Apple Wary of Ogg Theora: No Agreement Yet on HTML5 Video Standard
Firefox 3.5 and Chrome already support the new video tag of the HTML5 specification. Before it can become a standard, though, more browsers makers have to agree on the codec.
The major browser vendors are having trouble agreeing on an enconding format for the new HTML<video> tag. As Ian Hickson explains in the whatwg.org mailing list, he removed the two subsections in the HTML5 spec regarding video and audio due to this nonagreement. Hickson summarizes the current situation as follows:
- Apple refuses to implement Ogg Theora in QuickTime by default in Safari, complaining of lack of hardware support and patent issues.
- Google implemented H.264 and Ogg Theora in Chrome, but can't hand off the H.264 codec license to third-party Chromium distributors from the "belief that Ogg Theora's quality-per-bit is not yet suitable for the volume handled by YouTube."
- Opera refuses to implement H.264 because of the high patent license costs.
- Mozilla is going the same route due to the costs to downstream distributors.
- Microsoft has not as yet commented on the issue.
Microsoft's noncommitment may end up making Ogg Theora the favorite for the upcoming HTML5 standard. Meanwhile, while Apple alleges having no patent claims on Ogg Theora, it fears that it may be filed against if it included the codec in QuickTime, according to an article in InfoWorld.com.
Comments
comments powered by Disqus
Issue 234/2020
Buy this issue as a PDF
News
-
KDE Developers Are Working on a TV Interface
The developers of the KDE desktop are hard at work to create a TV interface.
-
System76 Is Developing a New Keyboard
The company behind the incredibly powerful Thelio desktop is developing a new keyboard.
-
Zorin OS 15.2 Now Available
The latest release of Zorin OS offers numerous improvements.
-
Firefox to Get an Additional Sandbox Layer
Starting with Firefox 74, the open source web browser will include the new RLBox security feature.
-
Microsoft Defender ATP is Coming to Linux
Microsoft is ramping up its efforts to fight attackers across all platforms.
-
South Korean Government Considers Move to Linux Desktop
Seoul Mulls Migrating from Windows to Linux.
-
OpenSSH Now Supports FIDO/U2F Security Keys
SSH users can now add FIDO/U2F to the list of supported multi-factor authentication tools.
-
System76 Launches New AMD Threadripper Machine
System76 has added an AMD Threadripper option for their Thelio desktop lineup.
-
LibreOffice 6.4 Released
The unofficial office suite for the Linux platform has performance in mind for users.
-
Official Evernote Client Coming to Linux
The most widely-used note-taking app is coming to Linux.
XiphQT solves that problem
<a href="http://www.xiph.org/quicktime">XiphQT</a> is legally free from Xiph and adds support for Ogg/Theora/Vorbis(Speex/Flac...) to Quicktime - encoding as well as decoding, and that includes HTML5 <video> and <audio> tags, allowing Apple users to participate with the rest of us.
I'd add here (as I seem to be compelled to do everywhere this comes up) that there <em>IS</em> also a <audio> tag to go with <video>. Sure, it's not unreasonable to argue that Theora isn't quite as pretty as patent-encumbered "de-facto" video standard of H.264, the "de-facto" standard for audio right now is MP3, and Vorbis <em>IS</em> a genuine quality improvement over it.
Also, It's a heck of a lot easier for participants on the net to produce their own audio than to produce video. While news stories are busy focussing on HTML5 as "internet TV" because of the <video> tag, I'm hoping for a wealth of peer-produced audio content to start showing up.