A little while ago, I wrote about the multimedia potential in HTML 5 (theoretically allowing video and audio to implemented without additional plugins; instead using an agreed upon standard – if you didn’t read it you really missed out but can still find it here. At the risk of spoiling it for those who did not read the earlier post, I concluded by mentioning that the standard was incomplete, that codecs still needed to be decided upon.
Unfortunately, it has now emerged that a lack of consensus has caused any mention in the spec of a specific codec to be entirely removed. A combination of patent issues, licensing and technical questions have left the different browser manufacturers (apart from Microsoft who have yet to commit to supporting video at all) deadlocked over which of the two video options (Ogg Theora and h.264) should be implemented.
While this is not to say that this facility will now never be available in html, it is likely to be a while. Ian Hickson, the Google employee responsible for the standard, believes that the most likely solutions are either that support for Ogg Theora will increase enough to alleviate Apple's patent concerns or that the h.264 patents will expire, thus allowing free use of the technology. Obviously neither of these scenarios will occur overnight.
The audio element of the spec is in a slightly better position since there are more potential codec options available. Rather than requiring one of these, Hickson has proposed simply waiting to see which, if any, common codecs surface and revisiting the topic then.
As has happened so often in the past, we are now left with potentially having to provide explicit support for different browsers (potentially lengthier development) or continuing to rely on a third-party plugin that is available to all in order to deliver our wooshy things. As unfortunate as this is, it is not the end of the world – I like developing flash apps. Still, a choice never hurt anyone… How long does it take patents to expire again?
Nick Nawrattel
Lead Multimedia Developer
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