VP9 Codec Now Enabled By Default In Chrome

[smitty3268]

Ok, and you're sure that won't happen because... what, Google says so? Well, that changes everything. Everyone knows we can ALWAYS trust big, multinational corporations, they NEVER go back on their word or have hidden ulterior motives...

Google is one of the parties behind the HTML5 DRM plan. The whole thing is a scheme lobbied for by hollywood gatekeepers and media giants, who want to protect their "intellectual property". Mark my words, soon we'll see youtube videos that require DRM to play, because if the media giants demand that of Google... they'll pretty much have to give in.

I fully expect some videos on Youtube to start requiring DRM, just so Google can attract some of those more hollywood content providers, and compete more directly against services like Hulu. They've already been talking about providing tv content and original programming.

I don't think you'll ever see most of the generic user-uploaded videos require it though. It will probably be one of those opt-in things for uploaders.

[smitty3268]

@RahulSundaram


Please tell me how this is not "Google makes a standard by releasing the software".

I'm also not clear on what you want Google to do, exactly. They were soliciting others about what kinds of changes should go into the codec. I know they made several changes over the last month or two at the request of some hardware partners to make it more hardware friendly.

Were you wanting it to be designed by the HTML committee? It just would have gotten vetoed by Microsoft and Apple anyway.

Are you simply opposed to Google creating any kind of technology that ends up in it's browser? That seems kind of self-defeating, and none of the other browser makers have that restriction.

[dee.]

I fully expect some videos on Youtube to start requiring DRM, just so Google can attract some of those more hollywood content providers, and compete more directly against services like Hulu. They've already been talking about providing tv content and original programming.

I don't think you'll ever see most of the generic user-uploaded videos require it though. It will probably be one of those opt-in things for uploaders.

And you're ok with it?

Here's one possible scenario... youtube takes on hollywood videos for profit, implements DRM on them, and then, Google has a direct financial incentive in making sure that this web DRM stays alive... solution? Make all youtube videos require DRM support in the browser, even if the videos themselves don't contain DRM. This way, people who want to use youtube will want to use DRM-supporting browsers, and web DRM will quickly become just another thing people have to tolerate.

[powdigsig]

You can also use extension (for Firefox; Chrome should have equivalents) such as Youtube Anywhere Player, that force HTML5.

Thx lots !!! !!! !!! !!!
Also anybody know of a simple technology in Chromium that does what brosis explained? A simple extension in Chromium/Chrome that changes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whatever to https://www.youtube.com/embed/whatever ?
I'm switching from firefox to Chromium(actually not because of VP8-9, but because of WebRTC)

and please don't suggest I have to create the extension. I'm a squib.

[smitty3268]

And you're ok with it?

Here's one possible scenario... youtube takes on hollywood videos for profit, implements DRM on them, and then, Google has a direct financial incentive in making sure that this web DRM stays alive... solution? Make all youtube videos require DRM support in the browser, even if the videos themselves don't contain DRM. This way, people who want to use youtube will want to use DRM-supporting browsers, and web DRM will quickly become just another thing people have to tolerate.

I don't think you understand how it's going to work. The browsers are just going to plug into DRM on the OS. It's going to be there whether Google does anything on youtube or not.

At least it will be there on windows, macs, and android. I bet you'll be able to buy it on linux similar to the way you can buy mp3/etc. support now.

I don't like that, but i also know that what i think doesn't matter. Whether i'm "ok with that" is pretty meaningless.

I also don't particularly blame google for it - it's the hollywood producers that are the problem here. Google has just given up trying to fight them, and given the current situation i'm not sure i blame them. It's disappointing, but i'm not mad at them.

[dee.]

I don't think you understand how it's going to work. The browsers are just going to plug into DRM on the OS. It's going to be there whether Google does anything on youtube or not.

At least it will be there on windows, macs, and android. I bet you'll be able to buy it on linux similar to the way you can buy mp3/etc. support now.

I think I understand exactly how it's going to work. Basically, it won't solve anything, it will compromise the integrity and interoperability of the web, and legitimize the idea of DRM in the context of web services. Instead of having one or two shitty DRM plugins like silverlight, we're going to have each content producer producing their own system, and you'll be lucky if any of the plugins will work on anything except windows and mac os, maybe android as an afterthought. No longer can you expect the web to be platform-independent, instead we'll have large swaths of the internet that can only be browsed by certain hardware/OS combinations.

I don't like that, but i also know that what i think doesn't matter. Whether i'm "ok with that" is pretty meaningless.

That's a defeatist attitude. Of course what you think matters. Not very much, but some anyway. If enough people are tell Google, Microsoft &co. that we don't want this shit in our internet, they'll have to back down.

I also don't particularly blame google for it - it's the hollywood producers that are the problem here. Google has just given up trying to fight them, and given the current situation i'm not sure i blame them. It's disappointing, but i'm not mad at them.

Yeah, funny that, Google can get away with murder as long as they give some lip-service about supporting open source... no one ever expects anything of Google. Hey, I get it, they use Linux in their OS's, they run GSOC, they contribute code, but that's just smart business for them. I used to think Google was a mixed blessing, but lately the scale is tipping alarmingly towards the point where they're just going to be the next Microsoft...

For the record, I DO blame Google, and I DO blame the W3C. They could stop this idiocy, if Microsoft and Netflix alone tried to implement this, it wouldn't go far, but Google has lots of influence on web standards now that they have their own browser which has huge market share...

[przemoli]

I'm also not clear on what you want Google to do, exactly. They were soliciting others about what kinds of changes should go into the codec. I know they made several changes over the last month or two at the request of some hardware partners to make it more hardware friendly.

Were you wanting it to be designed by the HTML committee? It just would have gotten vetoed by Microsoft and Apple anyway.

Are you simply opposed to Google creating any kind of technology that ends up in it's browser? That seems kind of self-defeating, and none of the other browser makers have that restriction.

He probably think that to be "good" such tech sould only go through strandard setting commete. Though he seam unaware about what MPEG is... Or he is just a troll, who troll about FLOSS code that is not available for Mozilla (as if Mozilla didn't had full access to VP8...)

[plonoma]

Yes, it is being implemented in mobile device GPUs that are paired with ARM CPUs, including future Tegra chipsets but those are all years away. No desktop/notebook GPU hardware will likely ever support VP9 hardware decoding as decoding will likely be done via the CPU with the GPU doing processing of certain things (hardware accelerated decoding), much like how h.264 was handled intially.

What about any OpenCL decoders that use the GPU.
The new Mali-GPU's and other GPU's that are coming out now support the newest version 1.2 of OpenCL.
OpenCL allows for taking advantage of GPU, hardware without ending up with ASIC-like video decoders, encoders.
The hardware use is also flexible making things use the available silicon more versatile and there for more useful and efficient.

[liam]

I'm not aware of any recent testing of vp9 and hevc. The last testing I saw had vp9 sitting between x264 and the reference hevc encoder. I wouldn't expect them to be quite as good (simply b/c I don't think they can use b-frames), but since hevc isn't quite ready yet to my knowledge, vp9 has a chance, unlike vp8 since we are very early in the hardware decode cycle.
Having google push it for android would be good.
The big advantage, though, comes in a one side fits all system of webm2 (as I'm calling it, though I don't think that there are really releasing a new version). With opus support, and realtime vp9 encoding, this would also work for webrtc.
I'm not aware of another open solution to match this.

[TheLexMachine]

What about any OpenCL decoders that use the GPU.
The new Mali-GPU's and other GPU's that are coming out now support the newest version 1.2 of OpenCL.
OpenCL allows for taking advantage of GPU, hardware without ending up with ASIC-like video decoders, encoders.
The hardware use is also flexible making things use the available silicon more versatile and there for more useful and efficient.

Are there any OpenCL Video Decoders out there? I've never seen any except the proof of concept stuff. Mali GPUs are worthless for video decoding as the ARM CPU architecture already has NEON for decoding video and there is a dedicated Mali video processor design separate from the GPU that has multiple cores for decoding video.