About HTML5 video encoding, I heard that Google is not so keen on pushing WebM. I heard that Mozilla seems to be using H.264. Does this mean H.264 will win in the end? -

Source: Internet
Author: User
Weibo. com1614282004y9ZrTxseY weibo http://weibo.com/1614282004/y9ZrTxseY Reply: "win 』? When does WebM win? Is Google alone? Unrealistic. Currently, HTML5 videos are most widely used on mobile devices instead of desktops. The problem is that there is no hardware decoding chip for VP8/WebM! To play HD videos on mobile devices, you can only use H.264 without using all the batteries. This is also why Mozilla is very pragmatic to face this reality and give up idealism, because it also needs to be a mobile browser. Moreover, Mozilla uses decoding H.264 to deliver it to system components. It does not have to pay the H.264 license fee. A few years ago, Mozilla announced that H.264 is harmful to the Web, and now it has to swallow the words in its own mouth. For more details, refer to my previous in http://Apple4.us A series of articles on the competition for H.264/WebM standards:
  • Stir HTML5 video this beach muddy water (1) Basic concepts http://apple4.us/2011/01/html5-video-war-part-1.html
  • "Stir HTML5 video this beach muddy water (2) HTML5 video standards" http://apple4.us/2011/01/html5-video-war-part-2.html
  • Stir HTML5 video this beach muddy water (3) WebM vs H.264 http://apple4.us/2011/01/html5-video-war-part-3.html
  • "Stir HTML5 video this beach muddy water (4) status quo" http://apple4.us/2011/01/html5-video-war-part-4.html
  • Stir HTML5 video this beach muddy water (5) Future http://apple4.us/2011/01/html5-video-war-part5.html
H.264 is already very good, and the industrial chain is mature. Google is only relying on its own Internet advantages to confront the whole H.264 industrial chain to push WebM. You can view the problem from the following aspects:
  • Coding Technology and efficiency:
H.264-As a high definition content-oriented encoding specification, by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU-T) and the International Standardization Organization (ISO) joint proposal (there is a long and interesting story about the disputes between the two organizations over video encoding standards ). H.264 features high data compression efficiency and high quality. It was designed and proposed for the special Internet environment.
(Limited bandwidth, unstable network connections, and large differences between different networks, such as GSM, WCDMA, and CDMA in the mobile communication network), to transmit high-quality videos.

WebM-It is an open and free media file format proposed by google. It is a new container format developed based on the MKV container format, which contains the VP8 video track and Ogg Vorbis audio track. The VP8 video track is the real video encoding format. On2 Technologies, the company that developed this standard (which has now been acquired by google), once claimed that VP8 encoding is more efficient and quality than H.264,
However, the experimental results show that VP8 is far inferior to H.264 in Video Coding for both efficiency and quality. Strictly speaking, H.264 and WebM are incorrect because H.264 is a video encoding standard, while WebM is only a media format.
(Like the current media format .mpg,.mkv,.mp4... their internal encoding format can be H.264,
It can also be a MEPG-4 or other video encoding standards ). Therefore, it should be the comparison between H.264 and VP8>, <

In general, H.264 is dominant in video encoding technology and efficiency.


  • Vendor support:

H.264-Is proposed by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU-T) and the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), behind which they are Qualcomm, TI, Sony, Cisco, Microsoft, Apple and other vendors, as well as thousands of universities and research institutions around the world and computer video technology researchers. Most video surveillance devices currently support the H. 264, chip manufacturers also have production targets for H. the 264 hardware codec chip, whether it is an ARM-based mobile processor or a display chip of ATI or NV. 264 has good support. At the same time, many consumer electronic products in the world also support H.264. In terms of software, software provided by Microsoft, Apple, and Flash supports H.264.

WebM-Now, it seems that Internet companies such as Google, Mozilla, and Opera have been vigorously promoted. Despite the support of various chip manufacturers, there seems to be no decent hardware support equipment. You must know that for video codec, hardware decoding is much more efficient than pure software decoding (using general CPU computing decoding. However, it is undeniable that Google and its youtube force, as well as the open-source WebM features, are not supported by it.

In general In terms of support, H.264 is slightly dominant.





  • Patents and fees

H.264-Patent licensing fees are required for use, but many software and hardware vendors are already H.264 promoters. Complicated cross-authorization of patents between them makes this problem less important. For browsers such as Opera and Firefox, they only support WebM due to authorization issues. In fact, windows media foundation supports H. 264 of the playback permissions, as long as the browser running on windows (including Opera and Firefox) can be authorized. The same applies to Mac OS X. In fact, H. 264 the field has formed a huge Patent Pool (Patent Pool: agreement between two or more patents, used to grant one or more patents to each other or to a third party ), various people are in H. 264 related fields have various patents, and I still have two H in my hand. 264 related patents, but unfortunately there is no practical application value =

WebM-Completely open-source, but it is not ruled out that various companies will generate a large number of patents in the WebM-related fields in the future, making open-source WebM less "free, just like various patent disputes among android mobile phone manufacturers

In general, WebM is dominant in this field

From the above three aspects, we can see that H.264 is dominant

However, who said that technology is good enough to support a large amount of resources, it will certainly win? It is impossible to rely solely on google. Embedded chips, DSPs, hardware decoding, and solutions are the elements.

One-time ordering of a massive number of vp8 hardware decoding chips can help consolidate the relevant industry chain. Will this happen? I'm not sure. If you do not win, the market has the final say. This is not something google can do right now.

H. the popularity of 264 is mainly due to the simplicity of implementation, and its charges are postponed four times in a row. This is postponed until 2013. As long as the charge starts, it is the chance of VP8, the entire industry will switch to vp8.

The formation of standards is a game process. Even if H.264 has nothing to do with the standards, it will be defeated by charges and a new standard will be created.

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