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Comment by _qxjp | Hacker News Reader

I know it'll probably never happen, but I hope this somehow leads to Apple supporting .webm in Safari.

VP8 can only be contained in MKVs and WebMs files, so I do see this happening. Apple is also part of the consortium working on AV1, the successor to VP8 and VP9; it also uses the MKV and WEBM containers.

"uses the MKV and WEBM containers"

Maybe, but https://www.webmproject.org/vp9/mp4/ (uses 'vp09' & 'vpcC' in the stsd)

AV1: https://aomedia.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/AV1-ISO-Base-... (uses 'av01' & 'av1C' in the stsd)

YouTube's AV1 playlist .youtube.com/watch?v=2nXYbGmF3_Q&list=PLyqf6gJt7KuHBmeVzZteZUlNUQAVLwrZS" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nXYbGmF3_Q&list=PLyqf6gJt7K...

uses mp4 as the container for the av1 (av01.0.05M.08), webm for the VP9 (vp9)

  ./youtube-dl --list-formats https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nXYbGmF3_Q 2nXYbGmF3_Q: Downloading webpage 2nXYbGmF3_Q: Downloading video info webpage Available formats for 2nXYbGmF3_Q: extension  resolution note webm       audio only DASH audio   55k , opus @ 50k, 1.43MiB webm       audio only DASH audio   70k , opus @ 70k, 1.81MiB webm       audio only DASH audio  118k , vorbis@128k, 2.99MiB audio only DASH audio  128k , m4a_dash container, mp4a.40.2@128k, 3.65MiB webm       audio only DASH audio  133k , opus @160k, 3.38MiB webm       256x144    144p  101k , webm container, vp9, 30fps, video only, 2.57MiB 256x144    144p  109k , avc1.4d400c, 30fps, video only, 1.02MiB webm       426x240    240p  205k , vp9, 30fps, video only, 2.81MiB 426x240    240p  241k , avc1.4d4015, 30fps, video only, 2.27MiB webm       640x360    360p  377k , vp9, 30fps, video only, 5.08MiB 426x240    240p  426k , av01.0.05M.08, 30fps, video only, 3.33MiB 640x360    360p  514k , avc1.4d401e, 30fps, video only, 4.66MiB webm       854x480    480p  696k , vp9, 30fps, video only, 8.29MiB 640x360    360p  751k , av01.0.05M.08, 30fps, video only, 6.04MiB 854x480    480p  989k , avc1.4d401f, 30fps, video only, 8.54MiB 854x480    480p 1175k , av01.0.05M.08, 30fps, video only, 9.86MiB webm       1280x720   720p 1282k , vp9, 30fps, video only, 12.27MiB 1280x720   720p 1675k , avc1.4d401f, 30fps, video only, 14.43MiB 1280x720   720p 2075k , av01.0.05M.08, 30fps, video only, 18.99MiB webm       1920x1080  1080p 2349k , vp9, 30fps, video only, 20.93MiB 1920x1080  1080p 2768k , avc1.640028, 30fps, video only, 23.33MiB 1920x1080  1080p 3759k , av01.0.05M.08, 30fps, video only, 39.32MiB 640x360    medium , avc1.42001E, mp4a.40.2@ 96k, 11.11MiB webm       640x360    medium , vp8.0, vorbis@128k, 16.66MiB 1280x720   hd720 , avc1.64001F, mp4a.40.2@192k (best)

AVC1 is just H264[0]. FFmpeg says stream 0 is "Video: h264"

The page you linked about AV1 in mp4 says it uses MPEG-4 Part 31, which is under development and not final [1]. Until now I was not aware they were extending the MPEG-4 container standard to include more formats.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.264/MPEG-4_AVC#Naming

[1] https://www.iso.org/standard/66062.html

The GP shows both avc1 and av01, the latter of which is AV1.

Yes. The post also said avc1 and av01 are both av1, when just av01 is av1.

I think you misread av1C (av1's equivalent of avcC) as avc1

VP8 is power hungry and GPUs don't have hardware support for decoding it.

Do you really want way worse battery life just so you can have VP8? That seems to be prioritizing the wrong things.

The AOM membership and the VP8 support may even be related. If Apple's assuming risk from submarine patents, etc. inherent in shipping an AV1 implementation, VP8 is something like a subset of it, so they can get that "for free".

The post talks about how iPhone 7's have worse battery life with VP8, which I'm sure is true, but it's still kinda funny because...it's Apple quasi-complaining here, and Apple who can solve the lack of acceleration, at least for future products.

I don't think they will support .webm until at least one or two generations of iPhone have hardware decoding for AV1 and/or VPx.

Apple has released software decoders before, but you might be right about waiting for hardware decoders first. They released an HEVC software decoder for devices that could get iOS 11, but had a chip older than the A9, (like the iPhone 5S and 6).

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