Chrome dropping h.264 support
Out of context: Reply #18
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- Boz0
@abettertomorrow.. I would actually ask the Flash haters the same thing..
I am very clear.. I am not against proprietary.. but let's look at the situation.. I am not against HTML5 as well.. I've said it numerous times..
I would like to see common video format everywhere.. this format is to be used by people, be supported by all browsers and it would be completely free. Flash will support all of these formats anyways, but for those who just need to slap a page with a single video, having WebM as standard will make sure that video works everywhere..
The reason why I support is Flash is because it's software that is ubiquitous on the web and gives us incredible flexibility while being cross platform compatible.. it's simply best tool for the job for any commercial usage and there's really no other tool to help you achieve certain things easy or at all.
When I build stuff in Flash/AS3 for example.. I don't have to pay Adobe license.. see where I'm going? My swf is not licensed, it's freely distributable.. even though the swf is proprietary format but with open specification, I can do whatever I want, publish wherever I want and not pay Adobe a license.. and I'm talking commercially..
Adobe makes money from making software tools to publish in that format.
Now let's look at the video situation and h.264. While the h.264 codec is great technologically, it lives off of licensing.. this means that any commercial application or distribution you have to pay the license to MPEG-LA.. this is a big issue really. Even though MPEG-LA allows free non-commercial use for h.264 we really don't know what will happen in 2016 when they can do whatever.
This allows one company to really blackmail how the content is being distributed based on licensing fees which they can raise or lower however they please.
When it comes to HTML5.. the major thing about it was video tag.. and this, just like I've said many times, proves that HTML5 as a specification has a LONG way to go and there will always be issues with different browsers and support.. Video is especially a big issue..
This is why having an open source video codec is super important.. it has to be open source and free and not proprietary because the nature of HTML5 is about accessibility.. It's the best thing for community if you really want HTML5 video to take off and be supported by everyone. Without it you will always have guys like Mozilla and others not supporting h.264 and licensed out formats because they don't want to pay licenses.
- You need to pay Adobe money so they give you a compiler to compile your code into SWF filesernexbcn