A+ Ajax

The WebM project is dedicated to developing a high-quality, open video format for the web that is freely available to everyone.

The WebM launch is supported by Mozilla, Opera, Google and more than forty other publishers, software and hardware vendors.

WebM is an open, royalty-free, media file format designed for the web.

WebM defines the file container structure, video and audio formats. WebM files consist of video streams compressed with the VP8 video codec and audio streams compressed with the Vorbis audio codec. The WebM file structure is based on the Matroska container.

It happened. Today, Google is up on stage at I/O unveiling a new WebM project alongside a slew of partners (notably: Mozilla and Opera on the browser side) that gets the On2 codec out into the open. This is huge news for the fight for Open Video, and everyone will now have eyes on Safari and IE. Microsoft posted a month back about their stance, probably to get it out before this announcement. If folks don’t support this….. it is weak.

YouTube will be a huge push here, and you can go to their html5 version: http://www.youtube.com/html5 and check it out. Today it is available in trunk builds on Chromium and Firefox. Soon, an Opera beta, Chrome dev release, and more.

The project is going after:

• Openness and innovation. A key factor in the web’s success is
  that its core technologies such as HTML, HTTP, and TCP/IP are open
  for anyone to implement and improve. With video being core to the
  web experience, a high-quality, open video format choice is needed.
  WebM is 100% free, and open-sourced under a
  BSD-style license.

• Optimized for the web. Serving video on the web is different
  from traditional broadcast and offline mediums. Existing video
  formats were designed to serve the needs of these mediums and do
  it very well. WebM is focused on addressing the unique needs of
  serving video on the web.

  • Low computational footprint to enable playback on any device,
    including low-power netbooks, handhelds, tablets, etc.*

  • Simple container format

  • Highest quality real-time video delivery

  • Click and encode. Minimal codec profiles, sub-options; when
    possible, let the encoder make the tough choices.

* Note: The initial developer preview releases of browsers supporting WebM are not yet fully optimized and therefore have a higher computational footprint for screen rendering than we expect for the general releases. The computational efficiencies of WebM are more accurately measured today using the development tools in the VP8 SDKs. Optimizations of the browser implementations are forthcoming.

Congrats Open Web.

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There was a big cheer at last years Google I/O when Google Wave was demoed. It made a great demo and really showed that the Web can do a looooot more than we think.

It sounds like we will have another big cheer moment for this years Google I/O though, and it will won’t be for a demo, but for something more meaningful.

It appears that Google will open source VP8, the On2 codec at the event. Video has been painful for the Open Web crew. Many bash Theora on the grounds of quality, and then others hit back saying that it is hog-wash. H.264 has been taken up almost ubiquitously, with Mozilla holding out on religious grounds (which has created a groundswell around that decision too). The folks who make money on H.264 extended our puff on the pipe, but wouldn’t it be nice for the Open Web to have a true open video alternative?

That is what folks like the FSF begged Google for when the On2 acquisition was happening. Now we may have our wish.

This doesn’t mean that all is well. Having a codec is one thing, but getting it out there and implemented is another. Chrome and Mozilla may support it out of the gate, but what about Apple and Microsoft? At the very least though, having a truly viable open codec allows us to hold the H.264 folks feet to the fire.

Google also recently funded open video work on ARM that does use Theora. I am looking forward to IO!

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Sometimes you need to compromise, but at others you need to lead and take a stance. Our politicians do far too much via polls, and I often find myself wishing for more leadership. I could start talking about Obama and the healthcare issue in the US….. but this is a technical blog so I won’t put you through that.

Robert O’Callahan (moz layout guru) shares why he thinks Mozilla should stand firm on the H.264 issue comparing it to the ActiveX issue from the past.

With Chrome and Safari supporting H.264 (and not open video formats such as Ogg Theora) some users and developers have asked for Mozilla to support it too in Firefox. Mozilla is certainly a user-centric group (which is how they have gotten so far with Firefox) but remember that they are mission based: to keep the Internet open.

Here is some of RoCs opinion. I am glad he shared it:

Taking such positions is nothing new for Mozilla and history has proved us right for doing so, in particular regarding ActiveX and Web standards in general.

Perhaps it’s not widely known, but Gecko has had code to support hosting ActiveX controls, dating back as far as 1999. ActiveX controls are very much like system video codecs. ActiveX support would have been very useful to users ever since 1999, and still would be now — certainly in corporate intranets, and everywhere in China and South Korea. Enabling ActiveX support would probably boost our market share significantly. Most users have useful ActiveX controls on their machines. But for the last ten years, even during Mozilla’s most desperate days, we have consistently refused to turn this feature on, because we believe that ActiveX is not good for the Web.

I’m not suggesting that the consequences of exposing system codecs to the Web would be identical to exposing ActiveX. That’s unlikely, and unknowable. But favouring our principles over short-term gains for users is nothing new for Mozilla, and when we’ve done it in the past, history shows it was the right thing to do.

Chris Blizzard has a very detailed perspective too, linking up the history of GIF, MP3, and On2 :)

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