"THANK YOU" to whoever agreed and implemented webm videos on channel9

Very much impressed that channel9 hosts its videos in webm.

I am a HUGE fan of channel9 and i visit this website everyday and consume tones and tones of videos but unfortunately, i am one of those who rarely comment, just view, without logging in.

I use firefox on linux purely as a matter of preference and without any philosophical reason or ill feelings towards anything microsoft. i just prefer linux over windows and channel9 videos behind silverlight was quite annoying since i couldnt stream them and i end up just downloading most of the videos i watch. This was annoying but perfectly understandable(to me).

The other day, while on linux and for no good reason, i clicked on a video expecting a silverlight error and the video played!!!.This was totally unexpected and i am sure quite a few resources are going into this functionality that most likely will not be used my the majority of the site visitors.

I coudnt remember my previous account credentials and i created this new account to say "thank you" to whoever implemented webm videos on channel9.

Have you ever tried just going into your Channel 9 profile and changing your "Video Playback Preference" to HTML5? This works for people who don't have Silverlight.

At the moment I have Youtube set to play using he HTML 5 player instead of Flash but I get those little notices to try out Webm for IE9 all the time but I haven't tried it because I really don't know anything about it.

@dentaku:

As i said in my previous post, i visited the site regularly but do not sign in so a profile preference switch wouldnt have worked. And even if i was visiting the website logged in,i would first need to know or assume the preference exist. The webpage recognized my browser capabilities(or deficiencies ) and adjusted accordingly and thats the cool part that made me appreciate the feature enough to bother to try to log in using my old account and then create a new one when i couldnt remember its credentials.

Microsoft already has licenses for h.264 and they are going to( if they arent already) ship the codec with windows and IE is going to(if its not already) support it natively for audio/video in html5.I though an html5 player on channel9 would be using h.264 and having duplicate files in webm for minorities here like me is quite a consideration and something i didnt even though to wish for.

As a person who use firefor on linux, html5/webm is the only option minus flash for video streaming since silverlight doesnt work(moonlight doesnt) and html5/h.264 also doesnt work(firefox doesnt bundle it and also doest pick up the codec from the system like Opera does.

i think you have to install webm codecs to allow IE to play webm videos in html5 video tag. Firefox ships with the codec bundled in

@mhogomchungu: Correct, you need the WebM components to play WebM in IE: http://tools.google.com/dlpage/webmmf/

Microsoft licenses patents to MPEG LA:

http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/AVC/Pages/Licensors.aspx
Microsoft Corporation

and yet is actively using WebM which is currently not under the protection of those same patents under VP8

http://www.mpegla.com/main/pid/vp8/default.aspx

(DENVER, CO, US – 10 February 2011) – MPEG LA, LLC, world leader in alternative one-stop patent licenses, announces a call for patents essential to the VP8 video codec specification used to deliver video images. The VP8 video codec is defined by the WebM Project at httpwww.webmproject.org.

on this website Microsoft is setting a precedent that their own video patent portfolio along with the other MPEG LA licensors is invalid.

That is the hypocrisy.

@10000001:

Thats an odd way of thinking. Microsoft supporting a competing standard/product does not mean lack of faith in its own product, It could just be good business.

html5 is the future.Firefox currently command just over 25% of web browser users.Firefox is not going to support h.264. You seem to suggest Microsoft should ignore all these users when switching to html5.

What do you think of Microsoft selling office for mac?

Or supporting linux in hype-V?

Or putting Microsoft apps in apple app store? ( i remember somebody saying a while ago).

@mhogomchungu: Don't bother arguing. He's not interested in any kind of rational discussion.

@mhogomchungu:

The status of VP8 has apparently, at least reportedly, not been settled yet with MPEG LA. So by using WebM encoding for videos on this website Microsoft is sort of undermining their own interests and those of the other MPEG LA licensors.

Here's what the late Steve Jobs said about it:

VP8 is simply way too similar to H.264: a pithy, if slightly inaccurate, description of VP8 would be "H.264 Baseline Profile with a better entropy coder". Though I am not a lawyer, I simply cannot believe that they will be able to get away with this, especially in today's overly litigious day and age. Even VC-1 differed more from H.264 than VP8 does, and even VC-1 didn't manage to escape the clutches of software patents. Until we get some hard evidence that VP8 is safe, I would be extremely cautious.

Yet Microsoft is throwing caution to the wind on Channel 9.

The WebM plugin for IE is published by Google: https://tools.google.com/dlpage/webmmf

I have not heard of plans for HTML5 video tag support for webm in IE. Has anybody else?

@10000001:

Microsoft first stated that IE will support only h.264 in html5 video tag.

They later changed their minds and allow IE to support vp8 if the codec is installed in a user machine.

If they are undermining their interest, they did not start with this website,they started it with IE and somebody above posted a link to where windows users can get vp8 to use it with IE. Now IE users have a choice, their consume ch9 videos natively in h.264 or vp8 or through silverlight. More choice == good.

Going html5 undermines their interest since it diminishes usefulness of silverlight. You suggesting all videos should be behind silverlight object too? . Supporting webm could be undermining their interest.Ignoring over 25% of web users is undermining their own interest.

Steve Jobs is simply not a credible person to quote. This is the guy who waved his hand and said "nobody want to watch video on such small devices" only to have the functionally a year or two later. What about "web pages is the way to go" when didnt have an SDK ready. The list of him talking negatively on things apple currently didnt  do or apple being on the other side is too long to mention. Apple already heavily invested in h.264. Statement like that was expected from him,he just used what  most people were saying against webm.

Anyway, point taken. There is a downside here but there is an upside too. I focus on the up, you focus on the opposite.

I take your point.

But consider this:

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2011/03/16/html5-video-update-webm-for-ie9.aspx

As an industry, we still face many legitimate, unanswered questions about liability, risks, and support for WebM, such as:

• Who bears the liability and risk for consumers, businesses, and developers until the legal system resolves the intellectual property issues?

It's one thing to allow Google to create a 3rd party plugin to do whatever in IE. They've been doing that for years with various technologies in IE regardless of IP rights.

It's another to host files they encoded with that technology on their servers(or better yet Akamai). Google's not doing that, Microsoft is.

Microsoft is now the Agent of WebM in this case, not Google.

@10000001: I am interested in your theories and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

IE was first engineered to only play h.264 in html5 video tag. It was later re engineered to support webm.

webm support in IE is not done through a generic IE API any 3rd party codec can use.The support is there only for webm and hence IE can not claim ignorance( or common carrier like status ) of what codec is loading and hence MPEG LA can go after microsoft if it want to.

If MPEG LA want to go after microsoft for webm infringements, IE will be a place to go. By specifically designing IE to pick up only webm, microsoft became "an agent of webm.

Do you really think MPEG LA will sue microsoft for webm usage in IE or hosting files in the format?

@mhogomchungu: 10000001 is a well-known troll on this forum -- he's only here to start arguments and cause friction on this site.  He will only post anti-Microsoft opinions because he thinks that is the best way to start an argument.

It's best to ignore him until he gets bored and leaves (only to return a few months later with a different username and start all over again).

Herbie

There is a difference between providing a webm video and providing a webm codec but Beer doesn't seem to understand that.

@Dr Herbie:

somebody else above said the same thing. Advice taken

http://www.w3schools.com/html5/html5_video.asp

The HTML5 video tag natively supports multiple codecs, so all the IE team really did was implement that half correctly. They did not provide the WebM/VP8 technology from Microsoft.com for download.

<video width="320" height="240" controls="controls">
  <source src="movie.mp4" type="video/mp4" />
  <source src="movie.ogg" type="video/ogg" />
  Your browser does not support the video tag.
</video>

What they did is similar to what MPlayer did in Linux with the non-free packages where MPlayer was often bundled separately and the non-free packages containing proprietary codecs for ASF, Real, ect... sans license, were an extra download.

But here WebM is actively being used by Microsoft and WebM encoded videos are being officially provided by Microsoft Corporation on a Microsoft website.

Allowing multiple video codecs under HTML5, be it WebM or not, is not the same as providing the technology in whatever form.

So that's the difference. I am going to shoot an email to MPEG LA with a link to this post and see what they have to say about it.

15 minutes ago, 10000001 wrote

*snip*

So that's the difference. I am going to shoot an email to MPEG LA with a link to this post and see what they have to say about it.

I'm guessing your email will end up in "Deleted Items" folder faster than you can say "WebM".

Oh, this is gonna sting Micro$oft... if only they had some sort of interest or control over the MPEG LA...

Oh wait.