Google Opens Up VP8, Launches New Container Format

[deanjo]

Seems I'm not the only one concerned.

http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/20100520/googles-royalty-free-webm-video-may-not-be-royalty-free-for-long/

[deanjo]

All questions that have yet to be answered.

But what if it’s not truly royalty free? Who’ll foot the bill? And is the company willing to indemnify its partners from patent litigation to push WebM?

[monraaf]

The amazing thing is that I can tell the difference from just the thumbnails alone. Notice the over contrast on the pic on the right?

No. I think the picture on the right looks slightly better but there really isn't much difference IMHO.

[deanjo]

No. I think the picture on the right looks slightly better but there really isn't much difference IMHO.

Something is wrong on your system then, no offense. There is a clear difference between the one on the left and the one on the right even as I look at it on a 6-bit panel.

[Zhick]

No. I think the picture on the right looks slightly better but there really isn't much difference IMHO.

Dunno... colors are slightly different I think. Maybe that's what you mean with contrast deanjo? IMHO the webm-video looks a little bit green-ish. Nothing that strikes me as annoying though.

[monraaf]

Something is wrong on your system then, no offense. There is a clear difference between the one on the left and the one on the right even as I look at it on a 6-bit panel.

I don't think so. But I encourage you or anyone not to go just by still pictures or some review. But just try it out yourself. Not that I expect you to ever have a positive opinion of VP8. You seem very biased against it to me. As a commenter said on appleinsider, it reads like the pravda.

[Ex-Cyber]

Seems I'm not the only one concerned.

http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/2...free-for-long/

That guy's concern boils down to:

1) The x264 dev's post already cited in this thread, which doesn't actually present any argument for patent infringement being likely except that they're "way too similar" and we live in an "overly litigious day and age".

2) An email from the CEO of MPEG-LA, who basically takes a paragraph to say "we're very very very important, and oh yeah we're looking into VP8". Notably absent is any mention of actually having any patents lined up for inclusion in a pool, or even any expression of confidence that such patents will be found. They're merely "looking into the prospects". If a company said this about a product and then failed to follow up, we probably wouldn't even bother to call it vaporware.

[smitty3268]

Something is wrong on your system then, no offense. There is a clear difference between the one on the left and the one on the right even as I look at it on a 6-bit panel.

I can clearly see the difference in colors, but honestly neither of them looks better than the other to me.

Not that a single still image means much - often it's the scenes with motion that show real problems, and anyone can pick out a specific video or section of video that plays well with a given encoder.

[liam]

Look to areas of high contrast.

I can clearly see the difference in colors, but honestly neither of them looks better than the other to me.

Not that a single still image means much - often it's the scenes with motion that show real problems, and anyone can pick out a specific video or section of video that plays well with a given encoder.

Vis-a-vis, her arms. There is clear blocking visible, though not at the thumbnail level. However, a decent loop filter can alleviate some of this.

Also, here is a link http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/05...ense_for_webm/ where Google says what they've been doing over the past few months with regards to VP8. This is the relevant part:

"We have done a pretty through analysis of VP8 and On2 Technologies prior to the acquisition and since then, and we are very confident with the technology and that's why we're open sourcing," he said.

Now here we have confirmation that Google wasn't just sitting on its hands for the past few months and actually considered what the response was going to be from some members of the community. Are they infallible? Sure... I mean...no...NO! They aren't! But they aren't idiots like some may be intimating. They actually might even be reasonably intelligent. Who knows?

[pingufunkybeat]

So far, all the non-technical arguments against WebM have been pure FUD and fearmongering, with ZERO data.

The technical arguments indicate that it should be comparable to, or better, to h264 baseline, but not as good as the more advanced x264 modes. Which is certainly good enough for web streaming.

The non-technical arguments have been "MPEG-LA is so great, too great, they patented breathing" and lots of pot banging. This is Darl McBride and "SCO owns ever operating system in history due to our patents" rubbish all over again.

The fact is that we, indeed, do not know. The thousands of Google's lawyers do.

Maybe it won't succeed as a format (the format game has always been a tricky one), but this is great news for Open Source, great news for freedom, and terrible news for patent trolls from MPEG-LA. No wonder they're responding with a war on terror.