (the current "best", and also Flash10-plugin-playable) doesn't satisfy everybody's requirements and win this battle.

Martin - DVdoctor in moderation. Everyone is entitled to my opinion.

SimonMW
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Joined: Nov 16 2004

The big problem with H264 is the patent. I'm currently working on a website that will be using video in a big way. I want to control the content, and the site will have subscriptions. As a result I cannot use H264 based video without paying an absolutely gigantic license fee each year.

OGG isn't as good as H264, but there are none of the patent issues involved. It's a shame that Apple etc can't make it so that their HTML5 implementations accept both H264 and OGG formats as opposed to Firefox allowing H264. This would really help people who want to distribute video on subscription based sites.

ChrisH
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Joined: Jul 31 2004

This is seismic stuff.
After Google made VP8 open source three weeks ago and the WebM project launched, Microsoft changed tack and decided to support VP8 in IE9, it looks likely VP8 will become the video codec to change everything in HTML 5.
Adobe are supporting VP8 in Flash, Google claim it's patent free, You tube have begun to convert content, but there are questions as to how good it is compared to main profile H.264, how much room there is to improve it and whether it really is patent free.

I'm sure this one will be bubbling away for a while..
Be interesting to see if Steve Jobs lets us use it on his ipad.