Morning Discussion

by Alice O'Connor, Jan 14, 2011 5:00am PST

I'm still catching up on my Inter-reading, and beginning to suspect that people are in fact writing new things all the time, so here's another wodge of links for you this rainy/snowy/dry/damp/wet/hot/cold/sleety/arid/scorching Friday/Saturday.

A collection of Czech and Polish posters for Godzilla and other Japanese monster movies. They're very stylish and cool, though 'Son of Godzilla' is curiously unsettling.

Branding blog Brand New takes a look at THQ's new logo and concludes that while there are a few problems, "it is a bold improvement over the previous one."

A video trip down the London sewers, complete with gawping at fatbergs and sniffing out how posh an area is. Pleasant lunchtime viewing.

Telephones ruin society, Wondermark discovered. Not your 'iPouch' or whatever it is you crazy kids gush over, but those old wired telephones (you don't believe me but these genuinely did exist). Back in 1889. It's been downhill since then, we can all agree.

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See All Comments | 276 Threads | 6,548 Comments

#4201

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By: sgtsanity x Show Full Post

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Unsurprisingly, Google Chrome releases a FAQ about dropping h.264 that doesn't actually answer any of the tough questions and dances around the F-word.

http://blog.chromium.org/2011/01/more-about-chrome-html-video-codec.html

Jan 14, 2011 12:26pm PST

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Unsurprisingly, Google Chrome releases a FAQ about dropping h.264 that doesn't actually answer any of the... : sgtsanity
Thread Truncated. Click to see all 202 replies.
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  Which F-word is that? : Haxim
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    Flaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa : BouillonCubes
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      flange? : electroly
      
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      hey FRINGE is on a week from today! : dirge23
      
      i can confirm the google blog says not one word about this. i am incensed : electroly
      
      Fffffffriday! : BouillonCubes
  - foible : c0bra
  - i for one am glad that the usage of the word "fig" is down 20% this year. : kbnerd
  - FUPA : hirez
  - Fh.ITA : Hemtroll
  - fuuuuuudggggggggeee : CapnChaos
  - Flupa : Nitrium
  - fallopian : mrwolf710
  - Featherstonehaugh (pronounced 'fanshaw') : GreatGooglyMoogly
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  they dropped it because its a closed source codec that you will still be able to use with flash. they wa... : harold.johnson
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    Because it was in there and then they took it away!!! : Haxim
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      shouldn't have been put in in the first place! :D : harold.johnson
      
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      But then what would people complain about?! : Haxim
      
      probably the hover bar at bottom some more? : harold.johnson
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    Because maybe some of us are fucking tired of being jerked around by google, apple and all of these other... : nukewinter
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      h.264's progress as a codec is going to be entirely up to the owner of that codec. it will never be able... : harold.johnson
      
      Google is now building a community around WebM (similar to that around Theora), but it hasn't taken any s : BouillonCubes
      
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      They could still KEEP support though, even if it's not encouraged. Think of this from the perspective ... : nukewinter
      
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      You're presenting all of that video using the <video> tag today? : indosauros
      
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      Nope, only about half of it. We were using VP6 until apple decided to fuck us with flash, so now we are ... : nukewinter
      
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      if you're still planning to use Flash, why would you need WebM? Flash/H.264 + <video>/H.264 covers all s... : electroly
      
      I recognize it's not a need, but I just wonder with the way companies aren't handling stuff like this if ... : nukewinter
      
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      Why encode stuff yourself? There are plenty of cloud based services that do this for you on demand. : ysbreker
      
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      Each of our videos is a 30-40 gig lossless file. Those encoding services are nice if you are going from ... : nukewinter
      
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      Uploading those 30 - 40 Gig files wouldn't be fun either :) : ysbreker
      
      We don't upload them, we render them locally to a distribution format, being H264 now. We just couldn't ... : nukewinter
      
      Haha what. Codecs have a specification that has to stay static, so that you can trust your video files t : sgtsanity
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    http://arstechnica.com/web/news/2011/01/googles-dropping-h264-from-chrome-a-step-backward-for-openness.ar... : BouillonCubes
    - toggle
      ^^^^ read this. If you're not pissed, it's because you don't know what the fuck is going on. : stuka
      
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      the ars article is terrible. Read these if you think a patent encumbered, for pay technology should be p... : MamiyaOtaru
      
      #4622
      
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      By: Serpico74 x Show Full Post
      
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      Because a blog on the Opera website is completely free from bias on this issue.
      
      Also: "Just because a format is widespread offline does not mean that it is suitable for use on the web. Since the web requires open standards, H.264 is not suitable as the primary format for video on the web, by definition."
      
      He ignores the fact that hundreds of millions of portable and set-top devices have h.264 decoding built into them, all of them pulling video from the web. If that isn't entrenchment then I don't know what is. Does he expect people to buy all new hardware with WebM hardware acceleration built in?
      
      It is an irrelevant point either way, video providers are just going to continue to encode h.264 for Flash and for mobile/set-top devices. <video> will be irrelevant for even longer than any of us had anticipated.
      
      Jan 14, 2011 1:04pm PST
      
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      Because a blog on the Opera website is completely free from bias on this issue. Also: "Just because a : Serpico74
      
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      yeah he has his own interests but that's a weak excuse to dismiss what he is saying. If people conti... : MamiyaOtaru
      
      <video> will continue to be ignored, that's the bottom line. Unless WebM hardware decoders suddenly go wi... : Serpico74
      
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      None of those questions reference the main issue: Why does Google need to REMOVE h.264 support, while kee : stuka
      
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      Because h.264 isn't free? : Jonathan
      
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      Why is Apple so keen to kill Flash, while pushing a closed format for video? Why are so many people parr... : MamiyaOtaru
      
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      (meant to reply to Stuka) also because Google isn't paying to bundle Flash, and Flash is a plugin, not s... : MamiyaOtaru
      
      1- Google already pays for h.264, whether they remove it from Chrome or not, because of Android. 2- Fun ... : stuka
      
      Well Google has stated that they've removed h264 for "openness" reasons but they're still bundling Flash ... : BouillonCubes
      
      Apple isn't trying to kill flash so much as they're refusing to let it on iOS because then they'd lose co... : BouillonCubes
      
      Because Flash isn't maintained by Google? : zehh
    - Some counter arguments to that (wrong in parts) article on ars: http://annevankesteren.nl/2011/01/why-we... : ysbreker
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    Because it's utter bullshit. They're being assholes and acting like it's all for freedom and world peace.... : stuka
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      People won't rebuy devices, what it means is that people encoding content will only stick with h.264 in a... : Serpico74
      
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      Well, exactly. So they're forcing people to move from an open standard format that has some reasonable pa... : stuka
      
      Yup. Adobe must be thrilled at the new lease on life Google gave them. : Serpico74
      
      That's where we are now. We are doing H264 for mobile devices like apple, and H264 in flash for the pc /... : nukewinter
  - Agreed. And on the same note we should all start speaking Esperanto. : uncleanmonkey
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    I don't blame them, MPEG-LA is literally the devil. : crazywigga
    - Our dealings with them have not been bad at all. They actually have *VERY REASONABLE* stances, especiall... : nukewinter
  - they want to push an their own open source codec that anyone can use... : Slowtreme
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  why can you not accept that they have their own agenda, as does everyone else? however they want to ju... : dopeman
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    Because they're acting like they're saints and saying that it's all for "openness", while it's actually a... : stuka
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  why can you not accept that they have their own agenda, as does everyone else? however they want to ju... : dopeman
  - It's possible their agenda is entirely noble; an agenda nonetheless. : jim bone
- H.264 support was ultimately futile anyway because there was no way Opera or Firefox would ever budge on ... : mikecyb
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  I bet apple will never support webM and insist they support html 5 in every way possible. : thecatinthehat
  - unless WebM is in the HTML5 spec (which it isn't) they are supporting it : mikecyb
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  All of you guys buying into Google's bullshit, consider these points: 1- Why did they need to remove it? : stuka
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  Firefox, the most used browser in Europe*, does not support h264 (without a plugin) and never will. Chro... : MamiyaOtaru
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    it's not like websites are going to just stop encoding h264 because googles dropped official support for ... : harold.johnson
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      you just have to serve chrome the flash that you already showed (mostly) everyone else as it is. Thats it... : YerMothah
      
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      So if Google is really all about pushing WebM and <video> into "first class" territory, and if openness i... : BouillonCubes
      
      how many times do people have to draw the distinction between a plugin and something in the source of the... : harold.johnson
      
      Maybe they are not "all about that". Instead maybe they are about pushing WebM and <video into "first cl... : jim bone
      
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      FLASH IS A PLUGIN. h.264 was INTEGRATED. h.264 is no longer integrated as PART of the browser. Flash i... : YerMothah
      
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      When are they going to remove mp3 from the browser? : BouillonCubes
      
      but who was phone? : YerMothah
      
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      when they can go back in time 15 years and introduce ogg before mp3 had already become totally defacto fo... : harold.johnson
      
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      Yea but mp3 is closed and the <audio> tag should be first class too. : BouillonCubes
      
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      There's not nearly so much author and consumer interest in web audio as web video. I think this may be a... : Zero|DPX
      
      BREAKING NEWS: Google Chrome dev claims MP3 support to possibly be removed in future iterations of Chrome... : Goto10
      
      Also if you would suddenly be happy with removing <audio> too then surely starting with <video> is a good... : indosauros
      
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      Plugin/integrated issues aside. It's pretty reasonable to not want to break widely-used existing functio... : jim bone
      
      Anything explicity serving h.264 is retarded anyway, and chances are had a flash bypass. So now it just s... : YerMothah
      
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      One is a technology that is not yet integrated into mainstream web. Dropping h.264 has nearly zero effec... : indosauros
      
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      Understandable but why haven't they taken the openness thing all the way by removing mp3 and whatever els... : BouillonCubes
      
      While we are at it, lets just remove gifs and jpgs as well! : YerMothah
      
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      Why do they have to take it all the way? : jim bone
      
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      Are all browsers planning on supporting WebM? : Goto10
      
      firefox, opera, chrome : harold.johnson
      
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      IE9 is, Safari is thru quicktime, chrome obviously is, firefox is. Opera is the only one I am unsure o... : YerMothah
      
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      Opera is, built in. : Zero|DPX
      
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      See, I don't keep up with all of this bullshit. What about devices, these would work fine on the iPhone'... : Goto10
      
      no ramifications for Hulu or Netflix because they will never use the <video> tag : electroly
      
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      Hulu and Netflix HAVE to use a separate container simply for the DRM. HTML5 cant do that AT ALL. So they ... : YerMothah
      
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      Starting to make sense, starting to make sense, thanks guys. Still not seeing a big deal, but I don't do... : Goto10
      
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      In the short term it will not make web development any easier. In the long term it will also not matter : Zero|DPX
      
      this is really the bottom line and every future thread about this topic should start with a link to this ... : indosauros
      
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      I'm very curious to see how WebM hardware acceleration in mobile devices shakes out. Everything, Android ... : Serpico74
      
      I have no idea. I think if it were already really likely to happen Google wouldn't have needed to make t... : Zero|DPX
      
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      Here is the advantage from where I"m standing. Adopting h.264 for desktop browsers could have unified the... : Serpico74
      
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      The problem with this is that Firefox was never going to adopt h.264 and Firefox is big enough to matter ... : Zero|DPX
      
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      Absolutely. I suppose I hoped against hope that Firefox would eventually cave in. That and I don't use Fi... : Serpico74
      
      Exactly, for most people this move changes nothing at all for the next year or two. That is why I wrote ... : Zero|DPX
      
      and I dont know how I wrote quicktime. I meant silverlight. : YerMothah
      
      Just an FYI, Netflix and other companies are trying to hash out a standard that would enable DRM-supporte... : Danny5225
      
      Don't try to pretend that anyone who is not excited about Googles move is just a Steve Jobs drone. It's ... : BouillonCubes
      
      Right now the iPhone and iPad support h.264 and not Flash. Now that hardware VP8 decoding has just bec... : Zero|DPX
      
      As others have mentioned, some of them are. I object to his suggestion that Google ought to go "all th... : jim bone
      
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      ^^^ This is correct, FWIW. Why does Flash suck? Because it's closed and developed solely by Adobe who : Zero|DPX
      
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      Anyone can code a h.264 encoder or decoder, and did! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X264 (It also hap : sgtsanity
      
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      You're making a critical assumption, which is that before this move, there was somehow any chance at all ... : Zero|DPX
      
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      There were already work-arounds for Firefox based on the operating system itself carrying the codec. h : sgtsanity
      
      It doesn't make life any harder on web developers who want to ship h.264-in-<video> and rely on noncompli... : Zero|DPX
      
      I don't see why <video> should be any different from <img>. Let the format wars settle down orthogonally ... : uncleanmonkey
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    WebM isn't open either. : BouillonCubes
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      it's a royalty free, open source code video container. if you can keep denying it all you want, but you'... : harold.johnson
      
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      You can argue that WebM is open in just the same way that you can argue that h264 is closed. It's fuzzy ... : BouillonCubes
      
      That ars article is terribad and is pretty well refuted in subsequent links : indosauros
      
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      i read that article, and your inability to even consider another view point, coupled with your instance o... : harold.johnson
      
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      How is the same not true of everything you're saying? You're not willing to discuss as anyone who doesn't... : batkiwi
      
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      i've looked at it all, i've tried to understand it as best i could. he's repeating the same things over ... : harold.johnson
      
      But you're just repeating the same thing over and over... : batkiwi
      
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      Google has granted indefinite free patent rights on the VP8 codec. Is this also true of h264? : jim bone
      
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      Yes*. http://arstechnica.com/media/news/2010/08/mpeg-la-counters-google-webm-with-permanent-royalty-morat : BlackCat9
      
      But no, you still have to pay to encode stuff in H.264 : ysbreker
- UNSURPRISINGLY : virus
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  I DKWTF when it comes to the next format war we're looking at, but two observations: 1) It seems like ... : MercFox1
  - Their statement, as in the statement by MPEG LA. : MercFox1
  - 2 - same reason MP3 and GIF got support early on, because it's a useful format. : mikecyb
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  so does this mean microsoft has to rescue us from apple and google or what : Downforce
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    Microsoft is (wisely I guess) pretty much silent on this subject. But will only natively support H.264 in... : ysbreker
    - Not that silent: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/tims/archive/2011/01/11/an-open-letter-from-the-president-of-the... : Serpico74
  - it's kind of funny that IE9 will be the only browser to support H.264 and WebM in the video tag. I do be... : mikecyb
- As someone who wants to sell his animations online someday, I looked up what it would cost to license H26... : jipey
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  I think it's retarded what they are doing. Having said that, isn't the best way to fight against this is ... : ovrlrd
  - Yeah, they really need to just stop using the word 'open' when talking about shit. There is nothing open ... : pancake humper

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