… for Codecs & Media

Tip #453: What is WebM?

WebM is supported by Mozilla, Firefox, Opera and Google Chrome.

Developed and owned by Google, WebM is an audiovisual media file format. It is primarily intended to offer a royalty-free alternative to use in the HTML5 video and the HTML5 audio elements. It has a sister project WebP for images. The development of the format is sponsored by Google, and the corresponding software is distributed under a BSD license. There is some dispute, however, if WebM is truly royalty-free.

According to Wikipedia, native WebM support by Mozilla Firefox, Opera, and Google Chrome was announced at the 2010 Google I/O conference. Internet Explorer 9 requires third-party WebM software. Safari for macOS which relied on QuickTime to play web media until Safari 12, still does not have native support for WebM.

VLC media player, MPlayer, K-Multimedia Player and JRiver Media Center have native support for playing WebM files Android also supports WebM.

Here’s a link to learn more.