• Google Drops H.264 in Chrome; What Does it Mean?

    Google Drops H.264 in Chrome; What Does it Mean?

    Prasad Naik, Jan 17, 2011 1707 hrs IST

    It could have some serious implications

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You must have read recently that Google is dropping support for H.264 codec in their web browser Chrome. While initially this might not seem like a big deal it could have some serious implication, whether or not you use Chrome. If you have no idea what we are talking about, read on to find out.

What Google did?

Google said they wanted to enable open innovation, and therefore are dropping support for the proprietary H.264 video codec from Chrome and going with the open source WebM (VP8) and Theora formats. This means that in future, when browsers are supposed to play HTML5 videos without the need of proprietary codecs, Chrome will not be able to play videos encoded with H.264.

They also said they were doing this because they wanted to have a common format that everyone used. Since Mozilla and Opera don't support H.264 - as they don't want to pay the licensing fee - they felt it was better to go with the open source WebM instead of the proprietary H.264. Everyone who doesn't use it currently (read: Microsoft and Apple) can adopt it for free and everyone will support a common format and everything will be hunky dory. If only that was true.

What this means?

Even though Google has dropped support for H.264, all the millions of H.264 videos won't disappear overnight (H.264 is the most widely used codec on the Internet for streaming videos). This means that when a Chrome user encounters an HTML5 video encoded in H.264 in future, which he will, he will be forced to watch it through the Flash player.

On the other hand, if every video publisher on the Internet decides to go with Google, they will have to encode all their videos twice, once in H.264 and the other in WebM, something that they won't be willing to do.

Why this sucks?

WebM is technically an inferior format compared to H.264. Also, unlike H.264, WebM is not hardware accelerated on most devices. WebM is also very new and hence hardly used at all. Instead of sticking to a popular format and then convincing Mozilla and Opera to adopt it, Google went the wrong way. It picked a relatively new format that no one uses and is now trying to convince everyone to adopt it.

Google may not have a market share as high as Microsoft's Internet Explorer to make every video publisher to immediately start converting their videos in WebM. However, they do own YouTube, which houses a massive percentage of the Internet's videos. Tomorrow, if they will start serving HTML5 video on YouTube only in WebM format, and if your browser does not support WebM, then you will have to use Adobe's Flash player plugin to playback the H.264 version (if it is still available). This defeats the whole purpose of having the HTML5 video tag, which was supposed to enable users to watch videos without having to rely on plugins.

Apple and Microsoft currently don't support WebM and it seems doubtful that they ever will. What this means is that if you have to watch a YouTube video on, say, an iPhone in future, then you are out of luck. The iPhone supports HTML5 videos in H.264 and has no support for either WebM or Flash player. This means you will neither be able to watch the video in WebM format directly, nor the H.264 version through a Flash player.

Google said they will be releasing a plugin to enable WebM playback on the Internet Explorer and Safari, which again makes no sense. Why do they keep forgetting that the point of HTML5 video was to get rid of the damn plugins?

Once Google drops support for H.264 from HTML5 video on YouTube, users will have to rely on Flash to watch these videos. Now I'm sure everyone knows how much Flash sucks and one of the best things Apple has done in their lifetime was to try and drive people away from Flash and promote native HTML5 video playback within the browser. But now Google is again making people go back to relying on Flash so that they can continue to watch online videos.

How is Google being an ass?

Google claimed that they wanted to adopt the WebM format because they wanted to go open source. Yet, they also ship Chrome with Adobe's Flash plugin, which is the complete opposite of open source. How can a company claim to support open source when they are shipping software with proprietary plugins?

Google's move to drop H.264 also reeks of malice and is a way to get back at Apple. Apple's devices currently support only H.264 codec for video playback on the web. If tomorrow Google drops the support for this codec on the biggest video sharing website on the Internet, they will effectively block Apple's devices from accessing YouTube. If Apple ever has to enable YouTube support on their devices they will have to change their stance on either WebM or Flash, which means accepting defeat to either Google or Adobe.

Google's was the only browser that supported both H.264 and WebM, and the users of Chrome would have never had to bother what video they were watching since their browser was compatible with either format. But now Chrome users would have to shift to using the built-in Flash plugin and live with its idiosyncrasies every time they encounter a H.264 encoded video.

We also can't help but think Adobe has a hand in this. Think about it. If HTML5 video becomes the norm, which it eventually will, people will have no reason to continue to use Adobe's Flash player. Apple was the major player who promoted HTML5 video and the first one to drop Flash support completely on their mobile devices. But now thanks to Google's move, not only will people have to continue to rely on Flash players in future if they want to watch H.264 encoded videos (which won't disappear overnight) but Apple also would be in fix and would have to consider getting Flash on their devices. Although we believe if it comes to that, Apple would rather choose WebM over Flash.

I think Google isn't really promoting the open source community but rather Flash. Just because Google is going WebM doesn't mean every other video publisher will drop H.264 and adopt WebM. This means users will forever be stuck using Flash player for watching videos. What Google (and Mozilla and Opera) needs to understand is that by promoting esoteric formats such as WebM for HTML5 video will only stifle its growth while making people depend on proprietary plugins such as Adobe Flash.

We would love to hear your opinion on the matter. Do leave a comment below. Do you agree with what Google has done? Or do you feel that dropping H.264 was a bad idea? How do you like the idea of having to use Flash all the time for watching online videos? And if you own an iOS device, how would you feel if tomorrow you don't get access to YouTube videos? Let us know in the comments or on the poll on the right.


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Discussion Board
(21) Comments
jason
,toronto, on Jan 17, 2011 11:37 PM
Some of these comments are a bit crazy...Flash is NOT open source. H.264 was created by standard body of a large number of tech companies - this doesn't make it open source either but unlike WebM it was created solely for the purpose of selling by one individual company On2 and then acquired by Google. Google is promoting their own format. Period. Which is completely fine for a company to do....but please don't fool yourself. They are doing it for the good of Google NOT open source. And again - for those who seem not to know. Flash plugin is FREE but NOT open source
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Ravi
,Delhi, on Jan 19, 2011 05:42 PM
no one said Flash and H.264 are open source, they said proprietary means someone owns the rights for it, they said if someone wants to play H.264 videos then the Flash Player is there which is available for Free.
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Neutral
,Pune, on Jan 18, 2011 02:57 PM
What a rubbish article written just to spread Hatered... Prasad "grow up" I agree to others who say "This is not your personal blog prasad."
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Bh@tt!
,Pune, on Jan 18, 2011 12:32 PM
@prasad : please stop posting such useless, non-sense articles, u dont have to post such incomplete, and so to say 'controversial' articles so that people visit techtree and increase the traffic by discussing over your dumb comments/views . This is not ur personal blog so please stop posting such kinda useless articles here. I visit techtree daily, and seeing such kinda articles just makes me sad, in my view you shouldnt be allowed to post any articles.
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Ritesh
,Delhi, on Jan 18, 2011 09:56 AM
People always find a way to get around these things.. somebody cracked the PS3 remember?
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Chris Sanders
,NY, on Jan 18, 2011 09:04 AM
Javascript is object oriented just not the object oriented you are used to with traditional programming languages. Javascript is actually more aspect oriented if you want to get technical. Flash and Action Script are not open. Adobe and Adobe alone sets the standards for Action Script and Flash. This is just like Google and Google alone setting the standards for VP8 video codec. While I agree with Google in spirit. I can't get around the fact that they are peddling technologically inferior video codecs. That's a deal breaker for me. If they make VP8 or VP10 technologically superior to h.264 and h.265 then I will agree with them until then..... ummmm not so much.
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Chris Sanders
,NY, on Jan 18, 2011 09:02 AM
Javascript is object oriented just not the object oriented you are used to with traditional programming languages. Javascript is actually more aspect oriented if you want to get technical. Flash and Action Script are not open. Adobe and Adobe alone sets the standards for Action Script and Flash. This is just like Google and Google alone setting the standards for video. While I agree with Google in spirit. I can't get around the fact that they are peddling technologically inferior video codecs. That's a deal breaker for me. If they make VP8 or VP10 technologically superior to h.264 and h.265 then I will agree with them until then..... ummmm not so much.
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bob
,Upland, on Jan 18, 2011 07:19 AM
This article should be title, confusion confusion and confusion. Too many things are incorrect.
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Paul
,Shreveport, on Jan 18, 2011 07:07 AM
Not sure I even care. I only use Google for a 'search engine'. Don't trust them or Facebook anymore.
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Ankur Jain
,London, on Jan 18, 2011 05:52 AM
i really think now that Google is trying to use their dominance in online video market. Idea behind HTML5 video tag is really very good. Google should not drop support for H.264 video codecs.
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jim denson
,nyc, on Jan 18, 2011 05:11 AM
quite a narrow minded article. sure flash is not open source rather open platform, except disabled on iPhone/iPad for political reasons. this article profiles flash as just a video plugin. leads me to believe the author never learned the power actionScript.
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aardmaat
,Heeze, on Jan 18, 2011 12:49 AM
personally I think it is great that Google dropped the h.264 codec because: 1) companies like microsoft and apple shouldn't get money from everyday videos beceause the internet is for everyone, and not just the people that want to pay microsoft 2) h.264 is still supported by flash, and since we've done with flash for years now, we can still go on with it 3) web developers had to use multiple codecs any way since firefox and opera together have a large market share, so if you want anyone to see your video's you can't just simply chose one of the to formats. if you don't count google chrome 8, most people who where able to see html5 video couldn't see h.264 anyway, since ie9 is still small and so is safari compared to ff and opera together. it's good google doesn't support a monopoly on internet videos from mpeg-la long live the free internet!
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Van Helsing
,Eath, on Jan 17, 2011 11:05 PM
Mozilla ROCKS !
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OO7
,dli, on Jan 17, 2011 11:34 PM
magguu... ;)
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manoj
,kolkata, on Jan 17, 2011 11:01 PM
Some of the stuff Prasad writes does not make any sense. Rather It shows his shallow knowledge of the subject that he tries to write on. For instance, here he is saying " now Chrome users would have to shift to using the built-in Flash plugin..." Mr Prasad, In Chrome, people do not choose to shift to Flash. It is automatic. there is no way of controling the plugin in Chrome. Besides, why should Google pay the royalty when they can continue support for H.264 via Flash. Will Tech tree pay the royaty fees? By the way, Google is using Adobe Flash because it suits their requirements and most importantly it comes free of cost unlike H.264.
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mark
,Baltimore, on Jan 17, 2011 10:46 PM
There are so many things wrong with this article that I don't know where to begin. In fact next time do some more research about what is going on rather than generating this ignorant article.
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Ken Fox
,Ann Arbor, on Jan 17, 2011 10:43 PM
Patents and closed source are not the same thing--I can happily ignore Flash, but not patents. If HTML5 launches with official support for an unencumbered video format I will be very happy. You have no idea how much it sucks to work on an Open Source project and not be able to use it because of patents. With H.264 code in Chromium, it's impossible to reuse in a different project that will go above 100,000 downloads. (I wonder if RockMelt pays 10 cents per download for H.264 licensing?) The only doubt I have is whether WebM and Theora will hold up in court. Patent infringement suits will undoubtably go after the little guys first before they go after Google and Mozilla. It would be a shame if the license terms for H.264 turned out better than some Patent Troll's shake down of WebM users.
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manoj
,kolkata, on Jan 17, 2011 10:37 PM
Sky is not falling down. Even if Chrome drops support for H.264 it will continue to be played on Chrome thanks to Adobe Flash which comes inbuilt in the browser. If you are not aware, Flash can play most popular formats and has also extended its support for WebM along with other hardware manufacturers. So it does not matter for the ordinary user. I use Firefox browser (which does not support H.264) but I never had any problem playing web videos most of whom are encoded in H.264 (thanks to Flash which comes free of cost). The web should be based on Open technology so that people like us can use the technology (without any encumbrance of royalty payments for starting new Web based businesses). Imagine what would have happened it the core internet platform itself was patent protected. We would all be paying royalties to run websites. Web Video was one major hitch in the open web. Google, Opera and Firefox and others are trying to correct that. Google's move makes perfect sense. Long live Open Source. Long Live Open Internet.
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Larry Aronson
,New York, NY, on Jan 17, 2011 10:18 PM
Good post Prasad, Bad move Google. Just think where we'd be today if Apple only supported png images while Mozilla only supported jpeg and gif, and Microsoft only supported bmp. Or, for that matter, where we are today with audio formats. The debate over open-source vs proprietary is a sideshow. All browsers should support all commonly used media formats - period.
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sorlag
,chicago, on Jan 17, 2011 08:51 PM
"Now I'm sure everyone knows how much Flash sucks..." no, you are not. H.264 is not open source, and so we do not want it mixed with our open source stuff. yes, i do agree a 100% with what Google has done, and i wish they did it earlier.
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Straight Forwar
,NCR, on Jan 17, 2011 08:33 PM
1) Flash is not gonna go away because of videos being in HTML5. HTML5 does not come close to Flash's usefulness for various interactive strategies. 2) Javascript (with HTML5) the main competitor to flash, is not object oriented and a mess. Any developer would prefer AS3 over javascript for its structured behaviour and more robust event handling. 3) H.264 support means support of closed source software directly. Not supporting it may be also supporting closed source (with your twisted logic) but its better because at least one large company is not being a complete ass, and keeping the end users + developers long term interests in mind ! 4) Apple is on a high horse for a decade - but as history has shown us - every one had his "decade" - and they will be just another company after a while 5) It would be better if flash supported WebM because of google ! It means one more company supporting open standards 6) Every action has an unintended repercussion - the nuclear treaty of India is an example. But the problem with us indians is that we keep harping on the negatives and forget to see the positives. 7) And lastly as regards flash - they may make it open source soon enough (as you can hear the birds tell). Also if they go with proper 3d acceleration - flash will become the defacto standard for online gaming
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