H.264 vs. Theora — Fightin' Words About Patentability

An anonymous reader writes "Thom Holwerda from OS News has penned a rebuttal to claims from Daring Fireball's John Gruber that Theora is a greater patent risk than H.264. Holwerda writes, 'And so the H264/Theora debate concerning HTML5 video continues. The most recent entry into the discussion comes from John Gruber, who argues that Theora is more in danger of patent litigation than H264. He's wrong, and here's why.'"

Re:Before someone posts only the xiph link

[calmofthestorm]

I personally like the mbmp format I just patented. It's similar to mjpeg except using bitmaps instead of jpegs to improve video quality.

Re:Theora vs. H.264

[mrsteveman1]

It's all very well standing around hinting what a huge penis you have, but sooner or later you're going to have to pull down your pants.

We are talking about internet video here, what did you expect it would be used for?

Re:Patent risks

[im_thatoneguy]

So just because it's on a computer and not manufactured it shouldn't be patented. Poppy-cock.

The virtual world should get the same protection as meatspace. If you invent a new non-obvious widget you should be able to patent it regardless if a CNC machine or injection molder was required to manufacture it.

Compression? Who needs it?

[itsybitsy]

Soon lossy compression will be irrelevant.

I demand full resolution video without lossy compression. Screw the compressors.

Bandwidth and storage capacity will soon make lossy irrelevant even at HD * N scales.

I want the FULL resolution that the cameras recorded.

If you don't then enjoy your pixalated movies.

Re:Patent risks

[macro187]

The biggest problem is that Mozilla's argument isn't technical. It's political.

Of course it's political. It's power. Power that a whole lot of people have spent the past decade voluntarily building up, to counterbalance corporate attempts to monopolise the web.

If that work hadn't been done, and Firefox didn't have the market share -- and therefore power -- that it has today, we wouldn't even be having this discussion. Because this entire issue would have been decided behind closed doors in some boardroom at Microsoft.

We're on the brink of seeing the last piece-of-shit corporate dependency -- Flash -- removed from the web.

Anyone advocating throwing that away in exchange for some minor technical advantage is either young, stupid, or suffering from a severe case of Stockholm Syndrome.

Wake up, Serf.

Re:First Post

[Anonymous Coward]

Most users aren't going to know whether it's good or bad to install the h.265 codec girlswithbigtits.cn is offering them.

"Firefox can't find the server at www.girlswithbigtits.cn"

:(