A few months ago I switched our TimedMediaHandler's config to support the
newer, more bandwidth-efficient VP9/Opus variant of WebM and to use these
preferably over the older VP8/Vorbis version when creating scaled,
playback-ready derivatives.
(This does not affect upload support -- you may continue to upload video
files in WebM VP9, WebM VP8, or Ogg Theora formats, with either Vorbis or
Opus audio.)
Conversions of existing files on Commons ran in the background for some
weeks, finishing in November. I'm now running a final pass for
high-resolution files and any files on other wikis that didn't get a
conversion yet, in preparation for removing the VP8 derivatives in the next
couple of weeks to free storage space.
This should have relatively little visible effect for users, unless someone
is relying on the particular derivative files with extensions like
".360p.webm"; the new versions are named like ".360p.vp9.webm".
Note that IE 11 users using the "WebM Media Foundation Components for IE
<https://www.webmproject.org/ie/>" will not be able to play back the new
VP9/Opus files natively, as this driver has never been updated for VP9 or
Opus. IE 11 users will receive low-resolution, slow JavaScript-based video
playback instead. If you find this is troublesome, the recommended solution
is to switch to any other browser.
Third-party MediaWiki + TimedMediaHandler users should be aware that the
defaults are changing, and in future the VP8-specific support and code
paths may be removed. TimedMediaHandler will probably change a lot in the
coming months with upcoming WebVTT subtitle format, a streamlined
videojs-based player, and hopefully more!
-- brion