Been following the news out of the Google I/O conference lately, and it looks like a lot of interesting things are being announced.

Day 1 was mostly focused on web related items, with the big ones being:

• VP8 being opened as WebM. Basically an attempt at an open media specification to compete against H.264. Biggest issues I see are lack of patent immunity to users of it, and getting companies/hardware to support it. I like the concept, but this may turn real ugly soon with patent issues, and will be yet another rift between what browsers support what video formats.
• Google Wave is now open to everyone. For those who still care.
• Chrome Web Store. Basically an App store like approach for web apps. Google will allow paid apps here, and the idea is to allow finding apps easier. Should be great for users of ChromiumOS, hard to say how well it will do on the desktop or mobile side though. The one weird thing to me is that it's not limited to HTML5, plugins are allowed and were used during the demo for Plants vs Zombies. I wonder if this is still the old NS based plugin approach from ages ago, or something newer. Could add problems for Chromium on Arm.

Being that each day has been pretty packed with stuff, I'll make a second thread for day 2, with all the Android stuff.

The problem with VP8 it turns out is that it's not actually very good. I suppose that's only the first problem, one of usability. It's slower and doesn't look as good as H.264. It's not even as good as the open source x264 encoder apparently.

The patent issue is a HUGE problem and overshadows everything else. The lack of immunity will stop a lot of people cold in their tracks. And if Google believed for one second this was patent free, it's something they should stand behind. At least one expert believes it's full of H.264 rip-offs however, so it's like adding an active minefield to your project.

Mozilla is all over it with double-talk. Previously they defended Theora as being close to H.264 for most people, now they claim VP8 is close to or equal to H.264 and much better than Theora. Hmm, can't have it both ways.

This is the take of one of the developers behind x264:

http://x264dev.multimedia.cx/?p=377


Seems like a no-brainer. For a consumer, there's no current support in any commercial software or hardware for VP8. Nothing you buy/use is going to spit out VP8. Lots of things spit out H.264. H.264 files are smaller and look better - plus you don't have to blow any time converting to an obscure format from one that's already an industry-wide standard.

For the professional or commercial user, H.264 is faster and higher quality plus either free (non-commercial) or you know the costs up front. With VP8 you have something slower and of lesser quality while opening yourself up for litigation and fees that may equal or eclipse H.264 licensing.

The wrench in the whole thing is Google's own support of VP8 through YouTube and other avenues. We'll see how that shakes things up. Patent holders in H.264 would likely wait until there's some mass behind VP8 before bringing out the guns - and filling up their purses.

Ya, MPEG LA comments indicate that VP8 is in a shitload of trouble:

http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/20100...-free-for-long/

They're looking at setting up a patent pool similar to that of H.264 so that people using VP8 can license it in an easy fashion instead of going to or getting sued by individual patent holders. Seeing as VP8 has absolutely no advantage over H.264 from a technical or quality standpoint, if the only promised one (that it's FREE as in beer) goes away, what's the point?

Looks like in their bid to kick everyone else in the shins and continue their rampage to dominate the world, Google let loose with a batch of lies that are going to come back and bite them right in the face.

BOOM. H.264 non-commercial use is now royalty-free forever (the provision was previously going to lapse in 2015).

Only for non-commercial web applications. If its commercial or something that isn't used as a browser (Not sure if a media player that streams fits this or not. Probably doesn't) then you still have to pay your licensing fees.

They're already making H.265 anyway...

Codec industry adoption is super slow, so I think the news today is good for anyone worried about putting eggs in the online H.264 basket.

I don't think we'll see anything out of H.265 until 2015+ The draft is only scheduled to be completed sometime in 2012 and they've already been discussing it for six years. It's a good thing that this is a ways off too, because it's going to need 2-10x the processing power required for H.264 (which is already a shitload).