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

[Mike.lifeguard]

This is totally off-topic and also a low blow. Please join #ubuntu on
irc.freenode.net and ask about FF3.5 (or search google; no shortage of
information) - I think you'll find the answers more satisfying than this
email misleadingly suggests.

-Mike

On Fri, 2009-07-10 at 17:53 +0200, Gerard Meijssen wrote:

> 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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> >
>