Tag: webm browser

WebM, an in-depth analysis of WebM

WebM, an in-depth analysis of WebM

WebM

Quality and efficiency

webm

Although these parameters, paradoxical as they may seem, are not decisive, they continue to play an important role in the “battle of formats”. If you look objectively and do not rely on fanatical dogmas, Theora was frankly weaker than H.264 and, although Theora’s supporters constantly said that “it can be finished and improved”, everyone was clear that in this case, not everyone understood . who, how and how much will do it and who will pay for it in the end, so it will be stretched out for unclear terms. With WebM, a similar situation may occur. Despite On2’s claims, there is no reliable and verifiable evidence that WebM (more precisely VP8) is better than H.264. But there are the words of the x264 developer, who, although it can be classified among the interested parties, is still quite competent in this area:

CPU load

This parameter is very critical, first and foremost, for weak mobile devices, consumer electronics and netbooks. Although we are promised a weak load on the processor when playing WebM, it is still honest to say that it has never been weak so far, but they promise to fix it in the future. It is true that the reliability of these promises is in great doubt, although I am not an expert in video codecs, but in principle it is already clear that a weak load on the processor will be only if the video compression ratio is weak, which Consequently, it will result in a lot of data that the video will occupy. For the sake, this problem can be solved quite simply if the decoding of the WebM format will be carried out by hardware, for example by a computer video card or a SoC of a device, but the following problem arises from here .

Hardware acceleration

One of the factors thanks to which the H.264 format began to rapidly gain popularity is the support for its hardware acceleration, not only by computers, but also by a variety of consumer electronics and gadgets, including notorious Apple devices. If existing generations of computer video cards will surely be able (if manufacturers wish) to get support for WebM hardware acceleration (for example, at the driver level), then in the case of embedded SoCs this is practically impossible. To support WebM hardware acceleration, you will have to make a new player / smartphone, already based on new SoCs, which have yet to be designed and put into production, and this is far from the smallest costs for their manufacturers. Additionally, manufacturers may consider the costs of implementing WebM support in many SoCs as such. they don’t make sense, because this requires extra work (and this is a cost), and the meaning to them is less than obvious: at what rate will WebM gain popularity, who will publish it, and if a common consumer needs it. ? As a result, this can result in a significant decrease in the diffusion rate of the new format.

Patent security

Probably the most unpleasant topic few people want to raise. The fact is, as already mentioned, “just because something is open source does not mean or guarantee that it will not infringe other patents”, no matter how you relate to this, but these are cruel realities that must also be taken into account in this issue. As far as I know, no one has made any claims about WebM (more precisely VP8) so far, but considering that this standard was developed by On2, this cannot be ruled out in the future. At least the complaints against Theora, who was based on VP3 (as you will understand, this is also On2’s son), have been heard several times, although there have been no legal proceedings yet, but this example is indicative.

Ready to use

Of course, developers are already actively working to introduce WebM into libraries of decoders, encoders, browsers, etc., but you have to understand that the “almost ready” and “ready” states are, as they say, two big differences. After all, web video is not limited to YouTube (otherwise, you could say that H.264 won long ago, although it was hidden, in most cases, behind a Flash player), but what How convenient is it for third parties to use WebM? What software is it supported on? When it will be? At the same time, the “long-standing” H.264 is still being implemented at full speed by many companies and projects, because everything is clear with it and everything is ready, recently even a major national social network has implemented it 🙂