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Created January 22, 2011 17:10
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H264 Rant
About h264... something is "weird". Yes I agree h264 is AMAZING and basically
IS the best quality codec for the size and FAST to encode to. But they can
encode it... us as personal consumers CANNOT encode to it legally if it is for
commercial use in any way/shape/form.
**We cant, period, end of story**
That doesnt include the h264 videos you or me have which are created with a
camera licenced to create the encoding internally for personal use, but if you
transcode to h264 FROM a source codec not h264, and display the video for other
than personal use you ARE requireed to pay since the 2 parts which are suppoed
to be payed for are the encoding process and the decoding process of an h264
video.
The difference about h264 support built in the browser and in flash is that the
codec(implementation) has to be in their codebase as the bottom of the
toolchain to decode h264. Unlike the Adobe flash player's implementation which
happens to only be a binary blob as a plugin which doesn't actually need to be
in code AND is already licenced to be used as the plug-in, thats the
difference of what can have h264 based on the decoder side of the licence.
The BOTTOM of the chain(encoding/creation of the video) and distribution of the
video(decoder/file->picture of the video) whom give the resultant decoding
others to view via stream is "commercial" is a side which h264's licensing
comes into play. Just depends who is the "decoder" of the video for commercial
purposes.
So in a way... the argument is sort of... misdirected lol, the question should
be about why Google doesn't want to or can't licence the decoder in chromium's
code base to play video's in addition to the encoders they use to create the
video's on their servers.
This is the issue and for all we know it could be a financial/budget thing
since the licencing for the decoder could be a it too much to support YET, or
it can be to push WebM or it could be the true FOSS developers holding to their
Firefox roots and following Firefox's decision to also not allow h264 decoding
in their code.
So if anything, seeing as their browser IS open sourced, and can easily be
forked by another company and re-branded and sold, like that browser called
RockMelt, then Google's licence wouldn't be able to cover that companies
usage of the h264 decoder and will probably cause tons of legal mess. That is
what I think they are worried about most. This is exactly how Chrome was
created, it was a Firefox fork. There is nothing stopping Chrome from being
forked either, which would be a breech of the patent they bought to decode
h264.
And just to make clear, the code of the codecs for h264 are open source but
their usage isn't lol, its just developers dont care how you use the encoder,
which is fine but that creates this misconception that H264 is free all because
of the x264 project is free to get.
The logic is flawed, fuzzy, heated and incomplete yet so it is sort of
FUDDY(play on muddy), or else it wouldn't be a mind-bender after you think of
non-negative stuff. And if your attempt to faulter my knowledge/beliefs by
saying they using me... they are FREE to use me for this, and you should
reconsider who the "distributor" is for a moment. you two are the one whos who
seeing the truth in this either, it doesnt make sense :/ Saying were being
manipulated by Google by tryig to hurt our trust in them, trying to defend your
own faulty logic on this by saying that, is nothing short of manipulative but
whatever.
So FYI if your transcoding to h264, and you ARE content distributors or content
creators who use the x264 encoder/decoder of the h264 codec, and you SHOULD pay
and so should I, and this is where shit hits the fan and our determination for
making the web "free". FOSS should just be free without such licencing crap, as
your aware this all just causes tons of problems.
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