Rich Fiscus
2 Jul 2009 2:49
The HTML 5 standard won't include requirements for browsers to support particular audio or video standards according to Ian Hickson, editor of that standard on behalf of the Worldwide Web Consortium (W3C).
Hickson's comments were posted on the Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group mailing list. He attributes the decision to a lack of consensus among browser makers.
Previously there had been talk of making either MPEG-4 AVC or OGG Theora the officially supported video codec for use with the <video> tag.
Although Google has implementations of both included in their Chrome browser, Apple has apprently decided potential patent issues make Theora support risky and Neither Opera Software or Mozilla are interested in licensing MPEG-4 support.
Microsoft simply hasn't announced any decision on what standards they plan support.
If you're disappointed by this decision, the news isn't necessarily all bad. He was clear that he would like to revisit the decision when either Theora or H.264 manages to become a defacto standard.
Of course if that happens making it part of the standard is just a formality. But as Hickson pointed out, no one is likely to implement a particular codec just because the HTML standard says so.