Google dropping H.264 from Chrome

by Volker Weber

we are changing Chrome's HTML5 <video> support to make it consistent with the codecs already supported by the open Chromium project. Specifically, we are supporting the WebM (VP8) and Theora video codecs, and will consider adding support for other high-quality open codecs in the future. Though H.264 plays an important role in video, as our goal is to enable open innovation, support for the codec will be removed and our resources directed towards completely open codec technologies.

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2011-01-11 :: email :: twitter :: facebook :: google+

Comments

Browser war is over. We now see the Codec war ...
That's bad news for all video publishers and video consumers.

Wolfgang schmidetzki, 2011-01-12 00:32

I hope this backfires for them. I do not care about the implications for the companies, I care for the users and I would personally hope this turns out to be a mistake for Google. Can't help it, fight your stupid wars elsewhere. I want it to work, and do not care how it works - it just has to work. I would even use Flash for crying out loud.
Disclaimers apply, and YMMV.

Alexander Koch, 2011-01-12 08:37

The discrepancy between what is written and what is said is awesome on that one. Obnoxious.

Frank Quednau, 2011-01-12 09:03

Maybe you guys need some further reading on this matter.

Volker Weber, 2011-01-12 10:32

as our goal is to enable open innovation

Will they drop the bundled, proprietary, flash player as well?

Jan-Piet Mens, 2011-01-12 12:07

Simon says ...

Volker Weber, 2011-01-12 15:01

I like this. Very clever move. H.264 patent restrictions makes it too dangerous to support.

The mess with H.264 licensing

Hanno Zulla, 2011-01-12 16:01

Think built-in hardware decode support for h.264. This translates into less of a drain on mobilie device battery life, console efficiency (can a tiny device like the AppleTV , etc. Everyone is still going to need to generate h.264, so this just adds more work for the content generators. They would need to generate h.264 and WebM, or only generate h.264, serve it straight to browsers that support it, and serve it via Flash to those that don't.

Kevan Emmott, 2011-01-12 16:14

@Kevan, see this long, but German response to your argument.

Hanno Zulla, 2011-01-12 17:15

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