“Google opts to ditch H.264 video codec for its browser” |
| Google opts to ditch H.264 video codec for its browser Posted: 22 Jan 2011 07:19 PM PST New York - Google has made a decisive move in the fight for the video format of the future by opting to ditch the H.264 compression technology for Chromium, a new project for its Chrome browser.H.264 is important for internet video, says product manager Mike Jazayeri in a Chromium blog. But since Google is interested in innovating with more open standards, it has opted for the freeware video codec formats.A video codec allows transmission of moving pictures in digital data, as well as functions to code and decode the data. The main function, though, is to compress the data to a size that allows quick internet delivery.H.264, developed by the MPEG (Moving Picture Experts Group) Consortium, has long been considered to be particularly efficient. About 200 companies and organizations belong to the group, including Apple and Microsoft. The browsers offered by those companies - Safari and Internet Explorer - both use H.264 as their main video format.The Firefox browser, operated by the open source project Mozilla, has also avoided H.264 for licensing reasons, opting instead for open source alternatives like Ogg Theora. Google has also developed its own video standard, WebM, which can run on Firefox.The codec format is of special importance for video websites in relation to the new HTML5 web standard. This new standard would make it possible to integrate videos directly into websites.To date, the standard technology for online videos is Adobe's Flash format. Videos in this format can be replayed on all current web browsers, including Chrome. However, Apple has ditched Flash from its mobile devices, like the iPhone and iPad, opting entirely for HTML5 in its iOS operating system.If a computer user tries to access a certain video not supported by their browser, he will receive a message that the film cannot be played. In this case, users should look for an extension that supports the format in question, or call up the website with a different browser. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php |
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