Five Years of YouTube and Forced Evolution 329
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ScuttleMonkey
from the court-of-public-opinion dept.
from the court-of-public-opinion dept.
NakNak writes to mention that the DailyMaverick has a feature looking back at five years of YouTube, some of the massive changes that have been forced through as a result of its overwhelming popularity, and what changes might be necessary going forward. "Google, which bought YouTube less than two years after it was founded for what was then considered outrageously expensive $1.65 billion, does not want Microsoft or Apple (or anybody else) to own the dominant video format. So it has become the biggest early tester of HTML5. Your browser doesn't support HTML5? Google launches its own browser, Chrome. Need to use Internet Explorer at work because that's all your IT department supports? Google launches a Chrome framework that effectively subverts IE and makes it HTML5-compatible. The final blow will be the day that YouTube switches off Flash and starts streaming only to HTML5 browsers. On that day all browsers will be HTML5 compatible or they will perish in the flames of user outrage."
or..... (Score:5, Interesting)
Or, like the thousands of examples that came before.....people will simply go to another website that does not have such requirements.
But don't let me rain on your parade.
If Youtube ever shuts off flv streaming... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Perish (Score:5, Interesting)
Name a popular flash-only site than a majority of iPhone users visit on a regular basis on their desktop or laptop.
YouTube works on iPhone, and Safari for iPhone supports HTML5. From an industry perspective, iPhone's lack of Flash is a *good* thing. From a personal standpoint, as an iPhone user, its a small negative - something that would be nice, but to be honest, I don't really miss.
Re:or..... (Score:5, Interesting)
What other sites have content like You Tube?
Seriously? Where else can I go for similar content?
Re:.h26x a stumbling point? (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, close. Firefox will be unable to include the decoding of h264 right into the browser. But there is already work underway to simply hand over the video to an underlaying OS system, (Gstreamer for Linux, as example.). It will then be up to the user to aquire the required codecs and what not, which can't legally be distributed in North America as entirely free software, (but in practice, patents have never stopped free software before, only creates annoying red tape.) Gstream and ffmpeg have been able to handle h264 for longer than I remember, and I don't expect that to change at all. It's probably a good thing that Firefox will use existing software rather than creating yet another decoder to deal with.
Chrome Frame (Score:5, Interesting)
User gets angry at YouTube, not IE
"YouTube no longer uses Flash. Now we use Chrome Frame to provide you with new features. Click here to install Chrome Frame." The user response really isn't that much different from the "Your Flash Player is too old" that YouTube started serving once Nintendo finally upgraded Wii Internet Channel from Flash 7.
Re:They need to fix the site first. (Score:2, Interesting)
What use would HTML5 have if Google insists on streaming crystal-clear high-definition unskippable ads to me in a few seconds, but streams the video to me bit-by-bit to the point where it takes five minutes to watch a one minute HD video.
Boy, I couldn't agree more with that!
I recently switched the "Try HTML5" thing on, and I've got to say, they need to assemble and download those clips a helluva lot faster. They've made the site nearly un-fun.
To the point that I'm about ready to "un-volunteer" to be an HTML5 Guinea Pig...
Re:Ok, so that makes Three... (Score:2, Interesting)
Why would Microsoft for example use flash when they could use silverlight?
To keep people from whining (like they do about Apple's iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad) that it doesn't support Flash, and therefore is unworthy.
Having said that, I agree with you that in MS' case, it could be a Silverlight ploy; but, since they also axed Multitasking in Windows Mobile 7 at the same time (like Apple's iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad. Hmmm...), methinks its more a problem (like Apple realized) of battery life, heat, and poor performance (this time), rather than them trying to push Silverlight.
Even marketing must sometimes bow to the laws of physics.
The new YouTube video page (Score:5, Interesting)
I've been selected to try out the new YouTube video page. If that's forced evolution, then I don't want to be a part of it...
There are no normal links anywhere anymore. Whereas previously the video links were http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxxxxxxxx [youtube.com], they are now monstrosities with a hundred characters in the URL.
It's all full of AJAX. I haven't tried disabling JS to see what happens... The layout has changed, it's confusing, and it's ugly. When the video you are watching stops, the next one starts automatically, as if it were all a giant playlist.
If you get that piece of garbage (which is a clear devolution, not an evolution), delete YouTube's cookies. I'm not sure which one was responsible; I just got rid of all of them and got normal YouTube back.
Re:.h26x a stumbling point? (Score:3, Interesting)
Forcing Change (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Perish (Score:5, Interesting)
Just to nitpick, Vimeo works perfectly on iPhone and, in fact, has an iPhone optimised interface.
As an aside, more people should develop their site to work on an iPhone first, then scale it up. It forces you to decide what it *actually* important on the site. If it isn't needed on iPhone, why is it needed on the full version?
Re:.h26x a stumbling point? (Score:3, Interesting)
[...] Just delegate it to the OS [...]
So next time there is some remote code execution vulnerability in DirectShow and/or its codecs, you want Firefox users to be affected too?
Face it, with the amount of "plugins" installed by default in Firefox these days in the back of the user (Acrobat, Silverlight, WPF, Windows Media Player, etc.), Firefox has become as much vulnerable as Internet Explorer, if not more because of its lack of usage of Vista's integrity levels.
Let's not add another nail to its coffin.
Re:.h26x a stumbling point? (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, close. Firefox will be unable to include the decoding of h264 right into the browser. But there is already work underway to simply hand over the video to an underlaying OS system, (Gstreamer for Linux, as example.).
Last I heard from Mozilla was "we could, but we'll do no such thing to protect your freedoms". Has that changed recently, or are you talking about a patched version that won't come with Firefox's trademark?
Re:Open Web alternative to Newgrounds? (Score:3, Interesting)
Once you can make annoying animated music playing hovering popup advertisements in HTML5, won't they be even harder to filter out than Flash?
Re:Perish (reasons why flash is not supported) (Score:1, Interesting)
Adobe is releasing a version of Flash that will compile to an Apple-spec iPhone app.
Re:and this is how google wins (Score:3, Interesting)
Most of the readers on slashdot already have an H.264 license. Win7? Vista? OS/X? Flash? Silverlight? iPhone? Chrome? Safari? Its hard to imagine that very many people go without these days.
Sure, the 100% FOSS crowd is an edge case of people that go without, but they are for lack of a better term just a vocal minority and the vast majority of them know where to get "illegal in their region" H.264 codecs.
But back on topic: Google doesnt give a rats ass about undermining the proprietary. Its not a rational business strategy, so its not a rational google strategy.
Re:.h26x a stumbling point? (Score:3, Interesting)
Yup.
Basically, the HTML power-that-be set out to establish video as a first-class thing within HTML, via the tag. Much as with , they would not dictate precisely what kinds of video would be supported, but basically allow the browser to play it or fail. BUT... there was general consensus that, as with JPG and GIF, originally (and later, PNG) there ought to be known standard formats that everyone supported.
The Mozilla folks, backed by Opera and a bunch of FOSS entities, back Ogg Theora as the video CODEC that should be "built-in" on all web browsers. They do this because Theora is open source... it's based on On2's VP3.2 CODEC, which was released as open source after they had produced their VP4 CODEC. They gradually opened the source even more, eventually granting the Xiph Foundation a "do whatever you like with it" BSD-like license, including the free use of any governing patents. "Theora" is named for Theora Jones, a character from the "Max Headroom" series.
Anyway, the opposition, including Apple, Google, and various others back H.264 instead. Some of this is de-facto.. H.264 is already the standard used in most modern video these days: satellite and some cable TV, European HD broadcast, YouTube, iPhone/iPod, etc. It is, of course, not free, but administered by the MPEG-LA, the same licencing organization that deals with other MPEG and related IP. The FOSS folks reject this because it means no built-in free H.264 CODEC, and as well, potential frees for internet broadcast, even per-view fees (which have been promised, but regularly rolled back to date).
Big companies are also somewhat concerned about the patent implications of VP3 and Theora... there aren't tested in court, and there's no organization like the MPEG-LA ready to take the legal heat if there's any new patent exposure. It's so far just a fear, but not a trivial one. The other is for streaming video: companies like YouTube spend nearly all their money in network fees... the cost of delivering video. Ogg Theora is less efficient than H.264, so switching to H.264 would result in a quality loss or much more costs, neither of which is deemed acceptable.
I actually understand both positions. But Mozilla takes it one step further... they won't just not support H.264 as a built-in, but they do not intend to support external video CODECs. That seems to be a very stupid position: video CODECs for many different kinds of video are now a standard part of every major OS, just like device drivers moved from hacks or in-application to in-OS back in the 1980s or so. Many OSs (for example, Windows 7 and MacOS X) ship with H.264 drivers built in. It's actually important to at least have the option of using an OS driver in preference to anything you might build in to your application, simply because OS-level drivers can very often use your hardware better.
A couple examples. It's impossible to play 1080p H.264 in software on a 1GHz ARM A9 processor. Yet, in the nVidia Tegra 2 chipset, you can not only play 1080p H.264 video, but you can play it at very low power, around 200mW. They have a rockin' accelerator for it... same as most every handheld device today. Another one... most desktop PCs play 1080/60i or 1080/30p pretty well, as long as they have dual core or so CPUs. But 1080/60p is pretty challenging. I have been shooting 1080/60p video for sports video, much better. It'll play in VLC, sort of... it's choppy, and using 40-60% of my total CPU, this, on a Q9550 PC. Running in evil old Windows Media Player in WIn7, I get perfect 60fps, full screen on one of my 1200p monitors, using 12% CPU. Why? That video CODEC is tapping DXVA 2.0, which is offloading much of the work to my nVidia 8800GT, which would otherwise be sitting around, all 118 stream processors given nothing to do.
So with Mozilla, it's not just sound open source philosophy, it's religion. There's no reason they shouldn't support OS-level CODECs, they're just trying to leverage Firefox's popularity to force others to adopt Theora as the one and only default CODEC.
Re:.h26x a stumbling point? (Score:3, Interesting)
http://people.xiph.org/~greg/video/ytcompare/comparison.html
Oh boy, this page AGAIN. I shall stop the sarcasm engine I started up last time [slashdot.org] someone quoted this thing as an irrefutable fact. From that page:
The primary challenge is that all files at these rates will have problems, so the reviewer is often forced to decide which of two entirely distinct flaws is worse. Sometimes people come to different conclusions. That said, I believe that the Theora+Vorbis results are substantially better than the YouTube 327kbit/sec. Several other people have expressed the same view to me, and I expect you'll also reach the same conclusion.
Why, several people have expressed that they thing the Theora codec might be better, and he (one of the xiph.org people) tends to agree. I'm sorry, but could you please do something a little more than encode the same video with two different codecs and then a jedi-handwave accompanied by saying "Oh this looks so much better, and my buddies with a xiph.org e-mail address tend to agree" ?
How about pointing out flaws in the generated videos, artifacts that will definitely be present at low bitrates, the effect of the encoding on colors, or how well both codecs perform in a scene where everything moves?
The war is already over
Propaganda. If it was over, we'd all know that already.
Does anyone here remember the CD-i [wikipedia.org]? DVD-RAM [wikipedia.org]? MD [wikipedia.org] ? How about the more recent one HD-DVD [wikipedia.org]? (I'm sure someone has an xbox, so that should be a bit more popular). Format wars are never over. Hell, people still argue about Betamax vs VHS. A format war is good for only one thing: making geeks froth at the mouth like a cappuccino. For the rest, the industry will play its part and the war won't be won on technical merits. By the time this thing is settled another format war will take and it'll be cappuccino time all over again.
a hidden agenda
Oh noes! THEY ARE AMONGST US! Posting on our boards, subverting our free codecs by spreading words.
Many of us do not use Blu-Ray. Much video on the Internet is still H.263.
My mother doesn't own a DVD-player, nor does my grandmother. I'd call the DVD pretty much a (set of) standard(s) though. I strongly believe that the next big thing in media-land will no longer be a physical medium, and what's more, we'll beg the industry for more a dollar at a time. And I think that ultimately that will be the deciding factor on this whole debate, but I might as well be wrong in that belief. Only time with tell, but in the meantime: froth on, kind sir!