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WebM, VP8 and VP9

Revision as of 09:32, 21 January 2014 by Ciaran (talk | contribs) (re-layout intro)

WebM, VP8 and VP9 are components of an audio-visual format which aims to require no patent royalties, by avoiding some patented ideas and by getting royalty-free licences for others. WebM, VP8 and VP9 are primarily developed by Google and have the backing of organisations such as Mozilla, FSF, and Wikipedia.

WebM is the "container format", or the "wrapper". It's what the users sees: a .webm file. Inside this file is an audio stream, which could be Ogg Vorbis or Opus, and a video stream which could be VP8 or VP9. The WebM container format is based on the existing Matroska format.

VP8 is the first video format published by Google. It was developed by On2, which was bought by Google, who released the software as free software.

VP9 is an improved version, was released in 2013.

The Ogg Vorbis and Opus audio formats are developed by Xiph.org. Since 2000, audio patents have been becoming less contentious and video patents more contentious, so most discussion about WebM focusses on VP8 and VP9.

Using and advocating WebM

Technical details

WebM defines the overall format, with:

  • The overall file structure based on the Matroska container
  • Video compressed using the VP8 video codec
  • Audio compressed using the Vorbis audio codec

In 2013 or 2014, Google may release a new WebM format using VP9 for video and Xiph.org's Opus for audio.

Google's WebM software

The WebM project claims that WebM is 100% free software, released under a permissive licence similar to the revised BSD licence.[1]

VP8 video codec

VP8 is a video codec and format created by On2 (now owned by Google) and released as open source under a BSD-like licence. It offers a higher quality alternative to the Ogg Theora codec, in the battle against the proprietary and patent-encumbered H.264 standard. The Xiph Foundation, which manages development of Ogg Theora, has announced their support for WebM.[2]

Google's deals with MPEG LA

Background

The CEO of MPEG-LA, Larry Horn, claims to be preparing a patent pool to be used against VP8, and thus WebM.[3] The threat may not be credible since similar claims were made against Ogg Theora but never materialised.

Google countered with a WebM Community Cross-License (CCL) initiative (25. April 2011).

The March 2013 announcement

In March 2013, Google announced a deal with MPEG LA offering some protection. For details see: Monty of Xiph.org's blog post, and the comments, and also the links and comments in this LWN.net article, and the links in OSNews' article.

The May 2013 announcement

In May 2013, Google published a draft VP8 Patent Cross-license Agreement.

Can you help? Need to review that draft and summarise the good and bad points


Related pages on ESP Wiki

External links

References

  1. http://www.webmproject.org/about/
  2. "Xiph.Org announces support for the WebM open media project". http://www.xiph.org/press/2010/webm/. "The Xiph.Org Foundation is pleased to announce its support of the WebM open media project as a project launch partner. As announced earlier today at the Google I/O Developer Conference, the WebM format combines the VP8 video codec, the Matroska container, and the Vorbis audio codec developed by Xiph into a high-quality, open, unencumbered format for video delivery on the Web. Xiph will continue to contribute to WebM as a whole and collaborate in its further development and deployment." 
  3. http://www.mpegla.com/main/pid/vp8/default.aspx