HTML5 vs Flash: War on the Horizon

[dr_ml422]

I'm all for Open Source and/or Freeware as long as it works and fits what I like and doing. Paid software too as long as it delivers. These times cost in just about every place now. So realistically money has to come from some place to keep any of the Mozilla like software people afloat. R&D etc... is not cheap anymore and with 64 bit soon coming standard it's even more costly afaik.

You can only go against the grain for so long.

[admin]

Google launched WebM, the new name for the open source VP8 video codec that it plans on promoting as an alternative to the license-required H.264 format. Mozilla and Opera have already come out to offer support for the video, and even Microsoft is not against the idea of WebM, by offering support for it as long as the VP8 codec is installed in Windows (so no native browser support):

http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-20005410-264.html

Here's a technical analysis of VP8 by x264 developers:

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

The conclusion seems to be that VP8's spec is incomplete/flawed, that it is much weaker than H.264 compression wise, lower performance than H.264 in terms of decoding (16% slower than ffmpeg's H.264 decoder), but may improve after much needed optimization (although without hardware support, performance may still be an issue), and that in the developer's opinion, VP8 may still infringe on H.264 patents because in many aspects, it's just too similar to H.264. But it's much better than Theora.

[dr_ml422]

If the H.264 people know this about VP8 so does Microsoft and obviously Apple. MS is basically saying if others want to add it on their own they can but no native support. Wise businees move giving users flexibility and also a real live chance to see how much better H.264 is. Apple could care less and figures H.264 is the way to go regardless, and add to the fact that Apple and Google are at war w/many other things as well, they need to stand their ground.

Otn, it just doesn't make sense to come out w/something still inferior to H.264 as open source and basically same as Adobe Flash but still not better. I of course am still using Flash's latest release and as noted in my new thread I never seen such a crisp, crystal clear picture as last night's coverage of the Lakers/Suns game.

So for me I'll be staying w/Flash and when the integrated HTML5 w/H.264 native support gets here in IE9 I'll roll w/that.

Google prolly wants more added support for their other business regarding their apps. and their smart fone. So maybe it's just a business move to keep what loyal customers they have already in this area. I'll stick w/what's working and hop on the better one which in all likelihood will be H.264. MS will not go all out w/native browser and windows support if they thought it a complete flop.

[dr_ml422]

I take back what I said about Adobe and staying w/it. Well the staying part anyway. After some playback on Yahoo Sports it's well over due the integrated web video support as HTML5 will provide. Yes I did have a crisp experience as I noted above, but that was w/Sprint's help who sponsored the footage. On it's own it's a crapshoot on what you get w/Adobe and from whom.

For example I tried viewing some sports clips yesterday and a couple of times before and it would stutter then start again. I know you can let the buffer fill up , but w/Yahoo there's no sign of a buffer loading. At least I didn't see any. So I couldn't quite guess when it was full to start the playback again. Bottom line it became frustrating so I just stopped viewing the clip. Guess integrated video support would make this better?


Ok so I read the initial post and now know this is why HTML5 w/H.264 is/should be implemented! To make viewing better including the buffer issues.

Otn, is Flash's attempt to include DRM a business move trying to warrant empathy floabw from the Big Players especially Apple? Or is it just a futile attempt at this point, and HTML5 will be standard along w/Apple's take on why they don't want it?

There's a fine line on Apple wanting only their tools to be used for development by software engineers. Google does this all the time. They're slick though as they have been able to get others to improve on their apps. then go solo w/their own gadgets etc... Afaic they could app. themselves to death and make as much money they want. Unless they come up w/a totally new OS that'll blow MS and Apple away, either one will always have the upper hand, especially Uncle Bill. As I pointed out to someone the other day, the govt. doesn't want to spend anything now, so loading up on $4000.00 and $5000 Macs is crazy even w/a discount!

[admin]

HTML5 should mean the end of having to install third party plugins in Adobe Flash, plus the native decoding support should mean more stability. But with the confusion over whether HTML5 should use H.264, Theora or now WebM/VP8, it's really next to useless, because the HTML5 video may only play on certain browsers, not all of them (and people who build websites will be less likely to deploy HTML5 as a result). At best, I can only see websites like YouTube offering both HTML5 and Flash versions, but Flash won't really go away, even if Apple is pretending it doesn't exist on the iPhone/iPad.

The Flash DRM thing as you mentioned is all about trying to win over content owners, to give them something HTML5 doesn't offer to ensure they put pressure on sites like YouTube to keep on using Flash video (with DRM to prevent people copying the video).

[admin]

Apple launches a HTML5 showcase mini website:

http://www.apple.com/html5/

Demos more than just HTML5 video, but all the other HTML5 improvements.

[dr_ml422]

If I was a webmaster I would be looking ahead at the big picture and not so concerned about Mozilla etc... not wanting to support HTML5. I mean it's obviously the better way to go, and as Blu-ray has proven and will definitely do even more soon here, it'll be standard especially when the big boys back it up 100%.

As for appeasing to content owners w/the DRm, I think that's definitely a crap shoot as DRM is not preventing anything as it's intentended to. Soon that will lead to even more piracy just for watching a video.

I think and this is just some foresight, that freeware and all open source will at some point cease to exist, especially w/all the costs involved now and in the future regarding 64 bit development. Lets face it R&D costs money and free doesn't cut it.

I would rather have something that's working properly and more efficient most of the time than non-standard stuff always being worked on etc... Gets old really quick w/all the new updates etc...

[cynthia]

Apple launches a HTML5 showcase mini website:

http://www.apple.com/html5/

Demos more than just HTML5 video, but all the other HTML5 improvements.

You’ll need to download Safari to view this demo.

No thanks, as it installs trillions of crap programs also.

[Vladislaus]

No thanks, as it installs trillions of crap programs also.

Even with Google Chrome one can't test the page.

So we go to a web page which the main title is "HTML5 and web standards" and yet it only works on Safari. I guess to Steve the word standard means a browser with about 5% of market share. I'm starting to hate Apple because of him. He's even worse than Microsoft.

[admin]

It was a bit of a self inflicted wound by Apple. They put in a bit of code to prevent other browsers from looking at the demos, in reality, all of the demos should have worked perfectly fine on all the HTML5 browsers.

For FireFox, there's a User Switcher Agent addon that you can use to add in and select a Safari user agent, which tricks the website into letting you in (but as Firefox doesn't support H.264, some of the demos won't work). Here's the Safari user agent I created to fool the website (for use with User Agent Switcher add-on):

Description: Safari 4.1
User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10_7; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.4 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.1 Safari/533.4
App Code Name: Mozilla
App Name: Safari
App Version: 4.1 (Windows; en-US)
Platform: Win32

For Chrome, there's a similar extension here. The included Mac Safari user string didn't work for me, so I used the above User Agent string instead, and I managed to get into the demo. The video one didn't play for me though.

[dr_ml422]

Thnx for the heads up, but after some really messed up experiences w/adding/trying to use Apple software on my 1st computer I decided I didn't need the headache. I'll stick w/MS and Windows 7 and anything made for it. I've had no problems whatsoever except an occasional IE closing which was more likely do to me running an exceptional amount of tabs w/a software I use.

[Vladislaus]

If I was a webmaster I would be looking ahead at the big picture and not so concerned about Mozilla etc... not wanting to support HTML5. I mean it's obviously the better way to go, and as Blu-ray has proven and will definitely do even more soon here, it'll be standard especially when the big boys back it up 100%.

Mozilla doesn't have a problem with HTML5. In fact it supports HTML5 unlike Internet Explorer for example. The only thing that Mozilla don't support is the H.264. But that point is irrelevant with the appearance of WebM. The new versions of the Firefox and Chrome will support this codec. The Internet Explorer will also support it. And since YouTube is expecting to transfer all of it's videos to WebM instead of H.264, the rest of the web will most likely follow suit.

I think and this is just some foresight, that freeware and all open source will at some point cease to exist, especially w/all the costs involved now and in the future regarding 64 bit development. Lets face it R&D costs money and free doesn't cut it.

I would rather have something that's working properly and more efficient most of the time than non-standard stuff always being worked on etc... Gets old really quick w/all the new updates etc...

There a tons of open software that are way more more efficient and secure than closed software.
One of the biggest threats to free software is software patents, not R&D costs.
Most of the paid companies are the ones that use non-standard stuff.
Since when just because a software is open means it gets old very quickly?
All software are always being worked on, that's what updates is all about.

[admin]

WebM certainly does change the picture somewhat, especially with Google's backing, which means YouTube's backing. YouTube originally use H.264 only for HTML5, but that was before WebM was officially released/announced.

The problem though is that WebM isn't anywhere near as efficient as H.264, and cannot really compare to it quality wise. There's also the lack of hardware/GPU acceleration support, which would rule out playing HD WebM clips on netbooks and the like. It's up to Nvidia and ATI to come up with a solution, although I don't think it will be too difficult given how versatile GPGPU programs can be.

And of course, Apple loves QuickTime, and by extension, H.264, so don't expect WebM stuff to work on Apple browsers or gadgets (for now). Which means sites like YouTube may still have to provide content in both WebM and H.264. The smaller sites may not have the capability to provide content in both formats, and so they will have to choose between losing Firefox/Opera visitors if they choose H.264, or Apple visitors if they choose WebM. So YouTube, a Google property, supports both H.264 and WebM, but guess which browser also supports both H.264 and WebM - that's right, Google's own Chrome, so you can see why releasing WebM was a win-win for Google really. It's in Google interests that *both* H.264 and WebM succeeds, in my opinion. IE 9 is another one that also says will support both, but only H.264 natively in Windows 7 (users will have to install the WebM codec, so another third party piece of software to install just to get videos to work).

As for the open source/proprietary debate, in a perfect world, the less proprietary/third-party stuff we have to rely on, the better. But the success of sites like YouTube has been built on proprietary technology (Flash, H.264), so to me, installing Flash is less of a annoyance than say having to use different browsers to view different sites because the HTML5 working group chickened out on putting in a firm standard for video codec usage.

[Vladislaus]

The problem though is that WebM isn't anywhere near as efficient as H.264, and cannot really compare to it quality wise. There's also the lack of hardware/GPU acceleration support, which would rule out playing HD WebM clips on netbooks and the like. It's up to Nvidia and ATI to come up with a solution, although I don't think it will be too difficult given how versatile GPGPU programs can be.

The Theora clearly wasn't a match to H.264. But that it's not the case with VP8 the differences are marginal at best. You can see it yourself on the tests made by quavlive.com and streamingmedia.com (can't post the links because i still don't have 10 posts).

True that there isn't hardware acceleration to VP8 but that is about to change. AMD, ARM, NVIDIA, Qualcomm, MIPS and Texas Instruments have already announced that they will provide hardware decoders for VP8.

And of course, Apple loves QuickTime, and by extension, H.264, so don't expect WebM stuff to work on Apple browsers or gadgets (for now). Which means sites like YouTube may still have to provide content in both WebM and H.264. The smaller sites may not have the capability to provide content in both formats, and so they will have to choose between losing Firefox/Opera visitors if they choose H.264, or Apple visitors if they choose WebM. So YouTube, a Google property, supports both H.264 and WebM, but guess which browser also supports both H.264 and WebM - that's right, Google's own Chrome, so you can see why releasing WebM was a win-win for Google really. It's in Google interests that *both* H.264 and WebM succeeds, in my opinion. IE 9 is another one that also says will support both, but only H.264 natively in Windows 7 (users will have to install the WebM codec, so another third party piece of software to install just to get videos to work).

YouTube for years was unplayable on the iPhone and that never bothered them. Also the market share of Safari is about 5%.

Google has said that by 2011 all videos in youtube will only use the VP8 codec, not the H.268.

Both the Internet Explorer 9 and Safari don't decode any kind of video natively, unlike Chrome, Opera, Firefox,... What they do is use Windows Media Player / QuickTime as an addon to play the movie, which kind of defeats the purpose of the video tag in html5. Also this is the reason why Internet Explorer 9 will only be able to decode h.264 in windows 7, because WMP11 doesn't decode h.264. But if you install the codec in the system,... problem solved.

[admin]

The developer of x264 (perhaps not the best impartial source of opinion, although technical expertise cannot be questioned) does say that there are areas that WebM just can't compete with H.264. However, as a web based video codec, a lot of the shortcomings are not too important (nobody expects YouTube videos to look like Blu-ray ... not yet anyway).

But more worryingly, in their technical opinion (not a legal one) is that WebM may all foul of patent disputes in the same way Microsoft's VC-1 did, in that WebM/VP8 has similarities to H.264 that can't be explained away. Google does have the resources to fight against any patent claims, but if it fails, then the issue of patents and royalty payments may rear its ugly head again. This is something to keep an eye on.

Whatever happens, I just hope there will be the day when you download *any* HTML5 browser, open up YouTube or a similar site, and all the videos will play without having to install any other codecs or plug-ins. I think that's what HTML5 was trying to achieve, but it was never realistic without having set a definite video codec. Even now, if they said that WebM must be supported natively by all HTML5 certified browsers, then that would solve a lot of future headaches.