Re: [rtcweb] On video codec for rtcweb

[Matthew Kaufman <[e-mail]>]

Timothy B. Terriberry:

"Mozilla strongly opposes such a proposal. Many will be familiar with our announcements regarding our use of platform codecs on B2G and possibly Android last week. The primary reasoning behind that decision, i.e. the one factor that was not in our power to change, was the availability of content on websites. This is not a problem for WebRTC, as browsers control both ends of the communication."


While I understand the reasons for disliking a codec that isn't available royalty-free, I have to say that the above argument is exactly backwards.

While a website that wished to offer content to two different browsers with different codecs could simply transcode and store the video in two formats (albeit at some cost in storage, which is getting cheaper all the time), a website that wishes to offer RTC capabilities to users with differing browsers would be forced to stand up servers, in-path, transcoding in real time... a much more onerous requirement in order to achieve interoperability.

While browsers "control both ends of the communication" in RTCWEB, the sites offering RTC services don't necessarily "control both ends of the communication" insofar as choosing what browsers their users use to visit... or rather, in order to achieve interoperable communication without the cost (and security concerns) of transcoding sites will in fact start to deny service to particular users based on their choice of browser.

Matthew Kaufman