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TheHTML5 draft specification addsvideo andaudioelements for embedding video and audio in HTML documents. The specification had formerly recommended support for playback ofTheora video andVorbis audio encapsulated inOggcontainers to provide for easier distribution of audio and video over the internet by usingopen standards, but the recommendation was soon after dropped.
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Because some visitors and publishers choose not to take part in the use ofproprietary software, web content has been made available throughopen standards in order to reach these users. As multimedia is already mainstream on the web through proprietary data formats (such asWindows Media Video andMP4) and browserplugins (such asAdobe Flash Player), developers[who?] had hoped Theora and Vorbis would become part of the HTML5 specification.[1]
Users affiliated with the free software movement claimed the following advantages:
video andaudio elements would require less effort than mastering theobject element or learningActionScript as required by Adobe Flash.[citation needed]CTO atOpera Software,Håkon Wium Lie explained in a Google tech talk entitled "The <video> element" the proposal of Theora as the video format for HTML5:[2]
I believe very strongly, that we need to agree on some kind of baseline video format if [the video element] is going to succeed. [...] We want a freely implementable open standard to hold the content we put out. That's why we developed thePNG image format. [...] PNG [...] came late to the party. Therefore I think it's important that from the beginning we think about this.
After the presentation, Lie was asked whetherOpera will support other formats than Ogg:
My opinion is that browsers shouldn't support other codecs, at least not in the beginning, until we have established a baseline format. [...] We don't want to contaminate <video> with other formats.
Opera Software andMozilla have been advocates for including the Ogg formats into the HTML standard.[3]Support has been available in experimental builds ofOpera 9.5 since 2007,[4] and Ogg Theora is fully supported sinceOpera 10.50.[5]Gecko 1.9.1 (browsers based on this engine includeMozilla Firefox 3.5 andSeaMonkey 2.0[6]), released on June 30, 2009, was the first non-experimental layout engine to support Ogg formats.Google Chrome included support in their 3.0 release (September 2009),[7] along with support forH.264. However, they did not supportMPEG-1 (the parts patents on which are thought to have expired), citing concerns over performance.[8]
Microsoft began work in October 2017 on implementing support for Ogg, Vorbis, and Theora in Windows 10 andMicrosoft Edge.[9]
In October 2023, Google announced their plans to deprecate and remove support for the Theora video codec starting with experiments reducing Theora support in Chrome 120 and a full removal in Chrome 123, Google states that the reason for the removal is due to low use and security risks associated with the codec.[10][11]
On October 17, 2007, theWorld Wide Web Consortium encouraged interested people to take part in a "Video on the Web Workshop", held on December 12, 2007, for two days.[12] A number of global companies were involved, submitting position papers.[13] Among them,Nokia's paper[14] states that "a W3C-led standardization of a 'free' codec, or the active endorsement of proprietary technology such as Ogg [...] by W3C, is, in our opinion, not helpful".Xiph.org's codecs, while licensed under aBSD-stylepermissive free software license, implement a standard controlled by Xiph.org themselves, rather than a multi-vendor community such as MPEG.Apple Inc., a member of theMPEG LA, has also opposed the inclusion of Ogg formats in the HTML standard on the grounds thatH.264 performs better and is already more widely supported, citing patents on their codec's efficiency and the lack of precedents of "Placing requirements on format support", even at the "SHOULD" level, in HTML specifications.[15]
On December 10, 2007, the HTML 5 specification was updated,[16] replacing the reference to Theora and Vorbis with a placeholder:[17]
It would be helpful for interoperability if all browsers could support the same codecs. However, there are no known codecs that satisfy all the current players: we need a codec that is known to not require per-unit or per-distributor licensing, that is compatible with the open source development model, that is of sufficient quality as to be usable, and that is not an additional submarine patent risk for large companies. This is an ongoing issue and this section will be updated once more information is available.[18]
The removal of the Ogg formats from the specification made it completely file format neutral, like previous versions of HTML. The decision was criticized by a number ofWeb developers. A follow-up discussion also occurred on the W3C questions and answers blog.[19]
In response to criticism, theWHATWG has cited concerns over the Ogg formats still being within patent lifetime and thus vulnerable to unknown patents.[20]Suchsubmarine patents may also exist for formats likeMP3. Also, theAVC patent licensing policy is subject to change in a not-yet-clear manner.[21]
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As of December 31, 2020, Adobe Flash Player has stopped receiving support from Adobe,[22] withHTML video being one of the main technologies replacing it.[23]
"WebRTC Audio Codec and Processing Requirements" Internet standard drafts, published in 2011–2013, require free formats, includingOpus, which was developed, among others, by programmers associated withXiph.Org Foundation (the maintainer ofOgg).[24][25]