Google's video play – H.264 versus WebM
It may not have the funkiest name but H.264 is now big news. Google recently stirred up a whole lot of trouble by announcing that it was planning on axing this proprietary video format from its Chrome browser. In its place Google is betting on its own WebM technology.
It’s a significant move by Google and one that has drawn stark lines between supporters of H.264 and its opponents.
Google says on its own blog that the proprietary H.264 codec “stifles innovation.” Backers of the H.264 standard, which include the likes of Apple and Microsoft, argue that H.264 is ultimately a better quality tool for the job of online video.
There are a number of issues at stake here, and it’s not a simple case of Google throwing its weight around.
The first issue is that H.264, guided by the MPEG-LA group, is a proprietary format, for which licensing fees must be paid. The MPEG-LA has said that fees will be waived for a period of time but ultimately there is the constant threat of owed fees hanging over users heads.
For Google, however, the licensing fees are negligible. That, the company says, is not the issue. From the Google perspective, the real issue at stake is that a proprietary format slows down innovation. Perhaps not for Google or other large corporations who can afford to pay for using H.264, but certainly for small development houses or the single entrepreneur. That is where H.264’s proprietary nature could hurt the most.
On the other hand, H.264 supporters are generally correct that the format is superior in quality to WebM, at least for now. As a result it is widely used by developers and hardware makers and in some ways it is the default standard at this time, thanks to all the iPhones, iPad and iPods that rely on the format to play video. The reason that Apple uses H.264 for video is because its has made a decision to not support Adobe’s Flash.
This battle is unlikely to be won on quality alone. No matter how good H.264 is, it is not going to succeed in a Google world. Google’s big ace in the video wars is YouTube. If Google decides to only support WebM on YouTube then the war is effectively over, no matter what Apple and other H.264 supporters wish for.
Of course Google’s announcement only indicates that it will drop H.264 support from the new HTML5 video tag in Chrome. This means that users will still be able to view H.264 video in their browser using alternative methods. However, by removing H.264 support for the tag Google is effectively dividing the Web.
Developers using video on their websites may have to cater for both H.264 and WebM capable browsers when using the tag. This is not something most web developers will want to do and one possible result will be that they move away from either of these formats back to something such a Flash. That way they will be able to use only H.264 and embed that in Flash for non-H.264 capable browsers.
If this happens, it will be a large step backwards for the Web which is on the brink of a new generation of web applications thanks to HTML5 and features such as the new HTML5 video tag.
Google’s video play – H.264 versus WebM << Comments and views
Loading ...