Google Buys On2, Browser Video Codec War To Heat Up?

[admin]

Last month, I reported on Wikipedia choosing Ogg Theora as their video codec of choice, and the battle between browser companies over which video codec should be the standard one for HTML 5.

Well, Google has just purchased On2, makers of the VP6 codec, which was once popular for online video, but no more due to its painful licensing schemes.

It's hard to say what this means in the short or long term, other than Google wanting to add video codec expertise to its team, possibly to work on the Google OS, or possibly trying to establish a competitor to Flash.

Note that Ogg Theora, pushed by Mozilla and supported by Google Chrome natively, is based on an earlier open source version of the VP3.2 codec, and this might signal Google wanting to contribute to the development of Ogg Theora, which they have said is not up to the quality at the moment compared to H.264.

It shouldn't mean much for the end users though - there will always be a way to play videos online regardless of which format wins. But for browser makers, and developers, this uncertainty makes for a small headache and depending on which format wins, the licensing fees associated may mean a bigger headache.

More:

http://newteevee.com/2009/08/05/goog...ols-vp6-codec/