[Foundation-l] Recommending a Browser for High Quality Ogg Theora Video Support

[David Gerard]

2009/7/9 Michael Dale <mdale at wikimedia.org>:

> * Google Chromium -- supports h.264 and ogg theora video natively. Again
> ogg performance is not very high quality. It uses the ffmpeg library
> which features a non-optimal theora decoder. Things like seeking
> presently don't work very reliably.


Does Chromium actually support h.264?

Chrome will *next* version but not this one.


> While Apple does at least support adding in of codecs into the quicktime
> system and some people form Apple have had friendly conversations with
> us. The Apple Corporation essentially says "it can't ship default
> support for xiph because of perceived patent risk". With Google shipping
> Chrome with ogg support the submarine patent argument (that no other
> large company is shipping ogg) would appear to be less valid. Perhaps we
> as "wikimedia" could help apple do the right thing?


There's no fallback provision for iPhone users. This is because of
Apple's active decision not to support Theora.

Either we appear defective ("Sorry, we can't serve you a file you can
use, we suck") or we correctly note that the problem is Apple's
decision ("Sorry, your iPhone cannot play this video as Apple does not
support Ogg Theora").

Apple are presumably not ashamed of their decision. Perhaps we could
ask what they consider a suitable wording and go from there.


> Presently the proposed solution is to soft link to the Mozilla Firefox
> browser: see mockup:
> http://metavid.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/upgrade_to_firefox.png


I'd say "For better" rather than "For best." There should probably be
a link to an editable page where people will doubtless go into
intricate geeky detail.

There remains the question of what to do for iPhone (and presumably
Nokia) users whose phone providers have actively decided to exclude
Theora from their devices.


- d.