Andre Yoskowitz
4 Feb 2010 17:24
MPEG LA, the company behind the H.264 video-encoding codec, has decided to extended the royalty-free period of the tech until December 31st, 2015, allowing sites to stream using the technology for free.
The current licensing period was set to finish at the end of 2010.
The extension may be a way to "encourage" sites to use H.264 instead of free rival Ogg Theora, which was recently selected by Wikipedia for video playback. H.264 is currently used by the king of web video, however, YouTube.
Lesser rival On2 creates a codec called VP8, and Google recently announced their acquisition of On2, sparking speculation that VP8 would be the new codec of choice for YouTube.