According to Chromium Blog that Google Chrome will drop support for H.264 in the coming months and will only support WebM (VP8) and Theora codecs.
We expect even more rapid innovation in the web media platform in the coming year and are focusing our investments in those technologies that are developed and licensed based on open web principles. To that end, we are changing Chrome’s HTML5 <video> support to make it consistent with the codecs already supported by the open Chromium project. 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. Though H.264 plays an important role in video, as our goal is to enable open innovation, support for the codec will be removed and our resources directed towards completely open codec technologies
To that end, we are changing Chrome’s HTML5 support to make it consistent with the codecs already supported by the open Chromium project. 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. Though H.264 plays an important role in video, as our goal is to enable open innovation, support for the codec will be removed and our resources directed towards completely open codec technologies.an effort to encourage developers to use WebM. Right now, the only important website that uses WebM is YouTube, Google’s video sharing service. Internet Explorer, Safari and iOS devices are unlikely to support WebM, while hardware acceleration andFlash support are expected later this year.
Google was rather fond of its WebM video standard, but we never expected a move like this: the company says it will drop support for the rival H.264 codec in its HTML5 video tag, and is justifying the move in the name of open standards somehow. Considering that H.264 is presently one of (if not the) most widely supported format out there, it sounds a little like Google shooting itself in the foot with a .357 round — especially considering the MPEG-LA just made H.264 royalti- free as long as it is freely distributed just a few months ago. If that’s the case, Chrome users will have to download a H.264 plug-in to play most web video that’s not bundled up in Flash…. which isn’t exactly an open format itself. Or hey, perhaps everyone will magically switch to Chrome, video providers will kowtow, unicorns will gaily prance, and WebM will dominate from now on.
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