Microsoft Is Releasing an H.264 Plugin For Firefox 245
ndogg writes "Microsoft has announced that it is releasing an H.264 plugin for Firefox. This plugin does not add H.264 capabilities to Firefox, but rather allows it to use the H.264 capabilities built into Windows 7. With that in mind, it sounds like it may not work on anything other than Windows 7."
Good (Score:5, Insightful)
Seems like a pretty reasonable solution to me.
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It always was. Firefox could have used the installed codecs in Windows, OS/X, and Linux to offer H.264. The only reason I can figure Microsoft did this was to keep people from dropping Firefox and going to Chrome.
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Doesn't Chrome support Firefox-compatible plugins?
I would have sworn it did.
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No, it doesn't.
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Re:Good (Score:5, Informative)
Where's a "-1 Wrong" option when you need it?
Yes, it does. It doesn't support Firefox-compatible addons. It does support Firefox-compatible plugins. There is a difference.
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No, but it does support user scripts natively that can be found in Opera and in the GreaseMonkey plugin for Firefox.
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The only reason I can figure Microsoft did this was to keep people from dropping Firefox and going to Chrome.
That's the only reason you can think of really? My first impression was different. If I recall correctly, the main problem with Mozilla and H.264 is that, while there are open source decoders, they are illegal to distribute in Usptostan. [mozillazine.org]
THAT, not the (also real) hate for flash but that; was the main reason for the push of theora and the <video> tag and HTML5.
So the main advantage I see for MS is not eliminating a reason to switch from Firefox to Chrome (both rivals for IE) but eliminating a reason to
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"So the main advantage I see for MS is not eliminating a reason to switch from Firefox to Chrome (both rivals for IE) but eliminating a reason to switch from Windows to *nix."
Really? How do you figure that?
Windows has a huge advantage in many software categories including games, cad, and most all vertical markets.
And last time I checked Firefox ran on Windows now....
Nope Chrome has Google behind pushing it and Google is pushing Apps in Chrome! Firefox isn't a real threat because there is no multi billion do
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The only reason I can figure Microsoft did this was to keep people from dropping Firefox and going to Chrome.
That's the only reason you can think of really? My first impression was different. If I recall correctly, the main problem with Mozilla and H.264 is that, while there are open source decoders, they are illegal to distribute in Usptostan. [mozillazine.org]
Of course its also unnecessary, since (just like printer drivers), video codecs are provided by the underlying operating system and don't need to be - and shouldn't be - distributed as part of the web browser. Except that Firefox, almost uniquely among applications that can perform video playback, refuses to use any OS-provided codecs, no matter how stupid that is.
There is a codec distribution problem. Its also a solved problem. The fact that Firefox is having a hard time solving it again shouldn't be th
Re:Good (Score:5, Insightful)
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I'm not blaming anyone, altough I am somewhat surprised why Microsoft bothers to write Firefox plugins. I'm just saying Microsoft doesn't mind providing a solution that specifically works on Windows and not on any other platform Firefox runs on.
How is it surprising?
MS wants its users to be able to do shit.
MS recognizes many of its users use firefox.
MS wants h.264 video to work for them just as much as they want it to work for IE users.
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Think: acceleration and battery life.
Microsoft recognizes that a lot of Windows prefer Firefox over IE and they won't change that any time soon users. On a laptop this change will save battery life and improve performance by offloading work from the CPU. MicroSoft isn't out money if you use FF over IE but they are out money if you decide to use some other OS because it has better battery life or plays movies better.
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How is it surprising?
I'm surprised Microsoft is developing things outside of it's own ecosystem. It's my understanding they don't generally do this.
And you can call me paranoid, but I really don't think enhancing the user experience of people using Firefox is at the top of Microsoft's list of priorities.
I suppose trying to outmanoeuvre Google by blocking WebM and Chrome makes some sense.
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Chrome supports h.264 just fine.
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I'm surprised Microsoft is developing things outside of it's own ecosystem. It's my understanding they don't generally do this.
MS want Windows to be chosen over Apple or Linux. Once, they tried the nasty trick of trying to corrupt standards so that a browser (IE) which only ran on Windows was the preference. But it's in line with those same aims (not to mention much fairer) to also take the strategy of making sure multiple browsers work better on Windows than on other platforms. In either case, the result is the same: an advantage to Windows. A temporary one, mind you. MS is merely leading the way with this. It'll all even out soo
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It's surprising because MS also wants people to use IE instead of Firefox. There was a time when they would try to make it more difficult for competitors to access features of Windows to push people toward their products. They've gotten better at that after getting hammered by regulators, but in this case they are not only exposing the function, they are going to the trouble of implementing it for the competition. It's not even like Firefox is capable of it on other platforms, so they're really going out
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Because Firefox isn't a good citizen and tries to reinvent shit that the underlying OS already provides, like video codecs. Sorry, but its true - this is not the job of the browser. Or at least it shouldn't be, and in every modern OS and every other modern web-browser, this relationship is very well understood - the OS provides a graphical framework, the applications use it.
And sorry, but Firefox wanting to provide a common experience over multiple OSs is a complete crap excuse. It might as well provide
Re:Good (Score:4, Insightful)
Can I just be clear, here? Are you blaming Microsoft for not also writing support plugins for O/Ss they don't develop?
Yes! There is no telling how deep this issue actually runs in our modern society. I have found some sort of conspiracy whereby I can not procure O.E.M. engine parts for my Chevy pickup at the local Ford dealership! According to Mike Rowe, Ford has the top selling pickup. It should be incumbent on Ford to make sure that people who did not chose Ford products still have all the advantages and or benefits that Ford's paying customers derive from ownership. Also, as soon as a company successfully markets a flying car I expect someone to show up and retrofit all my vehicles!
Damn, I'm out of pills again...
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why not? plenty of linux devs support windows too. If they really wanted to get into the spirit of contributing to open source, they should have at least done a little more than just help themselves out...a little bit of goodwill for the community wouldn't hurt (its the open-source way).
but they dont have to....and they chose not to.
So rather than this being a "Microsoft contributes to open-source" story, it is merely just a "MS does business-as-usual". Nothing wrong with that, but also not praiseworthy
Re:Good (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, because it's Apple's hardware. Why should Microsoft support you running Mozilla Firefox on RedHat Linux? They're just looking out for their customers, although in this case it is slightly unexpected.
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Frankly, I'd be more suspicious if they wrote the plugin for other OSes. That would point to Microsoft promoting the H.264 codec by putting it on all major browsers on all major OSes. As it is, it looks like Microsoft is promoting Windows 7 by putting all major codecs on all major browsers.
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They are ensuring a monopoly by creating a non-standard format ...
h.264 is standard. Even digital TV (DVB-T) in my country uses it. My 4 year old cellphone can play it (not all profiles though), most of the HD movies and TV shows on pirate bay are h.264, so are most of anime fansubs (even SD ones). Youtube and blip use it. IIRC there is a codec that also works on Linux and it may even be open source (x264), though I do not really care about the openness of the source as long as it works.
In short - h264 is supported almost everywhere, so it is standard. Whatever codec Fire
Re:Good (Score:5, Informative)
I'm assuming by Win7 only they're including the beta version they called vista.
Unlikely, Vista doesn't include the H.264 Media Foundation codec that ships with Windows 7.
Windows 7? (Score:2)
Earth 0
End of first half.
Embrace, Extend, EXTINGUISH!!!! (Score:2)
Microsoft is first embracing Firefox (wait what?) then EXTENDING with extension AND NEXT THEY WILL EXTINGUISH IT!!!!ONE
?
Re:Good (Score:5, Informative)
No I have not and no their really isn't.
The reasons that they give for not using OS-provided codecs are at best questionable.
1 is security. But then you are assuming that Mozilla's codecs are more secure than those proved by the OS.
2. Availability. Windows XP doesn't have native h.264 support but 7 does. I am not so sure about Vista but you easily add h.264 support. OS/X has it native and Linux everybody adds it.
Application provided codecs make as much sense as Application provided printer, sound, and graphics drivers. It is all about code reuse and flexibility. And yes there was a time when each application did provide printer, sound, and graphics drivers. And by going with OS based codec support adding newer and better codecs will be a simple matter of adding the support to the OS. Just like printers, graphics, and sound are today.
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VLC is a good program but it really is just a media player and a good one but has nothing to do with this issue.
There is going to be H.264 media on the web. That is a given since we already have it.
IE can play it.
Chrome can play it.
Opera can play it.
Safari can play it.
Firefox can not unless you add the new microsoft plug in.
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Just a thought, as long as this is using DirectShow or the modern equivalent, doesn't this open up the web browser to any and all flaws in said stack? Are Microsoft or the rest of you really that open to rely on the multi-media stack for security tightness? I'll stay afraid and yet wish everyone else luck.
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Most browsers will already happily use DirectShow if you ask them nicely.
What we REALLY wanted... (Score:3)
What we really wanted was a way to let video stay fullscreen on a second monitor without having to re-hexedit the flash dll every time it gets updated or overwritten.
The first browser to manage that staggeringly complex feat of engineering will be the one I'll use.
And everything went better than expected. (Score:5, Insightful)
Open slashdot... see add... Microsoft releasing plugin for Firefox (huh?) open article, "oh only works on Win7"... look for reason to get angry at Microsoft... can't find any on this one, seems like a nice thing, hear a bird outside, sip my soda, nice day out.
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well, that's fine for you. but here it's a horrible day, which is normal for this season, and that damn happy bird of yours would be a frozen corpse in five minutes.
Re:And everything went better than expected. (Score:5, Funny)
HE'$ TRYING TO 3SC4PE THE BASEM3NT!!1!! GET HIM!!!1111!!!!
Good for Them (Score:3)
They are either realizing that either:
1. they are becoming increasingly irrelevant on the desktop as people are using mobile devices more and more for their needs (iPad/Android for email and facebook)(and Apple computer sales have been growing handsomely), and therefore need to compete for customers for the first time in 20 years, or
2. it is a good opportunity for them to pull the old Embrace, Extend, Extinguish.
Only time will tell.
Now, off to RTFA.
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Good enough? (Score:5, Interesting)
(Speaking as a Linux user here)
This is probably "good enough" since it will apply enough pressure to get the rest of the userbase covered quickly enough. Competitive forces should drive similar efforts for GStreamer [wikipedia.org] (and perhaps Phonon [wikipedia.org]) and QuickTime (is that the right MacOS framework?) soon enough. The problem comes with the fact that it's almost guaranteed to be a closed application, so there's nothing to build atop except the interface and feature set.
The real question is what Google thinks of this; despite YouTube's H.264 ties, they've been pushing WebM (a simplified Matroska container holding VP8 video and Vorbis audio) in place of FLV (or...?) containing H.264 and MP3 (or AAC?). Google will have to react FAST if they want to push WebM. For the sake of free/open standards in HTML5 video [wikipedia.org], specifically to prevent license/royalty issues with proprietary codecs to let the little guys compete, I'm rooting for Google.
So when I say "good enough," I'm referring to what it might kick-start rather than the more immediate effects. Things should start to get interesting.
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Competitive forces should drive similar efforts for GStreamer (and perhaps Phonon) and QuickTime (is that the right MacOS framework?) soon enough.
Firefox doesn't have a technical problem doing so, my computer plays all sorts of H.264 just fine because I have the x264 library installed. They've just consistently refused to use the system's codecs because it'd lead to a different experience depending on what OS the user is running and what he has installed, and because they can't both be open source and legally licensed at the same time they won't install it on demand either. Google has H.264 support in Chrome and I don't think they mind that much as l
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They've just consistently refused to use the system's codecs because it'd lead to a different experience depending on what OS the user is running and what he has installed
a) Most users want a different experience on the Mac to (say) the experience on Linux or Windows. b) Firefox is already a different experience on different platforms, even down to look and feel. Basically, I think their arguments for not supporting h.264 are rationalizations.
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Chrome plugins are so limited in availability and what they can do it cannot replace firefox for many.
More likely is interested users make plugins like this one for the platforms they use.
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You don't see the problem?
You don't see how there is no decoder that matches the MPL could be an issue?
The law needs changed, I should not have to pay rent to decode a file or to show others how to do so.
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Charging for distribution of a decoder is paying to decode the file.
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They can have a licensed open source H.264 encoder. They can't have one that is redistributable, so I guess the GPL is out.
_Any_ license to be called open source must allow redistribution. BSD, MIT, Apache, all of them allow redistribution. The difference between those and the GPL is that the latter forces distributors of binaries containing GPL code to distribute the sources too, but they all allow redistribution.
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Mac OS 10.6 most certainly does have support for H.264 out of the box, and I imagine that 10.5 and possibly earlier versions have it as well.
I'm not usually too keen of what MS do, but I think that using the OS's native codecs makes a lot of sense, and Mozilla really need to get off their high horse and implement native plugin use for all OSes that they support. A plugin is not ideal, but it's a hell of a lot better than not having H.264 support in Firefox, hopefully Mozilla will look at this and decide it
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Guess what? This isn't about users and codec battles, or offering firefox anything. Windows has h.264 hardware support out the box, OS X and Linux do not.
I guess I don't understand what you mean by that. Out of the box? On Windows you need to install a plug-in to get Firefox to use h264. The OS, of course supports hardware accelerated h264 and provides an API to third parties to use on Windows 7, but then OS X provides VDADecoder for the same purpose and, of course, uses it in Safari. Ditto for most Linux configurations as I understand, via Purevideo/XBMC.
So I guess my question for you is, "how does Windows support h264 out of the box, more than other OS's?"
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Windows has h.264 hardware support out the box, OS X and Linux do not.
Mac OS X does [apple.com]. Flash and XMBC among others use it.
Re:Good enough? (Score:5, Informative)
I know I'm probably responding to a troll, but for the record, hardware video (including H.264) acceleration is supported on Linux desktop via VDPAU/VA API. I can't vouch for the Intel/ATI VA API, but VDPAU has worked fine for me. Playing back a 1080p H.264 file has basically no impact on system load.
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Goodness me, no wonder you posted AC. OS X definitely has hardware decoding support for H.264 as well as full software decoding support out of the box. 5 seconds on google would have confirmed that. It also comes with Quicktime 7 (at a minimum - Quicktime X in 10.6) that have a full set of modern codecs of various flavours out of the box - H.264 being among them.
Not only that, it ships with an H.264 *encoder* too as well as just a decoder (yes, yes, I am aware that the term "codec" is a combination of both
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MacOS X (Score:2)
Given that Quicktime supports H.264, has anyone else looked into getting Firefox to use that for MP4/H264 playback, via a plugin in MacOS X?
BTW I am assuming we are talking about the video tag and not MP4/H264 in a embed/object tag?
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There's nothing stopping them - QuickTime on the Mac is a well documented system. The Mac version of XBMC uses it for just that reason, for example. It should be trivial for firefox to do the same if they wanted.
What's In A Name? (Score:2)
It's not a catchy name, but at least it's descriptive.
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This is from the company that called a product "Bob" and decided that the best colour for a media player was shit brown.
They do make good mice though.
What was the advantage of HTML5 and video? (Score:2)
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What codec could they have picked?
WebM was not around, setting a standard that FREE software cannot use is no good, and h264 is what Apple and MS wanted.
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Because the specification is complete, you'll have to wait for HTML6 in 2030 for that.
Re:What was the advantage of HTML5 and video? (Score:5, Informative)
They tried to set a standard video codec.
Opera and Gecko refused to implement one of the possible contenders (H.264) for patent reasons. Furthermore, H.264 doesn't comply with the spirit of the W3C patent policy, though it does comply with the letter (because while a W3C spec can't require implementation of a W3C-designed techonlogy that has W3C members holding patents on it and not licensing them, it _can_ require implementation of a patented technology developed by someone else, via citing it by reference).
Apple refused to implement anything other than H.264.
Microsoft refused to comment, basically.
Google implemented H.264 and the other containers+codecs Gecko and Opera implement (WebM/VP8 and Ogg/Theora).
So anything that was going to be specified was going to be a fiction in practice....
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Gecko did not refuse, it could not implement 264 and be legal.
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Whatever their reasons (and I know what they are, yes, and agree with them), the upshot was that they said they would not implement it. So it was DOA for standardization.
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As to what the advantage was, there wasn't really one, W3C, like always, is just trying to standardize things that have been common practice for years, they're not exactly cutting edge sadly. You won't even see a dramatic shift to HTML5 for video because it doesn't allow the publisher to control distribution(neither does flash but it lets them pretend it does). HTML5 doesn't support DRM and while for many people that's a plus it makes it DOA for quite a number of uses.
As for codec standardization. WebM didn
Cool story bro! (Score:2, Informative)
Well, I've read about half the comments, and so far the general sentiment of the FOSStard community to my understanding is this:
- Microsoft should have written an h.264 plugin for Firefox on Linux and OS-X.
- It's typical of Microsoft to do something like this and not support XP.
- Etc.
Here's the deal, guys:
H.264 support is not "built into" Windows 7. It's built into Windows Media Player 12. That version shipped with and is exclusive to Windows 7. It can't be installed to XP. Microsoft has previously rele
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Well, I've read about half the comments, and so far the general sentiment of the FOSStard community to my understanding is this:
- Microsoft should have written an h.264 plugin for Firefox on Linux and OS-X
Which half would that be? I've read all of the comments and found nobody actually saying this is what Microsoft should have done.
Useless (Score:2)
Installed it; went to Microsoft's very own HTML 5 page; it wouldn't play (readme warned me about this) even though it could (detection failed)
Googled "h264 html5 video demo" -> absolutely nothing worked or did anything
Gave up; uninstalled it. Useless alpha technology. Thanks HTML5!
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Re:Sounds just like Microsoft (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Sounds just like Microsoft (Score:5, Insightful)
It's hard to see anything MS does without some cautious skepticism that they may hold ulterior motives. I personally see two possibilities here:
1) They are trying to keep the FF userbase from building up a critical mass of users watching video with open source/patent free codecs such as WebM
2) They are trying to further marginalize Flash video (since at the moment Flash based video is the only H.264 option for FF users).
These two things arent mutually exclusive either, but I think they make more sense given MS's history and the context. What you said would make more sense if MS released a WebM player for IE/FF. To be clear though, having more options is good and this release isn't necessarily bad, but it's a good idea to keep in mind MS's past gift horses.
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It's hard to see anything MS does without some cautious skepticism that they may hold ulterior motives. I personally see two possibilities here:
You're kidding, right?
It's not an "ulterior" motive because an ulterior motive is hidden and/or undisclosed. Their motives here are blindingly clear: to service their customers so that they make money. If you think it's anything else, it's not that they have "ulterior" motives, it's that you have a naive point of view.
And, for what it's worth, it's pretty much OK! E
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Their motives here are blindingly clear: to service their customers so that they make money.
Is that why they essentially gave away Windows XP for free on netbooks? To make money? Nope. It was also blindingly clear there that they were putting a potentially costly thumb in the dyke to prevent this Linux netbook fad from catching on. Ultimately, I guess, that makes them money by maintaining Windows' market share, but that's the ultimate goal of all their underhanded stuff. They didn't open up the Office
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You're missing the point. This plugin makes Windows better, in the sense that you can use Firefox and view H.264 content.
Writing a similar plugin for Firefox on the Mac does not make MS Office better.
Re:Sounds just like Microsoft (Score:5, Insightful)
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From the article, it is a plugin to an extension:
"This new plug-in, known as the HTML5 Extension for Windows Media Player Firefox Plug-in, is available for download"
Perhaps the VLC plugin could be enhanced to do the same thing?
The article doesn't mention support for GPU acceleration, or to what extent it uses/supports 64 bit mode or extended instructions.
- - -
Hiroshima 45, Tchernobyl 86, Windows 95
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According to previous advice from Microsoft (which they issued when Google announced the Google Chrome Frame Plugin for IE), browser plugins are additional security risks which should be avoided.
Which, I might point out, didn't stop them from silently installing the "Microsoft .NET Framework Assistant" add-on in the Firefox browser so Firefox users would be vulnerable to attack ^h^h^h...^h^h^h able to install ClickOnce applications hosted on the web.
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Happily, browser users on all platforms will be able to view WebM video content without any plugin.
The very first hardware video decode accelerators for WebM/VP8 are just beginning to appear on the market.
The good news for those of us who don't replace our computers every few weeks is that almost every computer made in the last few years can effectively play H.264 video with hardware acceleration, using the codecs installed into almost every single consumer operating system already. The fact that Firefox doesn't want to trust the OS (at this point I'm a little surprised they're not working on their own printer drivers, it'd be just as moronic) shouldn't become their users' problem.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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Also, this doesn't just affect distributions. It basically means that anyone who wants to distribute a fu
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Lets be honest folks: Nobody is holding a gun to the distro developers and saying "You are NOT allowed to buy any codecs, you commie punks!". They could just as easily buy the rights to the H.264 codec as MSFT did. But they don't want to because they want to be "free as in beer and freedom man!" and you know what? That is just lovely.
The big problem is that the "free as in freedom" means that the distros would have to grant the rights to redistribute h.264 to their customers as well.
Quoting section 7 of the GPLv2 which AFAIK covers most of Linux:
7. If, as a consequence of a court judgment or allegation of patent infringement or for any other reason (not limited to patent issues), conditions are imposed on you (whether by court order, agreement or otherwise) that contradict the conditions of this License, they do not excuse you from the conditions of this License. If you cannot distribute so as to satisfy simultaneously your obligations under this License and any other pertinent obligations, then as a consequence you may not distribute the Program at all. For example, if a patent license would not permit royalty-free redistribution of the Program by all those who receive copies directly or indirectly through you, then the only way you could satisfy both it and this License would be to refrain entirely from distribution of the Program.
So if one Linux distro gets the rights to distribute while allowing royalty-free redistribution, soon all of them would redistribute the piece of code that handles h.264 for free.
Of course, the MPEG-LA knows this too and that's why the price would be quite high. It would amount to buying out the
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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You're right of course, because MSFT completely owns H.264 and is using its dominance to....oh wait a tick, that's MPEG-LA. Oh well then they are using their complete stranglehold on the video player market...nope, that's Adobe.
I'm sure Microsoft would rather lock everyone into their own VC-1 codec, but fortunately that's not supported by enough other browsers for them to do it. (In particular, it's not supported by Chrome, or by Safari on Mac OS or the iPhone.)
Feel free to claim as you do in your post that "MSFT has a fancy little mathematical formula" while ignoring the fact that it is actually the USPTO that gave the rights to MPEG-LA to that math, and how they should instead steal the codec from MPEG-LA to give to FOSS
There are other codecs that don't have the licensing restrictions that h.264 has - for example, WebM. Microsoft has deliberately decided they won't be supported out the box - apparently Microsoft have no interest in making it easy for their users to play web video when it's
Re:Sounds just like Microsoft (Score:5, Insightful)
Are you proposing that Microsoft should also write Firefox extensions to utilize the lower-level internals of other operating systems such as OSX and Linux, although Microsoft has neither the technical experience nor obligation to do so, just to keep competing operating systems on a level playing field? I'm sure that 3rd parties will quickly follow suite and provide similar functionality for other operating systems, assuming it can be done at all.
Remember, Firefox does not include an H.264 decoder due to patent issues. MS holds the necessary licenses already - essentially those licensed to use Windows have already paid in some way for H.264 codecs, thus MS is doing Firefox users a big favor by extending that functionality. I'm sure Apple can do the same with OSX, but I'm unsure about the whole patent issue when it comes to Linux.
If I remember correctly, when people were complaining about Firefox not supporting H.264 decoding, Mozilla specifically alluded to the fact that OS vendors would have to provide this functionality to work around patent issues.
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. I'm sure Apple can do the same with OSX, but I'm unsure about the whole patent issue when it comes to Linux.
Can, but probably won't. Firefox reproduces core functionality already provided by Safari. ;)
That said, its unclear to me why a 3rd party couldn't do it, they wouldn't need an h264 patent license to connect firefox to the h264 codec already licensed and present on the computer would they?
As for linux, same thing... if one has an h264 codec, then the plug in should be doable. I don't offhand know muc
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How about because safari is complete shit?
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Firefox reproduces core functionality already provided by IE. ;)
That's why this is so surprising, though as others have pointed out it's likely part of an effort to steer people to h264 instead of, say, VP8. Apple seems to be on board with that campaign to some extent, so I wouldn't be entirely surprised to see the same from them.
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This is good news for web developers and content creators - it means that Microsoft is even more serious than expected about embracing HTML 5 and standardizing media formats. It might seem like a shame to use a patented codec, but on the bright side, we're getting something that will continue to be developed and refined, and doesn't require a cumbersome, buggy abstraction layer AKA Flash.
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a) Upgrade your XP/Vista box to Windows 7
Wow... I can't think of any good reason to still be running anything less than XP, if you're going to go down the windows road...
b) Say goodbye to your Mac c) Ditch your *nix distro
Ditching linux... yeah, that ain't happening.
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Wow... I can't think of any good reason to still be running anything less than XP, if you're going to go down the windows road...
I can: Because corporate policy says so.
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How many h264 videos you watching at work? It seems pretty clear he meant for home use.
Web video in the break room (Score:2)
How many h264 videos you watching at work?
Plenty in the break room. But some companies have a policy to install the same image on the break room PC that gets loaded onto the work PCs.
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So in effect, to use said extension, you will need to either: a) Upgrade your XP/Vista box to Windows 7 b) Say goodbye to your Mac c) Ditch your *nix distro I can't really see many people doing that. However for anybody using the operating system, it's really not such a bad idea. While the idea of Microsoft developing a Firefox extension may turn heads, they're only doing it to benefit themselves.
Microsoft is a Fortune 500 company that exists to make profit. What do you expect from them? Help other companies compete with them? Work on projects with no financial benefit or strategic value at all? Are there companies I'm unaware of that do this?
Re: (Score:2)
Help other companies compete with them?
Isn't that exactly what they're doing, here? Helping Firefox, to the possible detriment of IE? Not that this means they are henceforth obligated to, but it's still interesting.
Re: (Score:2)
Why say goodbye to the Mac? If you are desperate for H.264 content on the Mac and are in love with Firefox, you can just fire up Safari or one of any number of other browsers that support H.264 on the Mac.
The same can be said for XP - no need to update.
As for "typical Microsoft" did you expect them to be actively developing new features like this (and really, it's an extension to windows rather than an extension to firefox) to anything other than their current Windows product?
XP and Vista are supported prod
Re:Sounds just like [insert company name here] (Score:2)
No kidding?