In a decision that deprives open-source foes of some rhetorical fodder, the group that licenses patents for the widely used H.264 video-encoding technology chose to renew a streaming-media freebie through 2015.
MPEG LA licenses more than 1,000 H.264-related patents on behalf of 26 companies that hold the patents. The group's existing policy, which runs through the end of 2010, has been not to charge royalties to Internet sites that streamed video using the technology--as long as the video was free for viewers.
Many have been waiting to hear what MPEG LA would announce for the licensing terms beyond 2010. On Tuesday, the group said it extended the free-streaming policy until December 31, 2015.
That extension could help encourage Web sites to use it instead of rivals such as Ogg Theora, which isn't encumbered by patents, or On2 Technologies' VP7 or VP8.
H.264, Ogg Theora, and VP8 are what's called codecs--technology that encodes and decodes digital information. In the case of digital video, codecs compress the original material for storage or transmission, then expand it again for viewing. The highest-profile Web streaming site using H.264 is a doozy: Google's YouTube.
H.264 opposition
Given some significant opposition to H.264 in Web streaming that contrasts with its widespread use, it's not too surprising MPEG LA chose not to add the new royalty.
Google is trying to acquire On2 but hasn't disclosed in detail what it hopes to accomplish beyond saying, "We believe high-quality video compression technology should be a part of the web platform."
But the more overt rival at this stage is Mozilla, which has been agitating against H.264 and promoting Ogg Theora, which it uses for handling video built into Web sites with new HTML5 technology under development. Mozilla had been raising the specter of new streaming video royalty payments, but the MPEG LA decision defangs that argument for the time being.
Still, the rhetoric continued Wednesday, when Mozilla Chief Executive John Lilly tweeted, "Regarding that MPEG LA announce: it's good they did it, but they sort of had to. But it's like 5 more years of free to lock you in 4ever."
Why so opposed? Patents on Web plumbing raise a big red flag for those who remember when Unisys started seeking licensing revenue for the GIF format based on its image compression patents. The didn't start until 1999, years after the format grew popular. Mozilla wants to steer clear of patents
But the ambitions of HTML5 video fans is complicated by this codec issue. Firefox supports Ogg Theora, and Opera Software is working on following suit. But Apple's Safari supports H.264. Google's Chrome supports both, and Microsoft's Internet Explorer supports neither.
Consequently, in 2009, HTML5 specification editor and Google employee Ian Hickson reluctantly decided that HTML5 couldn't specify a particular codec.
Not just about the money
MPEG LA offers the patents under what it calls the AVC/H.264 Patent Portfolio License. It's also known as MPEG-4 Part 10.
Although that's been royalty-free in the Internet-streaming context, it costs money for commercial streaming, cameras, video editing software, media players, and Web browsers. MPEG LA plans to announce later this year the new royalty rates for those uses, it said.
And browsers is one area H.264 gets complicated: open-source software typically may not use patented technology unless license agreements explicitly permit it. That's not the case with H.264, which is one reason Mozilla doesn't support the technology in Firefox, which is distributed not just by Mozilla but also by Linux companies and others who use Firefox derivatives.
Even if Mozilla wanted to license the code, it's not a simple matter: Mozilla said the H.264 license would cost $5 million.
Open-source software such as Firefox or free software such as Adobe Systems' Flash Player, which includes H.264 support get no special treatment, according to a comment by Allen Harkness, MPEG LA's director of global licensing.
"Licenses do not make any distinction for products offered for free (whether open source or otherwise)," he said.
And although companies making products with H.264 support must pay royalties, Harkness raised the specter of much broader consequences for those using unlicensed H.264 technology. "While our licenses are not concluded by end users, anyone in the product chain has liability if an end product is unlicensed," Harkness said.
Among the companies whose patents are licensed through the H.264 policy are Apple, with a single patent, Microsoft, with dozens, and several consumer electronics companies that also have dozens of patents involved. A full H.264 patent list in PDF form is available on the MPEG LA site.
Update 1:48 a.m. PST: Added more detail about H.264 licensing and open-source software.
When President Obama hits the airwaves Wednesday night to give his State of the Union address, YouTube viewers can do more than simply watch.
According to YouTube, "this year's State of the Union speech will also make history." During the speech, those viewing the address on YouTube will be able to ask questions about the speech's content. The address will be displayed on the company's Citizentube page, where people can submit questions via text or video.
YouTube said that people will be able to continue to ask questions of the president for an additional few days, as well as vote for their favorite questions.
But here's the best part: next week, President Obama will answer the top-voted questions in a YouTube interview from the White House. It will be broadcast live on Citizentube.
For now, YouTube hasn't provided an exact time or day when President Obama will answer the questions. It plans to make that information public when it irons out the details.
Don Reisinger is a technology columnist who has written about everything from HDTVs to computers to Flowbee Haircut Systems. Don is a member of the CNET Blog Network, and posts at The Digital Home. He is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure.
A disagreement between Google and Mozilla is making a once-obscure debate into a real issue for those who watch Web video or host it on their own sites.
Last week, Google's YouTube announced early support for HTML5 video, which can be built directly into Web pages and viewed with browsers without relying on a plug-in such as Adobe Systems' Flash, Microsoft's Silverlight, or Apple's QuickTime. Another Web video site, Vimeo, followed suit.
Native video on a Web page sounds nice, and many Web companies support the effort broadly. But there's one big devil in its detail: the HTML5 specification, still under development, doesn't say which "codec" technology should be used to encode and decode video, and different browsers and Web sites support different standards.
YouTube, which delivers vastly more video streams over the Web than any competitor, has come down on one side of the divide, supporting the H.264 codec for HTML5 video on its TestTube site. But after Google made the move, several involved in developing Mozilla's Firefox browser began preaching a royalty-free alternative called Ogg Theora.
Mozilla grew to its present status of second-place browser in large measure by the power of word of mouth, and there's evidence the Mozilla community has begun making itself heard. After an Ogg Theora petition request on a Mozilla mailing list, requests for Ogg Theora support are on both on the YouTube product top ideas and hot ideas list.
Google wouldn't comment on whether it plans to add Ogg Theora support or what it would take to convince it to do so. However, it did leave the door open.
"Support for HTML5 is just a TestTube experiment at this time and a starting point. We can't comment specifically on what codecs we intend to support, but we're open to supporting more of them over time. At the very least we hope to help further this active and ongoing discussion," the company said in a statement.
$5 million licensing fee
Mozilla would have to pay $5 million to license the H.264 codec from MPEG-LA, the industry group that oversees the technology, said Mike Shaver, Mozilla's vice president of engineering in a blog post, and that doing so wouldn't grant rights of those such as Linux operating system companies who build products employing Mozilla's browser.
"These license fees affect not only browser developers and distributors, but also represent a toll booth on anyone who wishes to produce video content. And if H.264 becomes an accepted part of the standardized Web, those fees are a barrier to entry for developers of new browsers, those bringing the Web to new devices or platforms, and those who would build tools to help content and application development," Shaver said.
Nothing requires only one video technology to prevail. After all, different graphics formats including JPEG, GIF, and PNG are in wide use today on the Web, and today's widely used Flash technology for video will remain a fixture for years.
But supporting multiple standards takes developer time and makes Web sites more complicated. So, in the absence of a prevailing standard, Web site developers are more likely to sit on the sidelines.
A long-running issue
The difficulties have been brewing for months behind the scenes in the HTML5 standardization process. The standard's editor, Google employee Ian Hickson, decided last year against specifying a video codec in the HTML5 standard. "After an inordinate amount of discussions, both in public and privately, on the situation regarding codecs for video and audio in HTML5, I have reluctantly come to the conclusion that there is no suitable codec that all vendors are willing to implement and ship," he said in a blog post.
HTML5 video support is just arriving in Web browsers. Firefox of course supports Ogg Theora, and Opera is working on it. Apple's Safari, though, supports H.264. Internet Explorer supports neither, and Google's Chrome supports both.
YouTube and Vimeo support H.264, but not all have gone that route. Dailymotion and Wikipedia embraced Ogg Theora
Most Web sites will have to protect users from this confusion by checking what browser they're using and delivering an appropriately formatted Web page. If a desired HTML5 video format isn't supported, the Web page can fall back to Flash.
But HTML5 video offers some mechanisms for tighter integration with the Web page than Flash. To take advantage of that, developers would have to offer substantially different versions of their Web pages--one with the integration and one without it.
'Something very dangerous'
Mozilla's reflex to steer clear of patent-encumbered technology isn't academic. Unisys started seeking licensing revenue for the GIF format based on compression patents it held, but didn't start until 1999, years after the format grew popular.
"Most people don't understand that something very dangerous is taking place behind the scenes," said Chris Blizzard, who leads developer relations for Mozilla, in a blog post. "Unisys was asking some Web site owners $5,000 to $7,500 to able to use GIFs on their sites...We're looking at the same situation with H.264, except at a far larger scale."
And YouTube's move is a big step toward cementing H.264's position in HTML5 video, he argued.
"Their choice for H.264 had an immediate effect. It's a signal to the market that it's OK to start using H.264 as the main codec for HTML5 video," Blizzard said.
The prevailing wisdom is that H.264 offers superior quality over Ogg Theora. But Blizzard argues that Mozilla has helped the Xiph project from which the Ogg Theora format came is better, and the Ogg Vorbis audio-only codec is superior to MP3: "On the quality side what we've been able to do at Mozilla, with the help of the rest of the Xiph community, is to show that even though Theora is based on older, royalty-free technology, it does at least as well as H.264 in practice (although not always in theory.)"
Mozilla programmer Robert O'Callahan raised another issue: H.264 licensing fees could increase.
"Currently providing H.264 content on the Internet is zero-cost, but after 2010 that will almost certainly change," O'Callahan said. "We won't know much about the terms until the end of this month. The key issue is not exactly how much it will cost, but that if you want to publish H.264 you will probably have to hire lawyers and negotiate a license with the MPEG-LA.
Cutting the Gordian Knot
If this situation seems insufficiently complicated, there's another wrinkle that could come from Google.
But this one has the potential to simplify things.
That's because Google is trying to acquire On2 Technologies, the company whose earlier codec work underlies the Ogg formats. In Google's announcement of the planned acquisition, Sundar Picahai, Google's vice president of product management, had this tantalizing rationale to offer: "Today video is an essential part of the Web experience, and we believe high-quality video compression technology should be a part of the Web platform."
Of course, Google first must convince the On2 shareholders to agree, and it's had to sweeten the offer already. After that, it would have to convince browser companies and others involved in HTML standardization to go along with the idea--and it should be noted that browser makers Microsoft and Apple have patents covered by H.264.
But Apple has a growing media business through iTunes--and its Lala acquisition shows it has some interest in streaming media, too. Microsoft, meanwhile, has begun professing enthusiasm for Web standards.
So while the Web is guaranteed years of changes in Web video--if indeed it ever fully settles down--there is potential here for reconciliation.
YouTube on Thursday is launching a refreshed version of its video playback pages. Similar to the company's efforts with its "Feather" program, the new look requires that users opt in while the company fine-tunes things--a process it says will run its course over the next few weeks before it decides to push it out to all users.
Like Feather, the new pages are leaner, cleaner, and put more of a focus on the video. But where Feather tends to strip out some of YouTube's features, this new look simply tucks them away.
What's new:
• Nested information. Big blocks of text, sharing menus, and embedding options are all now minimized. Users can expand each module to see more information.
• Simplified share buttons. YouTube has finally put the quick links that let people share videos on Twitter, Facebook, etc., front and center.
• A quick size toggle on the video player that lets users change a video from small to large. This is separate from the quality controls and full screen toggle.
• A quick look at other videos by that user. This new menu is on the very top of the page, and expands into a slideshow of thumbnails.
• The list of related videos on the right side of the page now changes depending on how the user got there.
What's moved:
• The box on the right that shows who made the video, and info about that video. That can now be found underneath the video, akin to a photo caption. However, like most of the other changes, this comes minimized by default.
What's gone:
• Five-star rating system. In its place is a like, don't like system where users give the video a thumbs up or down--just like they do for comments. The company says it's in the process of figuring out a way to convert existing ratings into the new system.
• Differing font styles. All fonts on the page are now the same.
What it looks like (click to enlarge):
The new watch pages are similar to what YouTube has been doing with its Feather program.
(Credit: CNET / Google)Along with the change, YouTube is also experimenting with a new way to let users search from a video page, without actually leaving the video they're watching. For instance, if a user starts a new search from any page, it will bring the video along with it on the left side of the results page. Then, when users click on a video from the results, it will bring those results back to the video page, where they'll sit on the right side of the page.
YouTube says the new look scales better than the old one both in terms of performance, and with additional features the company plans to add. The company also says that its Feather program will remain, due mostly to its prowess at serving up videos for people with shoddy connections. Beyond that, Feather will serve as a test bed for other ways to simplify and speed up pages, advances it says will later be carried over to the normal viewing pages.
To try the new program you can opt in here.
As if the news about the upcoming video rental program weren't enough, YouTube on Wednesday announced that it's finally going live with support for HTML5 video.
HTML5 video is the Web standard that allows users of most modern-day browsers to play hosted videos in their browser without having to rely on Adobe's Flash player.
In order to use the new feature, users will need to opt in to the HTML5 program on TestTube, which is where the company houses a number of other experimental features.
The only browsers that are currently supported include Google Chrome, Apple's Safari, and Internet Explorer with the Chrome frame installed. Not included on the list are Opera or Mozilla's Firefox, despite the fact that recent versions of both browsers work with the HTML5 video spec.
Along with the browser limitations, watching YouTube videos in HTML5 mode requires that the videos being watched are free of ads, user-created captions and annotations.
Note: As of 6:22 p.m. PST, the feature does not yet appear to be functioning site-wide. A Google rep told CNET that the company's engineers were just beginning to push it out, and that it would be live on the site in the next "hour or two."
Related: HTML groups tackle Webcam support
YouTube on Wednesday announced that it will soon be offering video rentals on its service, beginning first with five films from the 2009 and 2010 Sundance film festivals.
The rental feature, which goes live this Friday, will apply to the five Sundance films until the end of January. YouTube says that other films and programs will be made available for rental in the near future, but has not yet named which partners will be involved outside of mentioning that the health and education industries will be included.
Going forward, YouTube is inviting what it calls a "small group" of partners that will be able to apply the new rental model to videos they have hosted on the service. And similar to what YouTube did with paid video downloads around this same time last year, owners of these videos will be able to set their own pricing, as well as duration of how long that rental can be accessed.
In order to rent videos, users must have a Google Checkout account. The company has not said whether it will allow other payment platforms, such as PayPal, to be used as as a payment option.
YouTube has long been expected to get into the video-on-demand business, especially since Google removed video content purchases from its (now-defunct) Google Video service at the end of 2007. Also, late last year, reports surfaced that YouTube was in talks with a number of film studios in an attempt to warm them to the idea of renting their films on the service. Notably, Sony Pictures went on the record as having talked with Google about such an offering, although at the time it was looking for a way to boost the brand image of its Crackle video streaming site.
Users can pick what credit card they want to rent a video with.
(Credit: Google)
The YouTube Piano uses YouTube's timed annotations to play notes from the video's timeline.
(Credit: CNET)This is nowhere near as cool as that Nintendo Wario game ad/video hybrid, or the Honda headlight ad/video that surfaced on Vimeo last year. But it is more useful than both of them combined.
Meet the YouTube piano, a video of piano notes that has on-screen annotations that skip to that particular part of the video and thus the corresponding note. In practice, you could play a song, as some YouTube commenters have done with deep-linked comments. But to be honest, it can't (and won't) sound close to the real thing.
Still, this is about the only useful--and non-annoying use of on-screen YouTube annotations I've seen in a long time. Kudos to its creators, Adam Ben Ezra, Guy Dayan, and Daniel Barak, who run an entire channel of other, similar-functioning instruments. These include a pipe organ, electric guitar, and shaker.
I'm still holding out for a banjo version, so I can strum a little Deliverance.
Long-distance video sharing is often an asynchronous affair. Links are shared via e-mail or an instant message, and the other party is expected to watch it whenever they get some spare time. Enter Synchtube, a site that thinks the contrary. Instead of your friends and family watching that video whenever they please, it gives the sharer complete control of how and when that video plays.
Synchtube is simple to use and requires no special sign-ups. Interested parties need simply to come with a YouTube video link to get started. The service then creates a special URL for a video room that is good for three other people to join. Included is live text chat and a heads-up display of each user's timeline that shows what part of the video everyone is on. The person in control can then jump the group to a particular part just by dragging their own player's timeline.
Synchtube lets you control what's playing and when it plays for you and three others.
(Credit: CNET)In our brief office testing, Synchtube's system worked well for the majority of the video, but we ran into a few quirks. One of the people we sent it to could not see the video at all, while another hit a show-stopping YouTube error that required refreshing the page for the player to re-appear. These are definitely not the kind of problems you want to run into while sharing something with nontech-savvy relatives. That said, it may work better for you than it did for us.
Synchtube is just the latest in a long series of services that have attempted to make Web video watching a real-time group experience. Lycos tried it a few years ago with its now-defunct Lycos Cinema service, and more recently 6Rounds and Zorap's live video conferencing tools have offered live video watching mixed in with group chat. To a lesser degree, YouTube offers its own social-video watching experience with its Streams service, however it is less focused on everyone watching the same part of the video at the same time.
(via Reddit)
Muziic, the YouTube-based music application created by teenage programmer David Nelson, has been an impressive piece of work with one drawback: the desktop application only runs on Windows. Not anymore! On Christmas day, the company officially launched a Web-based version of its service, and it compares very favorably with other free online music services.
Videos from Vevo are integrated into search results on the new Muziic Web app.
Like the Muziic desktop app and U.K.-based TubeRadio.fm, the new Muziic Web player draws its content from YouTube, and allows you to queue songs and save playlists. But it's got a couple of interesting wrinkles.
First, you can get content from Vevo without the pre-roll video advertisements you'd see on the YouTube or Vevo.com versions of the advertisments. (Nelson explained that those ads are not yet incorporated into the YouTube API, so they don't show up on the Muziic player; knowing Vevo's business goals, look for this to be "corrected" soon.) A Vevo tab on the Muziic Web player lets you surf through videos on the service, but they'll also show up in search results. There's also a crossfade feature that lets you blend songs together with a 1- to 10-second overlap--that's nothing new for a desktop app, but rare in a free Web app.
In addition, there's a new Muziic Facebook app that lets you play Muziic's entire library from within Facebook and post songs to your profile, and an iPhone app is coming shortly. I still find that Grooveshark has a bigger selection, but the Muziic Web app is definitely a worthwhile addition to your bookmarks.
YouTube is pushing its Facebook Connect integration further by allowing its users to see the videos that their friends share on Facebook. YouTube users had previously been able to find their Facebook friends on YouTube as well as update their Facebook profile with their various actions from the site.
While it's nice to see YouTube embracing Facebook more and more, it stops a bit short of being an impressive Connect implementation. YouTube is getting there, but seems to be lagging behind a little in this department. An implementation that shares, on Facebook, what you are watching, on YouTube, would certainly make sense, although it might clutter up users' Facebook profiles if they are a prolific YouTube watcher. For now, the addition of this new feature is a welcome inclusion and serves as a great way of getting trusted recommendations for videos to watch on YouTube.
YouTube said this feature is in "test mode" for the time being. In my testing, I was not able to get this feature to actually work. This can be sometimes be expected while YouTube irons out the kinks with new features that aren't quite ready for prime time. If anyone has better luck, let us know in the comments.
