Royalty-free H.264 is a big win for HTML5, big loss for Flash

h.264 will likely stick around for a while longer,for those free, user created gigs, like youtube and vimeo.

Commercial sources like itunes and Amazon are probably already looking into ways to create viable full HD video (1080p etc) at file sizes that are actually also viable. Which will mean a different codec/format.

Great

Pure fanboy fiction. This article should be withdrawn, it's heavily biased and utterly inaccurate.

I'd have to disagree with this article.

The existence of WebM and its immediate adoption in the core of Firefox, Opera, Chrome and IE9's HTML5's video implementation has made the licensing h.264 codec irrelevant to the success of HTML 5 video. So, this move is not surprising. It isn't as much a boon to HTML5 as it is a grasp at h.264's continued relevance.

YouTube now encodes all HD videos in WebM and AMD, ARM, Broadcom, Qualcomm and Texas Instruments all have announced hardware based decoding.

A WebM discussion seems quite relevant to this topic and I think conflicts with this statement "the uncertainty of H.264's licensing future meant Mozilla wanted to stick with Ogg Theora, a video codec Mozilla believed would be unencumbered by patenting issues.". They've already implemented a high quality codec in the core

Perhaps another article or addendum to this one could be made...

"This is also the last nail in the coffin for any possibility of Flash running in iOS -- with possibly the biggest obstacle to widespread implementation of HTML5 video now gone, there's zero incentive for Apple to hitch its wagon to Flash"

I constantly wonder why when the topic of Flash comes up with regards to the lack of support on iOS, almost the only aspect of Flash that is brought up is video. What's glossed over is that Flash (and its companion framework Flex) is a mature development environment that allows the creation of many of the same kind of applications that you find in the app store, but without the need for any sort of Apple approval. That's a danger to Apple, and a much more powerful incentive to not support Flash than anything to do with video.

Uh jeez... just no....

Having a royalty free H.264 benefits BOTH html5 and flash. Content producers using either format can breathe a sigh of relief that there will be no hidden costs in the future. In fact a royalty free H.264 also benefits the video industry in terms of technical effectiveness as developers will strive to improve their codecs in the spirit of good fair competition.

And that's not Adobes main argument. Adobes main argument is the lack of functionality with HTML5, namely the (at the moment) lack of streaming and content protection. Though this will change.

This is a very confusing /misleading article. What exaclt does licencing of H264 have to do with Flash? HTML5 can use either H264 or WebM, and this change is one which affects vendors like Mozilla and Opera who support webM for political reasons of openness and patent free web.

Apple love patents and so their HTML5 video fails to work with WebM (Chrome will do both), only with H264.

Flash is a delivery wrapper. It is irrelevant to the impact of these behind the scenes political scuffling. Adobe still offer a technically advanced and complete interactive platform, of which video encoding is part of its platform. It uses H264 (as Apple exclusively do too) because until recently it has so far been the technically superior solution.

Chris, can you please rewrite this to clarify what point you are trying to make. I'm not name calling, but this article is does seem to confound the Mozilla critique of patented formats for an open web (it takes aim at Apple as much as Adobe) and overeggs the anti-flash statement without much substance.

the defensive fight between writer and commenters is more entertaining than the article!

popcorn anyone?

You missed the point, according to

http://createdigitalmotion.com/2010/08/apple-centric-observers-get-the-facts-wrong-h-264-still-isnt-free-for-firefox/

Chris - stop being so damn defensive of your article. People are not hating just to hate - your article is completely inaccurate and you need to update it to say so. MPEG-LA is only announcing royalty free videos for the END USER. Everyone in between the video and the end user has to pay licensing, period.