FFmpeg gets its own implementation of Google’s VP8 codec

“Developers Ronald Bultje, David Conrad, and Jason Garret-Glaser
are creating a native VP8 video codec implementation for the open
source FFmpeg project. The aim of this effort is to bring
first-class VP8 support to FFmpeg and demonstrate the feasibility
of producing an independent VP8 implementation.

“The VP8 video codec was developed by On2, a multimedia
technology company recently acquired by Google. At the Google I/O
developer conference last month, the search giant liberated the VP8
intellectual property and opened its source code to provide a
royalty-free codec for the Web that is suitable for widespread use
with standards-based HTML5 video. The VP8 codec is thought to be
sufficiently competitive with the industry-leading H.264 codec, but
it is still unclear whether VP8’s status as a patent-unencumbered
codec will withstand legal scrutiny.”

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