Re: [rtcweb] H.261 vs No MTI

[Tim Panton <[e-mail]>]

On 8 Nov 2013, at 15:56, cowwoc <[e-mail]> wrote:

> Hi Tim,
> 
>> The user gets a totally variable experience based on factors she cant control. There will be lots of dissatisfied users who's
>> first video call happened to be h261 and never go back to the service - better to fail back to audio than connect with a poor experience.
> 
> The argument is H.261 is better than transcoding, as opposed to H.261 is better than VP8 or H.264. I'm *not* arguing the latter. If this turns out that H.261 is so terrible for their particular use-case (it should be fine for most), the application developer can still choose to do transcoding. Mandating H.261 as MTI just gives them an extra option they normally wouldn't have.


And that's the key difference between us, and where I changed my mind. It isn't H261 vs nothing, it is H261 vs flash. 
I do not want to be in a position where people can legitimately say of an webRTC browser "it's better if you use flash".
Also, more options == bad thing. It means more testing, more crufty code, more errors.

The final point against H261 is that it really isn't going to work well in 3g networks or 'edge of wifi' environments with 
constrained and lossy networks. That's where the growth is. 
T.


Tim Panton - Web/VoIP consultant and implementor
www.westhawk.co.uk