[rtcweb] Discussion on codec choices from a developer who doesn't come to IETF

Dean Willis <dean.willis@softarmor.com> Fri, 04 May 2012 05:11 UTC

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From: Dean Willis <dean.willis@softarmor.com>
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Date: Fri, 04 May 2012 00:11:40 -0500
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Subject: [rtcweb] Discussion on codec choices from a developer who doesn't come to IETF
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I asked a colleague who develops serious enterprise video stuff:

> Here's a question you can perhaps help me with. One of the big fights in the IETF right now is which codec to require as the "must implement" for real-time web communications. The leading candidates are H.264 and VP8, although I've proposed H.263 as a cheaper-to-license starting point.
>  
> How much of an issue has codec licensing been for you, and what would you prefer as the "standard" codec?
>  


And the (somewhat surprising to me) response (which I've expurgated a bit as I'm passing it on without explicit permission)  was:

> I believe the battle is over and H.264 has won. The question is ultimately where has the market gone in terms of playback mechanisms. The answer:
>  
> Flash: H.264 and (maybe)VP8
> Adobe Adaptive HDS: H.264
> QuickTime: H.264
> Apple Adaptive HLS – H.264
> Smooth Streaming: VC-1 and H.264
> DASH – All implementations are H.264
> Android Cell Phones: H.264
> Cell Phone hardware: H.264
> HTML5 on IE: H.264
> HTML5 on Safari: H.264
> HTML5 on Firefox: VP8 but recently announced support for H.264 see http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/03/19/firefox_sucks_on_h264/
> HTML5 on Chrome: H.264 and VP8
> Video Conferencing World: H.264 supported universally
> Broadcast World – Moving from MPEG2 to H.264
> Every Set Top Box in the world – MPEG2 and H.264
>  
> Once the chip manufacturers started building H.264 into the hardware, it was game over. Even though Google was the big VP8 developer/supporter, it had to support H.264 in Chrome and Android phones since that’s all they had to work with on the phones.
>  
> Pretty obvious pattern.
>  
> Codec licensing is largely an issue of the past for us. We do license the H.264 encoders, but it is a miniscule part of our material cost. The decoder license is on a per-machine basis. Every PC/phone/pad that ships today has been licensed for H.264(and AAC) by the manufacturer of the hardware and/or the OS provider. Of course the main complaint on licensing of H.264 is from the content producers which is where the MPEG-LA members want to make money. I don’t have much comment on that, but in our customer base – enterprise – I have never once heard it raised as an issue during a buying decision.
>  
> Also – if VP8 really got popular it is likely that the MPEG-LA patent holders would come after them. Everything I have read indicates that it infringes lots of patents and is basically the same as H.264 in many ways. That is what happened to VC-1 (Windows Media Video). The patent holders won’t bother unless is appears to be a real competitor.
>  
> The html5 people originally wanted to insist on a royalty free codec and gave up based on the reality was that H.264 is the only essential codec. If IETF insists on VP8 or 363 as a “must implement” they will be ignored. It would be a huge deviation from their general principal of consensus and following the market. I cannot conceive of how it could happen.
>  
> We really like a standard codec since it eliminates one area of confusion. 


This seems like a fairly compelling argument for H.264 as a baseline must-implement in RTCWeb. I'm thinking of changing my position.

--
Dean