Codec H.264 is technology used for encode and decode video created of Microsoft and it is more and more integrated in videocameras, Blu-ray players, online video streaming, etc. Flash already has integrated this coded in its flash player.

As Firefox is second used browser in the world, but they are reluctant to hand over the licensing fees to Microsoft an integrate this codec by their self, Microsoft release a plugin that allows Firefox to tap into Windows 7′s native H.264 support for HTML5 video. This will hopefully help streamline things on the web and get us moving all towards one standard format. However it mightn’t bode well with fans who want to make the move away from H.264. They announced:

H.264 is a widely-used industry standard, with broad and strong hardware support. This standardization allows users to easily take what they’ve recorded on a typical consumer video camera, put it on the Web, and have it play in a web browser on any operating system or device with H.264 support, such as on a PC with Windows 7, The HTML5 Extension for Windows Media Player Firefox Plug-in continues to offer our customers value and choice, since those who have Windows 7 and are using Firefox will now be able to watch H.264 content through the plug-in.

Tags | Firefox, Multimedia, plugin, Video, Video Codec, Windows 7