As the report from Google Chrome Official Blog, future versions of the Chrome browser will not support playback of H.264 format video anymore. Instead, Chrome will support Google's self-developed open format WebM. This means that, users can not directly see H.264 format videos on Chrome in the future, and have to search for third-party extensions. Currently H.264 is the most widely used web video encoding formats. Google's move will push WebM open format, and replace H.264 gradually.
According to Wikipedia -
WebM is a multimedia container format designed to provide a royalty-free, high-quality open video compression format for use with HTML5 video. The project's development is sponsored by Google.
A WebM file consists of VP8 video and Vorbis audio streams, in a container based on a profile of Matroska. The project releases WebM related software under a BSD license and all users are granted a worldwide, non-exclusive, no-charge, royalty-free patent license.
Google said that WebM is rather efficient, as WebM video can play smoothly on netbook, tablet and handsets. YouTube, the subsidiary of Google will surely support WebM. Additionally, Adobe announced that its Flash Player will be updated to support VP8, but has not announced support for Vorbis or the Matroska-based WebM container. Other companies that support WebM includes AMD, ARM, Broadcom, Freescale, NVIDIA, Qualcomm, TI, etc. Intel is also considering hardware-based acceleration for WebM in its Atom-based TV chips if the format gains popularity. Internet Explorer 9 will also be able to support WebM files if the VP8 codec is installed locally. WebM is also supported by popular web browsers such as FireFox, Chrome and Opera.
Off topic: YouTube users can use Leawo Free YouTube Downloader to download Flash videos from YouTube and any other websites. It is free.
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