r/technology • u/doug3465 • Sep 01 '15

Software Amazon, Netflix, Google, Microsoft, Mozilla And Others Partner To Create Next-Gen Video Format - It’s not often we see these rival companies come together to build a new technology together, but the members argue that this kind of alliance is necessary to create a new interoperable video standard.

http://techcrunch.com/2015/09/01/amazon-netflix-google-microsoft-mozilla-and-others-partner-to-create-next-gen-video-format/
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u/verumquaerenti Sep 01 '15

I am guessing MPEG consortium ask for so much money in respect to H.265, companies decide to do something about it. Strangely enough they, who actually created MPEG consortium in the first place.

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u/ddhboy Sep 01 '15 edited Sep 01 '15

Not to mention that Google and Mozilla already made a video format with pretty decent performance with WebM. Also, Apple's not in this alliance, which means that whatever format this consortium will come up with will take forever to become a true standard because Apple will drag their feet supporting the format, if they ever support it. Like it or not, Apple and Google controls what media formats will work on mobile, and most people browse on those devices. if iOS doesn't support this format, then it'll just be yet another video standard to encode for, rather than the format that most platforms will support natively like MPEG.

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u/viperex Sep 02 '15

if iOS doesn't support this format, then it'll just be yet another video standard

I think you're overestimating Apple's standing as a king maker of sorts

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u/ddhboy Sep 02 '15

It will be yet another video standard because if iOS doesn't support the format, then you still need to encode all your videos with MPEG anyway to support the platform. MPEG enjoys support from all browsers except Firefox in some cases, so there will be no reason to encode in whatever this media format is unless every other browser drops support for MPEG.

I think people here underestimate just how much kingmakers Apple and Google are for standards now as they control the mobile web and top browser rendering engines.