Firefox 4 gets WebM | Hacker News Reader

Firefox 4 gets WebM

nytimes.com

24 pointssound8 comments

I believe the original ReadWriteWeb version of this was already posted.

Also, H.264 is only royalty free for those distributing video on the web either for free or for clips under 12 minutes. Royalties on encoders, decoders (e.g. browsers) and a whole bunch of other stuff, is already in effect.

Was WebM the best name they could come up with? Seriously?

I have to constantly try to remember what the heck it is when I see it out of context (like this thread title).

I'm trying to think of a prominent technology released in the last decade that this comment doesn't apply to:

iOS, iPod, MP3, Theora, H.264, Mozilla, Firefox, Android, Linux, Ubuntu, Moblin, Meego, Yahoo, Google, Bing, Playstation, Xbox, Wii?

It's new. You'll get used to it.

I think the problem is the use of the word "Web", it throws my thinking as far as what the web-use is for.

Would "WebMedia" have been so hard - just 4 more letters?

There are several companies using that name already. I assume Google didn't want the extra hassle of dealing with pissed-off trademark-holders in addition to wrangling with the MPEG-LA.

I can't imagine Safari 5+ or IE9 not supporting WebM.

IE's team already said they'd support it if the user installs a codec, but I still haven't seen any word from Safari/Apple. Have they seriously not said anything, or have I just missed it?

Apple already "supports" codecs in Safari if you install them (e.g. you can do this now with Theora via the XipQT plugin) and there's a WebM plugin due in a couple of weeks from Google apparently, and I'd guess a newer version of Perian would also work once upstream FFMPEG accepts the patches.

The reason they didn't need to announce this support (apart from the fact that they might not want to give any attention to what they view as a competitor) is because, unlike Microsoft, they hadn't just announced the week before that they would blacklist all other installed codecs and only use H.264.

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