All Things Microsoft > Microsoft as a Company

Internet Explorer 9 and Ogg Theora

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piratePenguin:

--- Quote from: piratePenguin on  3 May 2010, 00:50 ---Btw, xiph make an active effort to ensure details do not violate MPEG/etc patents last time i check (just as MPEG ensures they patent every detail)

--- End quote ---
This is indeed certainly true, and according to Google, they have been sucessful in creating a PATENT FREE CODEC. (~according to google~)

Please read: http://www.osnews.com/story/23135/Google_Puts_Weight_Behind_Theora_on_Mobile

piratePenguin:

--- Quote from: worker201 on  3 May 2010, 04:05 ---I read somewhere recently that h264 can actually be decoded by hardware, whereas ogg/theora has to be decoded by software.  On a desktop computer, that means fuck all.  But on a mobile platform, that's important.  Supposedly, mobile phone battery life doubles when all decoding is done on a chip, as opposed to an OS process that eats RAM.  I don't think it's necessarily a good thing for mobile technology to control the direction of the industry - I just wanted to point out that there might be other factors involved besides openness.

--- End quote ---
Mobile devices will certainly shape the direction of this decision. I don't know anybody else in college who uses a desktop computer like I'm currently using anymore. Everybody has laptops. And in the future everyone will use their phones for video at least some of the time. Maybe the majority of youtube video will be viewed on mobile devices in 5 years? And then you'll look back and laugh at this comment :)

Google currently uses h264 on its html5 youtube video site. It also has purchased a company (on2) that owns a video codec that competes with or beats h264, but nobody knows what they're gonna do with it. (maybe there's licensing issues with making it all open, I've no idea)

When google created their suggestion box site for youtube, the number 1 request was OPEN VIDEO, not just html5 video. I think ultimately this decision (for the web) can come down to Google -- and they will happily do the opposite to Microsoft, and probably win in my opinion. So I think it's really important that google bails the web out (its a shame to say that thats what I think we need). But their decision will ultimately be about business - and that includes maintaining a good image. I don't think pushing h264 out to everyone is the best way to maintain that - and I think that option scares them a little bit too. So supporting theora, I hope this is an indication of whats to come.

Aloone_Jonez:
Don't most modern motherboards have an on-board codec anyway?

I know I've seen them on many motherboards before.

If the OS uses the hardware codec on the motherboard then there shouldn't be any patent issues as the licence has been paid for when you buy the hardware, not the OS.

Kintaro:

--- Quote from: Aloone_Jonez on  3 May 2010, 10:36 ---Don't most modern motherboards have an on-board codec anyway?

I know I've seen them on many motherboards before.

If the OS uses the hardware codec on the motherboard then there shouldn't be any patent issues as the licence has been paid for when you buy the hardware, not the OS.

--- End quote ---

I think you mean the GPU for the onboard graphics that poor people use. The GPU has instructions and I assume firmware for a lot of codecs, but the instructions are there for just about anything. I don't know what kind of DRM ATI/nVidia use or if any Joe can write code for the GPUs though. I've heard the GPU can be used as a badass cryptoprocessor among things.

Web Developers don't run IE9 anyway, they all circlejerk around Firefox or wisely run Opera. Without Ballmer's precious developers I think Microsoft will be at the whims of Firefox/Opera users for years to come in terms of standards specification.

Lead Head:
Both ATI and nVidia have development kits to write "GPGPU" compatible code. Many modern codecs and video players support GPU acceleration. Really you can build a hardware accelerator for just about anything, you just need the code to do it. With huge formats like H.264, the manpower/want is there to write said code, not so much with Ogg Theora.

Its quite a piss off that Google/Youtube is bent on using H.264 for their HTML5 video players. I'm guessing this is a big part of MS's decision to support H.264. It doesn't appear that Firefox or any other open source browser will be shipping with H.264 codecs anytime soon.

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