[mythtv-users] VP8 (On2/Google video codec) analysis (was Re: Google TV)

[Richard Morton]

Interesting link. So:

WebM is simply Matroska "lite"; no subtitles and confusing the issue
by using a new unrelated name Google is obviously targetting this at
browsers. However; it looks like it may
further splintered video codecs... Simply put WebM is mkv container
(without subtitle support) with VP8 and Vorbis.

Google has purchased VP8 codec from On2 for $124million and if making
it free; saying it is not encumbered by patents...

Authors conclusions about VP8:
VP8 is not likely to be patent free

VP8 is likely covered by many H.264 patents - H.264 being the leading HQ codec

VP8 includes lots of bugs in its implementation

VP8 is largely specified by the implementation (bugs and all); meaning
hardware decoder implementations will need to include the bugs; and
thus bug fixes will be problematic; probably leading to (in my opinion
new hardware being required for "VP9" which would be a fixed version
of VP8)

The current VP8 implementation; even when the code is optimised
(around and still including the necessary bugs) is going to be slower
and not as high-quality as H.264...

On the related technologies
The Matroska container: Matroska supports proper streaming not just
progressive downloading - which is a big plus to YouTube; and much
better than the "hack" that MS VC-1 supports or the progressive
download for flash.

On the audio codec: the author states that the Vorbis is the best
medium and high bit-rate lossy audio encoder available (according to
the author of the post; who does seem to be a
little bit of an expert from the confident and knowledgable writing)


Google; I love that you tried to provide a free video codec - I know
it is not exactly a selfless act, but anyway I applaud you for it.
Google; where was the due diligence in your purchase of On2?

 http://x264dev.multimedia.cx/?p=377