Five Years of YouTube and Forced Evolution 329
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."
Perish (Score:3, Funny)
Yes, perish for lack of Flash, just like the Iphone is now.
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:Perish (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not an Apple fanboi, but I will say: the problem is not that the iPhone doesn't support Flash, the problem is that Flash, as a proprietary overlay to the open Web, even exists.
I spend most of my time on my desktop using NoScript to actively BLOCK Flash, and grudgingly allow it to run when I have no other alternative to get the information I need. Flash support on a mobile phone without the means to easily block it via a permissions structure is an absolute battery and usability nightmare waiting to happen.
Open Web alternative to Newgrounds? (Score:2)
the problem is not that the iPhone doesn't support Flash, the problem is that Flash, as a proprietary overlay to the open Web, even exists.
gad_zuki! makes a good point [slashdot.org]: Is the open Web capable of delivering an experience analogous to the Flash animations and games seen at, say, Newgrounds?
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Once you can make annoying animated music playing hovering popup advertisements in HTML5, won't they be even harder to filter out than Flash?
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For one thing, you can make annoying animated music playing hovering popup advertisements today without using Flash.
Once HTML5 is in place, the browser will have more control over how audio and video is played. This means that the browser or a browser extension will be able to block audio and video from unapproved sites, in the same way that Flash and Javascript blockers work today.
Re:Open Web alternative to Newgrounds? (Score:5, Funny)
And what about the weekly exploit or two? Flash has never missed a beat. Will browsers implementing HTML5 expose us to at least the same level of risk that Flash does?
Will HTML5 also cause my browser (even if it's just a sandboxed tab) to crash several times per day, like Flash does now? I sure hope so, otherwise the experience just wouldn't be the same.
Sadly, those features are missing from early versions of HTML5 browsers, but perhaps Microsoft will step up to the plate with HTML5+ Enterprise Edition Bonus Pack.
Re:Open Web alternative to Newgrounds? (Score:4, Insightful)
Bah! I hate having to dick around with stupid flash animated picture galleries etc. Give me a nice html page with ftp links to your content, I may be on a slow gprs link and viewing the content on a separate device.
Too many duhsigners and arsetists.
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Yes, but "industry perspective" isn't the one paying for the iPhones.
This is why I still hung on to some of my Apple shares when I cashed most of it in a few years back. You've got to hand it to a company that can engender the kind of true-believerness that would say "No, really, I for one am glad it doesn't have an SD slot or longer battery life. If Steve Jobs wanted us to have unlimited storage, he would have provided for it, and who
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Hulu
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Granted. And Netflix.
But thank God, because AT&T's network is already slow enough :)
That's going to be an even bigger issue for the iPad, though.
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The iPhone reads PDF files natively. You do not need an App.
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"From a personal standpoint" - I don't use the above sites. That's not koolaid, that's a personal usage pattern.
I wouldn't recommend an iPhone to someone who needed one of the above sites. Indeed, I wouldn't recommend AT&T at all - their network isn't up to it in my area.
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Of course you dont. Its a chicken and egg problem. Why would anyone send you a link to Vimeo knowing it wont work on your iphone? People know youtube has a special deal with Apple and a special app, so they'll send those links out. Its corporatist control and the opposite of open.
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Why would anyone send you a link to Vimeo knowing it wont work on your iphone?
You must have a much more tech-savvy circle of friends than I do. Most people I know and communicate with on a regular basis (outside of work, that is) neither know nor care about the underlying technology of various web sites and how they interact with the operating systems of the computers and gadgets that I use. Such conversations invariably look like, "What's active-x? That won't work on your computer? Oh that's too...hey, look! A squirrel!".
What they do know: "Hey, this web site
Re:Perish (reasons why flash is not supported) (Score:5, Insightful)
The video sites I will give you (although if they really wanted to be on the iPhone they would just make the original h264 files available) but people bemoaning the lack of flash games on the iPhone are missing an important point - none of the existing flash games would work anyway!
The iPhone doesn't have a keyboard and (even worse) has no mouse. These two facts alone mean that the vast majority of game would not work. Even games that use the mouse purely for pointing would run into problems, since tapping with your finger is much less precise than using a mouse pointer. In addition, on the iPhone you effectively have multiple pointing devices - how would current Flash apps handle that?
For a quick demo of why sites like newsgrounds will never work on the iPhone, resize your browser window to 480*320 (or 320*480 since that is more usual) and visit your favourite gaming site. Now set your mouse pointer to a big white blob instead of an arrow to similar tapping with a large figertip. Remember to stop playing after 45 minutes to simulate the battery drain. See how much fun you have.
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It should be obvious that this is a chicken and egg problem. There arent flash apps for the iphone hosted on newgrounds BECAUSE IT DOESNT SUPPORT FLASH. Support it, and they will appear overnight with the proper navigational elements.
Re:Perish (Score:5, Insightful)
Only because youve drunk so much of the koolaid and so used to be roughed up by corporations that you have no idea what its like to have a phone platform that does more
First off, I'll admit that I generally like Apple's products since they different parts are well-integrated (just to get that part out of the way, if that makes you think I'm a fanboy or that I've "drunk the kool-aid" then so be it).
Second, I've used and owned other smartphones that were much more capable than the iPhone on paper but which with real-world usage fell flat because of massive user interface issues, applications that leaked memory and general instability that made any perceived stability issues with the iPhone seem completely insignificant in comparison.
An example of this is the touchscreen on a friend's "high end" Nokia (I think) smartphone which together with the general UI lag makes using the phone painful, precision was so poor it was almost painful.
A second example would be my gf's phone (I can't remember the brand or model, the models are all 32789XS91080++ TouchTurboDeluxe gibberish to me), I experimented a bit with the UI and concluded that from the default "home" screen it took about half a dozen keypresses to get to the browser, once the browser was running I had to open a menu, scroll down to the "I want to visit a website" option and scroll down to the "I want to enter an URL manually" option before I could enter an URL. And that was the fastest path I could find. As a comparison, on an iPhone entering an URL involves tapping Safari, tapping the address bar and typing in the URL. It's hardly revolutionary but at least it's done right.
As for flash, the only times I miss that is when I stumble across some website designed by some incompetent hack who thinks the only way to do menu rollover effects is with flash...
/Mikael
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?
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Except that you can watch YouTube on the iPhone.
Thanks to YouTube (Score:5, Funny)
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The most popular apps on iphones are fart simulators, yet we accept that platform as important.
source? (Score:2)
The most popular apps on iphones are fart simulators
[citation needed]
Re:source? (Score:4, Insightful)
[citation needed]
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The real question on my mind and alot of other
Armed with that knowledge then and only then would I really begin to wonder about civilization.
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From 1608:
The Censure of the Parliament Fart
Never was bestowed such an art
Upon the tuning of a fart.
Downe came grave auntient Sir John Cooke
And redd his message in his booke.
Fearie well, Quoth Sir William Morris, Soe:
But Henry Ludlowes Tayle cry'd Noe.
Up starts one fuller of devotion
The Eloquence; and said a very ill motion
Not soe neither quoth Sir Henry Jenkin
The Motion was good; but for the stincking
Well quoth Sir Henry Poole it was a bold tricke
To Fart in the nose of the bodie pollitique
Indeed I confesse
Re:Thanks to YouTube (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a fun diversion, but you really have to wonder. About civilization.
People are still reading Aristophanes. Fart jokes have always been funny. I'm not worrying too much. (Not about that, anyway.)
Re:Thanks to YouTube (Score:5, Informative)
After some searching, I came up with this list of supposedly the ten oldest jokes, as compiled by a University of Wolverhampton study commissioned by the TV channel "Dave":
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1. Something which has never occurred since time immemorial: a young woman did not fart in her husband's lap (1900 BC - 1600 BC Sumerian Proverb Collection 1.12-1.13)
2. How do you entertain a bored pharaoh? You sail a boatload of young women dressed only in fishing nets down the Nile and urge the pharaoh to go catch a fish (An abridged version first found in 1600 BC on the Westcar Papryus)
3. Three ox drivers from Adab were thirsty: one owned the ox, the other owned the cow and the other owned the wagon's load. The owner of the ox refused to get water because he feared his ox would be eaten by a lion; the owner of the cow refused because he thought his cow might wander off into the desert; the owner of the wagon refused because he feared his load would be stolen. So they all went. In their absence the ox made love to the cow which gave birth to a calf which ate the wagon's load. Problem: Who owns the calf?! (1200 BC)
4. A woman who was blind in one eye has been married to a man for 20 years. When he found another woman he said to her, "I shall divorce you because you are said to be blind in one eye." And she answered him: "Have you just discovered that after 20 years of marriage!?" (Egyptian circa 1100 BC)
5. Odysseus tells the Cyclops that his real name is nobody. When Odysseus instructs his men to attack the Cyclops, the Cyclops shouts: "Help, nobody is attacking me!" No one comes to help. (Homer. The Odyssey 800 BC)
6. Question: What animal walks on four feet in the morning, two at noon and three at evening? Answer: Man. He goes on all fours as a baby, on two feet as a man and uses a cane in old age (Appears in Oedipus Tyrannus and first performed in 429 BC)
7. Man is even more eager to copulate than a donkey - his purse is what restrains him (Egyptian, Ptolemaic Period 304 BC - 30 BC)
8. Augustus was touring his Empire and noticed a man in the crowd who bore a striking resemblance to himself. Intrigued he asked: "Was your mother at one time in service at the Palace?" "No your Highness," he replied, "but my father was." (Credited to the Emporer Augustus 63 BC - 29 AD)
9. Wishing to teach his donkey not to eat, a pedant did not offer him any food. When the donkey died of hunger, he said "I've had a great loss. Just when he had learned not to eat, he died." (Dated to the Philogelos 4th /5th Century AD)
10. Asked by the court barber how he wanted his hair cut, the king replied: "In silence." (Collected in the Philogelos or "Laughter-Lover" the oldest extant jest book and compiled in the 4th/5th Century AD)
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I suspect that #2 is actually a double entendre, since "spearing fish" was an Egyptian euphemism for having sex (the word for "to spear" also means "impregnate", while the word for "throwstick" also means "to beget". The Nile marshes themselves were considered a symbol of fertility because of an association with Hathor.
The oldest joke from Britain was:
"What hangs at a man's thigh and wants to poke the hole that it's often poked before? Answer: A key."
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.
Re:or..... (Score:5, Interesting)
What other sites have content like You Tube?
Seriously? Where else can I go for similar content?
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There are plenty of clones. I use some Romanian ones. No pesky DMCA notices there and they also have audio streaming, but there's a tad less content. Enjoy: http://www.220.ro/ [220.ro]
http://www.trilulilu.ro/ [trilulilu.ro]
and this is how google wins (Score:5, Insightful)
some business school moron could have said "hey, why don't we leverage our power and force a proprietary format on consumers, and they will be our captive audience"
like microsoft
like sony
etc
has any of it worked? no
for all the anxiety about google's increasing power, as long google does something like this: actively undermine and destroy a closed format in favor of an open one, then the consumer wins, google wins, other companies win, progress and innovation wins, and shortsighted greedy assholes who try to manipulate market inefficiencies in their favor lose (i'm looking at you, music and other media companies). in this context, at least, google really is "doing no evil"
Re:and this is how google wins (Score:5, Insightful)
for all the anxiety about google's increasing power, as long google does something like this: actively undermine and destroy a closed format in favor of an open one
You mean like how Google actively undermines H.264?
Yes. I am very impressed that they are actively undermining H.264.
Definitely it can be said that Google actively undermines H.264.
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Compare to flash, where theres ONE implementation, by the same company writing the "standard", and licensing prohibits writing a compatible decoder...
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So gnash is illegal?
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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
doing no evil (Score:2)
When you chose what your customers will have or not have, calling them evil isn't a long stretch.
life in the old browsers yet (Score:5, Insightful)
On that day all browsers will be HTML5 compatible or they will perish in the flames of user outrage
While youtube is nice for idling away some downtime, it's not the internet-dominating force this article makes out. If it disappeared tomorrow, than apart from instantly increasing corporate productivity and allowing children everywhere to get their homework done on time, there wouldn't be so much of a change.
There are also (sit down, this might be a bit of a shock) lots and lots of people who rarely, if ever visit youtube. For them, it's existence or change in the tech. it needs will make no difference at all - if their old browsers fail I'm sure they find other things to do on the internet.
While I'm sure youtube will keep going - for some time at least, and will change more over time there's nothing life changing about it.
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You're not really making a distinction between people who are surfing the tubes for recreation and people who are working or studying. If you're just kicking around, then youtube and co. are certainly optional stops. But it's also the prime gathering point for stuff like TED talks, "man on the street" video reporting, Sagan mashups, HOWTO videos, out of circulation educational films, and so forth. It's not really that important to have all of this hosted by YouGoogly, but it is nice to have one place to
Re:life in the old browsers yet (Score:5, Insightful)
"If it disappeared tomorrow, than apart from instantly increasing corporate productivity"
Really? My employer uses YouTube a lot. We make YouTube videos of customer recommendations. Having an engineer gush about all of the time he saves with our product makes a very effective sales tool.
A lot of companies use YouTube for instructional videos for their products. Why bother with complex printed directions when you can watch a real live human do it?
Really you should not dismiss the value of something just because YOU can't figure out how to do something useful with it.
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Depends on what you mean by "available". If you just want to dump your video files on a web site, then yes, anybody can make their videos available — if "available" doesn't include people actually seeing it. And a video dumped on an ordinary web site, won't be — even if people can find it, they mostly won't have the patience to download or buffer it.
Successful online videos are the ones that go viral. For that to happen, there has to be some kind of search and web 2.0 functionality to help peopl
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Did you miss the part about networks being overwhelmed and major fight over who pays for the bandwidth? That's pretty major. Maybe not "dominating", but that's your word.
If it disappeared tomorrow, than apart from instantly increasing corporate productivity and allowing children everywhere to get their homework done on time, there wouldn't be so much of a change.
Have you been following the news at all over the last two years? Just a few days ago, the FDIC felt compelled to rebut corruption allegations in a viral video. Other such videos has successfully promoted or destroyed movies, more or less put ACORN out of business, and a lot mor
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While youtube is nice for idling away some downtime, it's not the internet-dominating force this article makes out. If it disappeared tomorrow, than apart from instantly increasing corporate productivity and allowing children everywhere to get their homework done on time, there wouldn't be so much of a change.
You're right, but there's a big difference between YouTube disappearing and YouTube not working for you. People link to YouTube all the time, be it friends or chats or blogs and even newspaper articles do that around here, it'd be like a part of Internet that is broken to you. Personally, I think moving from flash/H.264 to HTML5/H.264 is a great step forward, and those that are desperately trying to hold it back (Mozilla, Opera) just aren't achieving anything. Even if they will or can not support H.264 nati
If Youtube ever shuts off flv streaming... (Score:5, Interesting)
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It makes a nice story about how Google would "force their way" onto the industry, but it doesn't work like that. They care, dearly, about what their users do/think/behave, and pissing them off by doing something that the vast majority of user
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I just find imaging Adobe's reaction to be highly amusing. Ever since Apple snubbed them for the iPhone, they've tarted up their proprietary runtime as the "Open screen project" and emitted a steady stream of sad noises about anybody who thinks that Flash could possibl
User outrage more likely to be at Google (Score:4, Insightful)
On that day all browsers will be HTML5 compatible or they will perish in the flames of user outrage
Most users don't know and don't care about the standards wars. What's more likely to happen is:
Re:User outrage more likely to be at Google (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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Why are corporate employees watching Youtube at work? Obviously there may be some useful technical talks and the like, but in most companies very few people have a legitimate reason for doing so.
And any company which locks their employees into using IE probably deserves everything they get.
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Why are corporate employees watching Youtube at work? Obviously there may be some useful technical talks and the like, but in most companies very few people have a legitimate reason for doing so.
For the same reason they'd browse Facebook and have a twitter app on the side -- people aren't machines. It's true that quite a few companies block facebook/youtube/twitter/myspace, but they're not the majority. Any "sane" company worries about employee output, not how said employees go about producing it.
And any company which locks their employees into using IE probably deserves everything they get.
This includes many government institutions in the western world. They use IE because it's easy to administer across a large network. The major hurdle for any non-IE browser is to get into corporate environ
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It may actually benefit Google to give users a reason to switch to Chrome.
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Are you trying to say Google is afraid their trademark on youtube will run out and come out with NewYouTube in response?
Because otherwise you epically fail at analogies.
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The end result is that Joe User doesn't get angry at YouTube for "suddenly not working", but eventually gets the message that his browser is broken and needs upgrading.
Cart or Horse first? (Score:2)
" 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."
Except, YouTube won't turn off Flash until a super-majority of users have HTML-5 compliant browsers. (Actually, since a super-majority is usually considered to be 60% or 66%, that probably still wouldn't be enough - I wouldn't shut off any potential customers until I was north of 90% deployment, thou
That's what Chrome Frame is for (Score:4, Informative)
YouTube won't turn off Flash until a super-majority of users have HTML-5 compliant browsers.
That's one reason why Google made Chrome Frame: to make every copy of IE for Windows that's not completely locked down into an HTML5 compliant web browser.
Re:Cart or Horse first? (Score:4, Insightful)
IE6 rules! (Score:2, Insightful)
Management is going to be VERY happy that youtube will stop working with older web browsers. User productivity is going to skyrocket.
Arrogance... (Score:2)
... the reason flash became so popular was because there was nothing better.
I think anyone who thinks HTML5 video is going to displace flash has to look to how MP3 was not displaced by better formats like AAC, OGG, etc, etc.
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I think anyone who thinks HTML5 video is going to displace flash has to look to how MP3 was not displaced by better formats like AAC, OGG, etc, etc.
Actually, that's EXACTLY why Flash will be replaced by HTML5. MP3 support is basically built into every media player out there, while AAC and OGG aren't. If HTML5 is built into every browser, but Flash requires a download (and frequent updates because of security holes), HTML5 will win in the long run.
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If HTML5 is built into every browser,
Pretty damn big "if", there.
Microsoft has expressed no interest in supporting HTML5 at all in Internet Explorer. It's been made very clear that Firefox will not support patent-and-royalty encumbered H.264. Opera joins Mozilla in its hostility to H.264. "It plays on Safari and Chrome" is not a compelling sales pitch on either side of the creator-viewer divide.
On the other hand, Flash? The plugin is already ubiquitous; Linux, Windows, Mac OS X, and Solaris all have Flash 10, and it works with both NPAPI a
But which codec? (Score:2)
The bigger issue is not Flash or HTML5, it's which codec implementers of HTML5 will choose to support. Mozilla, for good reasons (IMHO), is not willing to support H.264, but that seems to be the direction YouTube is heading. But as good and open as Theora is, I think don't believe there is any hardware with a Theora accelerator (yet?).
In any case, some support browsers both H.264 and Ogg Theora, some support only one, and we all know Microsoft is unlikely to support either any time soon.
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Mozilla, for good reasons (IMHO), is not willing to support H.264, but that seems to be the direction YouTube is heading. But as good and open as Theora is, I think don't believe there is any hardware with a Theora accelerator (yet?).
You can make use of the DSP that's used for H.264 acceleration and use it for Theora acceleration or any other similar workload. That's what's been done here:
http://www.schleef.org/blog/20...-c64x-dsp-and-omap3/ [schleef.org]
As mentioned in the post, that work is broadly applicable to Nokia's N series of phones, the Motorola Droid, and the Palm Pre. There are millions of devices in the field today which are capable of accelerated Theora playback. All they need is the software.
See also Christopher Blizzard's post on the i
They need to fix the site first. (Score:2)
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.
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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...
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:The new YouTube video page (Score:5, Informative)
Waaaaah waaaaah waaaaah I hate change. Change sucks!
A lot of times it does. In this specific case, posting a URL to a specific youtube video will soon look like posting a URL to a location in googlemaps, and you apparently can't rewind and rewatch a clip you just saw as easily, or spend some time choosing a related clip; they force one on you.
Forcing Change (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Title bar color? (Score:5, Funny)
Why is the title bar red?
Forced Evolution, duh!
Haven't you been paying attention?
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oh I wish I had mod points...
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I believe so - and the Mozilla folks are pushing for Ogg/Theora as a standard format.
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Except for the fact that H.264 is hardware decoded on a lot of mobile devices.
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That's not a huge stumbling block, AFAIK. There is no reason you couldn't hardware decode Ogg/Theora, and I would be willing to bet the support would be there if it became the standard.
I admit I'm a bit out of my league on this part though. I'm a web developer, this discussion is a bit closer to bare metal than I'm used to.
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But they've heard of h.264?
The target audience here isn't the general public, its the standards organization and the browser development management teams.
Call H.264 "the Blu-ray codec" (Score:2)
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Well, the average "soccer mom"/"joe sixpack" may not have heard of h.264 but there are definitely a lot more users out there who know that h.264 is a video codec than there are users who know that Ogg Theora is a video codec (admittedly those who know of h.264 through warez probably think it's called x264 but that's still a lot more knowledge of h.264 than knowledge about Ogg Theora).
/Mikael
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I never once advocated the format - you have one hell of a large chip on your shoulder there. I was just pointing out that Mozilla was pushing it.
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Re:.h26x a stumbling point? (Score:5, Insightful)
H.264 has significantly better video quality
Wrong. Ogg Theora is nearly identical in quality to H.264. Both are a lot better than H.263. Judge for yourself: http://people.xiph.org/~greg/video/ytcompare/comparison.html [xiph.org]
will be free until at least 2015, and I'm willing to bet it will continue to be free after that.
If there are no alternatives, I'm sure H.264 will not remain free. Once everyone is hooked, why on Earth wouldn't the owners start charging money for it? Because they're such nice people? LOL. If they have no plans to start charging for it, why don't they make it free forever, starting now? Since they have not done so, obviously they are hoping they can eventually charge money for it.
The war is already over
Propaganda. If it was over, we'd all know that already. The fact you feel you have to make a proclamation suggests you're not sure yourself, or that you have a hidden agenda. You say it's everywhere, and that's why it has already won. It's not nearly as widespread as you seem to think. Many of us do not use Blu-Ray. Much video on the Internet is still H.263.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
1) Sure linking to a comparison on xiph.org, that'll be unbiased. Please, can we have a comparison that isn't devoid of all neutrality?
2) Lots of companies in the MPEG LA have an interest in making H.264 videos free to play, like say all those selling H.264 cameras and selling editing software and encoders and whatnot. Microsoft and Apple are already licensing it for Windows and OS X, I'm sure they have licenses that are permanent to make it a base technology like that. In other words, this is getting very
Re: (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 ad
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
if you actually WATCH the videos it's not hard to see that the theora encode looks FAR worse than the h.264 on practically every frame
Indeed. And consider... this is the Xiph web site.. these are the Ogg Theora development people. So what you're seeing there is the best argument they could construct, and it still fails.
Theora is at an inherent disadvantage, and always will be. It was, after all, based on On2's VP3, which they tossed out there for free once VP4 was shipping. They're on VP8 now, and recently bought by Google. Anyway, they are inherently limited by the improvements they can add, because they're likely to trip on any number
Re: (Score:2)
What other option do they have?
h.264 patents make it incompatible with a whole host of open source licenses.
Re: (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: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.
Re: (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: (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 th
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
The trap has been laid... *waits*
http://xkcd.com/326/ [xkcd.com]
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Y2K called and left the following message:
I don't think Flash video/flv will ever be successful. RealMedia is very dominant.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Erm...I mean...oh, nevermind.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't think HTML5 video will ever be successful, flash video/flv is very dominant.
I don't think Flash video will ever be successful, since RealPlayer is very dominant.
Sincerely,
1999.
Re: (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.
Re: (Score:2)