[Vorbis] XiphQT / Theora Questions

[Kyle]

I have a video camera that unfortunately forces me to decode patent 
encumbered h.264 videos. Since they are recorded at extreme bitrates, I 
transcode them to WebM to save storage space. I've had no problems using 
Firefogg to transcode these videos to either WebM or Ogg Theora, but 
that may be due to the fact that I have my own ffmpeg installed along 
with libx264, which installs as a dependency of my ffmpeg. It's possible 
that Firefogg is using my installed libx264 to decode my videos, but 
since it has its own built-in ffmpeg, I'm not sure if this is in fact 
the case. If so, you should be able to install libx264 or whatever your 
distro calls it, and Firefogg should be able to transcode your files to 
Theora. Also, if you have the server space, it may be a good idea to 
transcode your original video to both Ogg Theora and WebM formats, so 
that if someone has a supported browser, they can see the current 
quality advantage of the VP8 video codec. If not, Theora certainly does 
have the best compatibility for now, and I don't foresee any issues in 
the future, as the codec is still in active development as far as I 
know, and most browser vendors are committed to support it natively, at 
least for the foreseeable future.