Slashdot Mirror

If MPEGLA pull their heads out of their arses and makes the codec as cheap to use as MPEG2

The problem is that it's not just the MPEG LA. It's HEVC Advance, it's Velos Media, and it's individual companies that aren't in any patent pool. There's a reason why Leonardo Chiariglione calls HEVC an unusable modern standard.

AV1 will almost certainly be as dead in the water as Theora was

Theora never had the backing AV1 has. Theora wasn't on the roadmap for YouTube and Netflix.

back in 2014

Yes, that was when there was still hope that the patent licensing mess would be resolved.

H.265 licensing has only become worse. Three patent pools (MPEG LA, HEVC Advance, Velos Media, one of which has not even announced terms, and companies like Technicolor who are not in any patent pool so you need a separate license from them. It's complete a joke. H.265 licensing is simply impractical.

It's cheaper and simpler to go with royalty-free formats like VP9 today and AV1 in future.

baked into all hardware

There's broad hardware support for VP9 as well. The major CPU and GPU manufacturers are all members of the Alliance for Open Media, so eventually they'll all have AV1 support when it's finished.

The licensing mess around H.265 makes it a non-starter. There are three separate patent pools you need to buy a license from (MPEG LA, HEVC Advance, and Velos Media).

No one can tell you what your final licensing cost will end up being. Velos Media hasn't even announced their licensing terms yet. Some companies, like Technicolor, are not in any patent pool so you need to negotiate a separate license will them.

The farcical licensing situation makes H.265 impractical. VP9 and AV1, in contrast, are both royalty-free for all use cases. There's no point wasting time with licensing uncertainty when you can just go ahead and use royalty-free codecs.

Can someone explain to me how this is bad when both nvidia and amd's newer cards do hardware HEVC encoding?

Because the royalty licensing cost is passed on to you as the end user. You're paying extra for the codec rent. Additionally, there are, for example, content distribution royalties. So a company like Netflix is paying extra for merely transmitting HEVC content over the Internet and those costs also get passed on to you as the end user. Additionally, the Velos Media patent pool hasn't even announced its royalty rates. Who knows what they'll charge.

In the end, this anti-web licensing creates a pay-to-play environment where only the big boys can afford to play. I don't know about you, but that's not the web I want.

Secondly, as a end user if I want to play back HEVC videos there are many arm TV boxes I can get for under $100 which do hardware HEVC decoding.

There are many ARM TV boxes that you can get for under $100 which do VP9 decoding. There will be plenty of ARM TV boxes which you can get for under $100 which do AV1 decoding once AV1 is finished.

Formats, like HEVC, which require payment for patent royalties work against your individual interests. Don't support such formats.

The main problem with HEVC is the patent licensing. In order to use HEVC you need to get 3 different patent licenses from 3 different patent pools (MPEG LA, HEVC Advance, and Velos Media).

There are some companies with HEVC patents, like Technicolor, which aren't in any patent pool so you also need to get a patent license from them. Technicolor says they have done this "to enable direct licensing" of their HEVC patents. Sounds convenient.

The patent licensing situation has reduced the x265 developers to begging the patent pools for better licensing terms. I recognise the x265 team is trying to make a buck but I think they'd be better off focusing on building an AV1 implementation than throwing their lot in with HEVC. HEVC's licensing is just not web friendly.

Luckily, the HEIF image format is content format agnostic (presentation and slides). In principle you could use HEIF with VP9 or with AV1. Apple may never support VP9 but I don't think they can avoid adding support for AV1 in future. AV1 will have too many advantages over HEVC (better performance, royalty-free licensing) to ignore.

VP9 contains patented technology (much like HEVC)

The issue isn't patents, the issue is the licensing. Baseline JPEG has always contained patented technology but it was licensed under royalty-free terms so everyone was free to use JPEG. Similarly, VP9 contains patented technology which is licensed under royalty-free terms and everyone is free to use it.

This is wholly unlike HEVC. To use HEVC you must buy three separate licenses from three separate patent pools (MPEG LA, HEVC Advance, and Velos Media) and then negotiate additional licenses from companies like Technicolor that aren't in any patent pool.

Apple would have to grant Google free use of its patents

Flatly wrong. Remember that Intel supports VP9 in hardware. Remember that Microsoft supports VP9 in Edge. Read the license and read the licensing FAQ.

As for AV1... well... among other things, it's not finished:

But as you say, it'll be finished at the end of this year. AV1 also outperforms HEVC and has broad industry backing. HEVC has no future.

Why? Give us one good reason why Apple should bother with any of these.

Three good reasons:

1. VP8, VP9, and AV1 are royalty-free. Anyone can use them to encode and decode for any purpose without paying licensing fees. HEVC, in contrast, requires you to buy separate three licenses from three separate patent pools (MPEG LA, HEVC Advance, and Velos Media). Additionally you must negotiate another license from Technicolor to use HEVC and licenses from any other company that isn't in one of the three patent pools.

2. AV1 already outperforms HEVC in coding efficiency. The goal is to be 30% better than HEVC by the time AV1 is released at the end of this year.

3. Most of the major browser vendors are in the Alliance for Open Media which develops AV1. Apple is the only one that isn't.

HEVC is a losing proposition. Apple's making a mistake here.

It may be a licensing mess, but it's one that *will* get resolved

Unlikely. There are two separate patent pools (MPEG LA and HEVC Advance) with different licensing structures and fees. That licensing uncertainty will drive people to use AV1 instead. There's just no point trying to engage with HEVC for web video when AV1 offers a hassle-free license.