H.264 or VP8 in Your WebRTC Application?

October 2, 2017
No simple answer. Apple recently announced that Safari will be supporting WebRTC. That support isn’t there yet to the point where it is stable enough, but we already know one thing: Safari supports only the H.264 video codec. Codec wars are over? 2 MTI (mandatory to implement) codecs in the form of VP8 and H.264? Who cares? Reality is that Apple decided at this stage not to support VP8 - and it hasn’t said anything about plans to support or not support VP8 in the future. That said, all signals indicate that support for VP8 in Safari is unlikely to happen. This brings us to a simple yet challenging question: When writing a WebRTC application. Should you make use of VP8 or H.264? The answer isn’t a simple one. Choosing VP8 will leave you without Safari. Choosing H.264 will leave you without other important features and capabilities, as well as create a potential legal headache. This is why I decided to create a new free video mini course - to guide you through the process and help you make the best decision here.
This video course, Picking a WebRTC Video Codec, is free and includes 4 lessons and a cheat sheet.


You may also like

RTC@Scale 2024 – an event summary

RTC@Scale is Facebook’s virtual WebRTC event, covering current and future topics. Here’s the summary for RTC@Scale 2024 so you can pick and choose the relevant ones for you.

Read More