Microsoft Officially Announces VP9 Support In Edge

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Microsoft Officially Announces VP9 Support In Edge

Last week it was mentioned that Microsoft would support VP9 and other open-source codecs within their new Edge web-browser. Today there's an interesting blog post from Microsoft about their support for Google's VP9 video codec...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Microsoft-VP9-Edge-Win

[reub2000]

So is this the death knell for flash? I can only dream about Netflix and Hulu dropping DRM for VP9 embedded using the <video> tag.

[smitty3268]

So is this the death knell for flash? I can only dream about Netflix and Hulu dropping DRM for VP9 embedded using the <video> tag.

They already supported h264 via the video tag, so i don't see how this affects flash one way or the other. And you can still stick DRM on top of VP9, they are at different layers. The underlying codec doesn't matter.

[Gusar]

I can only dream about Netflix and Hulu dropping DRM for VP9 embedded using the <video> tag.

That'll forever remain a dream. Even when Netflix and Hulu switch to the Alliance codec, they'll continue to use DRM via EME. As smitty3268 says, DRM is at a layer above video.

[sebastianlacuesta]

The question is: Are they going to respect the standards or they will be so "nice" that they will "enrich" they implementation with artificial additions? EEE?

[Gusar]

The question is: Are they going to respect the standards or they will be so "nice" that they will "enrich" they implementation with artificial additions? EEE?

They will for sure be respectful. This isn't their first dance with royalty-free codecs - they gave WMV3 to the SMPTE who created VC1 from it. VC1 then didn't turn out to be royalty-free like Microsoft intended, but it is a standard governed not by them, but by the SMPTE. For example MS was working on their own 'advanced profile' before the codec was standardized, but they threw that away in favor of what the SMPTE specified as 'advanced profile'.

[r1348]

The licensing mess behind h.265 is scaring pretty much everyone away from it, it's nice to see patent trolls digging their own grave.

[reub2000]

The question is: Are they going to respect the standards or they will be so "nice" that they will "enrich" they implementation with artificial additions? EEE?

Uhh doesn't that require a dominant position. I don't think any website is going to use a feature that only a quarter of their users can use.

They already supported h264 via the video tag, so i don't see how this affects flash one way or the other. And you can still stick DRM on top of VP9, they are at different layers. The underlying codec doesn't matter.

Yeah, it took a while for firefox to adopt h264. If each browser supports a different codec, then plugins become more appealing to websites.

Yeah, your right about the DRM bit. I was just daydreaming a bit about a web that is completely based on standards. Off-topic, but I became infuriated by Hulu's recent decision to use DRM that requires the deprecated HAL that I canceled my subscription. DRM needs to go!

[samdraz]

isn't vp9 encoding slow even with multi threading?

[Marc Driftmeyer]

The licensing mess behind h.265 is scaring pretty much everyone away from it, it's nice to see patent trolls digging their own grave.

You're delusional. Microsoft doesn't have a goddamn patent in the race. Otherwise, they'd already have licensed H.265. Same with Google, Mozilla and the rest of the minor players.