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

[Gerard Meijssen]

Hoi,
Does this mean that you would advise against Ubuntu for their use of
iceweasel and their inability to provide the 3.5 release in a timely fashion
?
Thanks,
     GerardM

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

> There has been a technical discussion on wikitech-l regarding the
> recommendation of a browser for the high quality open video experience.
>
> Some native implementations are ~presently~ non optimal and the javaHoi,
> cortado applet we use where no native support is available is a poor
> user experience relative to native support. Therefore we are considering
> informing people who want to view video that for a high quality
> expericne with free formats they should use a particular browser.
> Presently that browser is Firefox 3.5. Key to this recommendation is we
> will continue to support playback in other browsers the best that we can
> but we should inform people that a better experience is possible. This
> hopefully will encourage other browser vendors to improve the free
> format experience and support or lose market share.
>
> == Technical Support Considerations ==
>
> * Mozilla Firefox 3.5 release version -- has worked closely with the
> xiph community and supports html5 ogg theora video natively with a high
> quality experience across all platforms.
>
> * Apple Safari -- supports html5 video but recommends the h.264 as the
> format. To support ogg you must install the xiph qt components written
> by xiph.org community members. The installation involves downloading a
> file, mounting an install image and dragging a component to the
> library/components folder on the target machine.
> ** In the present release version of Safari its difficult to reliably
> detect if the browser support the video tag with free formats.
> ** Seeking past what has already been downloaded does not work.
> ** The quicktime framework / ogg component does not work well with
> server side seeking helpers we have been developing.
>
> * 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.
>
> * Opera -- Was one of the first browsers to demo ogg theora support in
> their browser. They are presently working on re-including it in a
> release. ~presently it does not support the video tag~
>
> * Microsoft IE -- has no support for the video tag and no support for
> ogg theora. We support playback in IE via the java cortado applet.
>
> ** the java cortado applet is a fall-back for browsers that don't
> support the native video tag. Its not a very high quality user
> experience. Sometimes java crashes the browser, it generally takes a
> while to startup; seeking does not work very well and video is not
> cached causing more expenses to the wikimedia foundation on repeat video
> views.
>
> == Institutional Support Considerations ==
>
> Institutional the Mozilla foundation has worked with Wikimedia and the
> xiph.org community to realize Ogg Theora video in the open web platform.
> They supported wikiemdia/xiph.org with a 100k grant early this year to
> improve the ogg libraries for playback, improve codec encoding quality
> and develop open source server side technologies for improved seeking
> performance.
>
> 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?
>
> Also have not heard much from Microsoft regarding free formats. Again I
> think market pressures are the only thing that will drive adoption in
> this case.
>
> == Proposed Approach and Proof of Concept ==
>
> 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
> or see it in action:
> http://metavid.org/wiki/File:FolgersCoffe_512kb.1496.ogv
>
> Note that informing the user that a better experience is possible with
> alternative browser software, it will not disable or remove our
> fall-back java support.
>
> peace,
> --michael
>
>
>
>
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