> Google have just bought On2, the video codec company > http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/08/05/google_to_buy_on2/ > There is speculation that they will open source the On2 codecs, and > use them on YouTube. > Apparently Ogg is based on another On2 codec previously open sourced > by them. > They claim that their latest codecs are as good as h264, at the same > bitrate. > So I guess potentially this could be a win for open video and finally > let all browsers choose a standard codec for use with HTML5.
I was just speaking with a friend about how feasible it would be for a big company to adopt the Ogg codec. An apple engineer was on the list asking questions: http://lists.xiph.org/pipermail/theora/2009-July/002415.html On2 open sourced the Ogg/Theora codec several years ago. Currently, it does really look good...though Verdi will say "as good as H264" is not good enough. Not enough reason to switch. But now that google bought On2, they can put some muscle behind development. Might give developers and hardware makers reason to include a free codec by default. Could be a way to avoid having to pay for Flash/MPEGLA fees. Difficult to know exactly what they'll do. Jay -- http://ryanishungry.com http://jaydedman.com http://twitter.com/jaydedman 917 371 6790
