One area that unfortunately it didn't really cover was the impact of widely available hardware and GPU-accelerated decoding for H.264. Surely the millions of non-PC devices being sold with H.264 support (even baseline) will have some effect on the outcome of the new video format war.
o They run the risk of patent infringement
o H.264 is already playable everywhere, universally,
either natively (and with hardware support) or with Flash.Same goes for all the other manufacturers- they are already MPEG-LA licensees and safe from the vast majority of patent threats.
So all those implementing WebM still needs to license H.264 to be safe from patent threat, and all those implementing WebM almost all have implemented H.264. WebM is only an addition to H.264. So the question for Google is always why dropping H.264 and never why adding WebM (since it is always there).
the infrastructure argument is much stronger.
Would a person believe Microsoft's good intentions if it was WMV instead of WebM?
This is the key point that everyone's missing.
>Google hereby grants to you a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive, no-charge, royalty-free, irrevocable (except as stated in this section) patent license to make, have made, use, offer to sell, sell, import, transfer, and otherwise run, modify and propagate the contents of this implementation of VP8, where such license applies only to those patent claims, both currently owned by Google and acquired in the future, licensable by Google that are necessarily infringed by this implementation of VP8. This grant does not include claims that would be infringed only as a consequence of further modification of this implementation. If you or your agent or exclusive licensee institute or order or agree to the institution of patent litigation against any entity (including a cross-claim or counterclaim in a lawsuit) alleging that this implementation of VP8 or any code incorporated within this implementation of VP8 constitutes direct or contributory patent infringement, or inducement of patent infringement, then any patent rights granted to you under this License for this implementation of VP8 shall terminate as of the date such litigation is filed.
It explicitly grants you the ability to modify the library in whatever way you want. This naturally includes a complete re-implementation.
There's a strangely worded section in there, but it is a clear cause-and-effect:
>This grant does not include claims that would be infringed only as a consequence of further modification of this implementation.
So, any claims infringed only as a consequence of further modification are not covered. But if the patent claims were already infringed by Google's implementation, then you are covered.
Q: What if someone makes a change to the code and gives it to me. Do I have a patent license from Google for that change?
A: You still have the right to redistribute but no patent license for the changes (if there are any patents covering it). We can't give patent licenses for changes people make after we distribute the code, as we have no way to predict what those changes will be. Other common licenses take the same approach, including the Apache license.
I'm not sure if it supports your statement, it would be great if someone more knowledgable about this can clarify.
Cameras shoot in HD and realtime compression isn't very efficient, so such raw files are unsuitable for the web.
For the web you still need to lower resolution and bitrate of the files. Re-encoding step is necessary, and it allows format of web video to be independent of source format.