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MPEG LA Declares H.264 Standard Permanently Royalty-Free

KnightWRX said:
This is how it is. Why is it that you guys think "hardware h*.264 decoding" is some kind of gate logic applied only to H.264 ? Seriously, this idea that somehow "H.264 hardware decoders" can only decode h.264 in hardware needs to die. One simply needs to add a new decoder in the firmware to have the hardware be able to decode it.

There's nothing hard about programmable ASICs. This is 2010 for cripes sake, not 1974.
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Thanks for all the info about PNG/GIF!

Regarding video engines, are you sure it's generic and could be updated through firmware? That sounds plausible to me, yet at the same time I can't remember that ever being done...though of course it's possible it COULD be but Nvidia/AMD just don't for whatever reason. I'm not sure if part of...what's Microsoft's Codec? VC1 or something? I'm not sure if Nvidia has ever completely handled that on the GPU, even though they handle MPEG2 and 4 (and it's kind of a moot point since the Microsoft codec isn't as processor intensive as H.264).
 
KnightWRX said:
Nope, the original point was that BabyjenniferLB thought you had no choice but to replace hardware to add functionality. I pointed out that these things use programmable ASICs and that gate level logic is a thing of the past.

You decided to narrow it down to video decoding on embedded devices. The fact that video decoding on embedded is new and that in that time H.264 is about the only codec that appeared on the market leaves little examples of what you ask for.
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In some respects, to GPUs, you still have to replace hardware to get functionality. At one time ATI was using the shaders to do all of its video decoding. It seems now that ATI has added some dedicated hardware to do it instead. If that hardware hasn't been designed with the idea of adding new "routines" to help with decoding WebM or any other video format then you will need new hardware.

Otherwise, why wouldn't ATI and Nvidia just use the stream processors (which are programmable) to do all the work?
 
diamond.g said:
Otherwise, why wouldn't ATI and Nvidia just use the stream processors (which are programmable) to do all the work?
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Because stream processors are limited in what they can do and aren't that powerful by themselves. The reason why GPU computing is so powerful because there are hundreds if not thousands of these stream cores on a single die.
 
Update: The Register reports on comments from Mozilla vice president of engineering Mike Shaver where he questions the impact of MPEG LA's statement, noting that the announcement changes nothing over the short term and even over the longer term applies only to free video broadcasts using the standard and not to those looking to incorporate H.264 technology into their products.

"The MPEG-LA announcement doesn't change anything for the next four years, since this promise was already made through 2014," he says in the statement shared with the The Reg. "Given that IEC [International Electrotechnical Commission] has already started accepting submissions for patents in the replacement H.265 standard, and the rise of unencumbered formats like WebM, it is not clear if H.264 will still be relevant in 2014."

It should also be noted that the MPEG-LA's license change does not apply to H.264 products and services other than free video broadcasts.
Consequently, Mozilla and Opera may still remain pledged to the WebM format, believing that Google's claims of it being truly royalty-free will hold up under the scrutiny of patent holders.
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Now remember what I said – search for it – it won't change a thing!

Some people here have many hats you know; I have been wearing a Mozilla.org hat [as contributor] ever since 1999. I also "invest" up to $500000 each year to spread the word of love aka Open Source.
 
free as in smokescreen

German said:
We want to make sure that the Web experience is good for all users, present and future.
http://shaver.off.net/diary/2010/01/...eo-and-codecs/
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Make that:

"The web is full of headlines today like this one from MacRumors: “MPEG LA Declares H.264 Standard Permanently Royalty-Free”. It would be great if they were accurate, but unfortunately they very much are not.

What MPEG-LA announced is that their current moratorium on charging fees for the transmission of H.264 content, previously extended through 2015 for uses that don’t charge users, is now permanent. You still have to pay for a license for H.264 if you want to make things that create it, consume it, or your business model for distributing it is direct rather than indirect.

What they’ve made permanently free is distribution of content that people have already licensed to encode, and will need a license to decode. This is similar to Nikon announcing that they will not charge you if you put your pictures up on Flickr, or HP promising that they will never charge you additionally if you photocopy something that you printed on a LaserJet. (Nikon and HP are used in the preceding examples without their consent, and to my knowledge have never tried anything as ridiculous as trying to set license terms on what people create with their products.)

H.264 has not become materially more free in the past days. The promise made by the MPEG-LA was already in force until 2015, has no effect on those consuming or producing H.264 content, and is predicated on the notion that they should be controlling mere copying of bits at all! Unfortunately, H.264 is no more suitable as a foundational technology for the open web than it was last year. Perhaps it will become such in the future — Mozilla would very much welcome a real royalty-free promise for H.264 — but only the MPEG-LA can make that happen."

http://shaver.off.net/diary/2010/08/27/free-as-in-smokescreen/
 
Master Chief said:
and to my knowledge have never tried anything as ridiculous as trying to set license terms on what people create with their products.
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Well this bit I can easily agree with because asking for royalties on streamed paid H.264 content is like Adobe asking for royalties on paid downloaded porn images retouched in Photoshop. That's just plain don't know what, yet another example of how copyright law for literature/entertainment is being greedily and wrongly applied to machine code which is a tool to create literature/entertainment, not literature/entertainment. Same old argument.

Pay for the encoder, fair enough, but after that what you create and encode with it is yours.

PS. Any H.264 decoder is still free of royalty if given away free, regardless, if I read that relevant license paragrah correctly.

Edit - unless I'm mistaken, and the royalties are for a patent of actually 'streaming video' and not just encoding it? Then there's prior art to invalidate the patent anyway. I recall they had 'streaming video' even back in the 1950s on things called television sets.
 
awmazz said:
PS. Any H.264 decoder is still free of royalty if given away free, regardless, if I read that relevant license paragrah correctly.
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I think you are reading it wrong. Giving something away for free is still be sold just at a cost of 0.00. Also only free for the first 100k of downloads then so much for each one after it up to the max.

When mozzila is saying they would have to pay the max for firefox I am going to take their word and understanding of the law more than our armchair lawyers here who clearly do not fully understand it.
 
Rodimus Prime said:
I think you are reading it wrong. Giving something away for free is still be sold just at a cost of 0.00.
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I'm not reading the dictionary wrong. Sell - exchange for money.

I believe you are under the false impression that $0.00 is actually money.
 
awmazz said:
I'm not reading the dictionary wrong. Sell - exchange for money.

I believe you are under the false impression that $0.00 is actually money.
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I guess it begs the question, why did Mozilla claim they would have to pay the 5 million? It appears the parts that affect Mozilla hasn't changed, so why would they not have to pay now?
 
Depends on the language. Firefox generates a decent amount of revenue. Google pays them a decent amount of money for search traffic. They also have other revenue streams. Some people mention OEM placement, I don't know anything about that.

It has been several years since Mozilla has been this feel-good project. It is now a business designed to generate money and income. So I don't give two flips if they have to pay money to license the technology.
 
awmazz said:
I'm not reading the dictionary wrong. Sell - exchange for money.

I believe you are under the false impression that $0.00 is actually money.
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Either way I am going to trust Mozilla lawyers/legal department a hell of a lot more than I trust the people here saying they do not have to pay.
The lawyers understand this a hell of a low more that people here screaming h.264 because that is what Apple says.

If Apple came out tomorrow and said WebM is the way to go for video over the web the people here would be screaming death to h264
 
Rodimus Prime said:
If Apple came out tomorrow and said WebM is the way to go for video over the web the people here would be screaming death to h264
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Ridiculous! H.264 is supported because it is an OPEN standard and you will find equal support for it here as you would any other ISO standard. Like Office Open XML, for example.

Painting a de facto standard, in which you have a vested interest as a licensor, with the whitewash of international standardization because you have sold millions of devices that incorporate said technology is not the sort of underhand activity Apple would undertake. What next? Are you going to accuse them of seeking to use IP legislation to try and sink, or otherwise hinder, adoption of competing technology that offers fewer restrictions? :eek:
 
marksman said:
It has been several years since Mozilla has been this feel-good project.
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Eh? It's still a non-profit, and still open source...the only major browser that can say either of those things.

Rodimus Prime said:
Either way I am going to trust Mozilla lawyers/legal department a hell of a lot more than I trust the people here saying they do not have to pay.
The lawyers understand this a hell of a low more that people here screaming h.264 because that is what Apple says.

If Apple came out tomorrow and said WebM is the way to go for video over the web the people here would be screaming death to h264
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I thought I was going to comment on this, and realized yeah...that says it all :)

AlmostThere said:
Ridiculous! H.264 is supported because it is an OPEN standard
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No, it isn't. It's proprietary, hence the problem.
 
Wolfpup said:
No, it isn't. It's proprietary, hence the problem.
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It is an open standard controlled by a standards group, not any single vendor. It is openly licensed to anyone willing to pay the fees. Open does not always mean free.
 
BaldiMac said:
It is an open standard controlled by a standards group, not any single vendor. It is openly licensed to anyone willing to pay the fees. Open does not always mean free.
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To be fair, there's not an official definition for "open standard", but many definitions preclude something you have to pay for, or something that's not truly open.
 
Wolfpup said:
To be fair, there's not an official definition for "open standard", but many definitions preclude something you have to pay for, or something that's not truly open.
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To be fair, you claimed that it wasn't an open standard. If it meets one common definition, than it is an open standard.

You also claimed that it is proprietary. It is not.
 
BaldiMac said:
To be fair, you claimed that it wasn't an open standard. If it meets one common definition, than it is an open standard.

You also claimed that it is proprietary. It is not.
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It absolutely is proprietary, and as such calling it an "open" standard is dubious.
 
Wolfpup said:
I don't know who owns what, but I'd assume it would be fairly easy for you to find out if you're curious.
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The answer is nobody owns H.264. It was developed by a standards group and openly licensed. Hence, open standard.
 
AlmostThere said:
Ridiculous! H.264 is supported because it is an OPEN standard and you will find equal support for it here as you would any other ISO standard.
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So - where is the support of the ISO Standard ODF in iWork?

Like Office Open XML, for example.
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Open XML is just an ISO "Standard" because MS cheated.
http://ooxmlisdefectivebydesign.blogspot.com/2007/08/microsoft-office-xml-formats-defective.html
http://www.adjb.net/post/Microsoft-Fails-the-Standards-Test.aspx
 
BaldiMac said:
The answer is nobody owns H.264. It was developed by a standards group and openly licensed. Hence, open standard.
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Wrong answer. If no one owned it, it would be free to use...and an open standard. If you're actually curious about who owns it, Google.
 
Wolfpup said:
Wrong answer. If no one owned it, it would be free to use...and an open standard. If you're actually curious about who owns it, Google.
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You should try Google yourself. H.264 is not owned by anyone. It does include patented technology that anyone who uses H.264 would have to license. These patents do not entitle their owners to any ownership of the H.264 standard.
 
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