Behold, we advance a while ago , and today has been confirmed in the conference Google I / O:VP8 is free . Not only announced this release the codec, but also several entities have expressed their support for VP8.
The first to do so has been the actual Google , announcing that all YouTube videos will be available encoded with VP8 . The result of this decision is the bandwidth saved with this codec, remember that with the same quality as H.264, took up to 50% less.
Opera has also backed the VP8 codec with the presence of CTO (Chief Technology Officer) in the event, which has shown how your browser and seamlessly supports video playback with this codec. Also Mozilla has announced support for VP8 known shortly after the release, and, like Chromium, and are available nightly builds that work with VP8.
Besides these, another large company support VP8: Adobe . Their CTO , Kevin Lynch, has announced that Adobe applications bear this codec along with the rest of the HTML5 standard. In these applications also include Flash, which thus seeks to avoid being overtaken by the applications that use HTML5. Other companies have also expressed support for the codec from Google, such as Skype, Logitech, Nvidia, Qualcomm and Texas Instruments.
The video file format will result Webm , containing the VP8 encoded video and audio with Vorbis . The license is similar to BSD , with all open source . In addition, Google has created Webm Project, forming a community around this codec and provide various resources to developers and users : codecs, codec code, documentation, SDKs …
What can we expect from this? What video codec is imposed on the web? Look at it from several points. For example, from the perspective of web developers. Firefox, Chrome and Opera owns 40% of Internet users, a large percentage. Furthermore, VP8 provides more facilities and tools for encoding to H.264. Adding this to the fact that it is also free and no software licensing issues, it seems clear that Web developers choose to VP8.
If we change the perspective of the browser, it comes down to a very simple argument: YouTube. This captures video portal, according to Alexa, the 25% of all Internet traffic , and you could say that all users watch videos on YouTube at least once a week. A browser that does not support video on YouTube not be very convenient for users, quickly switch to other alternatives.
All that I present here are extreme. It is unlikely that YouTube videos show only VP8, and some developers coded the first thing you have without worrying about excessive formatting. So I think we’ll see from now on will be a battle between two very close codecs , but from my point of view imposed VP8 will end because it gives more facilities to the developers and users of video-related applications is free and open, and because it has the support of a large number of companies in the sector of information technology.
20-05 16:20 Update : Microsoft also announced that IE will support video playback VP8 if the codec is installed on the system. Therefore, only Safari is currently the only browser that does not bear VP8. (Thanks to Camelot and Lesane for the link).
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