Read the rest here: http://my.opera.com/haavard/blog/2010/06/04/apple-html5
This shows what steps Apple would take just to promote their browser (Safari).
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This shows what steps Apple would take just to promote their browser (Safari).
Wow, more biased articles and posts.
It is a end user demo (App and website creators). They want it to work, so they restrict it to the only browser they know will work without a doubt.
If you are a contributor to implementing html5 in a web browser, or want to test implement html 5 for other browsers, just bloody well go the W3C (http://dev.w3.org/html5/spec/Overview.html)
All the features apple is showing on their site are there, without user agent sniffing.
You seem to be promoting an agenda here...
Using any other format than H.264 would be a ridiculous move on their part. Or any browser company for that matter. The format is patented but if I recall it's free for non-commercial use, evidenced by the fact that one of the best H.264 encoder currently is x264, which is a freeware open source H.264/MPEG-4 AVC encoder.
It's also easily decode-able by open source libraries such as Libavcodec. What other format would you suggest? No other formats that are suitable for HD are currently patent free and none outperform H.264
On the other things I cannot comment, I don't really care much for Safari but people who don't know video encoding shouldn't throw around comments like "patent-encumbered H.264 for video" if they cannot list a viable alternative. I know you are not the author, so it's not directed at you but rather his statement.
It's also easily decode-able by open source libraries such as Libavcodec. What other format would you suggest? No other formats that are suitable for HD are currently patent free and none outperform H.264
On the other things I cannot comment, I don't really care much for Safari but people who don't know video encoding shouldn't throw around comments like "patent-encumbered H.264 for video" if they cannot list a viable alternative. I know you are not the author, so it's not directed at you but rather his statement.
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Theora comes to mind.
Some reading on the matter of which codec to use:
http://keyj.s2000.ws/?p=356
http://www.streaminglearningcenter.com/articles/ogg-vs-h264---round-one.html?page=1 with comment from theora creator here.
http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/05/07/2352203
@Gnome: The only HTML5 specific tags used in that demo are <audio> and <video>. Nothing special - Firefox and Chrome are supporting the OSS codecs (Ogg, etc.) as opposed to the H.264 codec (which both Microsoft and Apple have their muddy fingers in selling to the world). Besides that, they use vendor sniffing to block out the modern browsers. That's bad marketing, and it's coming back to bite them already. Check the blogosphere on this story.
Where to start.
Let's start with your links:
The guy admits that he is disappointed by Theora, it was annihilated by x264.
I only went through it quickly but the guy uses Sorenson Squeeze, not even on the map in terms of H.264, at least use a decent encoder like x264. Even then Theora still lost, LOL, Theora has no future.
This article talks about the Peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR), those values are of little relevance in reality, it's something used by the people working on encoders. You can easily tweak a encoder for a brilliant PSNR, that doesn't mean it'll look good (in fact it won't look good at all). Do your research, PSNR is not a quality measure. EDIT: I see even the author on /. says the same thing. Regardless x264 added an option recently to drastically improve the PSNR, decreases image quality tho (as if there aren't enough independent research and information that proves PSNR is a useless measure for quality).
This is probably the most respected video encoder shootout, extensive information on the methodology and extensive testing:
http://compression.ru/video/codec_comparison/h264_2010
Notice how Theora is even obliterated by MPEG-4 ASP (in that case XVid), came dead last in the comparison, x264 and MainConcept tied in first place. Once again, x264 is open source and freeware. It's is arguable the best H.264 encoder around and you don't have to pay to use it. Libavcodec decodes H.264 and it's freeware and open source, there are other freeware open source decoders also. Remind me why H.264 is bad again? Standard and patents are only a problem if you actually have to pay a fee. As I said, so far as I know it's free so long as the software is free.
Theora isn't widely adopted, in fact the opposite, and it never will be because no mayor companies are pushing it. You have to have the right company to back a product. H.264 is supported widely in both hardware and software, Theora, has 1 or 2 codecs that support it.
Microsoft uses VC-1, Apple uses MPEG-4 AVC (AKA. H.264), not the same thing, not even close. VC-1 is the only real competitor in terms of image quality to H.264 and there are no open source solutions and I doubt there ever will be, knowing MS.
As I said I have no comments on the HTML part, I was simply commenting on the video codec, I don't care for Apple or MS and what they think they'll impose in terms of the HTML 5 specification, I'm simply pointing out the facts regarding video encoding. I've been heavily involved in video coding and I can confidently state that the best choice is H.264, VC-1 is too proprietary and Theora has a plethora of problems.
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I responded to the part in bold. I didn't say theora was the perfect fit. It does HD, and is patent free. Thats it.
Point taken regarding the video. I state what I've read, which is as always subject to correction (and one of the reasons I love forums). However I maintain that Apple is being cheeky to the point of arrogance with this page, which not only uses only the two previously mentioned HTML5 tags, but disallows any other standards-based HTML5-capable browser. Not much of a demo at all. Besides, what many people don't realise is that a lot of what we call HTML5 is actually CSS3...
Gnome, have you read this: http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/roc/archives/2010/01/video_freedom_a.html? Nice little blog on why Firefox isn't using H.264...
(The comments make for even more interesting reading, as usual 
)EDIT: BTW, here's Microsoft's HTML5/CSS3 demos - and any browser can render it... http://ie.microsoft.com/testdrive/
EDIT: Oh, and here is Mozilla doing the same thing.
http://hacks.mozilla.org/category/demo/featured-demo/
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Gnome, have you read this: http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/roc/archives/2010/01/video_freedom_a.html? Nice little blog on why Firefox isn't using H.264...
Very interesting, so x264 avoids licensing because of region? I doubt other vendors would switch over to Theora tho. The author states he doesn't want to OS to deal with the decoding issue but I honestly think that is the best option, it's not ideal but it's a compromise between paying a license fee and attempting to sway all other browsers to use Theora. Unfortunately for them what IE does will probably become the standard, add into that Safari (which is pretty much what all Mac OSX users use).