OSNEWS: Google Hints at HTML5 Video Version of YouTube

Mozilla Explains Why it Doesn't License h264
This week, both YouTube and Vimeo opened up beta offerings using HTML5 video instead of Flash to bring video content to users. Both of them chose to use the h264 codec, which meant that only Safari and Chrome can play these videos, since firefox doesn't license the h264 codec. Mike Shaver, Mozilla's vice president of engineering, explained on his blog why Mozilla doesn't license the h264 codec.
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Mozilla has a number of clear and well-argued reasons for not buying the license. First, it's very limited. Google, for instance, paid for a license that transfers to users of Chrome, but if you build Chrome from source yourself or extend the browser, the license does not apply. What's even worse is that the license would not carry over towards, for instance, Linux distributors - not acceptable, of course, for Firefox.
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If you don't push sites to use HTML5, they most likely won't. By not supporting flash on iphone & ipad, Apple's creating a big incentive to drop Flash.
 
Adobe is in a battle for developers, who buy its Creative Suite software to make Flash apps. As long as Flash is the de facto standard for video and animation on the Web, those sales will not be threatened. But if Flash developers migrate to other technologies to build better apps for the Web and mobile devices such as the iPhone and iPad, Adobe's competitive position will be weakened. It will defend Flash to the death.
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/02/AR2010020201812.html
 
H.264 video codec stays royalty-free for HTML5 testers

Meanwhile, Mozilla endorses the open and licence-free Ogg Theora codec and has no intention of folding H.264 into its Firefox browser anytime soon, despite MPEG LA’s appeasing five-year agreement to keep its patent royalty-free.

“Regarding that MPEG-LA announce: it's good they did it, but they sort of had to. But it's like five more years of free to lock you in 4ever,” claimed Mozilla CEO John Lilly yesterday.
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Well, so I installed chromium on a linux machine and tried to use the HTML5 version of youtube . . . & since I'm posting this you can guess that it failed to play. Good job, Google dot com, your technology is the best. You can now change your slogan from "Don't be evil" to "Don't be worth the time it would take to reprocess your stock certificates into low-grade bathroom tissue".
 
The current beta of Opera (10.5x) is using Gstreamer as its video back-end and, while they're only officially supporting the ogg theora standard, it's supposed to work with H264 video (including youtube's HTML5 beta) and anything else as part of your Gstreamer framework on linux and FreeBSD. Ironically, the latter won't work on their windows and mac builds.

Some people have reported success in several linux distributions, though I can't for the life of me get the youtube HTML5 beta to work on the latest build for FreeBSD. It shows a functioning video player, but hangs on a spinning "HTML5" logo. I'll have another go at it later and report back my findings.
 
atomicplayboy said:
Some people have reported success in several linux distributions, though I can't for the life of me get the youtube HTML5 beta to work on the latest build for FreeBSD. It shows a functioning video player, but hangs on a spinning "HTML5" logo. I'll have another go at it later and report back my findings.
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Same problem here with both chromium and opera 10.51, 8.0-STABLE amd64.
 
Steve Jobs: A patent pool is being assembled to go after Theora and other "open source" codecs now.
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http://hugoroy.eu/jobs-os.php

http://www.osnews.com/story/23233/Jobs_Patent_Pool_Being_Assembled_To_Go_After_Theora

Maybe eventually Jobs'll say that *BSD is infringing on their software. Devils better start to modify codes to work around any potential patent hold by Apple~ :p

Update: Xiph.Org Foundation Responds To Steve Jobs’ Threat:
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=10/04/30/237238
If Jobs's email is genuine, this is a powerful public gaffe ('All video codecs are covered by patents.') He'd be confirming MPEG's assertion in plain language anyone can understand. It would only strengthen the pushback against software patents and add to Apple's increasing PR mess. Macbooks and iPads may be pretty sweet, but creative individuals don't really like to give their business to jackbooted thugs
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>Macbooks and iPads may be pretty sweet, but creative individuals don't really like to give their business to jackbooted thugs

I second that :D
 
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