Wikipedia's controversial video player coming soon
Wikipedia users will be getting new tools for uploading, editing, and viewing video very soon. According to a Beet.TV interview with Erik Moller, who is the deputy director of the Wikimedia Foundation, we'll see all of these things shortly. However, what's more interesting is the Web encyclopedia's choice of video formats and how it fits into a fracas in the browser world.
Wikipedia has been working on video support for years, and is putting considerable effort into making it easier for users to upload video--specifically, to bridge a video format divide. Moller says that while Wikipedia is still planning to use Ogg Theora (an open-source video codec that can be played back natively inside the latest version of Firefox, and soon Chrome and Opera) there may be tools that will convert video shot in alternate formats so that no special software, or user effort is required.
In the meantime, Wikipedia's solution is for users to do that conversion on their end. Moller says that one solution is FireOgg, a Firefox-only browser plug-in which can transcode user videos to Ogg Theora on the user's hardware.
One issue that still lingers with Wikipedia's slow move to video is its choice of codec. Codecs are the software modules that encode and decode audio and video, shrinking it down into sizes that can be more easily transmitted through the Web. Wikipedia's a large and very popular site, meaning whatever video format it's using will have a big impact on the Web and its standards. Wikipedia's choice to go with Ogg Theora puts further stress on where browsers and site creators alike stand on HTML 5 video, which is emerging as a hotly-contended Web standard.
Unlike the H.264 codec, which has been promoted in both Google and Apple's products and services, Ogg Theora allows for downloading, remixing, and re-uploading without licensing fees. On the other hand, much of today's computing hardware (including newer mobile devices) comes equipped with on-board H.264 decoding, meaning less processing power is spent playing back the videos.
Microsoft, Apple, and Google have been less avid about promoting the Ogg Theora format in their browsers, and have put resources behind H.264 instead. Google's Chrome, in fact, supports it (along with H.264), however Google has gone on the record as saying its quality was not as good as it wanted. Google has also sunk considerable resources into re-encoding YouTube's entire library of videos into H.264, making the company less likely to switch camps.
Regardless, Web video has come a long way since earlier standards and competing formats. Pioneers like Macromedia (now Adobe) with its Flash format, and Apple and its streaming QuickTime standard have helped pave the way for a bevvy of start-ups that rely on the latest codecs to create new and salable parts of their businesses. The big question is whether open-sourced codecs like Ogg Theora will have that same kind of sticking power. Being the go-to format on one of the Web's most popular sites certainly won't hurt.
Josh Lowensohn writes for Webware.com, CNET's blog about Web applications and services. E-mail Josh, or follow him on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/Josh. 
H.26x has been shown to be an optimal format for HD media, and its popularity appears to be skyrocketing. Ogg, however, as both a compression archetype and a license-free format, is probably <i>the best</i> thing for Wikipedia. All audio wikimedia is currently in Ogg Vorbis, so for compatibility and consistency's sakes, why not stick to it?
I swear I get the same vibe from Wikipedia and it's hard core fans as I do those people that only like a band before it becomes popular.
Cool so the small group of mods and wiki nazi's can use it, the vast majority of users see a 'not welcome' sign when it comes to editing wikipedia. Wikipedia is becoming more irrelevant each day.
Is that the link that has been discredited in forums like doom9.org? At best, Ogg Theora will only attain MPEG4 ASP quality, and they are not there yet.
Ogg Theora is a great choice, and all it needs is a bit more improvement and a web standard should be open for all and shouldn't be entrenched in patents and etc. I support the Ogg Theora camp until H.264 is open sourced.
In the mean time whatever works the best should be the standard in web browsers - And if Google, Opera, Microsoft, and Apple all think the better format is H.264 then I would tend to suspect it's true and that's what the standard should be.
Of course just because the browsers go one way doesn't mean Wikipedia needs to follow suit.
i know when played in flash, there is no GPU acceleration, but i have no idea if there is when played via HTML5
Unfortunately, the licensing issues make it *radioactive* for our purposes. MPEG-LA charge a fortune, litigate actively and will be charging more from 2010. Even if we got it free, our reusers would be left wide-open. There is just no way we can use H.264 while this is the case.
(The essential problem is that software patents exist, and that Theora is basically a workaround for this bug. Here's to the Supreme Court obliterating them when they hear Bilski.)
We're the people who, from the WHATWG list discussion, appear to be the *first* major website to try to use the <video> tag in a way that doesn't just tell people "sorry your stuff doesn't work" but tries to give them something useful anyway (fallback to a browser plugin or a Java-based video player, etc). Currently the tricky part is that Safari is the odd browser out that uses <video> but *doesn't* support Theora - so we have to work out how to give the users a good experience when Apple has deliberately taken it away from them. The Apple engineers on the WHATWG list are being as helpful as they can with this.
Summary: H.264 would be good but the lawyers are the problem. Theora is actually very good indeed these days, and we're working hard to make it seamless for users.
Developers, content creators, service providers, etc. must stop focusing on the desktop web. Those days are being left behind.
Summary: get Theora on mobile devices and it has a chance. If it does not make it to a broad percentage of mobile devices in a year or two, the format will die.
Not all patents are bad..
Thank goodness. I would hate to think that I could put significant financial resources and time into developing something, just to have the next person come along, copy it and steal my hard work.
I agree that the system is abused, but I would rather have a flawed system than none.
With H.264 the patent situation is reasonably clear, and vendors (like Apple, Microsoft, etc) have already mitigated legal risks by licensing from MPEG-LA. Supporting Theora means vendors and content-creators must now face MORE exposure to possible litigation, not less. Everyone will now have to worry about patent claims from both codecs.
It would be a shame to select a codec that's technically inferior due to licensing issues, if only later the very same codec becomes mired in a patent-war of its own.
With H.264 at least the situation is reasonably clear, and vendors + content creators have already mitigated legal risks by licensing from MPEG-LA. Supporting Theora means being exposed to yet another avenue for patent litigation, i.e., possibly MORE patent problems, not less.
It would be a shame for Wikipedia to adopt a technically inferior codec due to supposed licensing issues, only for that very same codec to be mired in a patent-war of its own in the future.
Exactly. Why the heck would you want to pay fee's and expose your users to liability for your own work? Hence the need for an open source video standard.
http://obamasstimuluspackage.net
There is no gurantee regardless. However one path leads to a sure problem while the other at least is only margianlly more a risk. The risk of both codecs is that a 3rd party can sue. The extra risk of the open source is that the codec everone thinks they should use may be the one to sue.
So that's your choice. A sure problem wiht lisencing an the legal risk, cost and exposure vs. a much smaller risk that that camp that's sure to give you a problem if you did try to use their codec will sue for using open source.
It's a no brainer to me, but YMMV.
neither the web nor an inclusive website such as wikipedia can have a closed standard, both should be open to all regardless of whether they have a license to use a particular piece of software or not.
regarding submarine patents, why is ogg any more at risk than than H.264? because oggs source is open? if we take that point of view all open source projects they may aswell pack up and go home, im sure the linux kernel is at more risk of infringing patents simply because of its size, its popular, its been around a while, how many times has it been found to be breaching a patent and how many of those cases have actually been proven in court?
im not saying there isn't a risk but it seems to be blown all out of proportion, i could get run over by a bus tomorrow, i still leave the house though.
there is one site which is using wiki and youtube together www.kinderpedia.com
- by square44 October 1, 2009 10:20 PM PDT
- Rather than adding its own easily can adapt from others too. Like u tube, dailymotion ....
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(32 Comments)there is one site which is using wiki and youtube together www.kinderpedia.com