Heinrich, 'best' is not always IPR-cost-free. Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't. You seem unable to see any other possibility than your own, alas. I could wish for 'fates' for any number of technologies, but I don't: I choose them when they suit, and others when they don't. I suggest we do the same. I have no objection to the development and deployment of new codecs, with varying terms, quality, complexity, and so on. This is a varied market that deserves varied tools. I do object to making decisions based on only one criterion, however. On Dec 26, 2010, at 18:12 , Heinrich Sinnreich wrote:
I think we should consider the balance between cost, risk, quality, and existing adoption, and it would be foolish to omit cost-bearing codecs from that analysis, as H.264 is widely used already.
I am not sure where this discussion is going, though it reminds us of the discussions when arguing about SIP vs. H.323 in the IETF. "Everybody" was shipping H.323 in overwhelming quantity, but somehow the IETF did not buy it.
As an hopeless optimist; maybe H.264 will have the same fate since at least it's considerable IP baggage is so well known...
It is hard to imagine the IETF and indeed the market will ignore the creativity of all the codec developers out there and the evolving technology that empowers them. Plain self interest should motivate embracing new IP-free a/v codecs for the RTC Web. They will arrive anyway one way or another.
[Well deployed technology has a proven way to make it over the threshold into history :-)]
David Singer Multimedia and Software Standards, Apple Inc.