Re: [rtcweb] On video codec for rtcweb

[Basil Mohamed Gohar <[e-mail]>]

On 03/23/2012 08:34 AM, Cavigioli, Chris wrote:
> Let's be clear on profiles.  If we seek widest mobile hardware footprint:
> - ITU-T H.264 Constrained Baseline Profile is probably the most ubiquitous hardware video codec today with reasonable power/performance ratio
> - ITU-T G.711, both u_law (North America) and A_law (Europe) formats, can be supported by everyone with very trivial software burden
> -chris
Seeking the widest mobile hardware footprint is a very narrow view
considering the scope of WebRTC.  WebRTC is a technology with browsers
as the main endpoints.  While mobile devices make up a significant
portion of that population, they are by no means the only one, and there
are no guarantees that this will be the major use case of WebRTC in the
future.

Time and again, success and adoption of standards across all markets,
devices, and platforms has been rooted in the usage of a open,
royalty-free formats.  Mandating H.264 for this or any other purpose
while it remains unlicensable for usage in free/open source software
projects invalidates the universality of WebRTC.  This would setup the
protocol to be yet another proprietary system that claims to be open but
in practice will be limited to usage solely by existing MPEG-LA
licensors/licensees and other existing players in the telecommunications
market.  This makes the project, and the standard, dead in the water as
far as a lot of the players interested in this project are concerned.

Having said that, WebRTC at this point remains open and free, and to
ensure that, the only technologies that should be included are those
that are royalty free and licensed for use within free/open-source
software project.  This is the *only* way for WebRTC to be successful
and to achieve the goals of its (intended) open nature.