Why not provide HTML5 for people with modern browsers, while providing a flash version for people stuck with outdated browsers (and a big prominent ad telling users to get a more modern browser).

While everyone might be jumping up and down with joy, I am not that thrilled.

* There is no de facto standard

* Numerous OSS\GNU/Free(tm) people climb out from under their rocks and start preaching about how their Free stuff should be used instead of technically superiour stuff that smart people created for profit or instead of stuff that some other guys put together on their free time in their basement but it's not the right kind of Free(tm)

* Numerous commercial entities start aggressively pushing their products in attempt to create an aforementioned de facto standard and then cash in on it BIGTIME. This includes "spreading the facts" and other types of badmouthing.

* We restart dealing with malware-laden codec packs in attempt to view our favourite rick astley videos, and while doing so, greatly contribute to creating great and cool botnets for other people to capitalize on.

* Various tech columnists and other people blow a lot of hot air around discussing TEH BEST(tm) codec and also trying to make themselves look smart (kinda like I'm doing right now, but that's beside the point) while others that follow news sources, that these "declarations of smarts" appear in, get headaches and need to get drunk to remedy it.

Long story short, I am not sure this is what we want. It's like going back to the good old Win9x age - if YOU want to restart your pc after changing the desktop wallpaper then please, do so, but do not enforce this kind of behavior on me.

Well were I am living the most popular Browser is Firefox 3.5

Just include the free codecs and x264 and then no codecs are needed. Web developers use what most people have.

"
* Various tech columnists and other people blow a lot of hot air around discussing TEH BEST(tm) codec and also trying to make themselves look smart (kinda like I'm doing right now, but that's beside the point) while others that follow news sources, that these "declarations of smarts" appear in, get headaches and need to get drunk to remedy it.

theres no way google would use theora.

Siverlight FTW

if you want google to use theora, you better get working on making it more efficient at smaller bitrates than h.264. because theora might be cheaper for firefox to use, but h.264 is cheaper for google.

theres no way google would use theora. why? because of bandwidth. bandwidth usage is growing and growing on youtube. if they use theora the amount of bandwidth use would rise considerably. even if it's just a kilobyte larger, how many videos do you think youtube serves a day? a week? a year?

In the case of the 499kbit/sec H.264 I believe that under careful comparison many people would prefer the H.264 video. However, the difference is not especially great. I expect that most casual users would be unlikely to express a preference or complain about quality if one was substituted for another and I've had several people perform a casual comparison of the files and express indifference. Since Theora+Vorbis is providing such comparable results, I think I can confidently state that reports of the internet's impending demise are greatly exaggerated.

if you want google to use theora, you better get working on making it more efficient at smaller bitrates than h.264. because theora might be cheaper for firefox to use, but h.264 is cheaper for google.

The final factor that may be slowing H.264 adoption is the potential for royalty payments starting in 2011. This became a major issue during a recent consulting engagement I had with a multinational equipment manufacturer. Let’s start with what we know and why it was so scary for my client

"if you want google to use theora, you better get working on making it more efficient at smaller bitrates than h.264. because theora might be cheaper for firefox to use, but h.264 is cheaper for google.

While everyone might be jumping up and down with joy, I am not that thrilled.

Now, step in html5 video. While it does relieve us from the curse of the Flash plugin, it also resurrects the nuisance of a gazillion codecs for actually displaying the videos.

And here we go again with the video (and audio too, of course) spectacle:
* There is no de facto standard

* Numerous OSS\GNU/Free(tm) people climb out from under their rocks and start preaching about how their Free stuff should be used instead of technically superiour stuff that smart people created for profit or instead of stuff that some other guys put together on their free time in their basement but it's not the right kind of Free(tm)

* Numerous commercial entities start aggressively pushing their products in attempt to create an aforementioned de facto standard and then cash in on it BIGTIME. This includes "spreading the facts" and other types of badmouthing.

* We restart dealing with malware-laden codec packs in attempt to view our favourite rick astley videos, and while doing so, greatly contribute to creating great and cool botnets for other people to capitalize on.

* Various tech columnists and other people blow a lot of hot air around discussing TEH BEST(tm) codec and also trying to make themselves look smart (kinda like I'm doing right now, but that's beside the point) while others that follow news sources, that these "declarations of smarts" appear in, get headaches and need to get drunk to remedy it.

Long story short, I am not sure this is what we want. It's like going back to the good old Win9x age - if YOU want to restart your pc after changing the desktop wallpaper then please, do so, but do not enforce this kind of behavior on me.

They won't use Dirac, they'll use VP7 or VP8... or whatever they end up developing now that they've bought Ontoo.

"They won't use Dirac, they'll use VP7 or VP8... or whatever they end up developing now that they've bought Ontoo.

VP8 is claimed to be better than h264 and Theora (which are about level with each other).

However, the people who claim that are On2 technologies themselves. There is quite some controversy over this claim.

People would leave Internet Explorer in droves.

how much more advanced and flexible they are compared to Java.

OS X. Microsoft has a native implementation for Silverlight that is released exactly at the same time the windows version is released.

Flash maintained its 98% penetration for something like a decade before it started playing video. The video tag has great merit, but you're going to be sorely disappointed if you think it'll be the end of Flash. html5 video won't even make a dent in Flash.

Well were I am living the most popular Browser is Firefox 3.5

OK, Theora is not as small as x264, but for Google bandwidth is essentially free and they have lots of space on their millions and millions of harddisks.

theres no way google would use theora. why? because of bandwidth. bandwidth usage is growing and growing on youtube. if they use theora the amount of bandwidth use would rise considerably. even if it's just a kilobyte larger, how many videos do you think youtube serves a day? a week? a year?

Moonlight, for the *nixes.

If Google implemented it in Chrome and Firefox implemented it too, it easily could become the standard codec for the video tag.

While everyone might be jumping up and down with joy, I am not that thrilled.

You see, even though it has a lot of downsides, flash has some merits that are easily dismissed. Remember the time before Youtube and flash video? The videos distributed in the 'net were encoded with various encoders and you never knew, even if you had the latest greatest codec packs or wmp plug-ins, if the video would play or if it needed a special codec (that may have even cost money). With flash video, everyone could watch videos without worrying about codecs or stuff like that because they were built into the platform. This unification receives a lot less credit than it deserves (kinda like Microsoft but let us not go there).

Now, step in html5 video. While it does relieve us from the curse of the Flash plugin, it also resurrects the nuisance of a gazillion codecs for actually displaying the videos. And here we go again with the video (and audio too, of course) spectacle:
* There is no de facto standard
* Numerous OSS\GNU/Free(tm) people climb out from under their rocks and start preaching about how their Free stuff should be used instead of technically superiour stuff that smart people created for profit or instead of stuff that some other guys put together on their free time in their basement but it's not the right kind of Free(tm)
* Numerous commercial entities start aggressively pushing their products in attempt to create an aforementioned de facto standard and then cash in on it BIGTIME. This includes "spreading the facts" and other types of badmouthing.
* We restart dealing with malware-laden codec packs in attempt to view our favourite rick astley videos, and while doing so, greatly contribute to creating great and cool botnets for other people to capitalize on.
* Various tech columnists and other people blow a lot of hot air around discussing TEH BEST(tm) codec and also trying to make themselves look smart (kinda like I'm doing right now, but that's beside the point) while others that follow news sources, that these "declarations of smarts" appear in, get headaches and need to get drunk to remedy it.

Long story short, I am not sure this is what we want. It's like going back to the good old Win9x age - if YOU want to restart your pc after changing the desktop wallpaper then please, do so, but do not enforce this kind of behavior on me.

Firefox = Theora = Standard

Youtube Bandwidth $ = 0
http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/10/youtube-
bandwidth/

The latest version of Theora (version 1.1 ) uses the same bandwidth as h264.
http://people.xiph.org/~greg/video/ytcompare/comparison.html

Same file size, same bit-rate, imperceptible differences in video quality. Try it for yourself.

I hope they don't support both Flash and HTML5.

Lets see a hard switch.

If you want to watch YouTube, you'll need to use Chrome or FireFox.

People would leave Internet Explorer in droves.

A lot of people sit and watch youtube videos at work where IE is the only option. At the very least Google would provide a plug-in.

We get it. That can be fixed. It's not a fundamental flaw in the Flash idea, it's an implementation problem with current versions of Flash.

You've obviously never tried to really use the Linux flash plugin or you'd know just how bad it is by comparison to the Windows version.

"theres no way google would use theora. why? because of bandwidth. bandwidth usage is growing and growing on youtube. if they use theora the amount of bandwidth use would rise considerably. even if it's just a kilobyte larger, how many videos do you think youtube serves a day? a week? a year?

" Now, step in html5 video. While it does relieve us from the curse of the Flash plugin, it also resurrects the nuisance of a gazillion codecs for actually displaying the videos.

I'm going to have a go at this FUD also.

We will get badmouthing, of that there is no doubt, as your own post shows.

If we get HTML5/Theora, the codecs can be open source.

Its kinda hard to beat "same performance but free". Theora will win in a no-brainer contest.

Why is it acceptable to you up until now to have been required to install a problematic Flash plugin in order to watch most video on the web, but now that you can be freed of that need you start complaining?

"Moonlight, for the *nixes.

get rid of the abomination called Flash

Flash maintained its 98% penetration for something like a decade before it started playing video. The video tag has great merit, but you're going to be sorely disappointed if you think it'll be the end of Flash. html5 video won't even make a dent in Flash.

I'm sure having it open source would be much better. Instead of one crappy, but functional implementation, we'd have 12 very crappy and barely functional implementations which are nevertheless free as in speech and therefore perfect.

I'm sure having it open source would be much better. Instead of one crappy, but functional implementation, we'd have 12 very crappy and barely functional implementations which are nevertheless free as in speech and therefore perfect.

Lol I work from home so I play xbox when I take break.

No way! We already had Microsoft try to set their own standards on the web, remember ActiveX? You really want them to try again?

If you work at home on your own computer then install Chrome or Firefox.

There is NOTHING stopping 12 different implementations to be all compatible with each other - it is people like you, who have vested in the status quo, who would be shown up for pathetic and inept programmers if the 12 implementations ended up producing better results than the company who invented the damn thing in the first place.

"If you want to watch YouTube, you'll need to use Chrome or FireFox.

People would leave Internet Explorer in droves.

Since most people are going to have H.264 anyway

OS X. Microsoft has a native implementation for Silverlight that is released exactly at the same time the windows version is released.

"
There is NOTHING stopping 12 different implementations to be all compatible with each other - it is people like you, who have vested in the status quo, who would be shown up for pathetic and inept programmers if the 12 implementations ended up producing better results than the company who invented the damn thing in the first place.

That's why I would really love to see Google use Dirac. It's just as free as Theora, but just as good, if not better, than H.264. It would save them a lot of bandwidth. The only downside it that it's rather CPU-intensive on the client side (but on YouTube quality movies, it shouldn't be too bad).

Yes, I'm really out there in left field defending software that, for the most part, just works. I know that's a hard concept for some in the FOSS community, but users really do value software that they can actually use without having to read a man page or navigate through disparate dialogs spread across a variety of programs and operating system GUI panels. I certainly enjoy being able to go to YouTube and just, you know, watch a video without having to deal with all that crap. I think people in the real world generally agree.

$ man firefox
No manual entry for firefox

Given a choice between a proprietary Microsoft standard which works, and a jumbled mess of so-called "open standards" for codecs that nobody can agree on, I'm leaning toward the former.

Bah, past the edit limit...

Just occurred to me:

>> The whole original idea for moving forward was
>> to have LESS tags, simpler tags

CISC (HTML 5) vs. RISC (HTML 4 STRICT)?

What HTML 4 Strict?

You mean XHTML 1.0/1.1 Strict.

You're forgetting that XHTML was oppressively limited and thus relying on massive custom classes and id selectors to do a lot of work that is too commonly reused and could more easily be consolidated into standard element tags, thus the move back to more elements while adding more CSS with 3 to override if you want.

After the end of this year h264 will no longer be costless, and Google will be using something else.

They will possibly move to VP6, VP7 or VP8 (having bought On2 technologies), but Theora (which is effectively enhanced VP3) is also on the cards one would think.

h264 is marginally better that Theora 1.1, but not by much

"They won't use Dirac, they'll use VP7 or VP8... or whatever they end up developing now that they've bought Ontoo.

I'm not a fan of flash. I don't understand why my core2duo MBP sounds like an airplane taking off every time I watch a silly video clip yet I can watch 1080p video in quicktime without barely a cpu fan murmur.

"Since most people are going to have H.264 anyway

At this time, AFAIK Theora 1.1 out-performs Dirac and is almost the same performance as h264.

people watch youtube videos on IE6 at work.

If you want to watch YouTube, you'll need to use Chrome or FireFox.

People would leave Internet Explorer in droves.

Your assumption I don't grasp the concept of strict XML well-formedness as a kludge called XHTML is absurd.

What HTML 4 Strict?

You mean XHTML 1.0/1.1 Strict.

"[q]
There is NOTHING stopping 12 different implementations to be all compatible with each other - it is people like you, who have vested in the status quo, who would be shown up for pathetic and inept programmers if the 12 implementations ended up producing better results than the company who invented the damn thing in the first place.

"I'm not a fan of flash. I don't understand why my core2duo MBP sounds like an airplane taking off every time I watch a silly video clip yet I can watch 1080p video in quicktime without barely a cpu fan murmur.

That is subjective not fact. There are plenty of things about Silverlight that make it superior to some of those things you mentioned. Just off the top of my head is the ability to use C# and Boo (python) as well as JS. The only real drawback is that its an add-on to the browser and runs in its own sandbox as most of these plugins do. The other is that its closed and proprietary. Not a bad thing in itself but that means that porting it is reliant on the company that owns it, and/or a 3rd party implementation that is alway behind by a mile.

"At this time, AFAIK Theora 1.1 out-performs Dirac and is almost the same performance as h264.

Earlier we had a graph showing the most recent Thusnelda work slightly exceeding x264's PSNR for this clip as rate climbed. An alert community member repeated our process and found (yet another) ffmpeg bug that was mishandling the h264 colorspace and thus penalizing x264 in the test. The graph above is the corrected data and Thusnelda no longer overtakes x264's PSNR score on this clip.

Theora 1.1 out-performs Dirac and is almost the same performance as h264

"[q]Since most people are going to have H.264 anyway

Although it might be true, what you give here is not really a reliable source. There is not even a proper quote of some Google statement or anything. The site simply says that Google has said this. Please if you provide evidence to support your view at least give something where we can see that there was some sort of statement from someone at Google.

There is only one open codec being touted for HTML5 at this time, and that is Ogg Theora.

The original wrong result of testing Thusnelda reported that Thusnelda was better than h264.

They should, as is the case with Safari, implement video support using the native media framework of the platform.

The problem with h.264 is that neither Mozilla nor Opera could support it themselves. The format is patented up to the eyeballs, and shipping a decoder requires payment of royalties to the MPEG-LA, up to $5,000,000 per year. Since Firefox can be freely redistributed, they have no way to track how many copies they distribute within a year, and no way to collect royalties on behalf of the MPEG-LA.

HTML5/SVG/DOM2/CSS3/JIT ECMAScript/SMIL are better than Silverlight.

You hugely overestimate the capability of proprietary offerings.

if you want google to use theora, you better get working on making it more efficient at smaller bitrates than h.264. because theora might be cheaper for firefox to use, but h.264 is cheaper for google.

Google isn't even actively supporting IE6 any longer: http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/07/14/youtube-will-be-next-to-kiss-i...

" There is only one open codec being touted for HTML5 at this time, and that is Ogg Theora.

Apple doesn't support Theora

and though Google supports it in Chrome their actions have made it clear that they are not going to ditch Flash.

At this point it is looking like the codec won't be specified which means web publishers will just use flash instead of building multiple video files to ensure compatibility with all the browsers.

the could block IE6 and say it because of security problems with that version

" Google isn't even actively supporting IE6 any longer: http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/07/14/youtube-will-be-next-to-kiss-i...

" HTML5/SVG/DOM2/CSS3/JIT ECMAScript/SMIL are better than Silverlight.

They cover 98% of the computing market. Sorry that the 2% are getting POed

No, I mean just as I said, that there is only one open codec being touted by anybody.

Apple doesn't support any open codec.

I disagree. Flash is restricted in the platforms it covers (not as restricted as Silverlight, but still restricted). This whole thread is about Google's moves towards HTML5.

Over half of the web browsers in use now support HTML5/Theora out of the box, without requiring a plugin.

Websites will perhaps offer HTML5/Theora by default, and perhaps Flash with some codec or another as a fallback.

The (worldwide) trends are very clear. In some countries, Firefox has indeed overtaken IE:

It won't take that long before IE is distinctly in second place behind Firefox worldwide.

Google Chrome also supports HTML5 with Ogg Theora codec. So too now does Opera.

You are getting confused here. Flash is not h264, and flash is not a codec. Flash is not supported in some hardware, h264 is. Hardware support for video includes a lot more than just the codec. Everything related to video support in hardware following the codec can be used by video streams encoded with a different codec.

It won't take that long before IE is distinctly in second place behind Firefox worldwide.

"It won't take that long before IE is distinctly in second place behind Firefox worldwide.

There is only one open codec being touted for HTML5 at this time, and that is Ogg Theora.

It is a royalty free codec, able to be implemented by anyone for any platform, without any fee.

" You are getting confused here. Flash is not h264, and flash is not a codec. Flash is not supported in some hardware, h264 is. Hardware support for video includes a lot more than just the codec. Everything related to video support in hardware following the codec can be used by video streams encoded with a different codec.

"There is only one open codec being touted for HTML5 at this time, and that is Ogg Theora.

ffmpeg offers a FOSS decoding solution, while x264 offers a FOSS encoding solution for AVC.

"It is a royalty free codec, able to be implemented by anyone for any platform, without any fee.

And besides Mozilla no one really cares about Theora. GIF was patented a very long time as well -- that didn't hinder its adoption.

And why should the rest of the world suffer from an inferior, non-scalable codec, just because the American people only vote for pro-patent parties?

" The (worldwide) trends are very clear. In some countries, Firefox has indeed overtaken IE: It won't take that long before IE is distinctly in second place behind Firefox worldwide. Google Chrome also supports HTML5 with Ogg Theora codec. So too now does Opera.

Speculation based on remarkably consistent trends.

The long term trend is perfectly clear (look at the slope of the graphs):

It is, after all, the world wide web.

"I hope they don't support both Flash and HTML5.

Lets see a hard switch.

If you want to watch YouTube, you'll need to use Chrome or FireFox.

People would leave Internet Explorer in droves.

Not only that, but it would also look anti-competitive. Google doesn't need that since they are coming under increasing anti-trust scrutiny in the EU and US.

" Speculation based on remarkably consistent trends. The long term trend is perfectly clear (look at the slope of the graphs):

Ha, thats the lease anti-competitive thing they could do.

"If Google implemented it in Chrome and Firefox implemented it too, it easily could become the standard codec for the video tag.

"MPEG-4 AVC is open.

IE9 isn't going to be out in time for it to impact Google's decision. And Firefox is too big of a minority for Google to ignore.

"MPEG-4 AVC is open.

Everybody is allowed to implement those specifications. There are no strings attached when you implement them.

Oh, and by the way: Where is the guaranty that Theora is actually free of patents? Does Xiph offer any kind of legal insurance against unexpected lawsuits?

Q. Isn't VP3 a patented technology?
The Xiph.org Foundation has negotiated an irrevocable free license from On2 to the VP3 codec. It is legal to use VP3 in any way you see fit (unless, of course, you're doing something illegal with it in your particular jurisdiction). You are free to download VP3 and Theora, use them free of charge, implement them in a for-sale product, implement them in a free product, make changes to the source and distribute those changes, or print the source code out and wallpaper your spare room with it.

For more information, check the VP3 Legal Terms on the SVN page.

Don't answer, my questions are rhetorical. I know that Xiph neither offers a guaranty that Theora is 100% free of patents nor offers legal insurance in case of a lawsuit.

Theora is free

Theora comes without licensing fees. Neither commercial nor private use will make you owe money to us. The Theora specification is in the public domain, its reference implementation is open source and subject to a license which permits inclusion in proprietary commercial products. On2, which owns patents that apply to the technical foundations of Theora, granted an unrevocable free license regarding those patents.

And regarding your repeated claims that Theora is supposed to be an actually good codec... As I wrote in http://www.osnews.com/thread?404514 (where you refused to answer): Show me Theora managing to compress 720p HD content with the length of 1h45m into mere 1.4GB without visible quality impact. Do it. Don't waste your time comparing video resolutions that were state of the art 10 years ago. 720p is the very least, a video codec has to perform very well these days.

That means, Google will not be harmed by offering those MP4 files via the tag.

Flash does not read Theora files. That means, Google would need to duplicate YouTube's entire video collection for Theora conversation for a (and I quote you) "minority".

Yes, it will. From next year on, Google will be required to pay a royalty in order to be able to distribute files encoded in MP4.

This alone does not make it open.

After 2011 MPEG LA will charge a fee for transmission of h264-encoded video data, regardless of who wrote the encoder software that was used.

Surprisingly, yes. Theora is absed on the VP3 codec from On2 technologies. On2 have a patent awarded to them specifically for this codec. According to the patent Office, there is no technology that VP3 infringes, because VP3 itself is the patented technology.

Why don't you show me such a comparison, where h264 spanks Theora?

http://people.xiph.org/~greg/video/ytcompare/comparison.html

In denial of this direct evidence, you claim this is not right ... so the ball is clearly in your court. You now have the burden of proof, not I. Show me. Put up or shut up.

"This alone does not make it open.

"After 2011 MPEG LA will charge a fee for transmission of h264-encoded video data, regardless of who wrote the encoder software that was used.

Are you a US citizen? Then fix your laws instead of bitching against better codecs.

"Surprisingly, yes. Theora is absed on the VP3 codec from On2 technologies. On2 have a patent awarded to them specifically for this codec. According to the patent Office, there is no technology that VP3 infringes, because VP3 itself is the patented technology.

"Why don't you show me such a comparison, where h264 spanks Theora?

Theora I is a video codec developed by members of the Xiph.org foundation. It has been released in december, 2006.

That one is an actual scientific comparison and I found it using a simple Forestle search.
You OTOH just link to comparisons by Xiph people showing that the Xiph codec is supposed to be better.
Yeah, right...

Microsoft's studies also show that Microsoft's products are better. So what?

"http://people.xiph.org/~greg/video/ytcompare/comparison.html

"In denial of this direct evidence, you claim this is not right ... so the ball is clearly in your court. You now have the burden of proof, not I. Show me. Put up or shut up.

What did you do to get such a poor result?

Let me guess ... Theora version 0.9 or something?

Theora 1.1 can do waaaaaaaay better than that.

sudo zypper info libtheoradec1
Daten des Repositorys laden ...
Installierte Pakete lesen ...


Informationen für Paket libtheoradec1:

Repository: @System
Name: libtheoradec1
Version: 1.1.0-0.pm.1.1
Arch: i586
Hersteller: Packman
Installiert: Ja
Status: aktuell
Installierte Größe: 102,0 KiB
Zusammenfassung: Theora libtheoradec1
Beschreibung:
Theora is Xiph.Org's first publicly released video codec, intended
for use within the Ogg's project's Ogg multimedia streaming system.
Theora is derived directly from On2's VP3 codec.
libtheora libtheoradec1 shared library

"What did you do to get such a poor result?

Let me guess ... Theora version 0.9 or something?

Theora 1.1 can do waaaaaaaay better than that.

1s2sj33y1ozc3.ogg
General
File: /home/*******/Videos/1s2sj33y1ozc3.ogg
Size: 89313 KB (87 MB)
Length: 00:02:30
Demuxer: ogg

Video Resolution: 1280 x 720
Aspect ratio: 1.7778
Format: theo
Bitrate: 0 kbps
Frames per second: 29.970
Selected codec: theora

Initial Audio Stream
Format: vrbs
Bitrate: 64 kbps
Rate: 44100 Hz
Channels: 2
Selected codec: ffvorbis

Wow! Simply... Wow. I keep hearing how Theora has improved and that it is supposedly comparable to H264 these days but I had yet to see a convincing video encoded with it that backs up this claim. Until now. That clip has a surprisingly crisp image compared to the screenshot posted by the person that you're arguing with, which is closer to what I recall of Theora encoded videos that I've seen some time ago. If this is the result of the encoder with some reasonable defaults, I guess that it is more than enough for the proposed use case which leaves just the bandwidth question: how much smaller would be the same video encoded with H264, if at all? There is also the fact that there are lots of hardware solutions out there that use H264 specifically but I wonder what will happen if the MPEG-LA starts asking for royalties fees starting next year as some other people already pointed out? Is it going to somehow slowdown the adoption of H264 and give room for a competing and hopefully freer codec? And at this point, I agree that choosing Theora or Dirac would be a nice compromise for a standards body to chose as some sort of "fallback" solution as it is the only solution that will truly leverage the play field for all the industry players. Leave Apple and Microsoft free to pursue their plans if needed be but choose Theora or Dirac to be the reference. That sounds reasonable to me.

You aren't doing it right, somehow.

"You aren't doing it right, somehow.

1.) No HD resolutions --> Useless.
2.) Biased, because a Xiph product is measured by Xiph. --> Useless.

Ah, OK... you post biased comparisons without HD content

Why would they build multiple files…

and write additional browser detection scripts

Answer me this, sunshine: how exactly can the objective quality of a 720p video clip, encoded in Theora, be "biased" in any way?

Here are a few screenshots of the running movie trailer as taken by SMPlayer on my system:

http://ourlan.homelinux.net/qdig/?Qwd=./Theora_720p&Qiv=nam...

What are these, exactly?