Microsoft release a Firefox plugin enabling H.264 support

http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2010/12/did-microsoft-just-take-interoperability-too-far.ars

by shawndumas • 16 years ago

63 36 16 years ago

arstechnica.com

woodall• 16 years ago

The plugin is Windows only.

http://www.interoperabilitybridges.com/html5-extension-for-w...

sid02• 16 years ago

It should be fairly easy to use the same idea on other platforms.

nextparadigms• 16 years ago

I think it's obvious why thy did this. They don't want Google's open source WebM codec to become the norm so they're going to push even harder for h.264.

The whole Internet is better off in the end if it's built only on open source and free stuff.

xentronium• 16 years ago

It'd be trivial for them to implement any open codec support.

Thus, no, it's not obvious.

annon• 16 years ago

WebM is not that great technically (http://x264dev.multimedia.cx/archives/377) and is unlikely to remain royalty-free if it ever takes off as there are many patents that could apply to it's code.

H.264 will play in both flash and the browser. It's a standard codec that is used in most workflows already. On top of that, MPEG-LA has announced it will always be royalty free for video that is free to end users (http://www.macworld.com/article/153692/2010/08/h264_royaltie...).

There's no reason for Firefox and Opera to not pick up H.264. It is the only choice that makes sense if HTML5 video is going to take off, and they are holding the web back. Thumbs up to Microsoft for actually trying to push us forward this time.

tvon2• 16 years ago

> (...) and is unlikely to remain royalty-free (...)

The argument that there may be lurking patent issues in WebM doesn't carry a lot of weight, I think, unless they are actually demonstrated. After all, couldn't you say that about absolutely any software?

nuclear_eclipse2• 16 years ago

MPEG-LA has also refused (IIRC) to license the H.264 patents to the Mozilla Foundation in a manner that would actually be compatible with an open source project. Eg., MF would not be allowed to distribute the source code of the H.264 codec/plugin for Firefox, and users who download the Firefox source code and compile Firefox would forced to license their own copy of the H.264 plugin, or else would not be able to use it with their build of Firefox. This then means that downstream projects like Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora, etc would not be able to maintain their own modified builds of Firefox unless they too licensed the H.264 patents.

There are other restrictions that I am surely missing, but the point is that MF licensing H.264 is not a feasible solution for such a shining example of free and open source software projects.

jamesaguilar2• 16 years ago

How would WebM harm or H.264 help Microsoft? IMO no speculation like this is obvious without some kind of salable explanation of motive.

socketpuppet• 16 years ago

Microsoft is a H.264 licensor, with one or more patens in the H.264/AVC patent pool. Having H.264 become the standard for publishing video on the Web will benefit them directly in terms of licensing fees.

gxti2• 16 years ago

They're not sitting around a conference table in an underground bunker, stroking their beards and cackling maniacally while trying to screw the open source community as hard as possible. Microsoft is a business. What business sense does it make to release this plugin?

stingraycharles• 16 years ago

Just thinking out loud, but if this codec becomes dominant, and is only released by Microsoft on the Windows platform, perhaps it's another reason to prefer Windows over OSX?

natrius2• 16 years ago

As a member of the H.264 patent pool[1], Microsoft makes money when people use H.264. If WebM becomes popular, Microsoft directly makes less money.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MPEG_LA

ubernostrum• 16 years ago

Yes, and they also are hard at work on a Firefox extension that kicks puppies and steals candy from babies.

jiaaro• 16 years ago

I think this article overlooks the fact that outsourcing media playback to environment specific codecs (WM9/VLC/etc) has been around for ages.

by the time html5 video is widespread each user will likely have several media plugins installed willing to play h264 video for them in any browser.

I'm talking about quicktime, realplayer, vlc, and windows media, among others - This is SO not a big deal

wmf2• 16 years ago

The context here is that Mozilla specifically said they will not allow Firefox to use Windows's built-in codecs. MS found a workaround by rewriting <video> tags into <embed>.

jbk• 16 years ago

The problem with this is that they replace the html5 <video> tag with an <object> one that WMP plugin will pick up.

It should be not important, but are we sure it does comply correctly to all the <video> options and properties? I don't know why but I think not.

Maybe I should activate my activex plugin that replace IE9 <video> tag into a VLC <object> and see how they take it?

Locke16894• 16 years ago

I think Mozilla's refusal to allow use of OS installed codecs is worse, though. I can see the justification for not providing support for the H264 codec in-browser but not allowing OS codecs seems like taking ideology over technology too far.

buster2• 16 years ago

Motivation: Push H.264 on the web, give MS (and Apple) more money from license fees in the future.

archangel_one• 16 years ago

I doubt it. I think their motivation is to prevent WebM from replacing h.264 as the dominant web video format. Microsoft don't care about licensing fees - their cash cows will be earning them orders of magnitude more. But if WebM replaces h.264 then Firefox on Linux (or ChromeOS or whatever) will be able to play that quite happily, whereas I'm sure MS would prefer h.264 to remain dominant since it's patent-encumbered.

buster2• 16 years ago

Preventing WebM to become dominant has the exact same outcome of more license income ;)

Also, why shouldn't they care about license fees? Think about all encoders/decoders, all producers, all receivers, home cinema players. With more and more videos (VOD) moving into the web, this is only at the beginning. Once H.264 is established enough it's income for free!

latch• 16 years ago

I got a pit in stomach reading that....Microsoft just can't win. I'm sure they have business motives for this, but it really seems like a damned if you do, damned if you don't.

They release a free plugin for Firefox, which'll help address the major issue surrounding HTML5, and the question we ask is if they've gone too far? Or why is it Windows 7 only? Really?!

Microsoft release a Firefox plugin enabling H.264 support

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