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Google dropping h.264 support from Chrome
est:
http://blog.chromium.org/2011/01/html-video-codec-support-in-chrome.html
--- Quote ---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.
--- End quote ---
and here's Gruber from DaringFireball's questions about it (pretty much all of which are sensible and good questions)
http://daringfireball.net/2011/01/simple_questions
Chief among them is "If H.264 support is being removed to “enable open innovation”, will Flash Player support be dropped as well? If not, why?"
Ok.
I can only see this being a negative thing for Chrome's marketshare. It might be a good thing for open technologies in the long run, especially their pet WebM codec, but for end-users who don't give a fuck about this sort of thing and just want a decent browser this is not so good.
est:
Another story on it from Digital Daily: http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/20110111/codec-capers-google-drops-h-264-support-in-chrome/
and:
--- Quote from: SmugMug CEO, Don MacAskill ---“I’m left with two choices: Gulp and double my costs on an unknown tech, or return to Flash as primary solution. Ugh. Thanks, Google.”
--- End quote ---
schimmy:
okay, so i am pretty drunk, but here goes a post...
i've read both of the links in your post, but i don't really don't understand what's going on. can you explain the significance of h.264, or link to somewhere that does?
because, if it is as simple as this quote from the first link suggests: "we are changing Chrome’s HTML5 <video> support to make it consistent with the codecs already supported by the open Chromium project.", then it is really a non-issue, as far as i can tell, from the end-user perspective. i am typing this reply in chromium; chromium is the only browser i have used for a good couple of months, and i have regularly watched videos in it* without any problems at all.
so i guess my main question is: does this news just amount to " chrome's video support will be closer to chromium's ", and if so, why does this matter at all?
*connection permitting, i watch most of my "must see" programs via iplayer and 4od, which amounts to a fair few hours a week. i also watch youtube videos on a daily basis.
*EDIT* 2nd post was made before i sent this. don't know how much it affects what i have to say on the subject. will check back in the morning, i guess.
est:
H.264 is basically the default HTML 5 standard web video codec now, as both Apple and Microsoft either support it natively or have pledged to do so. It is also pretty much the only standard that has broad hardware support in both PCs & Macs, xbox & PS3 consoles, and portable devices like well, everything. iPhones, PSPs, Android handsets, that sort of thing. The Chrome browser currently supports it, this is an announcement to say that it won't in the future. Perhaps the reason why you haven't noticed it is because it's still supported right now. They are talking about bringing the actual support of Chrome in line with the Chromium project's idea of how they want the web to be.
You may not see a difference on most sites. But for other sites that have gone to giving people the choice of either H.264 or Flash you'll only be able to use flash, which (given their "open standards" reasoning) seems a bit odd.
If I were to put on my cynic's hat - oh, I already have my cynic's hat on anyway, that's handy - I would say that this is a shot across the bow of the websites that have started to move toward providing H.264 content as well as/instead of Flash so that people can still browse their sites using iPhones. It's ill-conceived and ham-fisted, and I would hope that they will realise that in the next few months.
schimmy:
i am not sure i fully understand what you are saying.
when you say that they're going to "bring the actual support of Chrome in line with the Chromium project's idea of how they want the web to be," do you mean that:
a) chromium already has said in the future it will not support h.264, and chrome has now made the same pledge
or
b) chromium currently does not use h.264, and in the future, chrome won't either
or
c) schimmy, you are stupid, i mean something else entirely.
regardless of the answer to that, what immediate ramifications does this have on us?
are there any major websites that will be incompatible with chrome(/ium) in the future?
can you give some examples of websites (or sections of websites) that won't be supported when this move is made?
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