Google gave developers advance warning Tuesday that it will withdraw support for the popular H.264 video codec in its Chrome web browser, though the change isn't expected to take effect for a couple of months. The goal is to put Google's resources squarely behind WebM -- an open-source video technology unveiled by Google last year that is already supported by Adobe Systems, Mozilla Firefox, Opera and more than 40 other publishers, software and hardware 
vendors. "We are changing Chrome's HTML5 video support to make it consistent with the codecs already supported by the open Chromium project," noted Chrome Project Manager Mike Jazayeri in a blog for developers. "Specifically, we are supporting the WebM (VP8) and Theora video codecs, and will consider adding support for other high-quality open codecs in the future."
Adding Unwanted Complexity
The move will have an unwelcome impact on web-page designers, since it will compel them to use a different codec when converting their existing H.264 videos into content compatible with the new HTML5 standard for web design.
"Web-site owners who have content in H.264 will face the task of having to convert that content if they want to have it viewed by new releases of the Chrome browser," said Al Hilwa, director of applications development software at IDC. "It is definitely more complexity for such web sites, as they now have to mange even more format fragmentation amongst the browser makers."
Some industry observers believe that Google's withdrawal of H.264 support has little to do with promoting open standards and more about not having to pay codec royalties to rivals Microsoft and Apple, which hold some of the essential H.264 patents marketed by the MPEG LA patent-pool organization. "Given that Microsoft and Apple have solid support for H.264, this may be back to the future with HTML wars," Hilwa said.
Though Chrome only holds about a 10 percent share of the global browser market, Mozilla's Firefox browser likewise doesn't offer H.264 support. Therefore, more than a third of the world's browsers will no longer be directly supporting this video-coding standard once Google terminates support.
"Google has made a big investment in buying On2 and releasing WebM, so they may have decided that they need to push the process along faster," Hilwa said. "This definitely puts a high premium on having technologies like Flash, which will support both codecs."
A Question of Timing
Google's WebM/VP8 hardware decoder implementation has already been licensed to more than 20 partners as well as proven in silicon, noted WebM Product Manager Jani Huoponen and Engineering Manager Aki Kuusela. "We expect the first commercial chips to integrate our VP8 decoder IP to be available in the first quarter of 2011," they wrote in a blog on Monday.
However, Google's announcement of a relatively short time frame for the impending switch may not sit well with developers. "It seems to me giving a couple of months' notice of dropping it is way short in the software world, and they may end up having to backtrack," Hilwa said.
Hilwa also noted that Google is currently working on integrating Flash into its forthcoming Chromium OS. "Perhaps what they mean to say is that they will rely on Flash to support H.264, but if that is what they are saying, they sure picked a fine way to say it," Hilwa observed. "There are many questions left unanswered, and I am sure there will be more clarification and adjustment to come."
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