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Google announce the WebM open web video format, a lot of partners

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One of the major announcements at the Google I/O developers event is the new open web video format called WebM. Based on the VP8 video codec and Ogg Vorbis audio codec, WebM should be optimized well enough to allow playback even on mobile phones, tablets and netbooks.

WebM is an open-source format that will be licensed for free so it should provide a nice alternative to the H.264. And Google won’t be alone in their effort to push it to the masses. 16 software companies (including Mozilla, Opera, Adobe and Microsoft) and 14 hardware manufacturers (including AMD, ARM, Nvidia, Qualcomm and Texas Instruments) have already vowed their support for WebM.

WebM videos will also be available on YouTube along with the H.264 ones. Intel is the biggest name missing on the list but they might join the party later (here’s hoping!). At any rate a free web video format supported by all the major web browsers is great to have and kudos to Google and all their partners for standing behind the project.

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