Skype goes VP8, embraces open video codec | Hacker News Reader

Skype goes VP8, embraces open video codec

gigaom.com

72 pointsnextparadigms26 comments

I'm pretty confident that when the acquisition closes, Mr.John Luther (the author of the blog post) is going to get a nice mail from MSFT LCA (legal and corporate) on the implications of using VP8 :)

Does it really matter that they're using an open video codec when their protocol itself is not? It's at least of little utility to anyone else that they use an open video codec.

It doesn't matter from a user's perspective, but it does show that VP8 is good enough for Skype to use it.

Skype has been using the VPx codecs for as long as they have done video calling. if VP7 was good enough for them, there's no reason why the new and improved VP8 wouldn't be. they aren't moving to any new technology here, nor are they embracing VP8 because it's open. they are merely upgrading to the latest version of the same codec they have always used.

Ssssh, you're screwing up Google's PR. :-)

It matters now that they've been bought by Microsoft, and are switching to anything other than a MS codec. It's news because maybe MS is warming to the idea of using existing open standards in places where it makes more sense than their own.

Interesting that, at least according to the article, Skype has adopted and released VP8 for video chat before Google itself (for Google Talk and Google+ Hangouts.)

This is surprising based on Microsofts support of h.264. http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2011/02/02/html5-and-web-...

Could this be a strategy to challenge Apple's (apparently) open standard FaceTime which uses h.264?

Other reasons?

Skype was already using VP8 for group chat before the MS buyout; I doubt Microsoft was driving the choice to use it for one-on-one as well. I'd just see this as an effort to simplify their code, for now.

PS: It's also possible that they could be standardizing on VP8 so they can have Skype in the browser sans plugin with WebRTC; but I'm not sure if WebRTC would be workable with Skype's protocols.

WebRTC and Skype have pretty much opposite philosophies.

This is a myth that MS doesn't support WebM. They do. They just don't ship it in the box. But if you have it on your system, they'll use it. MS doesn't ship a lot of its own technologies in the box -- it doesn't mean they don't support it.

> if you have it on your system, they'll use it

I don’t know i MS opposes WebM or not, but that doesn’t mean they support it: they have an API, you write a codec with that API and it works.

From this page (http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2011/03/16/html5-video-up...) they say,

"IE9 supports HTML5 video using WebM for Windows customers who install third-party WebM support."

From (http://blog.webmproject.org/2011/03/introducing-webm-in-inte...) the WebM team says,

"Microsoft collaborated closely with us to make the components fully compatible with HTML5 in IE9, so features such as the <video> tag and its canPlayType method are fully enabled for WebM. Our thanks go out to the Microsoft engineers who provided technical assistance and hosted our team in Redmond last month."

Does this sound like a company that opposes it?

Did I ever say that they do?

In this context I intend “support” as “endorse”. I don’t think they endorse it, or they would be shipping it with the browser. That doesn’t mean they oppose to it. They implemented an API that allows 3rd party codecs, that’s it.

How depressing that an operating system being able to run third party software is now held up as notable enough to count as "support" of that software.

We're not really talking about the OS here, though. We're talking about IE.

More along the lines of "Internet Explorer's <video> support will use WebM if you install a 3rd party codec because it hooks into Windows' video codec system" vs "Internet Explorer only supports h264 for <video> because it's all linked in directly to the browser." Unless you were referring to IE as the 'operating system.'

In exactly the same way that running Chrome hooks into Window's "program execution system", or installing a new video card hooks into windows "driver extension system".

Microsoft provided an API, and the WebM plugin implements it. That's how this sort of thing is supposed to work. That it doesn't any more (at least, not in the world dominated by a particularly popular mobile device vendor who shall remain nameless lest I be flamed into oblivion) is what I found depressing.

I think "support", for video codecs, would mean shipping with the browser. Adoption will be very limited as long as it requires a separate download and installation (unless the browser makes that seamless, with no admin password requirement).

How is adoption going to be limited if Chrome and Mozilla both ship it? That's 50% of the market that get it w/o thinking. From all indications MS wants the codec to work well on their platform. They don't want the liability of shipping it.

Facetime is neither open, nor a standard right now.

When it was first announced, Steve Jobs said it would be an 'open standard', which is why I said apparently. http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/06/07/apple_announce...

It's not open until they release something. Calling it 'apparently' open might apply if there was something open released, but maybe not updated frequently enough. Using 'supposedly' is probably a better use of terms here.

It's like when Google calls Android "open" but then withholds the source from non-privileged partners.

Google fulfills the requirements of the licenses of android, that are open. So it is open. Do I like the way they do so?

Not so much, but it was necessary to do something against uglifications from the device makers, since seams that google is not willing/able to produce its own canon android hardware (and get the bigger slice of the android devices market, to make it actually canon).

Apparently when Steve Jobs announced they would be opening up FaceTime as a standard it was the first the development team had heard of it which might explain the delay.

http://daringfireball.net/linked/2011/05/11/facetime-standar...

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