Video As In Freedom

12 Trolls Doesn't Make A Party - Come And Lose Your Patents

2011-08-01T07:07:00.000-07:00

Interesting. The call from the MPEG-LA to all companies holding possible patents against Google's free and open WebM video standard, have been heard. 12 mateys entering the boat and might sink with it. Of course, the names will kept from public. Well unless they step into the ring officially. The FSF already called out for a boycott of the MPEG LA supporters.

The latest patent lawsuit from Oracle shows how fast you can lose the same patents you're claiming against someone. Over 40 patents are marked as invalid. That means, all the other, smaller companies, can now use them without fear. Before that they had to pay, if they wanted to get away without a big lawsuit.
So I'll guess that's exactly what Google is saying. Bring them on, and lose them. I have no doubt that this will be a tough fight with some losses on both sites. But in the end, I hope for freedom and justice, that there must be a way left to have an open video standard, and not a big monopoly with questionable behavior.

Check the full article of the Streaming Media Magazine to learn more.

WebM Patent Fight Ahead for Google? - Streaming Media Magazine: "In February, MPEG LA announced a call for patents essential to the VP8 video codec specification as outlined in Google’s WebM release. The press release announcing the call asked for submissions by March 18, so I thought I would check in with a spokesperson at MPEG-LA to see if there was any activity.

I learned that there had been plenty. Twelve parties have stepped forward with patents that they believe are essential to the VP8 standard, on which Google's WebM is based, though no patent pool has been formed yet and MPEG LA is not releasing the patentholders' names at this time."

FSF Calls For a Boycott of MPEG LA Supporters

2011-02-19T06:34:00.000-08:00

The FSF launched a campaign to boycott companies that sign onto the MPEG LA's patent pool.

You could show your support by showing their logo on your website, blog or signature, or sign the boycott. It runs under: "Boycott companies who want to destroy a free web".

[via Free Software Foundation]

MPEG LA Tries to Find Patents... Nowhere to be Found

2011-02-15T03:51:00.000-08:00

Image by fczuardi via FlickrIt's so ridiculous, I don't know if I should be outrages, crying or simply laughing my pants off.

Apparently, the MPEG LA has not found any patents that can be used against WebM. So they are starting to call out any company to look for possible patents that could have been, or get, violated. That's right, they also listen to patents that are not currently applied, but under review.

Now, I'm not a lawyer, but is this crap legal? May I stir up companies to act against a competitor, in this form? Whatever the answer is, it's a weak sign from the MPEG LA and shows that they currently have nothing. It's also not a clever move to come down to this level of fighting. Not only is this a sign that the H.264 codec is far from being superior to WebM and fear that people will use Google's free and open codec, instead of the encumbered MPEG one, no, it's also a dangerous move. Chances are that On2, which were complete bought by Google, or other services that Google bought, have some patents that gets violated from H.264. Maybe Google could establish a patent-pool against H.264. VP8 is the codec that WebM uses and made by On2 Technologies before acquired by Google. The make video codes since 1995.

Whatever, the FUD from the MPEG LA looks like SCO 2.0. Everyone should be encouraged to use WebM as the codec of choice. It's free, it's open, and it's the future. A patent-pool from MPEG LA is not.

FSF Praises Google For WebM Only Chrome

2011-01-21T02:58:00.000-08:00

Image via WikipediaThis is for the last Anti-Google or Anti-WebM people: The Free Software Foundation renewed it's statement abut WebM and praises Google for the open and free video standard.

Everyone who said WebM is not free or open should now rethink what open and free means. It's not what it's mostly used, but what's not encumbered by patents or unfair licenses. And WebM is the way to stop the slavery of the Internet while video getting more important.

The FSF wrotes: "We applaud Google for this change; it's a positive step for free software, its users, and everyone who uses the Web. For a while now, watching video on the Web has been fraught with peril. Most of it is delivered with Flash, which is proprietary, nonstandard software. Free software alternatives like GNU Gnash are available, but the user experience isn't always as seamless as it ought to be.

When work began on the next version of the HTML standard, HTML5, work on video delivery and playback was a priority. But while everybody agrees on how the video-tag should look, there's no agreement about how that video should be encoded. Microsoft and Apple support H.264; Mozilla and Opera support WebM and Ogg Theora. For a while, Google has been supporting all of these codecs—but now it's made a bold move to support free standards and drop H.264."

Now that is a clear statement. Read the full post to get more reasons to use WebM in the future.

[via FSF]

WebM is Ready for Hardware Companies to Build Special Chips

2011-01-13T02:31:00.000-08:00

And another big one. Companies like Nvidia already gave early statement of supporting WebM. Now Engadget has a short article about WebM specs now ready for hardware manufacturers to do hardware acceleration for the open standard codec.

Chrome Drops H.264 Support And Why It's a Good Move

2011-01-13T01:38:00.000-08:00

You might already heard it. Google dropped the H.264 codec from Chrome and using open and free standards for video only.

Here is an excerpt of the article in the official Chromium blog from Product Manager Mike Jazayeri

"We expect even more rapid innovation in the web media platform in the coming year and are focusing our investments in those technologies that are developed and licensed based on open web principles. To that end, we are changing Chrome’s HTML5 support to make it consistent with the codecs already supported by the open Chromium project. Specifically, we are supporting the WebM (VP8) and Theora video codecs, and will consider adding support for other high-quality open codecs in the future. Though H.264 plays an important role in video, as our goal is to enable open innovation, support for the codec will be removed and our resources directed towards completely open codec technologies."

I think it's a great move. And here is why.

If you want to support open standards, you can't help them, when you still use unfree and closed codecs. It's like having a trojan in your system. I wrote enough here, why you should use open video codecs in first line. The H.264 is neither open, nor free (as free beer), nor free (as in freedom). There are licenses, patents and encumbered TOS. This is not acceptable in the world of the internet, which relies on open standards, and free and legal access to technologies without restrictions. Imagine you use HTML but it's only free for private usage. The internet would have never taken off. And as video gets more important on the net, so does the importance of having a video standard that is free for ALL to use and to implement.
That is WebM. And yes, it's totally free software. Head over to the Free Software Foundation. They also recommend it.

Now Mozilla Firefox and Chrome supports open standards only. This means, according to web-browser shares in December 2010, some good 32% of the market can not play h.264. All the other browsers can play WebM to, except of Safari (who wonders, as Apple gains money from h.264?). To make things clear for a reoccurring question: Microsoft supports WebM the same way as any other codec on with IE9. It needs to be installed and then IE9 can use it. It's the same thing with all the codecs. So somewhat of 94% of users can watch WebM with HTML5, where only about 66% of users can watch h.264 in the browser with HTML5. Time for the developers to rethink their strategy and go WebM.

For me, this brings Chrome one step closer to making it my default browser. It was the right decision from Google, and a great leap for the free software movement. It puts the free video codecs on a tough position and the only way to stop the internet being vandalized by non-free standards, which someday might turn against the interest of all users.

The Real Reason Why Apple pulled VLC

2011-01-09T23:23:00.000-08:00

Free software and app-store, that doesn't work. We all knew it, and VLC was pulled now. It only takes a couple of minutes if you look at the Apple TOS and the GPL that these don't fit together.

However, Rémi Denis-Courmont got bashed from angry Apple-Fans (oh yeah, something completely new...). Now he put things right, how this happened.
Not Videolan pulled the app, but Apple kicked it.
I still think it's a good thing. Both the GPL and the Apple TOS must be respected. I'm with the GPL, but Apple also made their mind, and as a developer, you have to respect it. So if you want free software, the App-Store is not for you. You can buy a more open device like an Android phone. That fits.

Here is the link to the article. Please search for January 09, 2011. There is no direct link :(.

Gingerbread plays WebM

2010-12-27T01:22:00.000-08:00

The new HTML5 Video-Standard from Google is now supported by Android.

In Gingerbread (Android 2.3) there is full support of playing WebM inside HTML5-Pages. Just like I expected, it took only a short time. However, it's not any solution in sight for devices prior to Android 2.3. It should be possible to develop an external player.

This is a major step. Mobile video is considered a big thing in the 2011. WebM is ready.

80% Of YouTube Videos Are Now Available In WebM

2010-11-13T11:58:00.000-08:00

This is a great step forward for the free WebM-Codec.
According to GigaOM, YouTube already made 80% of the videos available in WebM.

Now what the free video-codec needs is a massive PR-event. It has potential, but with all the competition bashing WebM, it will be a tough go without heavy advertising.

Source: GigaOM

How To Upload A WebM-Video on YouTube

2010-11-01T02:37:00.000-07:00

There is a nice and easy Wikipage on how to upload a video to YouTube and ensure it is viewable in WebM.

Go to: WebM recipe - LibrePlanet

WebM-Playback May Be Out Soon For Android

2010-10-16T07:55:00.000-07:00

On the official WebM-Developer-Blog there is a demo, showing WebM-playback on the TI OMAP 4 Processor.

Lets see when we get this, and on what Android versions it will be available. I suppose Gingerbread, and a downloadable player for Froyo.

WebP Is Based On WebM

2010-10-04T09:26:00.001-07:00

Yeah right, it's the same library and method.
Check my article at ryocentral.info main.

HDCP protocol cracked. DRM doesn't work

2010-09-13T23:38:00.000-07:00

When does the industry finally recognizes that DRM doesn't work? It harms the customers and can't prevent copying. It's futile.
Engadget has the story:

HDCP 'master key' supposedly released, unlocks HDTV copy protection permanently: "Just as the MPAA is preparing to offer movies to customers at home while they're still in theaters by limiting playback to DRM-protected digital outputs only, the HDCP protocol they rely on may have been cracked wide open."

Something To Think About...

2010-09-13T02:20:00.000-07:00

Well, I know it's already old, but you know, the movie companies and publishers still need to think about that. They didn't do much to change it...

Click to see bigger version

=^_^=

No, I don't copy stuff or download illegal things.

I just don't buy such crap. I don't want to waste time for this, seriously...

WebM is getting some traction

2010-09-07T01:33:00.000-07:00

After the first row of h.264-idon'tcareusers postings, it's cooling down on twitter. Meanwhile, Google implements WebM in Chrome for prime-time. Right, no beta, no more tests, it's here. The Chrome browser in it's newest official version does have full WebM-support integrated. Go to YouTube to watch. Great, isn't it?

Well kind of, but now Mozilla really have to hurry. Firefox must get WebM integrated, NOW. It's very important to make a point now. I already reading tweets and posting saying that Chrome is the only browser that can use WebM. That's not true, we all know, Opera is out some time now with full WebM support.
But to be true, reality is not important, it's important what people think, and that is why it's very urgent now to put out WebM support for everything very quickly.

Dear Mozilla-Team, get a grip now, this should be priority no.1 on your list and put out an update for Firefox 3.x. It might be too late for Firefox 4. Dramatic? Perhaps, but now some users switching to Chrome, and Chrome also got h.264 support. It's like a trojan horse. Now that you have it, you can use it, and then WebM and Firefox loses some users.

MPEG LA tries free as in beer against WebM / Mozilla shrugs off h.264 license

2010-08-31T05:38:00.001-07:00

I found an interesting article on ZDNet

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/open-source/mpeg-la-tries-free-as-in-beer-against-webm/7238

WebM was created as a project that could be specified within HTML5, being complete and free as in freedom. Will free as in beer trump it?

And in addition to that, The Register wrote that Mozilla shrugs off the "free beer" h.264 license. Of course. Free beer is not the point. Freedom of web-video is the important things. Thanks Mozilla/Firefox once again to take a stance for free software. And damn, free software means free as in freedom. Don't fall for suspicious men giving you candy to come home with them. Say no!

Freedom Of Web-Video Is Even More In Danger Now

2010-08-27T06:58:00.000-07:00

Photo by XKCD. CC BY-NC 2.5

You might heard about that h.264 is now free (as beer) forever as long as you don't make money with it.
Well this is most intriguing. What's "freely distributed"? What about ads on your site or in the video? If you earn any money from ads or somewhere else because of this video, is it still legal without licensing fees?
FUD!

Now a concerning amount of users calling WebM dead, because now we can use h.264 for free. But that's totally wrong and very dangerous.
Free is not only "it costs nothing", free means you have rights over your stuff and you can do with it whatever you want. Calling the limitations of "freely distributed videos" free is wrong.

There are still patents on h.264.
There is still a questionable consortium behind it.
There are still no free licenses.
There are still 94% of users that can use WebM in future vs. 70% that can use h.264 (and if you count can't legally, it's even higher, see 6)
Still Firefox can't and won't implement it, because of 1 and 3.
Still, there is a gray zone about if you may even use it legally on free OS systems

So, for all your web-devs now thinking you can say bye bye to WebM: Don't! Or many users can't or won't watch your videos and you lose money and the reputation of people that cares about the freedom of the web. There is NO REASON why you should prefer h.264 over WebM.

For all the patent-free video evangelists, don't let your senses drown now, it's more dangerous than before. We lose freedom, even if it comes with no price tag.

Please, get your self a little bit good Karma and use WebM. Thanks!

Update:
Create Digital Motion has a good article: Apple-Centric Observers Get the Facts Wrong: H.264 Still Ain’t Free

Update 2:
Mozilla still standing. WebM is the only way. Read the article from The Register.

Winamp supports #WebM

2010-07-22T11:35:00.000-07:00

I found the following tweet which is very interesting:

Welcome to the WebM party!http://lnkd.in/DFknvBabout 8 hours ago via LinkedIn
ashokbania
Ashok Bania

Now it says that Winamp is an official WebM supporter now. And that's not all. The newest version Winamp 5.58 is ready to download and has WebM already integrated. Another huge step.
Thanks Winamp for supporting open and patent-free video.

WebM support in Gingerbread or earlier?

2010-06-19T07:16:00.000-07:00

One of the most interesting question is, when Google's own product, Android, is supporting WebM. Of course it is very important to have that format at the mobile alternative to the competition. Google officially said it will be supported in Android "Gingerbread". This is scheduled for Q4/2010. And this is quite long. In addition, "old" Android-version can't use it.

But wait a second, not so fast. Why should it be like that? Integrated in Gingerbread does mean supported from the system. There is no reason why there shouldn't be an video-player that support this format to download for almost any version of Android.
I recently found am app to play XviD and some other formats directly. Some of them not supported by Android. So my guess is, there is no reason why there shouldn't be an player and browser-suppoort for alternative browsers, on Android 1.6 - 2.2. Time will tell.

To answer upcoming questions why there isn't support right now, I have to say, the WebM-Codec just came out. It isn't ready for prime time yet. This will take some month. So, Q4 this year is quite fast, if you think of it. This would be the fastest integration of a codec on a mobile device ever.

Photo Android with Gingerbread found on Geekword.net . CC BY-NC-SA

WebM for the rescue / The new HTML5 savior

2010-05-29T05:01:00.000-07:00

Google announced at Google I/O, the most important thing in some time. You know all this messing with the Ogg Theora vs. H.264 issue. Free vs. market dictatorship.
I love Ogg Theora. But let's get real, it couldn't get the needed traction. Then there was an threat from this evil bitten fruit iGestapo company and the MPEG LA towards Theora with a patent pool. H.264 is not a alternative in any way. The internet had always and must always rely on free (as in freedom) open standards, and nothing a single consortium have control over prices and patents.
Google bought On2 some month ago and there was a little hope. The FSF plead in an open letter to Google to free a new codec. And in May 2010 Google heard it. Announcing a patent-free codec called WebM.

Will it be the new standard?
This is really a big and huge thing with upcoming GoogleTV, Android and mobile video. It makes a big scratch in the strategy of the fruit company, which not only depends completely on h.264, but are also a member of the MPEG LA (oh yeah, what wonders...). Firefox and Opera announced the exclusive use of WebM immediately. A lot of other companies did too, with big names. Hardware and Software manufacturers do support Google with this open video codec.

The list of the names is impressive:

and more.

If this isn't enough Microsoft said, IE9 will support WebM if the codec is installed in the system.
And YouTube will convert all videos to WebM starting now. All new videos from May 19th on will be stored automatically in WebM.
Adobe integrates WebM into flash, which is another big thing. Even if one has no will to use a browser with WebM support, which seems that only Safari won't to that date, you can playback the WebM-video via flash.

Now what exactly is WebM now? Is it teh beszt?
It's the VP8 video codec (more later), vorbis audio you already know from Ogg vorbis, and the Matroska container with a new doc-type. All patent free. Personally I think it's great to choose vorbis. It's quality is amazing even on low bitrates and superior when using the possible bitrate from about 500kbps. Matroska is a widely used container, that is famous for it's flexibility. According to the developer WebM is exactly Matroska with the doc-type .webm instead of .mkv. Software whichs parses Matroska only has to recognize the new extension.
WebM can be used for streaming and for video files. It's not only web video as the name suggests, but can be used for anything video.
The quality of the VP8 is very good. It has everything needed for high quality HD video. There is an horribly biased (not that this isn't biased :) )post of some guy from x.264 about it. It's so terrible that I don't want to link, but you can easily find on Google. Even he admits that VP8 is better than h.264 baseline, the most important settings used in almost any mobile device and most of the other video files.
VP8 will be improve even more of course. And if you want to squeeze out every bit of quality, which almost no device can handle, then probably VP8 won't be the best codec. Shocked? Well you know, if you could choose between a car with a contract that you only use fuel from a special company, costs more money and you have to pay to not get sued, and a car that has no restriction where to buy fuel and costs no extra money, but drives 3mph slower, which one would you buy?
It doesn't matter, you won't see the different even on HQ settings anyway. And even if you are the best detector for insanely little differences, you might be okay with it, because it assures that we have a free internet after 2015.

Hardware support?
Look at the list above. No doubt there will be plenty of hardware support in the very near future. Intel has announced that even they will hardware support if WebM gets popular, and there is no doubt about it.

Is it really open?
I read the tweets and questions about if it's really open source, if Mozilla can use it and so on.
Clearly it's free software in terms of the license and it's patent-free. Mozilla did already announce it and nightly builds from Firefox were available at the same day. Chrome will integrate it, too of course. Xiph.org, the stuff behind Vorbis and Theora also joins the project. The FSF (Free Software Foundation) recommends it, too. You never can satisfy everyone. It's free enough to not "hand over the internet" to a video dictatorship consortium.

The conclusion (tadaaaa)
It's the format, man! Use it!
Good enough, free and supported by the industry. Supported by the portals, and now the party begins. Expect some threatening towards this new format from the ones who see their total market control blowing into pieces, but to be honest, that's another reason why WebM is the solution. You have some power behind you. No more racketeering.
Now the webdevs can start creating their sites with WebM video. Because now the list of browsers supporting WebM is bigger, and you don't want to lose your 30%+ share of Firefox/Opera users, right?

Will Google improve the Ogg Theora codec ?

2010-04-10T04:57:00.000-07:00

It took a long time to write a post on my blog again, with all the buzzes, tweets and podcasts whirling in my head, but as soon as I read this, I need to spread the news and add some interesting speculation. I'll come to this later. Let's hear what it's all about.

Google has officially announced to put some power behind Ogg Theora, specifically Theorarm, which is a library for ARM-based mobile devices. They mentioning different platforms and the patent-free advantages of Ogg Theora. They also telling that Theora is based on VP3, which was developed from On2, and released to the Theora team later. Hardware support for Ogg Theora looks like one of the main targets.

Now this is interesting from different points. Google bought On2 earlier this year, and now holding all the technology. Rumors was spreading fast, that Google is working on a new Codec to compete against H264. Even the FSF has urged Google to do so and release it patent free like Theora. But this gives a completely new sight of things.
Does Google improve the Theora codec instead of replacing it? This would be a huge move. The Theora Codec have constantly improved over time and the latest version is impressive good and can compete with any consumer codec on the market. But it looks like it's not good enough to be as good as the competition. You need to be clearly better. So, my speculation is, Google might take the chance, improves the already existing codec and here we go.
Now one other thing that they address is also very important: Hardware support. There are already plenty devices which supporting encoding/decoding with a dedicated hardware solution, namely a chip. Many graphic cards do have a hardware-decoder integrated. This is great for slower devices, such as mobiles and netbooks. Google are forcing the developing of Theora dedicated hardware solutions.

Everything looks good now for Theora. This is a total confrontation with Apple. They completely count on H264 in HTML5, while Firefox only supports the initially from the W3C recommended Ogg/HTML. If Google jumps completely on the Theora-train, it will be a huge change towards the patent-free codec and the Apple devices can get really screwed long-term. While Jason Calacanis sees Android outruns iPhone by 2-3 times in the future and the same in the tablet market (TwiT 242), the website designers would be totally stupid to ignore all Firefox-users and all Android mobile devices, including upcoming tablets.

In the end it give some hope for the better and free codec, and to see the Internet once again bursts out from the chains of patent-trolls to let people make their own content freely and independent.

Sources: Google, OSnews

Did you know?
Theora is named after the controller "Theora Jones" from the TV series Max Headroom. In this Cyberpunk sci-fi series, she saves Edison Carter more than once. In the episode "Theora's Tales" she get kidnapped by terrorists and suffered very badly. But then she can kill one of them and free herself as Carter comes to the rescue. In this scene she says to Carter: "there's a lot I haven't told you about myself."
She deserves a video codec named after her, doesn't she?

Vimeo experiments with h.264/HTML5 too, kicking free minded users asses

2010-01-22T00:24:00.000-08:00

Another shame.
After Youtube.com, Vimeo.com comes on my blacklist. According to Heise-News (German), Vimeo is experimenting with the use of h.264/HTML5 leaving all Firefox users in the rain, and kicking free minded users in the stomach. Firefox made the right step, and supports HTML% with Ogg Theora only. I can only hope, Firefox stands against the pressure now, keeping the Ogg Theora only policy, and puts some pressure to the patent-crap h.264 on their own.
That what I wrote to the people at Vimeo:

Hello,
I just heard the news that you are going to set on h.264/HTML5 instead of the standard OGG Theora/HTML5.
I can not believe that you count on an unfree and patented codec, when there is the big chance for saving money for yourself, free the web from patents, and giving the user a good experience. This infuriates me, and surely will keep me from using your service as an alternative to YouTube.
This is the darkest hour of your platform, and even if Firefox will support h.264/HTML5 ever (which is not at this time), I would never go to a video portal which decides against free formats and turns big chances for the industry down. Ogg Theora is the right way! Get rid of Flash and using h.264 is from bad to worse.

If you want to encourage Vimeo to stop using h.264 and choose Ogg Theora/HTML5, the standard, please write them at info@vimeo.com.

Video As In Freedom

12 Trolls Doesn't Make A Party - Come And Lose Your Patents

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FSF Calls For a Boycott of MPEG LA Supporters

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HDCP protocol cracked. DRM doesn't work

Something To Think About...

WebM is getting some traction

MPEG LA tries free as in beer against WebM / Mozilla shrugs off h.264 license

Freedom Of Web-Video Is Even More In Danger Now

Winamp supports #WebM

WebM support in Gingerbread or earlier?

WebM for the rescue / The new HTML5 savior

Will Google improve the Ogg Theora codec ?

Vimeo experiments with h.264/HTML5 too, kicking free minded users asses