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MPEG LA Declares H.264 Standard Permanently Royalty-Free

Peace said:
umm..h.264 is in IE8 and 9. The only browser that won't support it is Firefox.

http://marketshare.hitslink.com/report.aspx?qprid=0
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Depends on were you are doing your counter. One I like to look at often will put a FF+Opera well over 30%.

Opera is not supporting h.264 either. So Opera+FF = around 25% of the market. so around 25% of the market i not supporting h.264.

Safari around 5% - the ONLY browser that is not going to be able to play WebM.

25 is a lot greater than 5
 
Rodimus Prime said:
Depends on were you are doing your counter. One I like to look at often will put a FF+Opera well over 30%.

Opera is not supporting h.264 either. So Opera+FF = around 25% of the market. so around 25% of the market i not supporting h.264.

Safari around 5% - the ONLY browser that is not going to be able to play WebM.

25 is a lot greater than 5
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Safari is going to allow the WebM plug-in.

"Software
Support by Mozilla Firefox,[6][7] Opera,[8][9] and Google Chrome[10] was announced at the 2010 Google I/O conference. Internet Explorer 9 will also be able to support WebM files if the VP8 codec is installed locally.[11] Safari on the desktop supports any codec installed in QuickTime,[12] allowing future WebM playback using QuickTime codec components such as Perian.[13]"

Provided VP8 can get it's act together. There are still validity questions behind the WebM codec being too close to h.264.
 
WebM and Ogg have one big problem, it's not sure if there are any patents involved or not. No one has sued yet, but no company worth of sueing has used it yet. It's claimed they do not, but no know for sure, thus they're no real alternative to h.264. If companies with big enough pockets start to use them, somone with patents might emerge.
 
PeterQVenkman said:
Hey, if you like being nickle and dimed to death by all of this BS, then more power to you.
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What's the big deal here? An organization makes the best video content delivery format available in order to deliver video content to you in the highest quality possible at the lowest possible bit rate and you cry about being nickle and dimed to use it?

...BS indeed.
 
It seems that most of you here are on the H.264 bandwagon because Apple supports it. But I'm actually rooting for WebM to win out. Zero fees to use regardless of if you are making money from videos or not. How is that a bad thing? I agree with Apple that Flash needs to die, but Apple should be providing native support for WebM on Safari.
 
Peace said:
umm..h.264 is in IE8 and 9. The only browser that won't support it is Firefox.

http://marketshare.hitslink.com/report.aspx?qprid=0
Click to expand...

I think a better way of putting it is that "h.264 is in Windows 7", and IE8 and IE9 use any codec registered with the system.

You can download and install (free) h.264 codecs for XP and Vista, but I don't think that IE8 or IE9 install them for you.

Once a codec is installed on a Windows system, it's available to any application that uses the video frameworks. (There's a legacy framework as well as the current - many applications and codecs provide support for both - but an application that only supports the legacy framework won't be able to use a codec that only supports the modern framework.)
 
blackpond said:
What's the big deal here? An organization makes the best video content delivery format available in order to deliver video content to you in the highest quality possible at the lowest possible bit rate and you cry about being nickle and dimed to use it?
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Why are you so excited about it? Why support a patent troll company like MPEG LA that will sue anyone at the drop of a hat? Take a look at their news:

http://www.mpegla.com/main/Pages/Media.aspx

It's full of lawsuits.

At least Adobe never charged people per video they encoded. But hey, let's all celebrate the death of Adobe and welcome the new micro-transaction, micro-license fee future lorded over by MPEG LA and others of their ilk.

No thanks. I'll use other formats whenever possible.

Peace said:
There are still validity questions behind the WebM codec being too close to h.264.
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I think MPEG LA is trying to scare off people from using WebM at all - the only real questions were raised by WebM's biggest competitor. It's a business tactic. Nobody wants to take on the initial risk of an expensive lawsuit with a patent troll like MPEG LA. Even if WebM wins, it would likely be an expensive trial tied up for years with appeals which MPEG LA would use to their advantage. During this time they would probably try to keep WebM out of the market until after trial, while MPEG LA continues to build market share.
 
Flash3441 said:
It seems that most of you here are on the H.264 bandwagon because Apple supports it. But I'm actually rooting for WebM to win out. Zero fees to use regardless of if you are making money from videos or not. How is that a bad thing? I agree with Apple that Flash needs to die, but Apple should be providing native support for WebM on Safari.
Click to expand...

Couldn't agree more... Apple can be very stubborn. Here's hoping WebM wins out.

Just want to say I'm neither for or against the MPEG LA strategy. They're doing what they want just as Google is doing what they want with WebM. Can't wait to see what happens next.

By the way... did you buy a Beta or VHS player. Cheers.
 
sziehr said:
well this is great news. There is no question apple won this war after what they learned with firewire free is the way to fly. This is going to hurt googles own project and solidly kill flash. There is now no reason not to do html5 and h.264 encoding of all online content
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I think Google is having a victory party. It was pretty clear that their intent was to either steal H264s market share on the web or force them to make it free.

Mission Accomplished.
 
Wirelessly posted (Opera/9.80 (S60; SymbOS; Opera Mobi/499; U; en-US) Presto/2.4.18 Version/10.00)

great. Now mozilla can get on board. Google's code isn't going anywhere -:D
 
nebular said:
Wirelessly posted (Opera/9.80 (S60; SymbOS; Opera Mobi/499; U; en-US) Presto/2.4.18 Version/10.00)

great. Now mozilla can get on board. Google's code isn't going anywhere -:D
Click to expand...

Nope; WebM is still free. H264 still costs money to distribute a decoder.
 
Amdahl said:
I think Google is having a victory party. It was pretty clear that their intent was to either steal H264s market share on the web or force them to make it free.

Mission Accomplished.
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When did H.264 become free ? Did you actually just misunderstand what this story is about ?

:rolleyes:

Nothing has changed people. H.264 is the same today as it was yesterday. There was a question about whether MPEG-LA would start charging end-users in 2016. This has just been answered. Nothing else was changed, and H.264 is still royalty encumbered as it was.
 
MacRumors said:
H.264 is the video content standard that has been embraced by a broad array of content providers including Apple, which owns several of the patents included in the technology's portfolio.
Click to expand...

If by several, you mean one, you may be correct...
 
awmazz said:
Sell a decoder. Distributing a free decoder for free is free of fees. Say that really fast free times. ;)
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Nope decoder still have to pay fees. the only thing that is free is video that is encoded

Encoders and decoder still have to pay a fee no matter if they are given away free or not. In mozzilla's case that will cost them 5 mil this year and more than that next year as the rate goes up.

The quoted post is a prim example of the complete miss understanding of the issue people here are having.
 
Rodimus Prime said:
Nope decoder still have to pay fees. the only thing that is free is video that is encoded

Encoders and decoder still have to pay a fee no matter if they are given away free or not. In mozzilla's case that will cost them 5 mil this year and more than that next year as the rate goes up.

The quoted post is a prim example of the complete miss understanding of the issue people here are having.
Click to expand...

OS X include a H.264 decoder? Check.
Windows include a H.264 decoder? Check.
Mozilla release products for OS X and Windows? Check.

Not really sure what the issue would be.

Even if Mozilla released a decoder, the license clearly states products sold. Mozilla doesn't sell FireFox ;)
 
ptysell said:
OS X include a H.264 decoder? Check.
Windows include a H.264 decoder? Check.
Mozilla release products for OS X and Windows? Check.

Not really sure what the issue would be.

Even if Mozilla released a decoder, the license clearly states products sold. Mozilla doesn't sell FireFox ;)
Click to expand...

Again you all are not understanding.
The part of the license you are refering to is only talking about video's encoded in h.264. It is not talking about encoder and decoders which are very different and are not royalty free.

Also firefox is not designed to actess the video codec on a computer and I would not put it past both apple and ms to block direct actess to that part of the OS to 3rd part software. Now plug ins (quicktime or wmp) is another story but are those are first party plug in.

Either way you missed the point.
 
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