The WebM open web media project continues to gain steam and may someday represent a single video format for both HTML5 and Adobe Flash. Along the way, the project may be creating just the open source solution HTML5 video needs to get past a potentially nasty patent and licensing snag.
While most developers and users were excited about the promise of native web video, there have been a number of debates about how to manage the sometimes heavy license fees associated with some video codecs. For example, the Mozilla Foundation, which makes the popular Firefox web browser, had not been supporting H.264 (think mp4) because of the codec's fees. That meant that while YouTube was offering HTML5 video and Firefox supported the <video> tag, Firefox users could not watch YouTube's HTML5 video because of the licensing problem.
Apple and Theora
Many in the industry had hoped (or still hope) that the Xiph.org Foundation's Ogg Theora Project, which makes a free video compression solution, would be the answer. But recently Apple's CEO Steve Jobs suggested that, perhaps, his company and members of the MPEG LA patent pool would seek to shut down Theora.
Hugo Roy of the Free Software Foundation Europe published an open letter to Steve Jobs on his blog earlier this year. The brusque letter, essentially accused Jobs of hypocrisy for on the one hand seeming to attack Flash for its closed nature while simultaneously embracing the H.264.
"I figured that writing an open letter was an appropriate way to remind you of a couple of things that you may have forgotten—maybe in good faith—about open standards," wrote Roy. "May I remind you that H.264 is not an open standard? This video codec is covered by patents, and 'vendors and commercial users of products which make use of H.264/AVC are expected to pay patent licensing royalties for the patented technology.' This is why Mozilla Firefox and Opera have not adopted this video codec for their HTML5 implementation, and decided to chose Theora as a sustainable and open alternative."
Jobs reportedly replied to Roy that "all video codecs are covered by patents. A patent pool is being assembled to go after Theora and other 'open source' codecs now. Unfortunately, just because something is open source, it doesn't mean or guarantee that it doesn't infringe on other's patents. An open standard is different from being royalty free or open source."
Jobs comments sent chills through the development community, since without an open codec HTML5 video might be endangered or only work on browsers made by large companies like Apple, Microsoft, and Google.
HTML5 Video's White Knight
Shortly after Job's comment, Google announced that it was launching the WebM project, which is based on the VP8 video codec it acquired when it purchased On2 Technologies for approximately $124 million late last year. To initiate the project, Google released all of its VP8-related patents, essentially making the solution freeware.
"A key factor in the web’s success is that its core technologies such as HTML, HTTP, TCP/IP, etc. are open and freely implementable," an early WebM blog post said. "Though video is also now core to the web experience, there is unfortunately no open and free video format that is on par with the leading commercial choices. To that end, we are excited to introduce WebM, a broadly-backed community effort to develop a world-class media format for the open web."
Rapidly Growing Acceptance
Since WebM's initial launch several companies have embraced the format. Perhaps most notably the recent Firefox 4 Beta release included support for WebM—Firefox nightly releases have included support since at least the end of May. YouTube also supports WebM, so now, Firefox 4 users can watch HTML5 video from YouTube—licensing problems handled.
Other browser makers, including Opera, Google, and Microsoft have either already implemented WebM or will implement it in their next major release, so that by early 2011, nearly all major browsers will support WebM.
Adobe has also embraced the project and announced plans to integrate WebM into Flash.
"By including VP8 as part of the Flash Platform," wrote Adobe's Matt Rozen, "we're providing companies with a choice as to how they can work with and deliver great experiences to the web."
In addition, several computer hardware and peripheral manufacturers have begun to include support for WebM in their products. These companies include Logitech, Texas Instruments, Qualcomm, Broadcom, Digital Rapids, AMD, ARM, Brightcove, and dozens more.
Summing Up
The Firefox 4 Beta release was the most recent major win for WebM, which in just two months has gone from not existing to being supported or endorsed by four of the five top browsers, which collectively reach more than 96 percent of all Internet users worldwide. WebM has the promise to make developing web video solutions—like product videos on ecommerce sites—much easier.
