In 2010, Google announced a new video technology with a bold proposition: to be the future of streaming video over the Internet. Thinking of the full potential of Web Giant, the idea is not that megalomaniac, especially since YouTube, the main video portal of the current global network, belongs to the company.
This technology is WebM, a video “format” that works in conjunction with HTML5 and offers more satisfying results compared to traditional methods such as Flash videos or even animated GIFs.
Technically speaking, this format works with more colors, takes less time to load, and displays videos at 60 frames per second. It combines different features in a package designed with the web in mind, putting you at an advantage over other competitors.
Google itself has been using WebM for some time experimentally on YouTube – if you have activated the video player in HTML5 format, know that the screens are made in this new format – but despite all the advantages, does it have potential? to go further and really be the future of images on the Internet?
Open and expanding technology
WebM is an open source technology that works with open multimedia standards: structure based on the Matroska container, VP8 video codec (also developed by Google) and Vorbis audio stream. So the technology can be modified, applied, and redistributed for free by anyone who wants to embrace the idea, and some websites and browsers have already done so.
Currently, Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome and Opera already support WebM natively, being able to take advantage of the pages that offer content in this format. Internet Explorer and Safari do not run natively WebM, but there are add-ons that can be installed to give them this functionality.
Thinking of laptops, increasingly important for web browsing, only Chrome has full support for the new format: Firefox, Opera Mobile and the native Android browser have partial support. The portable versions of Safari and Internet Explorer do not work with WebM.
Currently, several web services already use the format:
YouTube: in the HTML5 video player;
Wikimedia: also in an HTML5 media player with WebM;
Skype: implemented the VP8 codec for video streaming in version 5.0;
4chan: now allows the publication of videos in WebM, limiting the playback time to 120 seconds and the file size to 3 MB, all without audio;
Logitech: You plan to use the method in a video calling service;
NVIDIA: Announced HTML5 Video Service Using 3D Vision Technology;
Nintendo: Nintendo Wii uses the WebM format to stream videos;
NeoGAF – One of the largest forums on the Internet can be formatted via a Firefox plug-in.
And what are the advantages?
WebM is a format designed for the web, so it is developed taking into account some peculiarities of the network, such as improved performance to avoid bandwidth losses, better ratio between quality and file size, etc.
At this point, WebM consumes few hardware resources, exhibiting satisfactory performance also on simpler computers. In a simple way, it can be said that the ability to offer high quality content, openly and without overloading the PC or even the Internet connection are the main differentials of this method.
Performance
It can be said that the chances of success of WebM come essentially from the combination of several good elements in its composition. Choosing Matroska as the basis for everything, for example, makes control over video execution much more precise, as this format has an excellent response time for video searches.
Other advanced features such as multiple audio, video and subtitle tracks during streaming and also recovering from a streaming failure from the same point where it stopped, show how Matroska is a competent container and can serve customers. WebM purposes.
Size and quality
The size / quality ratio is probably one of the challenges of streaming video services, after all, the ideal is to offer the best quality in files with the smallest possible size. WebM achieves good results in this regard by using the VP8 video codec, developed by ON2, a company acquired by Google.
This codec is considered one of the few existing standards capable of guaranteeing an optimal balance between image quality and file size during compression in MPEG4. It was not by chance that Google acquired it and later became an open license.
