WebM

WebM
Filename extension .webm
Internet media type video/webm,
audio/webm
Developed by Google, based on developments of On2, Xiph, and Matroska
Initial release 19 May 2010; 21 months ago (2010-05-19)[1]
Type of format Media container
Container for VP8 (video)
Vorbis (audio)
Extended from Matroska
Open format? Yes[2]
Website www.webmproject.org

WebM is an audio-video format designed to provide a royalty-free, open video compression format for use with HTML5 video. The project's development is sponsored by Google.

A WebM file consists of VP8 video and Vorbis audio streams, in a container based on a profile of Matroska.[2][3][4] The project releases WebM related software under a BSD license and all users are granted a worldwide, non-exclusive, no-charge, royalty-free patent license. Despite this, some in the industry have called upon Google to provide indemnification against patent suits.[5]

Contents

Vendor support

Software

Native WebM support by Mozilla Firefox 4,[6][7] Opera 10.6,[8][9] and Google Chrome[10] was announced at the 2010 Google I/O conference. However, not every web browser natively supports WebM. Epiphany will only play WebM video after GStreamer multimedia framework is updated.[11] Internet Explorer 9 requires third-party WebM software.[12] Safari for Windows and Mac OS X relies on QuickTime to play web media,[13] which as of April 1, 2011 (2011 -04-01), does not support WebM[14][15] unless a third-party plug-in is installed.[16] In January 2011, Google announced that the WebM Project Team will release plugins for Internet Explorer and Safari to allow playback of WebM files through the standard HTML5 <video> tag.[17] As of April 1, 2011 (2011 -04-01), a public preview version of this plug-in is available for Internet Explorer 9.[18]

Adobe Systems announced that its Flash Player will be updated to support WebM. [19]. However, Flash Player version 11 released in November 2011 turned out not to support WebM or any of the VP8 or Vorbis codecs. So far no official explanation has been given to this.

Media players such as VLC,[20][21] Miro,[22][23] and Winamp,[24][25] have announced support. MPlayer and foobar2000 has native support for playing WebM files.[26] FFmpeg can now encode and decode VP8 videos when built with libvpx support, as well as mux/demux WebM-compliant files.[27] On 23 July 2010, Jason Garrett-Glaser, Ronald Bultje, and David Conrad of the FFmpeg team announced the ffvp8 decoder. Through testing they determined that ffvp8 was faster than Google's own libvpx decoder.[28][29] mkvtoolnix, the popular Matroska creation tools, have implemented support for Multiplexing/Demultiplexing WebM-compliant files out of the box.[30] Haali Media Splitter has also announced support for muxing/demuxing of WebM.[30] As of version 1.4.9, the LiVES video editor has support for realtime decoding and for encoding to WebM format using ffmpeg libraries.

MPC-HC as of SVN 2071 and higher builds supports WebM playback with internal VP8 decoder based on FFmpeg's code.[28][31] The latest official stable release of MPC-HC, 1.4.2499.0, 1.5.2.3456 and later versions has full decoding support for WebM.[32]

Android is WebM-enabled from version 2.3 - Gingerbread,[33] which was first made available via the Nexus S mobile phone.

Hardware

AMD, ARM and Broadcom have announced support for hardware acceleration of the WebM format.[34][35] Intel is also considering hardware-based acceleration for WebM in its Atom-based TV chips if the format gains popularity.[36] Qualcomm and Texas Instruments have announced support,[37][38] with native support coming to the TI OMAP processor.[39] Chip&Media have announced a fully hardware decoder for VP8 that can decode full HD resolution VP8 streams at 60 frames per second.[40]

NVIDIA has stated that they support VP8 adoption, but they have no specific plans to provide hardware support.[41]

On 7 January 2011, Rockchip released the world's first chip to host a full hardware implementation of 1080p VP8 decoding. The video acceleration in the RK29xx chip is handled by the WebM Project's G-Series 1 hardware decoder IP.[42]

In June 2011, ZiiLABS demonstrated their 1080p VP8 decoder implementation running on the ZMS-20 processor. The chips programmable media processing array is used to provide the VP8 acceleration.[43]

Services

YouTube now offers WebM videos as part of its HTML5 player experiment.[44] All uploaded files with resolutions from 720p and above are encoded to WebM in 480p and 720p, and other resolutions will follow.[45][46] YouTube has committed to encode their entire portfolio of videos to WebM.[45][46] Sorenson Media's online encoding platform now supports VP8 and WebM.[47] Skype has implemented the VP8 codec into the Skype 5.0 software.[48] Logitech is planning to use WebM as part of a video calling service.[49] NVIDIA announced 3D video support for WebM through HTML5 and their NVIDIA 3D Vision technology.[50][51][52]

Licensing

In mid-2010, Simon Phipps, a board member for the Open Source Initiative, expressed doubts as to whether the original WebM license was an open-source license, since it had not been submitted to the OSI for approval.[53] In response, the WebM Project decoupled patents from copyright, offering the code under a standard BSD license and patents under a separate grant.[54] The Free Software Foundation, which maintains the Free Software Definition, has given its endorsement for WebM and VP8[55] and considers the software's license to be compatible with the GNU General Public License.[56][57] On 19 January 2011, the Free Software Foundation announced its official support for WebM project.[58]

Although Google has irrevocably released all of its patents on VP8 as a royalty-free format,[59] the MPEG LA, licensors of the H.264 patent pool, have expressed interest in creating a patent pool for VP8.[60][61] Conversely, other researchers cite evidence that On2 made a particular effort to avoid any MPEG LA patents.[62] As a result of the MPEG-LA threat the United States Department of Justice(DoJ) has started an investigation into the MPEG LA for its role in possibly attempting to stifle competition.[63][64]

See also

References

  1. ^ Patel, Nilay (19 May 2010), Google launches open WebM web video format based on VP8, Engadget, http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/19/google-launches-open-webm-web-video-format-based-on-vp8/ 
  2. ^ a b "WebM FAQ". 19 May 2010. http://www.webmproject.org/about/faq/. "WebM is an open media file format designed for the web. WebM files consist of video streams compressed with the VP8 video codec and audio streams compressed with the Vorbis audio codec. The WebM file structure is based on the Matroska media container." 
  3. ^ Doig, Jeremy; Jazayeri, Mike (19 May 2010), Introducing WebM, an open web media project, WebM Project, http://webmproject.blogspot.com/2010/05/introducing-webm-open-web-media-project.html, retrieved 19 May 2010 
  4. ^ Montgomery, Chris (19 May 2010), Xiph.Org announces support for the WebM open media project, Xiph, http://www.xiph.org/press/2010/webm/, retrieved 20 May 2010 
  5. ^ "HTML5 and Web Video: Questions for the Industry from the Community". 2 February 2011. http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2011/02/02/html5-and-web-video-questions-for-the-industry-from-the-community.aspx. 
  6. ^ Shaver, Mike (19 May 2010). "Open Web, Open Video and WebM". The Mozilla Blog. Mozilla Foundation. http://blog.mozilla.com/blog/2010/05/19/open-web-open-video-and-webm/. Retrieved 8 March 2011. 
  7. ^ Blizzard, Christopher (19 May 2010). "Firefox, YouTube and WebM". Mozilla Hacks. Mozilla Foundation. http://hacks.mozilla.org/2010/05/firefox-youtube-and-webm/. Retrieved 8 March 2011. 
  8. ^ Lie, Håkon Wium (19 May 2010). "Welcome, WebM <video>!". Opera Labs. Opera Software ASA. http://labs.opera.com/news/2010/05/19/. Retrieved 8 March 2011. 
  9. ^ Mills, Chris (19 May 2010). "Opera supports the WebM video format". Dev.Opera. Opera Software ASA. http://dev.opera.com/articles/view/opera-supports-webm-video/. Retrieved 8 March 2011. "On the day of the announcement, Opera released an experimental WebM-enabled build. This feature is now part of the core functionality of Opera 10.60 and all of our future desktop browser releases." 
  10. ^ Bankoski, Jim (19 May 2010). "WebM and VP8 land in Chromium". The Chromium Blog. Google Inc.. http://blog.chromium.org/2010/05/webm-and-vp8-land-in-chromium.html. Retrieved 8 March 2011. 
  11. ^ Dickinson, Andrew (1 June 2010), How To Get WebM Support In Epiphany Web Browser, WebUpd8, http://www.webupd8.org/2010/06/how-to-get-webm-support-in-epiphany-web.html, "You do need however an updated Gstreamer" 
  12. ^ Hachamovitch, Dean (16 March 2011). "HTML5 Video Update—WebM for IE9". IEBlog. Microsoft Corporation. http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2011/03/16/html5-video-update-webm-for-ie9.aspx. Retrieved 16 March 2011. "IE9 supports HTML5 video using WebM for Windows customers who install third-party WebM support. As an industry, we still face many legitimate, unanswered questions about liability, risks, and support for WebM, such as [~snip~]." 
  13. ^ "Safari HTML5 Audio and Video Guide: Audio and Video HTML". Safari Developer Library. Apple Inc. 16 December 2010. http://developer.apple.com/safari/library/documentation/AudioVideo/Conceptual/Using_HTML5_Audio_Video/AudioandVideoTagBasics/AudioandVideoTagBasics.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40009523-CH2-DontLinkElementID_12. Retrieved 8 March 2011. "Safari on the desktop (Mac OS X and Windows) supports all media supported by the installed version of QuickTime, including any installed third-party codecs." 
  14. ^ "Apple – QuickTime – QuickTime Player – Tech Specs". Archived from the original on 24 July 2008. http://web.archive.org/web/20080724002332/http://www.apple.com/quicktime/player/specs.html. Retrieved 15 April 2010. 
  15. ^ "Media formats supported by QuickTime Player in Mac OS X v10.6". Apple Support. Apple Inc. 28 January 2011. http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3775. Retrieved 1 April 2011. 
  16. ^ "Adding additional media format support to QuickTime". Apple Support. Apple Inc. 24 January 2011. http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3526. Retrieved 1 April 2011. 
  17. ^ Jazayeri, Mike (14 January 2011). "More about the Chrome HTML Video Codec Change". The Chromium Blog. Google Inc. http://blog.chromium.org/2011/01/more-about-chrome-html-video-codec.html. Retrieved 8 March 2011. "the WebM Project team will soon release plugins that enable WebM support in Safari and IE9 via the HTML standard <video> tag" 
  18. ^ "WebM Media Foundation Components for Microsoft Internet Explorer 9 (Preview release)". WebMProject.org. The WebM Project. http://www.webmproject.org/ie/. Retrieved 1 April 2011. 
  19. ^ Shankland, Stephen (9 May 2011). "Adobe issues CSS Web publishing prototype". cnet.com. http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-20061315-264.html. "Gourdol confirmed tonight it would get the full WebM support, which also includes the Vorbis audio encoding technology and a container to bundle the data together." 
  20. ^ Kempf, Jean-Baptiste, Welcome to VLC's Webm page!, VideoLAN, http://people.videolan.org/~jb/webm/ 
  21. ^ Kaba, Martin (26 May 2010), Download VLC Media Player 1.1.0 with WebM Support, Kabatology, http://www.kabatology.com/05/26/download-vlc-media-player-1-1-0-with-webm-support/ 
  22. ^ Reville, Nicholas (21 May 2010), Miro Video Converter is the first WebM / VP8 converter!, Participatory Culture Foundation, http://www8.getmiro.com/blog/2010/05/miro-video-converter-is-the-first-webm-vp8-converter/ 
  23. ^ Kaba, Martin (21 May 2010), Miro Video Converter 2.0 adds support for open WebM (vp8) video format, Kabatology, http://www.kabatology.com/05/21/miro-video-converter-2-0-adds-support-for-open-webm-vp8-video-format/ 
  24. ^ Winamp Player Features, Nullsoft, http://www.winamp.com/help/Player_Features 
  25. ^ Winamp 5.58 Released, 29 June 2010, http://forums.winamp.com/showthread.php?t=320278 
  26. ^ Add webm/VP8 support to native matroska demuxer., 5 June 2010, http://lists.mplayerhq.hu/pipermail/mplayer-cvslog/2010-June/039348.html 
  27. ^ ffmpeg 0.6 release, ffmpeg.org, 15 June 2010, http://www.ffmpeg.org/releases/ffmpeg-0.6.release 
  28. ^ a b Diary Of An x264 Developer: Announcing the world’s fastest VP8 decoder, http://x264dev.multimedia.cx/?p=499 
  29. ^ PATCH VP8♫ decoder, FFmpeg-devel, 15 June 2010, http://lists.mplayerhq.hu/pipermail/ffmpeg-devel/2010-June/090751.html 
  30. ^ a b webm support in Matroska tools, Matroska.org, 20 May 2010, http://www.matroska.org/news/webm-tools.html 
  31. ^ Add : Internal VP8 Decoder, 23 June 2010, http://mpc-hc.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/mpc-hc/?view=log 
  32. ^ Release History and Player Update, Media Player Classic Home Cinema, 7 September 2010, http://mpc-hc.sourceforge.net/History.html 
  33. ^ Android 2.3 Platform Highlights, Android Developer, 6 December 2010, http://developer.android.com/sdk/android-2.3-highlights.html 
  34. ^ Metz, Cade (19 May 2010), Google open sources $124.6m video codec, The Register, http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/05/19/google_chrome_announcement/ 
  35. ^ Broadcom Accelerates WebM Video on Mobile Phones, Newswire, 19 May 2010, http://investor.broadcom.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=471536 
  36. ^ Shah, Agam (27 May 2010), Intel eyes hardware acceleration for Google's WebM, ComputerWorld, http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9177437/Intel_eyes_hardware_acceleration_for_Google_s_WebM 
  37. ^ Talluri, Raj (19 May 2010), Google's Impact on Web Video, Qualcomm, http://www.qualcomm.com/blog/2010/05/19/web-video-google 
  38. ^ Meehan, Joseph (19 May 2010), Our OMAP processors embrace WebM and VP8 with open ARMs, Texas Instruments, http://e2e.ti.com/blogs_/b/mobile_momentum/archive/2010/05/19/our-omap-processors-embrace-webm-and-vp8-with-open-arms.aspx 
  39. ^ Demo of WebM Running on TI OMAP 4 Processor, WebM Project, 5 October 2010, http://blog.webmproject.org/2010/10/demo-of-webm-running-on-ti-omap-4.html, retrieved 15 October 2010 
  40. ^ Chips&Media delivers latest dual HD video IP core with VP8 hardware decoding capability, Design & Reuse, 18 November 2010, http://www.design-reuse.com/news/24961/dual-hd-video-ip-core-vp8.html 
  41. ^ Tamasi, Tony (19 May 2010), Google's Royalty-Free VP8 Codec – A Move Forward, NVIDIA, http://blogs.nvidia.com/ntersect/2010/05/googles-royaltyfree-vp8-codec-a-move-forward.html 
  42. ^ Rockchip and WebM Release RK29xx -- World's First SOC to Support WebM HD Video Playback in Hardware, PRNewsWire, 7 January 2011, http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/rockchip-and-webm-release-rk29xx----worlds-first-soc-to-support-webm-hd-video-playback-in-hardware-113069829.html 
  43. ^ ZiiLABS VP8 Support Delivers Smooth Playback of 1080p WebM Video on ZMS Processors, ZiiLABS, 11 June 2011, http://www.ziilabs.com/technology/vp8webm.aspx 
  44. ^ "YouTube HTML5 Video Player". YouTube. Google Inc. http://www.youtube.com/html5. Retrieved 8 March 2011. 
  45. ^ a b Google I/O 2010 - WebM Open Video Playback in HTML5, Google, 28 May 2010, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=poHqoBKiSeY 
  46. ^ a b Google I/O 2010 Keynote Day 1, pt. 3, Google, 19 May 2010, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQniEobrNU0 
  47. ^ VP8 / WebM is here! Sorenson Users Can Encode With It Now., Sorenson Media, 19 May 2010, http://blog.sorensonmedia.com/2010/05/vp8-webm-is-here-sorenson-users-can-encode-with-it-now/ 
  48. ^ WebM Video Codec in Skype 5.0 Group Video, Skype / Google, 9 November 2010, http://blog.webmproject.org/2010/11/webm-video-codec-in-skype-50-group.html 
  49. ^ Kintz, Eric (19 May 2010), Commitment to Open Standards such as VP8 is Critical to Innovation, Logitech, http://blog.logitech.com/2010/05/19/commitment-to-open-standards-such-as-vp8/ 
  50. ^ , http://blog.webmproject.org/2011/05/introducing-3d-webm-support-with-nvidia.html 
  51. ^ , http://blogs.nvidia.com/2011/05/youtube-now-in-3d-vision/ 
  52. ^ , http://www.thinkdigit.com/Internet/Open-3D-video-comes-to-the-web_6851.html 
  53. ^ Phipps, Simon (24 May 2010), WebM: Missing The Assurances Open Source Needs?, ComputerworldUK, http://www.computerworlduk.com/community/blogs/index.cfm?entryid=2973 
  54. ^ DiBona, Chris (4 June 2010), Changes to the WebM Open Source License, WebM, http://webmproject.blogspot.com/2010/06/changes-to-webm-open-source-license.html 
  55. ^ Lee, Matt (19 May 2010), Free Software Foundation statement on WebM and VP8, Free Software Foundation, http://www.fsf.org/news/free-software-foundation-statement-on-webm-and-vp8 
  56. ^ Smith, Brett. "Google's updated WebM license". Free Software Foundation. http://www.fsf.org/blogs/licensing/googles-updated-webm-license. Retrieved 14 June 2010. 
  57. ^ "Various Licenses and Comments about Them - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation (FSF)". Free Software Foundation. http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#GPLCompatibleLicenses. Retrieved 13 June 2010. 
  58. ^ Smith, Brett. "No double standards: supporting Google's push for WebM". Free Software Foundation. http://www.fsf.org/news/supporting-webm. Retrieved 19 January 2011. 
  59. ^ Metz, Cade (20 May 2010), Google backs open codec against patent trolls, The Register, http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/05/20/google_confident_on_vp8_and_patents/ 
  60. ^ Metz, Cade (21 May 2010), Google open video codec may face patent clash, The Register, http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/05/21/mpegla_mulls_patent_license_for_webm/ 
  61. ^ Fulton, Scott M. (21 May 2010), Patent pool may be in the works for 'free' VP8 codec, Betanews, http://www.betanews.com/article/Patent-pool-may-be-in-the-works-for-free-VP8-codec/1274466745 
  62. ^ Daffara, Carlo (25 May 2010), An analysis of WebM and its patent risk, carlodaffara.conecta.it, http://carlodaffara.conecta.it/?p=420 
  63. ^ Catan, Thomas (4 March 2011), Web Video Rivalry Sparks U.S. Probe, The Wall Street Journal, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703752404576178833590548792.html?mod=WSJ_WSJ_US_News_5 
  64. ^ Cheng, Jacqui (4 March 2011). "Report: DoJ looking into possible anti-WebM moves by MPEG LA". Ars Technica. Condé Nast Digital. http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/03/report-doj-looking-into-possible-anti-webm-moves-by-mpeg-la.ars. Retrieved 8 March 2011. 

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