This one is open-source and royalty-free, and has the backing of Amazon, Cisco, Google, Intel, Microsoft, Mozilla and Netflix.
• Interoperable and open;
• Optimized for the web;
• Scalable to any modern device at any bandwidth;
• Designed with a low computational footprint and optimized for hardware;
• Capable of consistent, highest-quality, real-time video delivery; and
• Flexible for both commercial and non-commercial content, including user-generated content.
You're thinking the last bullet point is about DRM and the first bullet point is therefore a lie. But this is just a new codec, unless I'm very much mistaken—the DRM will go in the container.
Here's Mozilla's David Bryant:
Things are moving fast for royalty-free video codecs. A month ago, the IETF NETVC Working Group had its first meeting and two weeks ago Cisco announced Thor. Today, we're taking the next big step in this industry-wide effort with the formation of the Alliance for Open Media. Its founding members represent some of the biggest names in online video, such as Netflix, Amazon, and YouTube, multiple browser vendors including Mozilla, Microsoft, and Google, and key technology providers like Cisco and Intel. The Alliance has come together to share technology and run the kind of patent analysis necessary to build a next-generation royalty-free video codec.
Wired's Klint Finley points out that Apple isn't on board:
The danger is that the alliance could create confusion by creating yet another standard. Google already created a format called VP10; Mozilla has one called Daala; and Cisco recently released one called Thor. But bringing all the major players together reduces the chances of redundancies and makes it more likely that they will all settle on one standard instead of working in isolation on independent standards. Engineers from both Cisco and Google have contributed to Daala in the past, so there's precedent for collaboration among these groups.
