[whatwg] The issue of interoperability of the <video> element

[Gervase Markham]

Maciej Stachowiak wrote:
> This has 
> been discussed to death already, but here are our basic reasons:
> 
> - MPEG-4 is an ISO open standard (although unfortunately 
> patent-encumbered).

No-one is telling you not to support MPEG-4.

> - H.264 offers considerably better quality at the same bitrate than 
> Theora/Vorbis.
> - H.264 is better for video delivery to limited-capability and low-power 
> devices that support hardware video decoding. You may have heard that 
> YouTube will be serving their video content as H.264 to AppleTV and iPhone.

Again, no-one is telling you not to support it.

So that leaves only the following argument _against_ supporting Ogg as 
well as other things you might want to support:

 > - Ogg Theora/Vorbis offers a royalty-free license for the few known
 > patents, but we would assume additional risk of submarine patents if
 > we supported it.

Leaving aside the merits of this final argument for a moment, it might 
save time when giving your list in future if you only mentioned this one :-)

Gerv