Google Open-Sources the VP8 Video Codec

Google open-sourced the VP8 video codec in May 2010 after acquiring On2 Technologies. The codec became the core of the new WebM media format, paired initially with Vorbis audio and a Matroska-derived container.

At the time, browser video was caught between open-web ideals and patent-heavy codecs such as H.264. VP8 used block-based compression, motion prediction, transform coding, quantization, and entropy coding to reduce video size while preserving acceptable quality. Making the implementation and specification openly available gave browser vendors another option for HTML5 video.

WebM did not eliminate H.264, but it started a longer Google effort around royalty-free web video. VP9 followed, and much of the same ecosystem later contributed to AV1 through the Alliance for Open Media.