This is already bearing fruit: current Windows Insider builds of MS Edge include support for VP9 video in WebM container via MSE playback (Media Source Extensions).
I've confirmed this works with one of our random VP9 uploads:
- https://brionv.com/misc/msetest/ - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nEYrh2SKTwU&feature=youtu.be (screen cap)
Once Opus audio support is added as well (and/or I figure out a way to separately decode the audio via ogv.js and keep them still in sync!) we can look into native WebM VP9 playback on MS Edge, and it'll add some more urgency to getting VP9 transcodes done. Awesome!
Tracked on: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T114316
-- brion
On Tue, Sep 1, 2015 at 1:51 PM, Brion Vibber bvibber@wikimedia.org wrote:
A presumably related development: Microsoft Edge dev team has announced they're working on native WebM VP9/Opus support:
http://dev.modern.ie/platform/status/webmcontainer/ http://dev.modern.ie/platform/status/vp9videocodec/ http://dev.modern.ie/platform/status/opusaudiocodec/
Ball's in your court, Apple. ;)
-- brion
On Tue, Sep 1, 2015 at 11:58 AM, Brion Vibber bvibber@wikimedia.org wrote:
This may be of interest:
http://aomedia.org/press-release/alliance-to-deliver-next-generation-open-me...
Amazon, Cisco, Google, Intel, Microsoft, Mozilla, and Netflix are pooling resources to work on hammering out a standard, royalty-free, next-gen open video codec.
Cisco and Mozilla had already started working together, combining ideas from Cisco's Thor codec and the Mozilla-sponsored Xiph's Daala codec, but getting them together with Google's VPx team is a big happy occasion... getting Intel and Microsoft on board means probably hardware support on x86_64 chips and support in Windows and MS Edge, while Amazon and Netflix pump a lot of video volume out both to browsers and devices, so should help push adoption by ARM SoC makers.
In other words, AWESOME SAUCE!
The only missing major player looks to be Apple... so we'll see if they eventually join on or if they double down on HEVC and we keep having to play JavaScript tricks. :P
I'm subscribing to their mailing list for updates; it may be worth looking into if we can partner in or at least follow along and support stuff on our end.
-- brion