There’s been a lot of posting about video and video formats on the web recently. This is a good opportunity to talk about Microsoft’s point of view.
The future of the web is HTML5. Microsoft is deeply engaged in the HTML5 process with the W3C. HTML5 will be very important in advancing rich, interactive web applications and site design. The HTML5 specification describes video support without specifying a particular video format. We think H.264 is an excellent format. In its HTML5 support, IE9 will support playback of H.264 video only.
H.264 is an industry standard, with broad and strong hardware support. Because of this standardization, you can easily take what you record on a typical consumer video camera, put it on the web, and have it play in a web browser on any operating system or device with H.264 support (e.g. a PC with Windows 7). Recently, we publicly showed IE9 playing H.264-encoded video from YouTube. You can read about the benefits of hardware acceleration here, or see an example of the benefits at the 26:35 mark here. For all these reasons, we’re focusing our HTML5 video support on H.264.
Other codecs often come up in these discussions. The distinction between the availability of source code and the ownership of the intellectual property in that available source code is critical. Today, intellectual property rights for H.264 are broadly available through a well-defined program managed by MPEG LA. The rights to other codecs are often less clear, as has been described in the press. Of course, developers can rely on the H.264 codec and hardware acceleration support of the underlying operating system, like Windows 7, without paying any additional royalty.
Today, video on the web is predominantly Flash-based. While video may be available in other formats, the ease of accessing video using just a browser on a particular website without using Flash is a challenge for typical consumers. Flash does have some issues, particularly around reliability, security, and performance. We work closely with engineers at Adobe, sharing information about the issues we know of in ongoing technical discussions. Despite these issues, Flash remains an important part of delivering a good consumer experience on today’s web.
Dean HachamovitchGeneral Manager, Internet Explorer
http://www.w3.org/TR/html5/video.html
I see here H.264, MPEG-4, Theora, Vorbis, Speex, FLAC, Dirac codec and Ogg, Matroska containers.
Internet Explorer 9 will be support all this codecs and containers, right?
"Just a name", did you read the article? My guess is you just have some type of auto-reply. You seemingly did not read the w3.org page either "The type attribute gives the type of the media resource, to help the user agent determine if it can play this media resource before fetching it.". There is nothing stating what format has to be supported.
We've been critical of Microsoft in the past but at the moment we're really excited about the direction IE9 is going in. Keep up the good work.
"The future of the web is HTML5"
The future of computing is HTML5.
"We think H.264 is an excellent format."
I bet you do.
"H.264 is an industry standard…"
But not a standard.
"The distinction between the availability of source code and the ownership of the intellectual property in that available source code is critical"
Yes, it is. But you don’t go on to mention anything more about source code in your post.
"Today, intellectual property rights for H.264 are broadly available through a well-defined program managed by MPEG LA"
Of which you are part of.
"The rights to other codecs are often less clear, as has been described in the press"
What codecs, what isn’t clear, what stories in what press?
"Of course, developers can rely on the H.264 codec and hardware acceleration support of the underlying operating system, like Windows 7, without paying any additional royalty."
But they will need to purchase a licence to encode their content for commercial uses, esp. after the grace period (2016).
Sam, you not read my comment? My guess is you just have some type of auto-reply. :)
1. I JUST see this list of codecs and containers.
2. I JUST ask "IE9 will be support all of it?"
This is a chance for IE to show some leadership and embrace forward looking (and content producer friendly) codecs at little cost to themselves but instead of showing some fortitude and business insight, Mr. Hachamovitch is playing the lapdog to Abobe. Ugh.
I remember when ActiveX was the de-facto industry standard *sigh*
Just a name, what Sam was getting at is that the article clearly states that H.264 is the only supported format, so there was no need to ask whether other formats are supported. Even in your second post you're still asking whether IE 9 will support more formats.
"The rights to other codecs are often less clear, as has been described in the press."
Wow. That's the most awkwardly circumspect sentence I've seen in a long time.
It's too bad technologies cannot compete on straightforward practical terms (cost, quality), and instead are decided on FUD-ridden political battlegrounds.
Just a name: The article clearly states IE9 will support h264 only.
Kroc: 2016 is when the issue will be up for review again. MPEG makes major decisions on issues like these once every several years, and the next time will be in 2016. It's not a case of "free until x, non-free after", like people enjoy interpreting it as. It's highly unlikely they'd change their decision when that time comes.
h264 is fine for me personally, but can I ask what the issue would be in supporting any and all codecs that the user has installed on their PC for use with the video tag? That way, if the user wants j.random codec to work, they can just install it themselves.
i.e. the browser supports any and all codecs, even if MS only supports (in the sense of technical support) h.264
This is a very sad day for the open web. Microsoft will support HTML5 (yay!) but only a patent-encumbered, proprietary codec (boo!) anyone apart from Apple, Microsoft, and Google won't be able to support (due to the prohibitive licensing cost and/or the non-Free nature). So instead of Flash, we're now crippling the web with another proprietary technology.
I guess I was hoping against my better judgement. Microsoft is a licensor of the MPG-LA, and as such, you guys profit from having as many H264 licenses sold as possible. I had just hoped that due to recent positive steps from Microsoft with regards to openness and standards, we'd see some enlightenment here.
Due to the emphasis on "only", I'm assuming IE9 won't tap into DirectShow/Media Foundation codecs? I.e., if a user has a Theora codec installed, IE9 will make use of it?
Funny how none of you are leaving comments on Steve Jobs's post, or suggesting that MS use webkit...
H.264 is not a standard, nor open!
@planetarian: Great! Can we have your address so we know whom to send licensing bills to if you are wrong?