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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Cyrus XIII (talk | contribs) at 22:43, 1 October 2010 (→‎Licensing: mv paragraph pertaining to WebM's actual software license up). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

WebM
Filename extension
.webm
Internet media type
video/webm
audio/webm
Developed byGoogle, based on developments of On2, Xiph and Matroska
Initial release2010-05-19[1]
Type of formatMedia container
Container forVP8 (video)
Vorbis (audio)
Extended fromMatroska
Free format?Yes. Three-clause BSD license with royalty-free patent license[2]
WebsiteThe WebM Project

WebM is a multimedia container format designed to provide a royalty-free, high-quality open video compression format for use with HTML5 video. The project's development is sponsored by Google.

A WebM file consists of VP8 video and Vorbis audio streams, in a container based on a profile of Matroska.[3][4][5] The project releases WebM related software under a BSD license and all users are granted a worldwide, non-exclusive, no-charge, royalty-free patent license.

Vendor support

Software

Support by Mozilla Firefox,[6][7] Opera,[8][9] and Google Chrome[10] was announced at the 2010 Google I/O conference. Internet Explorer 9 will also be able to support WebM files if the VP8 codec is installed locally.[11] Safari on the desktop supports any codec installed in QuickTime,[12] allowing future WebM playback using QuickTime codec components such as Perian.[13] Epiphany also supports WebM through the GStreamer multimedia framework.[14]

Adobe announced that its Flash Player will be updated to support VP8, but has not announced support for Vorbis or the Matroska-based WebM container.[1][15]

Media players such as VLC,[16][17] Miro,[18][19] Moovida[20] and Winamp,[21][22] have announced support. MPlayer is also able to play WebM files when built with libvpx.[23][24] FFmpeg can now encode and decode VP8 videos when built with libvpx support, as well as mux/demux WebM-compliant files.[25] On July 23, 2010 Jason Garrett-Glaser, Ronald Bultje, and David Conrad of the FFmpeg team announced the ffvp8 decoder. Through testing they determined that ffvp8 was faster than Google's own libvpx decoder.[26] [27] mkvtoolnix, the popular Matroska creation tools, have implemented support for Multiplexing/Demultiplexing WebM-compliant files out of the box.[28] Haali Media Splitter has also announced support for muxing/demuxing of WebM.[28]

MPC-HC as of SVN 2071 and higher builds now supports WebM playback with internal VP8 decoder based on FFmpeg's code.[26][29] The latest official stable release of MPC-HC, 1.4.2499.0 and later versions has full decoding support for WebM.[30]

Android is also officially planned to be WebM-enabled in the 4th quarter of 2010.[31]

Hardware

AMD, ARM, and Broadcom have announced support for hardware acceleration of the WebM format.[32][33] Intel is also considering hardware-based acceleration for WebM in its Atom-based TV chips if the format gains popularity.[34] Qualcomm and Texas Instruments have announced support.[35][36]

NVIDIA has stated that they support VP8 adoption, but they have no specific plans to provide hardware support.[37]

Services

YouTube now offers WebM videos as part of its HTML5 player experiment.[38] All uploaded files with resolutions from 720p and above are encoded to WebM in 480p and 720p, and other resolutions will follow.[39][40] YouTube has committed to encode their entire portfolio of videos to WebM.[41][42]

Sorenson Media's online encoding platform now supports VP8 and WebM.[43]

Logitech is planning to use WebM as part of a video calling service.[44]

Licensing

Simon Phipps, a board member for the Open Source Initiative, expressed doubts as to whether the original WebM license was an open-source license, since it had not been submitted to the OSI for approval.[45] In response, the WebM Project decoupled patents from copyright, offering the code under a standard BSD license and patents under a separate grant.[46] The Free Software Foundation, which maintains the Free Software Definition, has given its endorsement for WebM and VP8[47] and considers the software's license to be compatible with the GNU General Public License.[48] [49]

Although Google has irrevocably released all of its patents on VP8 as a royalty-free format,[50] the MPEG LA, licensors of the H.264 patent pool, have expressed interest in creating a patent pool for VP8.[51][52] Jason Garret-Glaser, developer of the H.264 encoder x264 raised concerns about the similarity between VP8 and H.264,[53] but other researchers point to evidence that On2 made an effort to specifically avoid any MPEG LA patents.[54]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b Patel, Nilay (2010-05-19), Google launches open WebM web video format based on VP8, Engadget
  2. ^ The WebM Project: License
  3. ^ Doig, Jeremy; Jazayeri, Mike (2010-05-19), Introducing WebM, an open web media project, WebM Project, retrieved 2010-05-19
  4. ^ "WebM FAQ". 2010-05-19.
  5. ^ Montgomery, Chris (2010-05-19), Xiph.Org announces support for the WebM open media project, Xiph, retrieved 2010-05-20
  6. ^ Shaver, Mike (2010-05-19), Open Web, Open Video and WebM, Mozilla
  7. ^ Blizzard, Christopher (2010-05-19), Firefox, YouTube and WebM, Mozilla
  8. ^ Lie, Håkon Wium (2010-05-19), Welcome, WebM <video>!, Opera
  9. ^ Mills, Chris (2010-05-19), Opera supports the WebM video format, Opera
  10. ^ Bankoski, Jim (2010-05-19), WebM and VP8 land in Chromium, Google
  11. ^ Hachamovitch, Dean (2010-05-19), Another Follow-up on HTML5 Video in IE9, Microsoft
  12. ^ Safari HTML5 Audio and Video Guide, Apple, 2010-05-23
  13. ^ Forsythe, Christopher (2010-05-23), perian discussion: WebM Support, Perian
  14. ^ Dickinson, Andrew (2010-06-01), How To Get WebM Support In Epiphany Web Browser, WebUpd8
  15. ^ Rozen, Matt (2010-05-19), Flash Player Will Support VP8, Adobe
  16. ^ Kempf, Jean-Baptiste, Welcome to VLC's Webm page!, VideoLAN
  17. ^ Kaba, Martin (2010-05-26), Download VLC Media Player 1.1.0 with WebM Support, Kabatology
  18. ^ Reville, Nicholas (2010-05-21), Miro Video Converter is the first WebM / VP8 converter!, Participatory Culture Foundation
  19. ^ Kaba, Martin (2010-05-21), Miro Video Converter 2.0 adds support for open WebM (vp8) video format, Kabatology
  20. ^ Kaba, Martin (2010-05-22), Moovida Media Player now supports WebM (VP8) Video format, Kabatology
  21. ^ Winamp Player Features, Nullsoft
  22. ^ Winamp 5.58 Released, 2010-06-29
  23. ^ Add support for decoding VP8 through libvpx wrapper in FFmpeg., 2010-05-26
  24. ^ Add webm/VP8 support to native matroska demuxer., 2010-06-05
  25. ^ ffmpeg 0.6 release, ffmpeg.org, 2010-06-15
  26. ^ a b Diary Of An x264 Developer: Announcing the world’s fastest VP8 decoder
  27. ^ PATCH VP8 decoder, FFmpeg-devel, 2010-06-15
  28. ^ a b webm support in Matroska tools, Matroska.org, 2010-05-20
  29. ^ Add : Internal VP8 Decoder, 2010-06-23
  30. ^ Release History and Player Update, Media Player Classic Home Cinema, 2010-09-07
  31. ^ The WebM Project: Frequently Asked Questions
  32. ^ Metz, Cade (2010-05-19), Google open sources $124.6m video codec, The Register
  33. ^ Broadcom Accelerates WebM Video on Mobile Phones, Newswire, 2010-05-19
  34. ^ Shah, Agam (2010-05-27), Intel eyes hardware acceleration for Google's WebM, ComputerWorld
  35. ^ Talluri, Raj (2010-05-19), Google's Impact on Web Video, Qualcomm
  36. ^ Meehan, Joseph (2010-05-19), Our OMAP processors embrace WebM and VP8 with open ARMs, Texas Instruments
  37. ^ Tamasi, Tony (2010-05-19), Google's Royalty-Free VP8 Codec – A Move Forward, NVIDIA
  38. ^ YouTube HTML5 Video Player, YouTube
  39. ^ Google I/O 2010 - WebM Open Video Playback in HTML5, Google, 2010-05-28
  40. ^ Google I/O 2010 Keynote Day 1, pt. 3, Google, 2010-05-19
  41. ^ Google I/O 2010 - WebM Open Video Playback in HTML5, Google, 2010-05-28
  42. ^ Google I/O 2010 Keynote Day 1, pt. 3, Google, 2010-05-19
  43. ^ VP8 / WebM is here! Sorenson Users Can Encode With It Now., Sorenson Media, 2010-05-19
  44. ^ Kintz, Eric (2010-05-19), Commitment to Open Standards such as VP8 is Critical to Innovation, Logitech
  45. ^ Phipps, Simon (2010-05-24), WebM: Missing The Assurances Open Source Needs?, ComputerworldUK
  46. ^ DiBona, Chris (2010-06-04), Changes to the WebM Open Source License, WebM
  47. ^ Lee, Matt (2010-05-19), Free Software Foundation statement on WebM and VP8, Free Software Foundation
  48. ^ Smith, Brett. "Google's updated WebM license". Free Software Foundation. Retrieved 2010-06-14.
  49. ^ "Various Licenses and Comments about Them - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation (FSF)". Free Software Foundation. Retrieved 2010-06-13.
  50. ^ Metz, Cade (2010-05-20), Google backs open codec against patent trolls, The Register
  51. ^ Metz, Cade (2010-05-21), Google open video codec may face patent clash, The Register
  52. ^ Fulton, Scott M. (2010-05-21), Patent pool may be in the works for 'free' VP8 codec, Betanews
  53. ^ Walker-Morgan, Dj (2010-05-20), WebM applauded but doubts persist, The H
  54. ^ Daffara, Carlo (2010-05-25), An analysis of WebM and its patent risk, carlodaffara.conecta.it
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