[rtcweb] Platforms that support H264 (was: Congratuiations on the Cisco announcement - but we still prefer VP8)

[cowwoc <[e-mail]>]

     How many platforms *really* support H.264 natively today?

     iOS is a great example. On paper, it supports H.264 but in reality 
the public API only supports H.264 decoding (not encoding). Then, when 
you try using that API for decoding you discover that it does not 
support real-time decoding (only decoding from file). So really, iOS 
doesn't actually support H.264 as required by WebRTC. Android is only 
marginally better in that respect.

     I can't think of a single platform that supports real-time H.264 
encoding/decoding natively today.

Gili

On 02/11/2013 7:31 AM, Bernard Aboba wrote:
> Not sure I understand this completely. Isn't support for "the Rube 
> Goldberg Machine" needed only on platforms that do not natively 
> support H.264?
>
> On Nov 1, 2013, at 1:14 PM, "Justin Uberti" <[e-mail] 
> <mailto:[e-mail]>> wrote:
>
>> I also want to reiterate that having a MTI codec means Mandatory To 
>> Implement.
>>
>> That means, that should we decide to go down the H.264 path, Firefox 
>> and others will be forced to support this Rube Goldberg machine for 
>> obtaining H.264 for an indeterminate amount of time, long after 
>> WebRTC has moved on to prefer other codecs.
>>
>>
>> On Fri, Nov 1, 2013 at 12:43 PM, Adam Roach <[e-mail] 
>> <mailto:[e-mail]>> wrote:
>>
>>     On 10/31/13 13:47, Harald Alvestrand wrote:
>>>
>>>     We congratulate Cisco on their intention to make an open source
>>>     H.264 codec available and usable by the community. We look
>>>     forward to seeing the result of this effort.
>>>
>>>
>>>     Google still believes that VP8 - a freely available, fully open,
>>>     high-quality video codec that you can download, compile for your
>>>     platform, include in your binary, distribute and put into
>>>     production today - is the best choice of a Mandatory to
>>>     Implement video codec for the WebRTC effort.
>>>
>>
>>     I agree with Harald that VP8 is a better codec than H.264
>>     baseline in a number of important ways.
>>
>>     But I also want to reiterate that having an MTI codec has never
>>     been about choosing the best codec or even a good codec. It's
>>     about choosing an emergency backup codec-of-last-resort. It's
>>     about having one single mandated codec that everyone has in their
>>     back pocket in case nothing else works.
>>
>>     The core of RTCWEB is about session *negotiation*. Endpoints will
>>     negotiate the best codec they have in common. Once the next
>>     generation of codecs come out, this "best codec in common" will
>>     only be the MTI if they were about to fail anyway.
>>
>>     So it doesn't have to be good.
>>
>>     It just has to be better than failure.
>>
>>     /a
>>
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