Google to drop support for H.264 in Chrome

User Comments: 38

1. January 12, 2011 8:14 AM
   Guest said:

   The reason is simply that Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox cannot support H.264. This is a simple concept. There is a licensing deadlock between these browsers and the H.264/AVC standard. The free cost of licensing is not the issue. The issue is that the licenses behind Chrome and Firefox require that users have the same rights to redistribute the code of these softwares as Google and Mozilla do. But the H.264 patent license does not pass down from Google and Mozilla to you if you use these browsers - if it did, this would mean that the H.264 patent holders will never, ever be able to suck money out of H.264 in the future. Hence this is a legal quagmire that can only be bypassed by the H.264 patent holders. Google and Mozilla do not hold all the copyrights required to change their licenses. Only the H.264 patent holders can change their licensing terms. Until that happens, it is fully illegal for Chrome or Firefox to use H.264!

   Reply
2. January 12, 2011 8:38 AM
   

   Mizzou said:

   That certainly helps explain things ... thanks for the feedback.

   Reply
3. January 12, 2011 11:48 AM
   Guest said:

   Until that happens, it is fully illegal for Chrome or Firefox to use H.264!

   What? Chrome's had H.264 support for ages.

   Reply
4. January 12, 2011 1:58 PM
   Guest said:

   I am a professional web developer and I happen to like WebM better. It uses on2 codec, which is much clearer and better compression than the licensed H.264. I think that Goole is making the correct move here.

   Reply
5. January 12, 2011 3:26 PM
   Guest said:

   Chrome has yes, because Google's Chrome stack includes added proprietary elements on top of the Chromium Project's software, basically, chrome provided it via a plugin and accepted the licensing for *Chrome*.

   However, the rest of the software, the Chromium Project, cannot bundle h.264 as a native part of the code and ship it as free software. As such the linux builds of chromium do not have it.

   Any browser based off the Chromium Project's code, cannot bundle h.264, etc. Also, I'm too lazy to look it up but Google may also require copyright assignment, which makes them the copyright holders of the code, which means *they* could bundle h.264 natively, as the copyright holder is not quite as strictly prohibited from doing such things with GPL code. (basically you can release code under a gpl and proprietary license or exempt yourself from part of your license, but you may not deny anyone else privileges to use the gpl'd code.

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6. January 12, 2011 4:58 PM
   

   Edito said:

   Im sad cause i feel like google just lose they're focus...

   Reply
7. January 12, 2011 5:42 PM
   Guest said:

   I think some of you are confusing content encoded with H.264 but using Flash (and Silverlight to some extent), that wont be effected by this decision. HTML 5.0 embedded video, encoded with H.264 is still far from commonplace, I doubt most of you considering jumping ship from Chrome have barely even viewed any content like that yet.

   If YouTube uses WebM rather than H.264 then hardware support will come (it was already announced by various SoC manufacturers before this anyway), the browser support will come (almost all the browsers allow viewing of WebM in some way or another already, including IE, Firefox and Chrome, which is the vast majority of marketshare), and when this becomes the case any web developer or content publisher with any sense will use WebM in addition to - or more likely - instead of H.264, and thus the cycle is complete.

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8. January 12, 2011 8:56 PM
   Guest said:

   Firefox is drooping H264 as well lol so all those people are leaving for them and they will not have it aether.

   Reply
9. January 13, 2011 9:30 AM
   Guest said:

   It sounds like a number of commenter's on here are saying that nobody should use WebM, because nobody is using it. I wonder how they like chiseling appointments and notes into their iStone?

   Reply
10. January 13, 2011 10:32 AM
    Guest said:

    Why would any sane person use something as horrible as Google Chrome in the first place? It's the worst performing application that I have seen in over 20 years.

    Reply
11. January 13, 2011 2:34 PM
    

    matrix86 said:

    Guest said:

    Why would any sane person use something as horrible as Google Chrome in the first place? It's the worst performing application that I have seen in over 20 years.

    So then why is it becoming the number one browser of choice? Jut because you find it to be crap doesn't mean it is. I'm half and half between FireFox and Chrome, myself. I really don't see much of a difference between the two. Peacekeeper browser bench marker shows a big performance difference, but in real world usage, I've yet to see any noticeable difference in performance between the two. But now we're getting on a whole new subject that does'nt belong in this thread, lol.

    WebM may be great, but I think it's a little too soon to just drop support for everything else. Until people start getting into coding for WebM, browsers need to continue support for H.264. Once WebM starts to catch up, then start really pushing it. I just think it's too soon right now. But that's just me.

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12. January 14, 2011 2:36 PM
    Guest said:

    Re: Netflix -- you can be sure they will be distancing themselves from H.264, or else they will be paying dearly for it when the IP tycoons start ringing their cash registers.

    Reply
13. January 14, 2011 3:18 PM
    

    SNGX1275, TS Special Forces, said:

    What are the specific details on h.264 licensing? I thought it was free until at least 2016, I say at least because I thought there was a deadline approaching recently and they just bumped it back.

    I don't think Chrome switched solely because of the possibility of being charged in the future, because if that was the case then why Google they convert all those youtube vids to h264 so the iPhone could use them?

    Reply

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