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Using patent-free audio and video codecs on the web has always been problematic due to poor support in Safari. According to the Safari 15 release notes, though, this might be starting to change. WebM video is apparently now supported in MSE on iPadOS 15, and the Opus audio codec is supported in WebM containers.

According to Can I Use, though, (WebM, Opus) the situation didn't change with i(Pad)OS 15. On mobile devices, WebM is only supported for WebRTC, and Opus only works if you use a CAF container—which no other browser supports.

My experiments suggest that, unfortunately, Can I Use is correct. I was wondering, though, if anyone can clear up the mystery. Are the release notes just wrong, as seems to be the case? Am I misunderstanding the release notes somehow? Is there some trick that allows you to use these codecs after all?

David
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Pete
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  • Some WebKit bug reports that might be relevant: https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=183852 https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=176650 https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=176651 https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=238546 https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=226922 https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=227111 – Brad May 14 '22 at 20:19
  • Some Test pages: [MSE browser tests](https://w3c-test.org/media-source/mediasource-is-type-supported.html) Parent directory has more, [MSE tests for audio in different containers](https://chrisguttandin.github.io/mse-tests/) ([Source](https://github.com/chrisguttandin/mse-tests)), [Different audio formats](http://hpr.dogphilosophy.net/test/) Has a .caf testfile – cachius May 22 '22 at 22:32
  • Thanks, that seems to confirm that Can I Use is correct. I'm still curious why the release notes seem to say something different. Hopefully this will all be sorted out in a future Safari release, though, and these formats will be fully supported. – Pete May 24 '22 at 16:44
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    If you want to play Ogg Opus, https://github.com/Web-Media-Foundation/infrastructure/tree/master/packages/ogg-polyfill can help repackage it into caf right in the browser. Even with CAF, the Apple Safari media stack still only supports Opus hard CBR. – Mingye Wang Aug 08 '23 at 09:00

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