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General discussion

Bye Bye, H.264? Google open-sources VP8 web video

May 19, 2010 5:51AM PDT

Discussion is locked

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Bye Bye, H.264? Google open-sources VP8 web video
May 19, 2010 7:53AM PDT

Yep

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Ohh
May 19, 2010 2:59PM PDT

I'm sure somebody will find some patent VP8 violates and sue them.

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They will still get sued. When there is money to be made
May 20, 2010 10:52PM PDT

somebody will come out of the woodwork and claim patent infringement. Even with open source standards.

I personally don;t care what format becomes the future web standard as long as its better than Flash as it exists right now. I do find it odd that Google is going to have to transcode all their YouTube videos again after they just switched to h.264 a few years ago. They seem to have the attention span of a gnat but hey, its their money.

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Caveat...
May 20, 2010 11:15PM PDT

I saw someone's indepth review of VP8 in its current form, and it appears to be inferior to H.264 in some significant respects. Better than the other open source alternatives, but inferior, nonetheless.

And then there was some note from Google that the code was "final" (insofar as open source code can be final).

I'm surprised they would take this tack and release something that was not only free but at least as good as the paid alternative.

If Google really wanted adoption, they could indemnify 3rd party adopters from patent lawsuit judgments. Probably not likely.

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And here they come....
May 21, 2010 12:00AM PDT
http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/20100520/googles-royalty-free-webm-video-may-not-be-royalty-free-for-long/

I'm honestly not surprised when Google does anything. They are obviously good at search and their cash cow (ads) sort of fell into their lap and made them very very rich. But they are pretty much dilettantes when it comes to all their side projects. Like rich kids, the engineers at Google toy with this idea or that as long as it holds their interest moving on the greener pastures when they get bored. Nothing ever seems to get finished.

I like Google Calendar, Reader and Maps a lot but I could care less about most of their other services which seem half baked and clumsy to me (their UI design is the absolute worst). I think a lot of people like the IDEA of Google's philosophy more than the reality of the products they create.
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Their UI
May 21, 2010 2:39AM PDT

I always laugh when I see people swear by the "great Gmail UI". To me, it's one of the ugliest interfaces out there, regardless of it's ability to be skinned.

Now, if they hired HTC to do software UI's for them, they might have something...

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The reason I love Google Calendar is I'm willing to overlook
May 21, 2010 11:45AM PDT

their UI because the cloud synching is so valuable. Same with Google Earth or Reader. But even with all its functionality its still far from what I'd call a "seamless" or "polished" experience. Google is the nerd engineer wearing a pocket protector in the room. Extremely functional but deeply unaware of style or elegance.

That's kind of the way with most web apps I use. They are useful but lack polish or real thought about the interface. They do what they have to do but they are always clunky or weird in some way.

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Best part about Google
May 21, 2010 12:18PM PDT

Is you don't have to use lame web UIs. They have APIs. Gmail has free IMAP so you can use a nice desktop email client. There are RSS apps that sync with google reader and calendar.

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True. But i still don't trust google with my personal
May 21, 2010 12:31PM PDT

Information. I use them for secondary accounts but my personal email no way I still pay for my main IMAP email. No spam. No data gathering. No add selling. You get what you pay for. One day we are going to look up and realize that we sold our souls to the advertising devil.