Firefox 33 Brings OpenH264 Support

[tiuykor]

Mailpile is a webmailer, not an offline client.

That sucks! Crap. i thought they were making an offline as well. In that case hopefully someone will pickup Thunderbird development.

FirefoxOS is Linux-based. I doubt they neglect it.
GTK3 is a pile of shit.

everthing else in gnome 3 is gtk3. and lots doesnt work without it. like dark theme in firefox. dark theme much easier on my eyes/health.

[OneTimeShot]

Just in case anyone thinks that this means H264 is ok

Phoronix: Firefox 33 Brings OpenH264 Support

From the Cisco license page...

-----------------------------------------
AVC/H.264 Patent Portfolio License Notice
-----------------------------------------

The binary form of this Software is distributed by Cisco under the AVC/H.264 Patent Portfolio License from MPEG LA, and is subject to the following requirements, which may or may not be applicable to your use of this software:

THIS PRODUCT IS LICENSED UNDER THE AVC PATENT PORTFOLIO LICENSE FOR THE PERSONAL USE OF A CONSUMER OR OTHER USES IN WHICH IT DOES NOT RECEIVE REMUNERATION TO (i) ENCODE VIDEO IN COMPLIANCE WITH THE AVC STANDARD (?AVC VIDEO?) AND/OR (ii) DECODE AVC VIDEO THAT WAS ENCODED BY A CONSUMER ENGAGED IN A PERSONAL ACTIVITY AND/OR WAS OBTAINED FROM A VIDEO PROVIDER LICENSED TO PROVIDE AVC VIDEO. NO LICENSE IS GRANTED OR SHALL BE IMPLIED FOR ANY OTHER USE. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION MAY BE OBTAINED FROM MPEG LA, L.L.C. SEE HTTP://WWW.MPEGLA.COM

Accordingly, please be advised that content providers and broadcasters using AVC/H.264 in their service may be required to obtain a separate use license from MPEG LA, referred to as "(b) sublicenses" in the SUMMARY OF AVC/H.264 LICENSE TERMS from MPEG LA found at http://www.openh264.org/mpegla

P.S. Has anyone actually managed to get Firefox 33.0 do show any H264 videos? It doesn't seem to do anything for me.

[float]

Why OpenH264? There are better free decoders for H264.

[You-]

Why OpenH264? There are better free decoders for H264.

Cisco agreed to pay all the licensing costs for the binary decoder.

unfortunately they did this only for the h264 decoder and not the audio codec, so its only really useful for webrtc.

[89c51]

Cisco agreed to pay all the licensing costs for the binary decoder.

unfortunately they did this only for the h264 decoder and not the audio codec, so its only really useful for webrtc.

And we probably have to deal with all this bullshit because noone bothered implementing VP8 (and VP9) thus far in HW so we can have it accelerated.

[curaga]

And we probably have to deal with all this bullshit because noone bothered implementing VP8 (and VP9) thus far in HW so we can have it accelerated.

Just days after it was reported Intel Valleyview supports VP8 in hardware?

[ChrisIrwin]

OpenH264 supports, as was mentioned, baseline profile only. Most videos on webpages will be main or high profile, so OpenH264 can't decode them. But even if the video was baseline profile, it'd be accompanied by AAC audio, so you still wouldn't be able to watch it (because there's no OpenAAC).

What's the use of OpenH264 then? WebRTC. However, all browsers that support WebRTC have built-in VP8, and the two browsers that might not have built-in VP8 (IE and Safari) don't have WebRTC yet. As a result, all WebRTC communication is done with VP8, so OpenH264 won't get used even there.

Considering it's Cisco that foot the bill to provide H264 support I'd bet the motiviation isn't browser interoperability, but compatability with some video conferencing solution that's on the way.

[89c51]

Just days after it was reported Intel Valleyview supports VP8 in hardware?

link?? vp8 only??

[plonoma]

@89c51
You can find the information in the following article:

Intel Publishes DRM Driver For PowerVR Video Decoder! VP8 Decoding!
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?pag...tem&px=MTgxMjY

From the article:

Yao Cheng wrote, "drm/ipvr is a new GEM driver for baytrail's vxd392, VP8 hardware acceleration of VP8 video decoding

Bay Trail was formerly known as Valleyview

[Fry-kun]

OMTC already works on Linux!
I'm using Intel card with Firefox 32 and it works great!

The worst problem so far has been some artifacts on opening up the browser first time. No obvious problems while running.