WebScanNotes

Google has unveiled WebM, an opensource and royalty-free web media format that is directly competing with Microsoft-supported H.264 video format to become the standard for HTML5 video.

WebM consists of:

• VP8, a video codec developed by Google-acquired On2 technologies, which Google has opensourced
• Vorbis – an open source audio codec
• A container format based on the opensource Matrosaka container format

Google has already lined up support from Mozilla and Opera, which, along with Google Chrome will be supporting WebM in their browsers. Furthermore, YouTube videos larger than 720p will be encoded in WebM as part of the HTML5 Beta project. In addition, Adobe has also voiced support for VP8, and will support VP8 in Flash.

In response, Microsoft, through IEBlog, stated that it is supportive of anything HTML5, and will support playback of VP8 encoded videos in IE if the user has installed the VP8 codec. In case anyone is wondering if Microsoft has suddenly become altruistic, do note that in the same blog post, Microsoft is also touting the strengths of H.264 over VP8, such as the extensive hardware support (think “hardware acceleration”), as well as H.264 being more well established and therefore more stable than VP8 and less vulnerable to exploits.

H.264 has the support of Microsoft and Apple, while VP8/WebM has the support of Google, Mozilla, Opera and Adobe. Who will win? Unless something significant occurs, it is likely that both formats will enjoy equal footing in the foreseeable future, given the almost balanced powers; Microsoft with its browser dominance (~60%) and Google with its array of online services.