Re: CfC: Should WebCodecs be exposed in Window environments?

We support exposing VideoEncoder, AudioEncoder, VideoDecoder, and AudioDecoder in Window contexts at this time.

The primary operations that would be done on the main-thread due to this exposure would be orchestration and any application desired data manipulation, meaning the application must be very aware of their cost of processing. Web applications built for cpu and memory resource constrained environments are generally already aware of these costs as they work to heavily optimize and prevent self-contention, in adopting these APIs in window the applications would take the same care of measuring and optimizing to ensure smooth operation. In these device environments web workers generally provide little to no benefit and, in some cases, can be detrimental to application performance simply due to the device hardware and operating system characteristics. A forced adoption of web workers would bring application performance cost that could not be easily optimized and would instead generally lead to non-use of these APIs or a push towards a different application platform in the device environment should this shape of APIs be needed for business-critical use cases.

Thanks,
Zack (on behalf of The Walt Disney Company)
________________________________
From: Gary Katsevman <gkatsevman@brightcove.com>
Sent: Thursday, July 1, 2021 12:02
To: public-media-wg@w3.org <public-media-wg@w3.org>
Subject: Re: CfC: Should WebCodecs be exposed in Window environments?

I support exposing VideoEncoder, AudioEncoder, VideoDecoder, and AudioDecoder in Window contexts at this time

1. It is much easier to learn and adopt new APIs when they are available on Window. You can play around with it a lot more easily, particularly, inside dev-tools.
2. Debugging code outside a Worker is a lot easier. For Video.js, we have a process that inlines our Worker code to allow for easier debugging. This won't be an option if WebCodecs won't be available on Window. If the tooling around debugging in a Worker were better, I'd put this at a lower priority, but given the current state, this is a huge one for us.
3. Workers increase latency where you need to shuttle things between the main thread and the worker. Particularly in low latency scenarios. Since we already do some work in the main thread, needing to shuttle things between workers will add a lot of overhead.
4. Making Worker and Window contexts similar is helpful.

Gary, on behalf of Brightcove and Video.js.

On Thu, Jul 1, 2021 at 2:50 PM John Luther <jluther@jwplayer.com<mailto:jluther@jwplayer.com>> wrote:
I support exposing VideoEncoder, AudioEncoder, VideoDecoder, and AudioDecoder in Window contexts at this time.

JL


On Tue, Jun 22, 2021 at 6:28 AM Chris Needham <chris.needham@bbc.co.uk<mailto:chris.needham@bbc.co.uk>> wrote:

Dear all,

This is a Call for Consensus (CfC) on the question: Should WebCodecs be exposed in Window environments?



For context, please see the WebCodecs specification at https://wicg.github.io/web-codecs/<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://wicg.github.io/web-codecs/__;!!PA7sDg!XdLpWUYloOWIMaFjeWKKvFmQwPK9RVk4AApKv0WLvCQ9dapHU6DNmLZTr_f5x-iCng$> and the discussion on this question at https://github.com/w3c/webcodecs/issues/211<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://github.com/w3c/webcodecs/issues/211__;!!PA7sDg!XdLpWUYloOWIMaFjeWKKvFmQwPK9RVk4AApKv0WLvCQ9dapHU6DNmLZTr_eFkeo2Ig$> and the related question at https://github.com/w3c/webcodecs/issues/199<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://github.com/w3c/webcodecs/issues/199__;!!PA7sDg!XdLpWUYloOWIMaFjeWKKvFmQwPK9RVk4AApKv0WLvCQ9dapHU6DNmLZTr_fcjR5swg$>.

Note that there is agreement in the Working Group to expose WebCodecs in DedicatedWorker context, and so this CfC is limited to exposing the APIs on Window.

The CfC will run for 10 days and will end on Friday 2nd July.

Please reply to this email and state one of the following:

* I support exposing VideoEncoder, AudioEncoder, VideoDecoder, and AudioDecoder in Window contexts at this time

* I prefer to defer decision on exposing VideoEncoder, AudioEncoder, VideoDecoder, and AudioDecoder in Window contexts at this time

In your reply, please detail your reasoning.



Please send only one reply per member organisation.

Many thanks,

Chris (for the Media WG co-chairs)





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