Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 9 Platform Preview
Microsoft is back in the browser race according to press reports published today. ComputerWorld quotes a Forrester analyst Sheri McLeish as saying, “They want to be more than a follower or just on features parity ” as she talked about what she saw as a recommitment to Internet Explorer (IE). “And they’ve created a whole new team for IE. Microsoft is clearly taking the browser seriously again.”
CNET reports that Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 9 Platform Preview release on Tuesday sent a strong message to Web programmers that a host of standards will become safer to use. But in the case of one standard, Web video, Microsoft arguably pushed one controversial impasse deeper into gridlock.
According to the report, MS IE9, Web video issue remains deadlocked
The standard in question involves Web video that doesn’t require a plug-in such as Adobe Systems’ Flash or Microsoft’s Silverlight. It’s one of the big elements of HTML5–the Hypertext Markup Language standard now under development and aiming to expand the abilities of Web pages and Web applications.
The rough version of IE9 that Microsoft demonstrated includes HTML5 video encoded with a particular technology called H.264. Apple’s Safari also supports this encoding and decoding technology, or codec.
But Mozilla is adamantly opposed to open-source-unfriendly H.264, supporting the rival Ogg Theora codec instead, and Opera is in that camp with its new version 10.5. Google’s Chrome supports both, tying the score at Ogg Theora 3, H.264 3.
It’s no surprise Microsoft signed up for H.264. It owns many of the patents in the technology, which is licensed on behalf of Microsoft and several other patent holders by a group called the MPEG LA. And Microsoft of course isn’t afraid of proprietary technology. H.264 support is included in Windows 7. Finally, H.264 by most accounts provides superior quality than Ogg Theora.
It’s not inconceivable Microsoft could add Ogg Theora support in the future, but for now at least, Microsoft did little to break the logjam. That means Web sites with video will either have to include two streams for different browsers or–and this is more likely in the near term–continue to use Flash. (Much Flash video, by the way, uses the H.264 codec.)
The HTML5 standard describes how to build video into Web pages but, because of the disagreement among the major browser makers, leaves the codec unspecified. One wild card in the situation is what will happen now that Google has completed its acquisition of On2 Technologies, the company whose earlier VP3 codec underlies Ogg Theora and that was working on a newer codec called VP8. Google said regarding the acquisition that “video compression technology should be a part of the Web platform.”
For the complete details check out CNET article.