Everyone is familiar with viewing and embedding videos on the web through sites like YouTube. Until now, virtually all of that video plays with the help of a third-party plugin like Quicktime, RealPlayer, or Flash. This isn’t a problem—until you find that your browser doesn’t support a certain plugin or you have to continually download new software to keep up.

With HTML 5, this is no longer an issue. For the first time, there is a defined standard to play both video and audio content directly from the browser without the need for an external plugin. HTML 5 supports the implementation of <video> and <audio> tags when creating a web page in order to play video and audio content, analogous to the familiar <img> tag for images we have used for years. No codec technology is specified in the standard, but popular options include h.264 and OGG Theora. HTML 5 is now supported by all leading browsers, including Firefox, Safari, Chrome, Opera, and Microsoft’s IE9. Widespread adoption of open video and HTML 5 can overcome some of the barriers that have hindered video from being as manipulable as text and images on the web. It encourages experimentation and diversifies potential uses of internet based video.

More info:
WHATWG HTML5 FAQ
What’s new in HTML5
Mark Pilgrim on Video and the Web
OGG Theora

Royalty-free Codecs

Video files are typically very big, and downloading raw video takes a long time. Therefore, there’s an extra step you must take between capturing video from a camera and distributing it on the web: shrinking the file size. This is achieved through video compression technology.

Using advanced algorithms, computers can squeeze all the inefficiencies out of a video stream. This compression makes the file smaller and easier to distribute (via email or YouTube, for example). On the other side, the receiver runs the compressed video through a similar algorithm to decompress it. The decompression is invisible and happens in real-time—almost like magic. The software that enables this process is called a codec, which is short for compressor-decompressor.

Video codecs offer a range of possibilities for quality and file size. Unfortunately, there are very few open source codecs, so technologists and content distributors must pay for licenses to use this software. The cost of the licenses isn’t readily apparent, but it is baked into the cost of a whole range of devices and services.

What’s worse: the patents over many of these proprietary codecs protect many of the fundamental processes of delivering and playing web video. These patents make it prohibitively expensive to create new video players without being forced to pay licensing costs to the patent holding entities. They also discourage development of new codec technology.

From the Theora Cookbook:

“With online video… almost all of the basic technologies for its creation and playback are not free or transparent. For example, if a software developer makes a new video player, they must pay royalties to the companies that hold certain patents in order to distribute it legally. These patents (like most software patents) lock down extremely basic ideas. For example: one company has patented the idea of storing pieces of an image from left to right, top to bottom! Taken together, the thousands of patents on video techniques stifle the emergence of new ways of distributing and interacting with media.”

Open codecs like Theora are open-source, royalty-free alternatives to proprietary, restrictive formats by which much online video is distributed. Their continuing development ensures that open web principles can apply to online video.

More info:
Xiph Foundation
Firefogg
Theora Cookbook
Dirac
The OMS Video Project

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