In the battle between Intel's Foster and AMD's Guinness, only alcohol wins
|
|
|
Google to open source VP8 video codec
SEARCH-ENGINE OUTFIT Google is planning to open source the codec that powers Youtube.
Google has controlled the VP8 codec ever since it finalized the acquisition of video codec maker On2 Technologies in February.
Apparently the cunning plan is to work with the Mozilla Foundation to support the newly open codec. The code will also find its way into the Chrome browser. It's not clear whether it will be supported in Internet Explorer or Safari, though.
Some companies are throwing support behind the open source Ogg Theora and others think that H.264 is the future of web video. While Youtube, Microsoft's Internet Explorer 9 and Apple support H.264, Mozilla has refused to support H.264 due to potential licensing issues.
By making VP8 open source Google will provide a high-quality and open alternative to H.264 and other existing codecs. When VP8 was first launched its inventors at On2 claimed it could provide "50 percent bandwidth savings compared to leading H.264 implementations."
The move has the backing of the Free Software Foundation (FSF) as a way of killing Flash and avoiding potential lock-in to patented technology.
An open-source VP8 could end concerns about H.264's licensing issues and Theora's quality. But it is not sorted out yet. Microsoft has never been quick to adopt open standards, and no one has any idea how Apple might react.
However, Google's move could be good news to Steve Jobs, who is currently campaigning to kill off Adobe's Flash and replace it with something that is more amenable to his will. His scheme has been hamstrung by the fact that HTML5 is still only half baked. And Apple, which has been the driving force behind HTML5 video and H.264 playback on the Iphone and Ipad, is about as open as Spandau Prison.
Google is not saying anything officially yet, but an announcement is expected next month. µ
Share this:
Share
Adobe is a menber of WC3 standarts too, the problem whith flash is bad coders, flash is not only adds or video is a powerfull tool for professional animation and other areas, by example Foster´s Home for Imaginary Friends was make whith flash, anyway Adobe have plenty of options to deal whith the problem, they can low prices of flash developers kit, they had already 3d cpu acceleration on the way whith CS5 and touch capabilities are also on the way, they can offer discounts for partners on video sites, they can sue apple whith patents and in the worst case scenario of vp8, h264 open canvas eating away a huge percent of his marketshare 25 percent or more they can turn flash to open source flash under a GPL, LGPL, or BSD license and submit it later to W3C and focus on sale better creation and edition tools, or make a automatic tool that converts the old flash content into html5/open canvas files.
Apple not wants flash not for the possibble security issues whith the kernel, that´s a excuse, flash has problems of course but the most of it is by human error in the programming phase or a bad security approach, all this affair is because Apple do no want anyone else in their application store that can compete head to head in revenue. Adobe and Apple both have their responsabilities in this mess.
It's VP6 (and recently H264) that powers YouTube, not VP8.
apple is a member of mpegla/they get a small portion of licensing fees
no chance they will adopt vp8 and neither will microsoft
offtopic but apple and microsoft are closer than you think
no 3 way battle
its them vs google (us : )
Death to flash!!! whoo hooo!
Go Google, adding to the Open world
More amenable to his will?
Not if he doesn't 'own' it!
I do hope this is more than just a rumour but I would imagine Adobe MS and Apple will be starting a new 'Googles not playing fair' campaign long before it is FLOSS.
surely you mean the codec that powers skype
As a developer of code knows, importing new technology is not foolproof after reading a document. It needs further ongoing advice from the maker of the technology when the developers adopting it run into a question. This is critical, and I think any company or browser wanting t adopt this tech will think or have to think about the questions that will need to be answered so there is no bugs preventing implementation, especially since bugs increase cpu and ram usage and slow the sw performance. it will all depend on how easy google makes it for developers to implement I think.