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Comment by andybak | Hacker News Reader

Does anyone have an opinion on whether Google's purchase of On2 makes any sense now with hindsight?

Did it affect the behaviour of the MPEGLA in any way? I know some of the tech has fed into WebRTC but that battle is far from over.

Was On2 worth the cash?

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Google acquired On2 in February of 2010. In August of 2010, the MPEG-LA "announced that H.264 encoded internet video that is free to end users will never be charged royalties." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.264/MPEG-4_AVC#Patent_licensi...)

So... yeah, I'd say it profoundly affected the MPEG-LA's behavior. If Google didn't have an easy out with (what would become) WebM, their Youtube licensing would be much more expensive.

Whether that patent promise has any bearing on the Mozilla decision is a more complicated issue. People have strong opinions on both sides.

MPEG-LA? No. But MPEG itself is working on a royalty-free profile of AVC called WebVC: <http://mpeg.chiariglione.org/meetings/geneva11-1/geneva_pres.... That may not have happened without VP8.

H.264 was already well entrenched when On2 was bought. Whether or not it was a good purchase will be seen more by a) how H.265 fares, b) how well AAC holds up against patent free mp3, Vorbis and Opus, c) how IETF's proposed Internet Video Codec and VP-Next fare (and they may potentially become a single project), and d) how many people are still paying for H.264 licences when it's no longer technically impressive, software-based companies in particular seem poised to jump off the upgrade treadmill early unlike earlier hardware based generations that could be milked for far longer.

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