[whatwg] Codecs for <audio> and <video>

[Mike Shaver]

On Tue, Jun 30, 2009 at 12:50 AM, Ian Hickson<ian at hixie.ch> wrote:
>> Finally, what is Google/YouTube's official position on this?
>
> As I understand it, based on other posts to this mailing list in recent
> days: Google ships both H.264 and Theora support in Chrome; YouTube only
> supports H.264, and is unlikely to use Theora until the codec improves
> substantially from its current quality-per-bit.

It would be good to understand what the threshold for acceptability is
here; earlier reports on this mailing list have indicated that (on at
least the tested content) Theora can produce quality-per-bit that is
quite comparable to that of H.264 as employed by YouTube.  As one
organization investing, and invested, in the success of Theora,
Mozilla would be very glad to know so that we can help reach that
target.

Can one of the Google representatives here get a statement from
YouTube about the technical threshold here?  I think it could have
significant impact on the course of video on the web; perhaps more
than SHOULD language in HTML5 here.

I personally believe that putting codec requirements in the
specification could have significant market effects, because it would
take advantage of general market pressure for "standards compliance".
As an example, if you put it in HTML5 then you could put it in ACID4,
and the ACID tests have historically been quite influential in driving
browser implementation choices.  Theora could get the same boost
NodeIterator has seen, I daresay to greater positive impact on the
web.

Mike