HTML 5 and the .OGG Format
I don’t know how many of you are web developers that come here, but I am really looking forward to the HTML5 standard that will be implemented in Firefox 3.1. HTML5 allows for the use of the <video> tag. This will nativley support .ogg files that are encoded in the Theora video CODEC and OGG audio CODEC. Why is this important you ask? You will not have to require Flash player or any other plugin for that matter to playback video in the browser. The browser will support it nativley.
Well Theora and OGG are a part of the Xiph project. The 2 CODECs are open source and quite good in my opinion. Theora is comparitive to DIVX or XVID CODECs, but it is completely free and open source. OGG is similar to MP3 or MP4A (AKA AAC).
The only hurdle we will have is getting all of the other browsers such as IE & Safari to support it. That may be the most difficult part of this new standard, but hopefully with time we will see this widespread.
So what do say, as soon as this hits the market lets try to make an active effort to get this video type mainstream. Ars Technica wrote a good article about this here.
Links:
Very excited about it here. I have already started using HTML5 video in some web pages, in preparation. Most will not see it yet, but no harm in getting it in place. This is going to be exciting, to have an open video framework, on the net. I heard Opera and Safari would also support it in the next version? Can hardly wait for it. It’s like being a kid at Christmastime again.
November 10th, 2008 at 8:32 am