HTML5 and CSS3, Second Edition

It’s possible to encode a video one time and embed multiple profiles so that

it looks nice on various platforms.

H.264 is a de facto standard because of support from Microsoft and Apple,

which are licensees. On top of that, Google’s YouTube converted its videos to

the H.264 codec so they could play on the iPhone, and Adobe’s Flash Player

supports it, as well. However, it’s not an open technology. It is patented, and

its use is subject to licensing terms. Content producers must pay a royalty

to encode videos using H.264, but these royalties do not apply to content that

is made freely available to end users.^1

Proponents of free software are concerned that eventually the rights holders

may begin demanding high royalties from content producers. That concern

has led to the creation and promotion of alternative codecs.

Theora

Theora is a royalty-free codec developed by the Xiph.org Foundation. Although

content producers can use Theora to create videos of similar quality to those

made with H.264, device manufacturers have been slow to adopt it. Firefox,

Chrome, and Opera will play videos encoded with Theora on any platform

without additional software, but Internet Explorer, Safari, and the iOS devices

will not. Apple and Microsoft were wary of “submarine patents,” a term used

to describe patents for which the patent application purposely delays the

publication and issuance of the patent to lay low while others implement the

technology. When the time is right, the patent applicant “emerges” and begins

demanding royalties from an unsuspecting market. Because of this, Theora

has fallen out of favor and is being replaced by the VP8 format.

VP8

Google’s VP8 is an open codec with quality similar to H.264’s. It is supported

by Mozilla, Chrome, and Opera. Safari 6 and Internet Explorer 9 support VP8

as long as the user has installed a codec already. It’s also supported in Adobe’s

Flash Player, making it an interesting alternative. It is not supported on Safari

on iOS devices, which means that although this codec is free to use, content

producers wanting to deliver video content to iPhones or iPads still need to

use the H.264 codec. In addition, VP8 may infringe on patents related to the

H.264 codec.^2

1. http://www.reelseo.com/mpeg-la-announces-avc-h264-free-license-lifetime/


2. http://www.fosspatents.com/2013/03/nokia-comments-on-vp8-patent.html

Chapter 7. Embedding Audio and Video • 134

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