Ogg Theora and video tag

Ogg Theora is becoming a big deal, and that's exactly what we hoped for when we launched the PlayOgg campaign in May 2007. The free, patent-unencumbered video codec now works in over 24% of the world's web browsers with no plugins required. The latest 1.1 release of the Theora encoder is coming out any day now. And when it does, the huge improvements in quality and functionality made over the past year with support from Wikimedia and others will percolate out into the major GNU/Linux distributions, arriving at the fingertips of those who build and maintain the world's biggest video sites. Most of all, people are excited, releasing new tools that make the Theora easier to use, as well as jaw-dropping demos of what free formats and web standards can do.

I'm freshly arrived from Berlin, where FLOSSManuals just hosted a book sprint on everything Theora, from politics to playback, encoding, hosting and even streaming--all using free software and web standards. The main goal of the trip was to get an idea of where Theora is at: what's working well, what's still difficult, and the best ways to push adoption forward (both by organizing people and by making easier-to-use tools). Overall, I think we're close to something that can work for large numbers of people watching and publishing video, though there are still some tricky bits and sacrifices that--in an ideal world--you wouldn't have to make. Wherever possible I've linked to the relevant bits in our new Theora manual for anyone who wants to learn more.