Comments on: Debating Ogg Theora and H.264

By: Firefox, HTML5 und h.26| virtualpixel.de

Firefox, HTML5 und h.26| virtualpixel.de — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 07:21:35 +0000

[...] Debating Ogg Theora and H.264 [...]

By: iPad, Flash, HTML 5 and Standards « ArchivePress + APrints

iPad, Flash, HTML 5 and Standards « ArchivePress + APrints — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 23:10:50 +0000

[...] the answer to the licensing complexities of H.264 is simple – make use of Ogg instead? Robert Accettura has given his interpretations of the reasons why Apple and Google appear to be willing to support [...]

By: Ryan

Ryan — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 23:43:18 +0000

I don’t see why people don’t support open formats. You have to take into account that most Linux distros are bundling Firefox with their OS. Of course, they’re probably smart enough to get others, but there’s a large user base there that wants and expects an open-source solution. There’s no need to pay someone to support a format.

Unfortunately, I don’t think there will be enough of a push for an open format to derail h.264. Unless IE officially supports it, of course.

By: Ysean

Ysean — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 00:55:03 +0000

I guess people don’t remember the Unisys snafu about a decade and a half ago. (For those of you too new to the net and/or computers to have a reason to recall this, Unisys owned patents related to the GIF file format. After effectively saying “here, use our image format” later “brains” to be decided to go after those using the file format. I remember a number of BBS and major online services getting letter.)

By: A. James Lewis (netlore) 's status on Wednesday, 08-Jul-09 08:37:10 UTC - Identi.ca

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 08:37:20 +0000

[...] http://robert.accettura.com/bl.....and-h-264/ [...]

By: Robert

Robert — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 14:58:28 +0000

@Jon Smirl: You are correct though I believe there is a distinction between H.264 hardware acceleration and H.264 hardware decoding, the difference being the amount of work offset to hardware.

PowerVR I believe has a stronger hold on mobile than other fields, mainly thanks to PowerVR VXD and it’s use in some high profile phones.

Set top boxes and appliances can range from Broadcom to Conexant, STMicroelectronics, Sigma Designs, and TI. These are also important for Theora to take off for the same reasons that mobile is important. Eventually an Apple TV like box will take off. Theora being on that is important for all the same reasons.

By: Jon Smirl

Jon Smirl — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 14:16:35 +0000

The H.264 hardware is not really H.264 specific. It implements pieces of the decoder like DCT. These hardware assist modules are combined with software to make a H.264 decoder. Of course the documentation for all of the video decoding hardware is secret. You need access to this documentation and then you need to see if these hardware assist components can also be used in Theora. Theora is DCT based so I suspect the answer is yes.

The PowerVR people are the source of a lot of the H.264 decode hardware and they are totally closed source.

By: Robert

Robert — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 13:30:56 +0000

@Alexander Limi: I can simply offer Flash, then it works for everyone including 300 million Firefox users. It saves me the need to build out and maintain an encoder farm and storage for Theora. IMHO that doesn’t do anything to encourage Theora adoption.

@Asa: From what I’ve seen of documentation on various chipsets most aren’t programmable by the implementer as @Olly Hodgson notes. Many seem non-programmable at all. H.264 chipsets are designed to be low cost and low power. Thanks to BlueRay and the other tech using H.264… these chips are already pretty cheap.

I suspect the QUALCOMM MSM7200 used in the G1 could be programmable, but it hasn’t exactly proven itself in power consumption either. In fact that’s generally considered to be the only major flaw in an otherwise fine phone.

Generally programmable chipsets like the Intel GMA 950 (graphics, but kinda similar) are used for more broad tasks at the expense of cost and power efficiency. Apple preferred the Intel GMA due to it’s low cost and that it was programmable allowing them to customize it for their graphics needs.

@Ian M: I was thinking something more native than Java… whose performance I think sucks. I still like what Wikipedia is doing though, but I don’t think the delay for loading Java is acceptable when the rest of video on the web is nearly instant playback.

By: voracity

voracity — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 12:41:33 +0000

That explains why there’s no baseline codec for video. A more interesting question is why there is no baseline codec for audio?

By: Ian M

Ian M — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 12:11:43 +0000

Theora video can definitely be handled via plugin – that’s how Wikipedia is doing it (via Java).