• Information Week et al, Wednesday, January 12, 2011 3:11 PM

"Backend" though it may seem, Chrome's plans to phase out support for the H.264 video codec has serious industry implications.

"Google has essentially declared war against the web's dominant video format," writes paidContent.

Codecs, if you didn't know, are the programs that encode or decode any digital data stream, such as digital video. Making Google's position all the more polarizing, Microsoft's Internet Explorer and Apple's Safari will soon have built-in H.264 support.

"The move is a direct challenge to Apple and Microsoft, which own some of the patent rights associated with H.264," Information Week writes.

Chrome -- which now controls 10% of the browser market worldwide -- will soon only support two open video formats: Google's own WebM format, and another open-source codec named Theora.

But, "How on Earth can Google get away with dropping support for one popular codec under the guise of 'open' when baked into their browser is Flash, the decidedly un-open plug-in?" asks TechCrunch. "It's a great hypocritical step forward that is just as likely to backfire."

The move, according to paidContent, likely indicates that "Google has a problem with the royalties being charged by MPEG-LA, the organization that administers the patent pool for H.264 codec."

Meanwhile, while expressing the support for Google's WebM format, Web publishers and video portals say the move hurts everyone in the short term.

"Bottom line: Much more expensive to build video on the Web, and much worse user experience," Don MacAskill, chief executive of photo- and video-sharing site SmugMug, tweeted on Tuesday -- as noted by CNet. "I want WebM ... But I need time for hardware penetration to happen."

"The end result, if WebM is widely adopted, would actually be good for the user," according to The Next Web. "Truly open codecs open the door to support from a massive number of platforms and holds the promise of ending 'not compatible with your browser' messages. But, as the Internet has gone, we've very seldom seen wide adoption of open standards and the WebM fight has only just begun."

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