On Wed, Mar 21, 2012 at 3:04 PM, Ian Baker ian@wikimedia.org wrote:
For mobile, I can't imagine this fixing itself all that quickly. As your tests show, good WebM playback isn't solvable in software on most of the current generation of handsets. People will need to buy new devices to make it really work.
Support for encumbered formats is a Board-level policy issue. Parallel distribution in h.264 on mobile would be in contravention of the guidance I got from the Board regarding free file formats the last time I floated parallel distribution in proprietary codecs with them (there's no formal resolution on it, IIRC). It's a highly specialized use case with a unique justification, but we'd have to at least seek the Board's acquiescence if we want to consider it for smartphone video usage.
If someone wants to write up a memo with pros/cons of targeting that smartphone h264 support, that would be helpful in case we want to move this to Board-level reviews.