dW

War of the Video Formats

Recently both YouTube and Vimeo have announced beta implementations of HTML 5 video on their websites. Despite Adobe’s insistence to the contrary, Flash is a much despised piece of software and not just among web standards supporters. It’s hated by multitudes of people from different backgrounds as it does nothing but consume computer resources at alarming rates while being the primary cause of all browser crashes on any platform mostly due to how horribly programmed and maintained it is. For many years now Flash’s usage has diminished as the necessity to ensure functionality in every browser has become easier thanks to the widespread adoption of web standards by all browsers — even Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. However, it is still a necessary evil for video as there’s no superior standards-based method to replace it as video requires a plugin of some sort to function. Despite celebrating as people should of YouTube and Vimeo’s decision to support new developing web standards they have been expressing displeasure toward the two video online community websites’ choice of format which is MPEG-4 H.264 over their preferred format of Ogg Theora.

H.264

MPEG-4 H.264 is a proprietary format which is closed source, patented, and license-encumbered. Despite those setbacks it has been adopted by an abundance of devices and computing platforms as the format of choice mostly due to its astounding bitrate to quality ratio and the fact that many of the patent holders of the format are influential:

1. Apple uses it for QuickTime video, and on its Macintosh platform video is easily encoded in this format for distribution to all of its devices from iPods to the iPhone.
2. Blu-Ray and the discontinued HD DVD video are encoded using the format.
3. Flash video can and is mostly encoded using H.264 such as on YouTube and Vimeo due to its superior quality over Flash video’s initial encoding format.
4. A wide range of user friendly software across many platforms can be used to encode or convert video efficiently to H.264.
5. Hardware manufacturers have developed computer components with hardware support for the format, allowing all kinds of devices such as many DVRs and mobile phones on the market today to decode the format without the necessity of processor intensive software.

The problem with adopting H.264 for the web is that the format isn’t free and to put it quite frankly it’s controlled by a bunch of greedy bastards who want to nickel and dime everyone who wants to use their format. Another problem is that the format is locked in stone, and its upgrade — a potential H.265 — will not be backwards compatible with its predecessor; the format will not improve much. While it is vastly superior to Theora in terms of quality today it more than likely will not remain that way.¹ A free, evolving, and backwards compatible video format would be much preferred.

Ogg Theora

Theora can fit that bill as it is free, open sourced, devoid of software patents, and can be actively maintained and improved upon by those who utilize it in their software. Its caveats are essentially H.264’s advantages:

1. For the large part user friendly software to encode or convert Theora video is nonexistent.
2. Theora encoders are generally slow and many available today produce sub-optimal quality video files compared to what the format is capable of producing, limiting their uses on video content websites such as YouTube or Vimeo as the ability to encode large amounts of acceptable quality video files efficiently is a necessity.
3. YouTube, Vimeo, and multitudes of other websites similar to them already have their entire libraries in H.264 which play both as standalone video files and within flash players. Having their entire libraries in a secondary format would both be excessive, costly, and would culminate in lower quality for the resultant format as a lossy video file is being metamorphosed to another lossy video format.
4. There are no hardware decoders for Theora, and specifications for developing one still is in development. The consequence is that there are no small devices such as mobile phones capable of viewing Theora video currently, and there won’t be unless specifications are completed and manufacturers have a need and a market for such encoders.

Despite YouTube and Vimeo’s decision to support H.264 competition such as DailyMotion and fresh websites such as TinyVid exist which have embraced the Theora format. Unfortunately DailyMotion uses browser sniffing to permit only Firefox users to view their HTML 5 content, preventing users of both Google Chrome and of Opera’s new 10.5 pre beta from having a Flash-free video experience. Nonetheless, I believe that perplexity won’t be permanent.

Fortunately for Ogg Theora all of its disadvantages can be remedied; it will take some time, but unfortunately for Theora I fear that H.264 could become a de facto standard for video long before Theora’s disadvantages setting it back can be effectively addressed. That’s not my prediction. It’s just that it would be a pity if that were to become reality because I believe Theora is a better choice for the long haul despite its damning present inadequacies.

Browser Support

The integral quandary here is that the major players in the browser market currently do not see eye to eye as to what video format to support. That is unfortunate, but everyone tends to my mind to have viable reasons for supporting what they do:

1. Opera supports Theora video only because they believe an open format is better for the web, and is adamantly against supporting H.264 simply because of its encumbering licensing fees and patents.
2. Apple supports H.264 only because they have put so much behind the format already, having multitudes of devices already in the wild which are devoid of any support for the alternative. Also, being in the business of providing professional high quality video they believe H.264 produces a superior quality product. It is largely not because they do own portions of the format itself despite conspiracy theorists’ and Apple misanthropes’ accusations.
3. Google supports both, but because of the excesses of storage that would be necessary to house multiple video formats and because of reservations about the quality of Theora they chose not to utilize it for YouTube.
4. Mozilla supports Theora video only because of similar reasons to what Opera gives, but there appears to be signs that they would consider attempting to see what could be done to support H.264 in their browser if it is in fact possible at all.
5. Microsoft is largely being left to twist in the wind on this situation. However, due to historical company practices assertations can be made to the effect that Microsoft would much prefer WMV to be the format. From what I can see they have no plans on adding support for the HTML 5 video element anyway.

Format War

H.264 is divisionistic because of its three main problems stated before, mostly the final two where software patents, ridiculous licensing charges, and asinine conditions are frowned upon for very good reasons. I am, however, not as outraged as many of my colleagues as despite my feelings about the entire ordeal I still see reality. The reality is that at present there is no HTML 5 standard video format, so squawking that neither YouTube nor Vimeo fulfilled their promises to deliver HTML 5 is irrational and childish because they have. Is the format a bad choice on their part? Perhaps, but neither YouTube nor Vimeo made the choice without even giving Ogg Theora any consideration. Vimeo even commented on the point in question:

Almost every thread on the internet about HTML5 devolves into some kind of flamewar. Please don’t comment here extolling the virtues of open source or unencumbered codecs. We know, it’s our job to know, and that conversation has been had a million times. If you really feel like you need to talk about it, please do so in the Feature Request forum. The simple fact is right now h264 allows us the most flexibility to display on many devices and many players with the same file. When that changes, so will we.

Considering Google supports both H.264 and Ogg Theora in Chrome I can almost guarantee they made identical considerations and come to the exact same conclusion as Vimeo did. Although I believe that Theora would end up as a better choice both Youtube’s and Vimeo’s reasons for supporting H.264 at present weren’t diabolical or the result of carefree planning as some would like many to believe.