Using "whatever codecs the user has installed" is the very non-solution that has already been in place for over a decade by means of the <object>/<embed> tags. The result of that was eleventy hojillion attempts to make the ultimate codec, every single one a failure.
Even when <object> based video worked, the plugin architecture made it slow, unstable, unpredictable and generally a horrible user experience. The only reason we have video at all today is because Flash provides it internally.
Any web video standard that fails to standardize the codec has made zero direct progress. However, it looks like the HTML5 attempt may have resulted in an acceptable defacto standard: a browser must support one or both of H.264 and/or Theora. Since the <video> tag makes it easy to provide both formats, I think this is a compromise that web developers will be able to live with.
Even when <object> based video worked, the plugin architecture made it slow, unstable, unpredictable and generally a horrible user experience. The only reason we have video at all today is because Flash provides it internally.
Any web video standard that fails to standardize the codec has made zero direct progress. However, it looks like the HTML5 attempt may have resulted in an acceptable defacto standard: a browser must support one or both of H.264 and/or Theora. Since the <video> tag makes it easy to provide both formats, I think this is a compromise that web developers will be able to live with.