Video.js Blog

Steve Heffernan2011-01-11

Google is dropping h.264 from Chrome

UPDATE: Added a chart that shows what format support will look like without Chrome supporting h.264.

Google Chrome Drops h.264 Support

Google has decided to support the open source community by dropping h.264 support from Chrome. Previously Chrome was the only browser that could play all 3 major HTML5 formats—MP4/h.264, WebM/VP8, and Ogg/Theora. This is probably a strategic move at the same time, since h.264 seems unlikely to be beaten at this point, especially with IE9 supporting h.264 while requiring an extra plugin to use VP8. In my opinion, theres two major events that could end the format war.

  1. Apple adopts WebM/VP8 (which would require adequate hardware to include in iOS devices)

  2. MPEG LA removes all royalties from h.264

Read the original post.