Turns out there are some problems in the VP8 codec that's at the core of Google's open video project, WebM. The open video project was rolled out at the Google I/O developer conference this week.
Industry analyst Dan Rayburn blogs that the VP8 performance isn't living up to what its originator (and eventual $133 million Google acquisition) On2 claimed, specifically that VP8 was capable of delivering over "50% bandwidth savings compared to leading H.264 implementations." On2 also claimed VP8 performed better than any other video format on the market in terms of compression efficiency and performance.
But at least two sets of test results say that's not the case; in fact both say H.264 doesn't deliver better quality at half the bandwidth as On2 had claimed. Codec specialist Jason Garrett-Glaser concluded that VP8 simply is "not ready for prime-time."
That may come as a surprise to much of the video industry which, expectedly has acted quickly to let everyone know its ready for VP8 files.
Brightcove , Ooyala, Sorenson, Telestream and Digital Rapids all were among the companies that sent out press releases yesterday saying they were able to handle VP8 files.
But, will they really want to?
For more:
- see Rayburn's blog post
- see Google's WebM site
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