The battle over who controls the video codec in the WebRTC standard rages on, with Google ranged against the H.264 community. Cisco had staged an eleventh-hour coup, ahead of an IETF meeting last week, when it persuaded Mozilla ‘ which had been a big supporter of Google’s VP8 codec ‘ to back H.264. But the standards body meeting ended with no decision being made on a mandatory codec for the proposed standard for real time voice and video communications from the browser.
The specifications do not currently specify a codec, which has given Google the opportunity to push VP8 ‘ an open source implementation of the platform it acquired with ON Technologies ‘ as an alternative to H.264, which was previously assumed to be the natural choice. Microsoft has also offered its own variations, but this is largely a two-horse race, with Google claiming that VP8 is superior because it does not carry licensing fees. H.264 is licensed through the MPEG LA group and does incur royalties.
Ahead of the IETF summit, Cisco – a leading supporter, with Ericsson and others ‘ of H.264, tried to weaken Google’s position, saying it would open source its implementation of the codec for use with WebRTC, and would not pass on the licensing fees it pays to MPEG LA. Mozilla, which has supported Google’s calls for fee-free technology, promptly signed up and added support for the OpenH.264 binary modules to Firefox. Although it has been seen as a major Google ally in this fight, it has, in fact, always said that H.264 would not be avoidable altogether because of its market reach. By providing a royalty-free route, Cisco does seem to be robbing Google of its most powerful weapon.
Mozilla CTO Brendan Eich wrote in a blog post that, though there have been open source versions of H.264 for years, this was one with heavy backing, and he suggested it was time to settle on a universal standard to encourage uptake of WebRTC, an important element of HTML5. H.264 is the dominant video codec for video streamed in HTML5 and is also widely used in softphones and videoconferencing systems.
Of course, Google will have its chance again as the industry moves to the next generation of codecs ‘ H.265 and VP9. Eich said Mozilla was developing a “fully open next generation codec” with the goal of leapfrogging “H.265 and VP9, building a codec that will be both higher quality and free of encumbrances.’ In other words, even had the IETF managed to settle on a single codec, fragmentation still threatens with the next wave of browser-based services and roll-outs.
This project is called Daala and among its developers is Monty Montgomery, an influential figure in the field of open codecs, who recently joined Mozilla. He wrote on a blog post that the industry needed to look to the future now rather than continuing to bicker over H.264. He wrote: ‘Let’s state the obvious with respect to VP8 vs H.264. We lost, and we’re admitting defeat. Cisco is providing a path for orderly retreat that leaves supporters of an open web in a strong enough position to face the next battle, so we’re taking it.’