Miscellaneous > The Lounge

Why the BS from Mozilla about HTML5 codecs?

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davidnix71:
I visited a site about ITER, the European project to build a commercial fusion reactor. They gave me a flash video but there was a link for an HTML5 video. It wouldn't play. The message was that Firefox 3.6 doesn't support HTML5, which is a lie.

I can't play Flash out of the box in Firefox either, since that is proprietary codec. It requires a plugin. The H.264 codec the ITER site used inside the HTML5 wrapper is also proprietary. I can't play a lot of things in my browser without plugins. In Firefox in OS X I can't even play a plain mp4 file in my browser without a plugin that interferes with Quicktime's plugin.

I don't see Mozilla being able to include non-free codecs, but why is that a problem exactly. It's the same old same old. The only straight forward way around this is to make and release a free video codec that is HTML5 compatible.

piratePenguin:
Firefox and Opera support Ogg and WebM web video. Those two browsers are together in fighting for a patent-unencumbered web - they refuse to use h264.

What you need to read is here and here.

The second article is particularly interesting - Firefox are being stubborn now as Mozilla was at the turn of the millennium, when they turned off their working ActiveX implementation forever, despite pressure from users.

For the record, currently there is a patent moratorium on h264 used as web video issued by MPEG-LA that was supposed to end in 2011 and now is ending in 2015. Why do you think they would have a patent moratorium on h264 for the web? Because that moratorium doesn't last forever - if it did I'd expect Firefox to support h264. Their decision is about protecting the principles of the web.

Just for interests sake Firefox, being distributed to what 500 million people? would have to cough up an order of hundreds of millions if MPEG-LA were charging them. (of course there's the obvious option of using OS codecs and not paying that money, but that's the type of money that's collected for h264 patent licenses)

Also for interests sake by far and away the best codecs for h264, and a lot of video formats, are developed as free software. x264 is possibly one of the most expert talented groups of free software coders around.

But Mozilla and Opera do not believe that a patent-encumbered video format has a place on the web. If you treat the web with the smallest bit of regard for it's principles, you'd be behind them.

bedouin:

--- Quote from: piratePenguin ---irefox are being stubborn now as Mozilla was at the turn of the millennium, when they turned off their working ActiveX implementation forever, despite pressure from users.
--- End quote ---

Argh, that God that's dead. 

davidnix71:
I do support them on this, but I read somewhere that even Theora wasn't safe from patent suits.  Maybe the EU needs to grow a pair and tell the US to shove it way up there permanently and just use what works. If the US becomes a patent island people here won't be able to make money on them and things will change.

I really don't expect content producers to go along with this anywhere. The whole point of proprietary codecs is to 'protect' content from leeching, even though that doesn't work well. I don't like Flash, but at least there is a Linux version, so in theory anyone can watch a video online if it's in that format.

piratePenguin:
The whole point of MPEGs existence is to provide protection for the companies that own any patent related to the video codecs they support (including MS, Apple - the developers of IE and Safari obviously), and also to collect money from royalties and distribute that money appropriately. There are many other companies involved, and they intend to make money - not limited to royalties for hardware implementations - if that was the case it would NEED to be made clear.

Indeed, the fact that fulfilling this purpose is difficult for this group (finding relevant patent holders and making sure they're not outside the group) is a tribute to the fact that these video codecs are a patent minefield.

HOWEVER last I checked (long time ago) Theora and WebM are safe from patent suits - by this I mean nobody has filed a suit against them. This does not mean threats haven't been made, i.e. FUD spread.

Unfortunately this FUD tends to be effective (extremely), to the point that I think there needs to be laws against it. But of course it's a patent system, and it suits big business to the ground, so why would America ever change it.

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