RE: Mandated Video Format (was: Microsoft has now joined the HTML Working Group)

[hat off]
Yeah, what he said.  :)
[hat on]

-----Original Message-----
From: public-html-request@w3.org [mailto:public-html-request@w3.org] On Behalf Of Maciej Stachowiak
Sent: Thursday, April 05, 2007 10:03 AM
To: Doug Schepers
Cc: public-html@w3.org
Subject: Re: Mandated Video Format (was: Microsoft has now joined the HTML Working Group)



On Apr 5, 2007, at 8:55 AM, Doug Schepers wrote:

> Has Xiph done an exhaustive due-diligence patent search on Theora?
> I know that rights to VP3 have been waived, but we don't want any
> nasty surprises.
>
> Maybe the big players could help with this, by devoting some
> resources to finding and promoting the best unencumbered video format?
>
> I'm cool with Ogg Theora if it turns out to be unencumbered, but
> I'd also be open to any other suggestions.  For me, the key factors
> are that it should be royalty-free, able to implemented across
> devices (such as on a mobile phone), and compatible with SMIL (is
> this a real consideration?).

For those who haven't followed the <video> discussion on the WHATWG
list:

Apple is wary of the incremental patent risk of any new video codec.
Like Microsoft, we have deep pockets and are a likely infringement
lawsuit target for any submarine patents.

We would personally prefer the MPEG-4 family of codecs (AAC, MPEG-4
Part II, H.264) to be a common baseline. Most large companies already
use MPEG-4 pretty extensively (both Windows Media and QuickTime
support it, it's in many consumer electronics devices). And the
availablity of hardware implementations (both programmable DSP and
more power-efficient hardwired circuitry) makes it much more
appealing for mobile applications.

We don't think it's appropriate to mandate it in the spec, though, in
part because the non-RF nature of the applicable patents is a problem
for free software browsers.

Regards,
Maciej

Received on Thursday, 5 April 2007 17:24:10 UTC