RE: Google launches open WebM web video format based on VP8

Hi all,

On May 20th, 2010 at 12:10, Raphaël Troncy wrote:
> Cc: 'Media Fragment'
> Subject: Re: Google launches open WebM web video format based on VP8
> 
> Dear all,
> 
> > Fyi …
> > http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/19/google-launches-open-webm-web-
> video
> > -format-based-on-vp8/
> 
> Indeed, it was for me one of the highlight of yesterday's Google IO 
> keynote. I was excited by the news, given the support it receives:
> Mozilla, Opera, Google + Adobe (Flash), therefore IE and Safari. But 
> then, I read this blog post: "The first in-depth technical analysis of 
> VP8", http://x264dev.multimedia.cx/?p=377 which I recommend to read ...
> 
> The author wrote: "VP8 would be 'H.264 Baseline Profile with a better 
> entropy coder', better than theora ... but the main problem of patent 
> will still be here given the resemblance with H264."
> 
> I would be happy to get the opinion of Davy who has more deep 
> knowledge of how codecs work ...

The in-depth technical analysis is indeed a must read in the context of this
discussion, and I agree with the author of this analysis: VP8 performs worse
than H.264/AVC while it probably still have to deal with patent issues (in
particular for its spatial intra prediction method -> quoting from the
analysis: "H.264’s spatial intra prediction is covered in patents and I
don’t think that On2 will be able to just get away with changing the
rounding in the prediction modes"). The key question here is "does VP8 has
patent problems or not?". I'm not an expert on that so I don't know the
answer. Only if it does not have patent problems, VP8 is a valuable codec
for Web video and a good update for Theora, otherwise it is just yet another
H.264/AVC competitor who didn't made it ...

Best regards,

Davy

-- 
Davy Van Deursen

Ghent University - IBBT
Department of Electronics and Information Systems - Multimedia Lab
URL: http://multimedialab.elis.ugent.be/dvdeurse

Received on Thursday, 20 May 2010 11:35:26 UTC