Re: [rtcweb] Video Codec - Possible to use.

["Hutton, Andrew" <[e-mail]>]

On 19 October 2012 16:29 Eric Rescorla wrote:
> To: Hutton, Andrew
> So, obviously it depends on *exactly* what one means by the codec being
> available on the underlying platform. There seem to be at least two
> cases:
> 
> 1. This is some feature provided by the OS or platform vendor. In this
> case presumably it comes with documentation and the browser implementor
> reads the documentation and the associated RFCS and generates the
> right SDP. In this case, the situation is not much different from that
> when
> the codec implementation is part of the browser. (Note that in many
> cases
> these codecs come from third party libraries in any case).
> 
> 2. The browser supports some kind of plugin scheme which allows
> people to download their own codecs and install them. This would
> require
> the browser vendor to implement some interface for each codec to
> get a crack at the SDP and is therefore a lot more work.
> 
> Which case are you concerned about?

Both and thanks your answer really helps my understanding and it seems it is really up to the browser vendors and nothing the IETF or W3C can do to influence this.

So would I be correct in thinking that at least for the immediate future webrtc applications will be limited to the codec(s) that the browsers natively support or do browser vendors intend to at least implement option 1 above for at least some commonly used video codec's?

Andy