[whatwg] H.264-in-<video> vs plugin APIs

[Maik Merten]

Frank Hellenkamp wrote:
> Well, the thing is (perhabs unfortunately because of patents and
> liscensing) that you can use h264 with the video tag (in safari and
> chrome), but at the same time you can send the same video to every old
> browser with the flash player 9 or 10, because it also supports h264,
> which means IE 6/7/8, old Safari, Firefox, Opera etc.
> 
> And there is the iPhone and Android.

I think nobody seriously proposes YouTube should stop providing H.264
versions :-)

> With Theora, you cannot do this.

Theora, however, can reach the majority of browsers implementing <video>
out-of-the-box while H.264 can't (for both exist solutions building on
widespread plugins - Flash for H.264 and Java for Theora). If Google
sees any value in making video a first-class citizen in an open web (and
I have no doubt in that) it may make sense to *additionally* provide
versions in Theora so they can benefit from HTML5-media features they
helped define.

> All in all it looks like, it's very hard to beat h246 at the moment.

Well, depending on circumstances one can also say "it's very hard to use
H.264" ;-)


bye,

Maik