Google has this week announced it’s open video codec: VP8 WebM
I already had my face resting in the palms of my hands earlier this year with the monumental balls-up that was the 3d Blu-Ray/TV Standards being finalized; For years, video standards have been edging towards 24 frames per second to make it standard across the globe (moving away from getting 24fps fudged into 30fps or 25fps for NTSC and PAL respectively). Then they announce the standard will call for 30fps! Wow, someone really has their finger off the pulse and likely jammed somewhere else.
Now we have yet another video format to wrap our heads around. I understand there are royalties involved with H.264, but these were hardly crippling. What was wrong with where that was going? Why do we need another format?!
I’m not the only one a bit miffed with this announcement; An x264 developer has voiced his opinion from an under-the-hood perspective.
With these corporate giants constantly rushing to develop something different and corner the media market, I’m sure we’ll have another format to contend with before the year’s out. Hey, maybe we can look forward to more ways to listen to our audio!
H.264 is great. It’s being used for Blu-ray already. X264 is brilliant when it comes to uses like Handbrake. Let them be. Put your efforts and money into a nice front end for them.
