Wikimedia mulls support for 'patent-encumbered' video file format

January 17, 2014

Wikimedia, the foundation that hosts Wikipedia and other sites, is considering supporting the MP4 video file format on its projects, because it finds that the current open formats it supports limit the number of videos and the ability to view them on mobile phones.The foundation has asked community members for comments on the decision as MP4 is a proprietary format that involves patents and licenses, and its use would be a break from current Wikimedia practice of only using open formats on its sites, Wikimedia said.Only 38,000 video files have been uploaded so far to the Wikimedia Commons database of media files, a paltry 0.2 percent of the 19 million other media files in the Wikimedia repository, which does not let the sites take benefit of video as a learning tool, particularly for people who can’t read well, according to Wikimedia.One of the reasons is that widely-available video cameras, including those on mobile phones, do not record using the open formats - Ogg Theora and WebM - supported by Wikimedia.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Link: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2089000/wikimedia-mulls-support-for-patentencumbered-video-file-format.html#tk.rss_all