[opendtv] Re: Apple dashes hopes of Flash on iPhone
- From: Craig Birkmaier <craig@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 19 Apr 2010 08:54:25 -0400
At 10:56 AM -0700 4/18/10, Kon Wilms wrote:
Irrelevant since when you ship HTML5 on a browser, the browser
manufacturer is responsible for ensuring that the implementation can
decode AVC (and they become liable for licensing issues). Which is why
the W3C and more importantly browser developers do *not* want any
encumbered codecs to be used for HTML5. You won't find much support
for AVC amongst developers - everyone is hoping for VP8 these days.
This "may" be true on PCs, but it is NOT true on the Mac platform.
First, it is important to understand that a browser is but one of
MANY applications that may wish to play dynamic media content. Apple
dealt with this issue many, many years ago through the development of
the QuickTime media architecture. This is an OS level set of tools
and codecs to support dynamic media content for any application that
wants to incorporate dynamic media content creation OR playout.
Apple was instrumental in getting very affordable terms for h.264 for
use on computing platforms and started supporting h.264 in QuickTime
with version , released in 2007. The same facilities are available
for all current Windows OS implementations by downloading QuickTime
for Windows, or iTunes for Windows, which includes QuickTime.
Support for h.264 on PCs is a bit more chaotic, since Microsoft chose
to promote its own codec technologies via the Windows Media player
(.WMV and VC-1). IT is a bit ironic that in Apple versus Adobe flame
wars, Microsoft (and the significant number of web sites that use the
WMV codec and ASF wrapper) are rarely if ever mentioned. I see fewer
WMV files today than I did a few years ago, but they are still used
by many web sites.
As for the cost to support h.264, it is NOT a major barrier, although
I agree with Kon that some developers would prefer to pay NOTHING.
The relevant licensing terms can be found here:
http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/AVC/Documents/AVC_TermsSummary.pdf
For computing platforms, this is the relevant part:
For (a) (2) branded encoder and decoder products sold on an OEM basis
for incorporation
into personal computers as part of a computer operating system, a
legal entity may pay
for its customers as follows (beginning January 1, 2005): 0 - 100,000
units/year = no
royalty (available to one legal entity in an affiliated group); US
$0.20 per unit after first
100,000 units/year; above 5 million units/year, royalty = US $0.10
per unit. The
maximum annual royalty ("cap") for an enterprise (commonly controlled
legal entities) is
$3.5 million per year in 2005-2006, $4.25 million per year in 2007-08
and $5 million per
year in 2009-10.
As I already mentioned, Apple pays these license fees for QuickTime
for both the Mac and PC platforms. Thus a browser manufacturer could
avoid any liability by simply using QuickTime to support dynamic
media playback.
Also of relevance to this discussion is the following provision.
For (b) (2) where remuneration is from other sources, in the case of
free television
(television broadcasting which is sent by an over-the-air, satellite
and/or cable
Transmission, and which is not paid for by an End User), the licensee
(broadcaster which
is identified as providing free television AVC video) may pay
(beginning January 1,
2006) according to one of two royalty options: (i) a one-time payment
of $2,500 per AVC
transmission encoder (applies to each AVC encoder which is used by or
on behalf of a
Licensee in transmitting AVC video to the End User) or (ii) annual
fee per Broadcast
Market12 starting at $2,500 per calendar year per Broadcast Markets
of at least 100,000
but no more than 499,999 television households, $5,000 per calendar
year per Broadcast
Market which includes at least 500,000 but no more than 999,999
television households,
and $10,000 per calendar year per Broadcast Market which includes
1,000,000 or more
television households. In the case of Internet broadcast (AVC video
that is delivered via the Worldwide Internet to an end user for which
the End User does not pay remuneration for the right to receive or
view, i.e., neither title-by-title nor subscription), there will be
no royalty during the first term of the License (ending December 31,
2010), and after the first term the royalty shall be no more than the
economic equivalent of royalties payable during the same time for
free television.
Bottom line, this is mostly a non-issue, although a royalty free
version of VP8 is very appealing to the Open Source community. If
Google does place it into Open Source, then it is likely that it will
quickly be supported by QuickTime and other dynamic media
architectures.
Flash simply provides the framework (shell) for the player and the
Incorrect.
Please explain why this is incorrect. Flash emulates (replaces)
QuickTime by supporting multiple codecs. Flash now supports h.264. It
could just as easily use QuickTime to play h.264, but Adobe chose to
compete with Apple and include codec support in the Flash plug-in.
There are MANY examples of the HTML5 framework playing h.264 content
on the web today. This is the EASY part.
Unfortunately it is not. Which is why Adobe is pushing OSMF.
Progressive streaming is easy, but that is both inefficient and
expensive for the customer (costs) and the viewer (bandwidth).
We disagree. Adobe is pushing their proprietary solution. And there
are licensing fees related to their environment as well, not to
mention the cost of the tools for authoring Flash.
content is the bigger issue with HTML5. It remains to be seen if Apple
can be the Pied Piper and lead the web development community away from
Flash.
Repeat after me: Apple has no development environment to match Flash.
Correct. Apple has allowed/encouraged Adobe to provide the tools for
this market, in part because Adobe applications play such an
important role in the Mac content authoring community. But to be
fair, the tools provided for building iPhone OS apps do include many
if not most of the frameworks needed for dynamic media content.
>> By the way, Adobe does not lose if HTML5 wins. They can very easily
use their entire authoring infrastructure that is in place for Flash
dynamic media content today, to create HTML5 content, just as they
have developed the cross compiler to create iPhone and Android apps...
HTML5 is HTML, Canvas and Javascript. Complete antithesis to Adobe's offering.
Your statement makes no sense - it's akin to saying 'Toyota makes
great cars, they should get into the boat-building business since they
both use engines'.
You are trying to mislead here. There is nothing to prevent Adobe
from developing the ability to output HTML5 files from their existing
tools including Flash. Nothing except that they want to control
dynamic media content on the web and collect the licensing fees.
You still need the Adobe tool suite to build the elements of any
Flash app. All that will change is that the output file format will
be HTML5 instead of .flv or whatever Adobe comes up with next via
their AIR initiative.
Regards
Craig
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