[GHFigs]

There is no debate. Hixie removed the relevant portions from the spec. There is now no required codec. Unless the landscape changes significantly, there will be no required video codec.

It's unfortunate, but it isn't the catastrophe that the article implies. The vendors that are going to support Theora out of the box are going to do so anyway, and the vendors that are going to support h264 out of the box are going to do so anyway. Standardizing on either wouldn't have done nothing but dissociate the spec from reality.

[jrockway]

Standardizing on either wouldn't have done nothing but dissociate the spec from reality.

So now web designers have to deal with incompatibilities introduced in the last century, as well as ones introduced in yet-to-be published specs.

What is the point of standards if everyone is going to ignore them? The HTML5 committee could have saved a lot of time by not writing the spec and instead concentrating on a free reference implementation. (When browser vendors have to implement a spec on their own, they are going to cut corners to make things easy. If they can just cut-n-paste from a reference implementation, they will probably just use that.)

[GHFigs]

What is the point of standards if everyone is going to ignore them?

That's the point. That's why that part was removed. If Theora had been mandated, Apple would have ignored it. If h264 had been mandated, Mozilla would have ignored it.

[jrockway]

The end result is the same. You can't use <video> if you want it to work on all platforms.

[GHFigs]

Ah, but you can like so:

  <video>
      <source src="example-video.mp4" type="video/mp4" />
      <source src="example-video.ogv" type="video/ogg" />
  </video>

[andrewl-hn]

I'm not really sure how it's going to work in Chrome, though. The article says they are going to support both codecs. As a result it's up to browser which video source to choose. It's interesting whether it will pick the first source or the 'preferred' one (presumably, mp4). Is it possible to set the source preference in HTML? Like:

  <video>
      <source src="example-video.mp4" type="video/mp4" />
      <source src="example-video.ogv" type="video/ogg" default/>
  </video>

or something similar?

[mikedouglas]

The first supported <source /> is used (from the spec).

[eelco]

A reference implementation based on what spec?

[jrockway]

Whatever the authors of the reference implementation felt like writing. Just like all the major browsers that are supposedly "standards compliant", but without pretending to be something it's not.

(People don't want a standard saying how to play videos on the web. They want to be able to say <video src="foo.video"> and have it work for all their users, including those using free software.)