Comments on: HV5 now less the video and audio http://www.peterbuick.com/hv5/hv5-now-less-the-video-and-audio Peter Buick - freelance journalist, consultant and musician/composer. Mon, 22 Feb 2010 00:48:02 +0100 http://wordpress.org/?v=abc hourly 1 By: Ian Hickson http://www.peterbuick.com/hv5/hv5-now-less-the-video-and-audio/comment-page-1#comment-841 Ian Hickson Wed, 01 Jul 2009 16:32:57 +0000 http://www.peterbuick.com/?p=717#comment-841 Ian Hickson's commented After an inordinate amount of discussions, both in public and privately, on the situation regarding codecs for <video> and <audio> in HTML 5, I have reluctantly come to the conclusion that there is no suitable codec that all vendors are willing to implement and ship. I have therefore removed the two subsections in the HTML 5 spec in which codecs would have been required, and have instead left the matter undefined, as has in the past been done with other features like <img> and image formats, <embed> and plugin APIs, or Web fonts and font formats. The current situation is as follows: * Apple refuses to implement Ogg Theora in Quicktime by default (as used by Safari), citing lack of hardware support and an uncertain patent landscape. * Google has implemented H.264 and Ogg Theora in Chrome, but cannot provide the H.264 codec license to third-party distributors of Chromium, and have indicated a belief that Ogg Theora’s quality-per-bit is not yet suitable for the volume handled by YouTube. * Opera refuses to implement H.264, citing the obscene cost of the relevant patent licenses. * Mozilla refuses to implement H.264, as they would not be able to obtain a license that covers their downstream distributors. * Microsoft has not commented on their intent to support <video> at all. (Sorry if I’ve mischaracterised any positions above; the positions are relatively subtle and so it’s likely that I have oversimplified matters.) I considered requiring Ogg Theora support in the spec, since we do have three implementations that are willing to implement it, but it wouldn’t help get us true interoperability, since the people who are willing to implement it are willing to do so regardless of the spec, and the people who aren’t are not going to be swayed by what the spec says. Ian Hickson’s commented

After an inordinate amount of discussions, both in public and privately, on the situation regarding codecs for

I have therefore removed the two subsections in the HTML 5 spec in which codecs would have been required, and have instead left the matter undefined, as has in the past been done with other features like and image formats, and plugin APIs, or Web fonts and font formats.

The current situation is as follows:

* Apple refuses to implement Ogg Theora in Quicktime by default (as used by Safari), citing lack of hardware support and an uncertain patent landscape.

* Google has implemented H.264 and Ogg Theora in Chrome, but cannot provide the H.264 codec license to third-party distributors of Chromium, and have indicated a belief that Ogg Theora’s quality-per-bit is not yet suitable for the volume handled by YouTube.

* Opera refuses to implement H.264, citing the obscene cost of the relevant patent licenses.

* Mozilla refuses to implement H.264, as they would not be able to obtain a license that covers their downstream distributors.

* Microsoft has not commented on their intent to support

(Sorry if I’ve mischaracterised any positions above; the positions are relatively subtle and so it’s likely that I have oversimplified matters.)

I considered requiring Ogg Theora support in the spec, since we do have three implementations that are willing to implement it, but it wouldn’t help get us true interoperability, since the people who are willing to implement it are willing to do so regardless of the spec, and the people who aren’t are not going to be swayed by what the spec says.

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