Google, Mozilla and Opera announced a new open video format today called WebM. As part of the WebM project, Google is is freely licensing the VP8 compression technology. This new open video format will use a modified Matroska video container (.webm). WebM format support is available today in Firefox, Chromium, and Opera development builds. All videos that are 720p or larger, uploaded to YouTube after May 19th, will be be encoded in WebM. This is very important news for HTML5 and the future of open video. What does this mean for the web, broadly, and the development of next-generation video applications?

Enter Google and WebM

As many predicted, Google made the announcement this morning at the I/O developer conference. “A key factor in the web’s success is that its core technologies such as HTML, HTTP, and TCP/IP are open for anyone to implement and improve. With video being core to the web experience, a high-quality, open video format choice is needed.” reads the WebM project page.

HTML5 video options in 2010

What was announced

-WebM is a new open-source project sponsored by Google.

-VP8 is now a royalty-free video compression technology (“codec”), like Theora. It’s licensed using a BSD-style license. “WebM and the codecs it supports (VP8 video and Vorbis audio) require no royalty payments of any kind. You can do whatever you want with the WebM code without owing money to anybody,” reads the project blog.

-VP8′s audio companion is actually Vorbis, Theora’s sister codec.

-Chromium, Firefox, and Opera builds are available today. Chrome builds will shortly follow. No statement yet from Microsoft or Apple regarding support in their platforms.

-Some WebM-formatted videos are now available for users who are in the YouTube HTML5 beta. so Google is already leveraging its position to advance open video. All videos that are 720p or larger uploaded to YouTube after May 19th will be be encoded in WebM as part of its HTML5 experiment. Google will continue to offer H264 files as well.

-WebM support in Android is expected in the Gingerbread release (currently planned for Q4, 2010)

-Google engineers are working closely with the ffmpeg project, Sorenson, and others to ensure that a wide variety of software packages and embedded devices will play VP8 video. DirectShow filters are available today for Windows users to try, and GStreamer plug-ins are coming soon for Linux users. Many existing devices will support it through future firmware upgrades—Google is going head-to-head with H264 for set-top boxes and mobile devices. Google is also funding research for hardware decoding. “We’re working closely with many video card and silicon vendors to add VP8 hardware acceleration to their chips,” reads the project page.

-Interestingly, Adobe will also be incorporating the VP8 codec into the Flash player.

HTML5 and the next generation video web

First, a little background. Most videos on the web today are delivered using a combination of proprietary technologies: Flash and H264. These technologies were essential to early innovation with video on the web, and they will be here for some time to come. But for the continued evolution of the medium, free and open video technologies must be made available to developers, businesspeople, and creators.

HTML5, like Flash, enables developers to write advanced web applications, including video. But HTML5 has a significant advantage over Flash: applications written in HTML5 are woven into the fabric of the web. Content delivered in Flash is usually stuck in a silo. Flash apps generally don’t talk to the rest of the web. It’s hard for search engines and other apps to talk to Flash apps. It’s hard to integrate Flash apps with other web services.

By contrast, content delivered in HTML5 has an easy time talking to other pages and services. That’s because HTML5 is made of the same stuff as the open web. HTML5-delivered content will connect seamlessly with the social web, creating new opportunities for creators to connect with audiences. In the not-too-distant future, HTML5 video will be the foundation of amazing and ubiquitous features like audio and visual search, conversational video, and automatic subtitles. Since the next generation of rich media web applications must be integrated with the rest of the open web, it’s clear that HTML5 is the future of online video. But there is a catch: which video formats will be universal across browsers?

Split formats

Since HTML5 video began shipping in browsers last year, video format support has been split. Firefox, Chrome and Opera support the free and open source Theora; Safari and Chrome support the proprietary H264 (as will Internet Explorer sometime later this year). With such inconsistent format support, HTML5 has been slow to supplant Flash video as the preferred method of video delivery on the web. Apple’s mobile devices (iPhone and iPad) have accelerated deployment of HTML5, but Apple’s format of choice is H264. The proprietary nature of H264 has been a hard pill for open web advocates to swallow. Software and devices which use this technology must pay royalties to MPEG-LA, a licensing body which represents the interests of patent holders. This is a major problem for downstream innovators, who must wrangle with unpredictable fees, terms and conditions to use web video.

Developers must have the latitude to create new applications and business models, without asking for permission or bowing to the whims of platform vendors. Web video must not come attached with a tax.

Yet—as critics of H264 point to the unpredictable licensing fees associated with its use, and critics of Theora argue that it is technically inferior—web video formats have been in a stalemate for about a year. With the introduction of a freely licensed, high-quality codec, Google may help break this stalemate and quickly advance HTML5 adoption.

Open source v. royalty free: what’s the difference?

Open source usually connotes transparency and shared development in a given software project. But equally important is the freedom to use the technology without paying for it or asking for permission to use it. VP8 is both free in price and free to adapt and use. Though H264 video is free for end users, and free for certain distributors through 2016, many vendors and businesses must pay millions of dollars to use the technology.

Further, MPEG-LA has a large patent pool, and has frequently intoned that all modern video codecs infringe on these patents. It will be interesting to see this position tested, now that Google has entered the fray with a high-quality royalty free codec.

What’s the catch?

Google wants to own its own destiny. As the largest distributor of video online, simply relying on the goodwill of the H264 patent licensors puts Google in an uncertain position. But Google is also interested in seeing more video online and across the web; that means more data to analyze, more stuff to search, more stuff to run ads against.

There’s also the possibility that the industry will be slow to adopt WebM based on submarine patent fears. A few years ago, Microsoft released the proprietary WMV9 as the open VC-1, which they claimed to be royalty-free.  Shortly after this benevolent gesture, dozens of companies emerged from all corners claiming patents on VC-1.  Within a year, a VC-1 licensing company was set up, and its “patent-free” status was rolled back.

The WebM project page acknowledges this possibility: “These licenses are revocable only if the licensee files a patent infringement lawsuit against the VP8 code that Google released…. standard BSD license and the VP8 license is that this license grants patent rights, and terminates if patent litigation is filed alleging infringement of the code.”

What happens to Theora?

It’s possible that this decision by Google will create an environment where there are several popular video formats (as there are currently several popular image formats). Google, in fact, has advocated for Theora as an alternative codec for mobile devices, and recently funded research for native decoding on ARM processors. As with other web formats, choice and competition are good.

Wikipedia is currently the largest site currently serving Theora video. Wikimedia Foundation’s head of communications Jay Walsh has said that the site is open to hosting multiple video formats, just as it currently hosts multiple image formats. “Ultimately, this isn’t so much about switching formats as it is about making more options available for more web users,” he said to NewTeeVee.

What about Apple iPads, iPhones, and Safari?

Apple’s mobile devices have so far been the biggest motivators in the marketplace for HTML5 adoption, as they don’t support Flash. But VP8 support is not likely, at least in the short term. The Apple ecosystem is highly dependent on H264, and all current Apple devices have on-chip decoding optimized for H264. This and custom routines in Apple operating software help preserve battery life, harmony with iTunes Store purchases, and more.  It will likely be possible for users to enable VP8 support in Safari with a Quicktime component, but native support is unlikely for the foreseeable future.

Big picture

This is excellent news from Google, Mozilla, and Opera, and will help catapult web video into the next generation. We will continue to report on these developments and share our perspective.

These developments will also be a major point of discussion at our annual Open Video Conference, this October 1-2 in New York City. To learn more, follow us on Twitter, and visit http://openvideoconference.org.