Re: [rtcweb] MTI video codec, charter, RFC 3929

[Ron <[e-mail]>]

On Fri, Nov 08, 2013 at 02:55:54PM -0800, Adam Roach wrote:
> On 11/7/13 18:57, Stephan Wenger wrote:
> >...a decision for either of the two candidate codecs will be
> >ignored by a significant part of the implementer community.
> 
> I'm not sure that's true any longer. Indulge me in a bit of armchair
> game theory application.
> 
> Let's start by looking at ground zero: the browsers. Considering the
> public statements that have been made, I think it's fairly safe to
> assume that the following can be taken as given:
> 
> 1. Chrome will support at least VP8.
> 2. Firefox will support both VP8 and H.264.
> 3. Internet Explorer is almost certain to support H.264.
> 4. Safari (including Mobile Safari) is almost certain to support H.264.

Except the chairs already noted at the meeting that these browser
vendors had all indicated they would support whatever MTI decision
the working group made.

So game theory still says the optimal solution is the one that
doesn't automatically lock out other players though restrictive
licencing.


And the only non-browser, mobile-vendor, implementation that I'm
presently aware of, was, last I looked, still steadfastly pretending
that Opus didn't exist, for whatever that is worth to the game.


For myself personally, I'm likewise kind of torn, since I don't
think either option is perfectly ideal, but since an option that
can't freely be used by anyone is obviously unacceptable for a
standard that hopes to become ubiquitous, that really only leaves
assessing if the other choice does really have some similar issue
that it also would need to resolve before we could choose it.

If both options were equal in that respect, then to me a coin-flip
would be as good a way as any to end the impasse - but I can't see 
how H.264 can possibly dig itself out of the hole it was designed
into in this respect, so the remaining question is what, if anything
would make VP8 still unacceptable.

And that hasn't really been answered except with unsubstantiated
Fears, of unseen threats, that also apply equally or moreso to H.264.


Nobody has answered how Cisco intends to mitigate risk from the Nokia
portfolio that remains outside the MPEG LA pool, which they aren't
licencing for users of their blob.  Pretending that doesn't exist
doesn't make it go away, and nobody doubts it _does_ read on H.264.

And that's before we look at the amusing situation of them declaring
their H.264 IPR against VP8 here, but _not_ against H.264 ...

  Ron