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but is there any reason this is a big deal ?

Yes, AV1 is a royalty-free, efficient video codec that has good industry support. Anyone can implement AV1 without having to pay patent licensing fees, as opposed to H.264 and most especially as opposed to HEVC (aka H.265).

AV1 outperforms VP9 and as time goes on AV1 will become the dominant video codec on the web.

http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/AVC/Pages/Licensors.aspx

That's the AVC (aka H.264) patent pool. The MPEG LA's HEVC patent pool is different. Microsoft and Google, for example, are not part of it.

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.

Er? Are you joking? MS is part of the MPEG-LA. Now I don't know if they have patents in H.265 but they had them in H.264

What do they have?

Apple has a number of patents in the MPEG LA pool.

What do they have?

Apple has a number of patents in the MPEG LA pool.

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.

Here is the original MPEG-LA press release. They really did entitle it "call for patents", which is obnoxious because it plays off of "call for papers", which is a call to share technology information, not restrict it. This type of turning a phrase to be the opposite and evil intention of its original reminds me of Braveheart's jus primae noctis.

Google does make money from YouTube and the better the experience of the users, the more YouTube usage will continue to climb, and the more money Google will make from it. So, yes, by providing a better experience to its users, Google will make more money.

The H.264 royalties required for subscription and particular for title-by-title video are also a factor. VP9, of course, has no such royalties.

From Wikipedia

On September 29, 2014, MPEG LA announced their HEVC license which covers the essential patents from 23 companies.[24] The license is US$0.20 per HEVC product after the first 100,000 units each year with an annual cap.

[24] http://www.mpegla.com/main/pro... (PDF)

and there's no guarantee that MPEG LA won't begin charging for streams in the future

Sure there is.

http://www.mpegla.com/Lists/MP...

Where the title is:

MPEG LA’s AVC License Will Not Charge Royalties for Internet Video that is Free to End Users through Life of License

The device manufacturers are after all free to implement hardware decoders for open codecs as well, and unlike H.264 they don't even need to pay any royalty fees to do so.

The thirty H.264 licensors are for the globally dominant players in digital video and so are paying royalties to themselves. We are talking pennies or fractions of a penny per unit here for a cartel the size of Mitsubishi.

There is an enterprise cap on H.264 royalties.

There are 1,300 H.264 licensees --- each fabulously wealthy in their own right --- and each with a commitment to H.264 that extends far beyond the web.

AVC/H.264 Licensees

The numbers game:

Disney's Frozen "Let It Go" Sequence Performed by Idina Menzel

Released for distribution through YouTube December 6th. Protected content. 94.7 million views. Should reach 100 million views by mid-week. A plausible guess for all things Frozen on You Tube would be 200-250 million views before Oscar night:

Let It Go - Frozen - Alex Boye (Africanized Tribal Cover) 6 million views in three days.

Now place yourself in the position of the device manufacturer.

Do you prioritize for the open media of Wikimedia or for H.264 and Disney?

As I understand that press release, MPEG-LA has committed to refrain from charging a royalty for making already encoded videos available to the public without charge. It didn't mention anything about royalties for obtaining lawfully made encoder software in the first place, such as the encoder needed to thumbnail a 1080p video down to 720p, 480p, 360p, and 240p.

Not even just that it's almost certainly covered by a pile of patents, but unlike H.264, there isn't any clarity yet about which ones, and what the licensing terms will be like. Will the categories of royalty-free use granted to H.264 codecs also be applied to H.265? Nobody seems to know. MPEG-LA hasn't issued an update since June 2012, at which point they were still at the stage of calling for patent-holders to submit claims.

No, Lightpeak is Intel, Thunderbolt is Apple

Light Peak was the code name for Thunderbolt which was developed by Intel and Intel owns the full rights to the trademark. It uses an Apple developed connector and Apple was the first ones to put Thunderbolt on their machines but it is unambiguously an Intel owned technology.

Intel developed Lightpeak, Apple simply purchased the technology and named it Thunderbolt, hence Apple owns the trademark on that one.

Apple transferred the Thunderbolt trademark to Intel about two years ago.

If you want to use IEEE1394, you need to pay... Apple.

As well as 9 other corporations that hold essential patent rights to the technology in IEEE1394.

Waiting for the inevitable mod-down by Apple fanboys who dont like the truth.

Since virtually all your facts are wrong you might consider taking a less adversarial tone.

Did anyone really expect the MPEG-LA to offer license terms that were amenable to FOSS goals? That would eliminate their ability to exert and enforce control over the market.

WebM is a distribution codec for the web.

The MPEG LA licensors are a global R&D and manufacturing combine of breathtaking size, scope and power. The licensees are built on the same scale. MPEG LA

Do you know that you're likely not allowed to use video shot on your camera commercially? Read the EULA.

Thanks to the codec cartel MPEG LA http://www.osnews.com/story/23236/Why_Our_Civilization_s_Video_Art_and_Culture_is_Threatened_by_the_MPEG-LA

MPEG LA consists of several corporations, including Apple, Microsoft and Sony. http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/AVC/Pages/Licensors.aspx

I'd really love more open source video editor choices on Windows, especially since the decent paid ones are expensive.

The royalties on the AVC. H.264 codec are trivial and come into play only with sales of more than 100,000 units a year.

For [AVC] encoder and decoder products sold both to End Users and on an OEM basis for incorporation into personal computers but not part of a personal computer operating system (a decoder, encoder, or product consisting of one decoder and one encoder = ''unit''), royalties (beginning January 1, 2005) per Legal Entity are 0 - 100,000 units per year = no royalty (this threshold is available to one Legal Entity in an affiliated group); US $0.20 per unit after first 100,000 units each year; above 5 million units per year, royalty = US $0.10 per unit. The maximum annual royalty (''cap'') for an Enterprise (commonly controlled Legal Entities) is $3.5 million per year 2005-2006, $4.25 million per year 2007-08, $5 million per year 2009-10, and $6.5 million per year in 2011-15.8.

SUMMARY OF AVC/H.264 LICENSE TERMS

They still charge for the encoder. Because VP8 is good enough and FREE, is why the big hassle is there.

This is what you owe MPEG LA for the use of a licensed H.264 encoder:

Personal and internal business use: 20 cents a unit, max. Paid by hardware and software manufacturers selling more than 100,000 units each year. Realistically, given the enterprise caps and volume discounts, 10 cents a unit or less.

User pays for content by subscription: Nothing until you have more than 100,000 subscribers.

User pays for content by title: 2 cents a title, max.

Internet distribution free to user is free to distribute. AVC Patent Portfolio License Briefing

It is not too difficult to find VP8 aware video editors. But video cameras, video hardware of kind, for any purpose?

Sigh.

If you sell individual videos more than 12 minutes long, you play MPEG-LA a royalty of of 2% or $0.02 per sale, whichever is less.
If you run a paid subscription service, and you have more than 100,000 subscribers, you pay MPEG-LA a royalty between $0.10 and $0.25 per subscriber per year.
If you broadcast your shows on TV, you pay either a one time fee of $2500 for each encoder, or between $0.005 and $0.01 per viewer per year.

If you make your videos available for free (even if they are ad supported) you pay no royalty.
If you sell videos less than 12 minutes long you pay no royalty.
If you run a subscription service with less than 100,000 subscribers you pay no royalty.

If that "prevents you from becoming a producer", you might want to rethink your business model.

(Source: the AVC/H.264 terms.)

What's interesting is that Apple is a member of MPEG LA: http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/AVC/Pages/Licensors.aspx

This company did not raise prices for their older MPEG1, MPEG2, or MP3 standards, so why do you think they'll suddenly turn evil?

The MPEG LA has quite often raised the price for H.264. The MPEG LA's H.264 license summary talks about past license increases. The royalty cap has increased since 2005:

The maximum annual royalty (“cap”) for an Enterprise (commonly controlled Legal Entities) is $3.5 million per year 2005-2006, $4.25 million per year 2007-08, $5 million per year 2009-10, and $6.5 million per year in 2011-15.

The MPEG LA's H.264 license FAQ specifically addresses their approach to increasing license costs:

Q: Is there a limitation on the amount that royalty rates may increase at each renewal?
A: If royalty rates were to increase, they will not increase by more than 10% at each renewal for specific license grants.*

*Annual Royalty Caps are not subject to the 10% limitation

This company did not raise prices for their older MPEG1, MPEG2, or MP3 standards, so why do you think they'll suddenly turn evil?

The MPEG LA has quite often raised the price for H.264. The MPEG LA's H.264 license summary talks about past license increases. The royalty cap has increased since 2005:

The maximum annual royalty (“cap”) for an Enterprise (commonly controlled Legal Entities) is $3.5 million per year 2005-2006, $4.25 million per year 2007-08, $5 million per year 2009-10, and $6.5 million per year in 2011-15.

The MPEG LA's H.264 license FAQ specifically addresses their approach to increasing license costs:

Q: Is there a limitation on the amount that royalty rates may increase at each renewal?
A: If royalty rates were to increase, they will not increase by more than 10% at each renewal for specific license grants.*

*Annual Royalty Caps are not subject to the 10% limitation

...with no guarantee the fees won't increase in the future

That's rather misleading. There actually are guarantees that the rates won't increase before the end of 2015 (they're even spelled out in the article you linked, as well as the original Terms Summary provided by the MPEG-LA). In addition to those guarantees, there are also guarantees that when they set new rates for the five-year period starting in 2016, the new rates will be no more than 10% above the current ones. Besides that, previous major standards the MPEG-LA have controlled haven't been abused in the way that everyone seems to be worrying h.264 will be abused. So unless you're suggesting that the company suddenly changed the way it does business and will start to show their true face in 2015, that particular argument is not one I'd try to stand on.

"Really? you still don't get the irrelevance of what amounts to nothing more than a press release backed by no actual action"

And you have exactly what evidence to the contrary -- that EMI wanted DRM free music before Apple?

"and you're still asserting this was an Apple led initiative without any evidence demonstrating such?"

At least I have shown statements with dates and times -- and you have shown....nothing.

"Along with Apple. Well, suprise suprise, why might that be I wonder?? It's like the evidence is right there in front of you but your brain selects out the bits about Apple that you just don't want to hear."

And the DOJ lawsuit is about the agency model versus the wholesale model and supposed "price fixing" -- which has nothing to do with DRM.

"Yes these things happened at the same time."

Maybe because Flash sucks on mobile? How on one hand can you advocate open cross platform support and on the other hand advocate..... Flash?

"It was part of the draft for some time as the preferred audio and video standard going forward. It was supported by Firefox, Chrome, and Opera, but was eventually dropped from the spec primarily due to opposition from Apple because they wanted to push a codec they held patents for instead"

So did Apple also push H.264 on the other 30+ licensors?
http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/AVC/Pages/Licensors.aspx

Did Apple push it on the Blu-Ray association? Adobe?

How much hardware support is there for ogg? How good is it compared to H.264?

You do realize there are at least a dozen companies that are part of the patent pool for H.264 don't you?

You have some very strange views my friend. MPEG-LA exists so that something reasonable could be done about all the patents that are involved with specific codecs, and people who wanted to license it could do so from one place rather than dozens. I'm not sure how that is considered being a troll, but apparently having to actually pay for stuff means "troll" to you.

As for something that MPEG-LA did that was friendly and/or supportive of FOSS (although I wonder why it's all about FOSS with you). Here: http://www.mpegla.com/Lists/MPEG%20LA%20News%20List/Attachments/231/n-10-08-26.pdf Not sure how what they do is more or less friendly towards FOSS than commercial products other than FOSS can't be completely free if they want to use other people's work.

In the end this doesn't have a damned thing to do with the technical merits of H.264, that is a red herring and in fact Flash often used h.264. No what mattered is that the community was biting the hand that feeds because Adobe was paying the license fee for the ENTIRE community, well guess what? that's over, pay up suckers.

Not sure what your ranting is all about here, as a web developer of a fairly large set of websites myself, I'm serving h.264 videos for FREE without any stupid flash RIGHT NOW, and it works across all major browsers, and all major smartphones. It's called HTML 5, and it works great, you should try it. Oh, and I paid NOTHING for it, neither as a developer, a publisher, an end user, or as a producer (Many of our videos are our own creation) -- nothing beyond the price of the software that we would have had anyway.

In the end the ONLY ones that got trolled was the FOSS community which Steve jobs played like a harp from hell. It was common knowledge that Jobs hated Flash because it offered a way around his app store, so he talked about how much better his iShiny was without flash and the FOSS community jumped right on board, even though Jobs has always been militant ANTI-FOSS and actually made gates and MSFT look like the Care Bears. it was Jobs that first locked devices to the OS, it was Jobs that first added DRM so you could only use it HIS way, while Adobe let you do any damned thing you wanted, including both distributing AND making a knockoff, did they sue? nope.

Steve jobs hated flash because it crashed A LOT, gave terrible user experiences, ran like crap and sucked down mobile batteries super fast. I rarely miss flash on my iStuff, and I'm glad that it isn't using flash to play video. It just isn't a good user experience when the battery dies out half way through the day. Droids with the early flash builds (early meaning a year AFTER the whole no flash on iOS thing) sucked down the batteries in those terrible. It wasn't until 10.1 which just came out fairly recently that it supported hardware acceleration, and stopped being such a terrible battery hog. Heck flash didn't even support hardware acceleration on the mac at that point either. I'm not sure why anyone would be crying about that bloated piece of crap getting phased out, it's long been time, and it should have and would have been if it wasn't for the lack of a valid video standard on the web, which there now is. As for the rest of your tirade, Jobs was not the ANTI-FOSS, he based his iOS on FOSS, and it still is. Jobs wasn't the first to lock devices to a particular OS, in fact almost ALL devices are locked to their own OS. Unless you've upgraded your fridge, washer, drier, or car to a different OS. You can't change the OS on the nintendo/nintendo 64/sega/ps1/ps2/ps3(anymore)/xbox/xbox 360. So you'd be totally wrong there. iDevices aren't the first, nor the last, just one that you apparently want to change and tens of millions of other customers just DONT CARE. They want stuff that works, and they work great, better than the alternatives.

So as I said i don't care

Because in 4 years (see 2016) when the MPEG-LA is forced to make a decision on what to do about H.264, everyone will be at there mercy. So between now and them, if your media support has been flourishing, and suddenly comes to a screeching halt, your market share will as well.

The license (PDF) says on page four:

The first term of the License runs through 2010, but the License will be renewable for successive five-year periods for the life of any Portfolio patent on reasonable terms and conditions which may take into account prevailing market conditions, changes in technological environment and available commercial products at the time, but for the protection of licensees, royalty rates applicable to specific license grants or specific licensed products will not increase by more than ten percent (10%) at each renewal.

Maybe Google could buy MPEG-LA and end this nonsense once and for all?

MPEG LA manages patent pools.

The AVC/H.264 pool alone represents 29 licensors ---

most of them global industrial giants with no compelling reason to dance to Google's tune.

Here is a small sampling:

Cisco
Fujitsu
HP
Hitachi
NTT
Philips
Mitsubishi
Samsung
Sony
Ericsson
Toshiba

The problem is that if this is allowed, all the companies will start suing each other over technology that they previously added to the standard on the promise of FRAND.

Eg. Look at the large number companies in the H.264 patent list. http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/avc/Documents/avc-att1.pdf

Don't forget that MS has patents in the patent pool and a zillion other patents not in it. They can easily turn around and sue everyone in sight for exorbitant amounts for implementing standards.

And it will happen not just with H.264 but everything else too.

Imagine Nokia suing Motorola and Apple for $50 per phone for implementing LTE (a standard). You'd expect Apple and Motorola to rollout their own 4G network and towers?

Or MS suing Google over patents on Google docs importing MS Office documents (OOXML).

And use inferior technology that is a patent minefield? At least with H.264 I can be certain that my business isn't going to be taken to court one day and I lose it all. With H.264 I don't need to worry about such, and I get better technology (and hardware decoders on almost every kind of device on planet that can show video).

You are being sarcastic right? You do know that when you purchase equipment such as cameras and software that include a H.264 license it's for non-commercial uses only right?. Let say you purchase a shiny new Mac and you purchase Final Cut Pro. Note the "pro" in the name. And you decide to produce professional video and re-distribute it. You must get a license from MPEG-LA to do that. Read the fine print in the Final Cut Pro license.

Additional use licenses and fees are required for use of information encoded in compliance with the MPEG-4 Visual Standard other than the personal and non-commercial use of a consumer (i) in connection with information which has been encoded in compliance with the MPEG-4 Visual Standard by a consumer engaged in a personal and non-commercial activity, and/or (ii) in connection with MPEG-4 encoded video under license from a video provider. Additional information including that relating to promotional,internal and commercial uses and licensing may be obtained from MPEG LA, LLC. See http://www.mpegla.com./

You mentioned "At least with H.264 I can be certain that my business isn't going to be taken to court one day and I lose it all." So I am assuming you are using MPEG-4 for commercial uses and you have contacted MPEG LA for MPEG-4 licenses for each MPEG-4 work that you use commercially correct?

They are converting all of youtube to WebM, and it is the only royalty free web video codec. I'm pretty sure they will beat h.264 in the long run because free wins in the end.

The key word here is "converting."

H.264 is a core technology in digital video with 1,081 licensees. AVC/H.264 Licensees

Studio production.

Broadcast, cable and satellite distribution. Industrial applications. Home video.

You can play Google's YouTube transcode in your browser. WebM may find an anchorage in video chat.

But that is pretty much all you can do with WebM right now.

There is no such thing as amatuer or studio grade production hardware. No such thing as a WebM security camera.

You're paying the people who developed the standard. R&D isn't free you know. I find it hard to believe all the patents in that pool are frivolous.
Also worth noting: I count 8 Android vendors among the AVC licensors, it's a veritable who's who list of software and electronics. Some also use Linux extensively like Sony (eg. my Sony TV runs on an embedded Linux.) This isn't some shell company set up to make a quick buck.

There also isn't a real alternative. Notable for its absence from the AVC licensors list is Google, the ones who are trying to disrupt the system by offering a "free" codec. Free is in quotation marks there because the hidden cost is the uncertainty of you being sued for patent infringement at some point in the future if you use WebM because it may or may not infringe on patents depending on who you ask. Putting your fate in the hands of a single company instead of a consortium that basically represents the entire sector isn't an improvement, no matter how much you believe their "don't be evil" motto.

The very best way open software can avoid this kind of trap is to be on the forefront of technology instead of just recreating free versions of things others have done. But then that takes us back to where we started ... R&D isn't free and some people see a non-zero cost as a problem.

No, the reason for that is that pirates don't pay licensing fees for using codecs. The rest of us ultimately do pay for licensing those codecs or we do without.

As for why, the reason why is that h.264 isn't free for use, which means that Linux and Firefox and all the other free software out there would have to either start charging or nudge people to a pirate codec package.

Firefox should just use codecs provided by the OS. And the licensing costs for OS's are really small :

"royalties (beginning January 1, 2005) per Legal Entity are 0 - 100,000 units per year = no royalty (this threshold is available to one Legal Entity in an affiliated group); US $0.20 per unit after first 100,000 units each year; above 5 million units per year, royalty = US $0.10 per unit. The maximum annual royalty (“cap”) for an Enterprise (commonly controlled Legal Entities) is $3.5 million per year 2005-2006, $4.25 million per year 2007-08, $5 million per year 2009-10, and $6.5 million per year in 2011-15."

Linux users couldn't stomp up $0.20 for a commercial codec add-on ?

At less than 100,000 units/year, the H.264 royalty rate is zero.
From 100,000 to 5,000,000 units/year the rate is $0.20/unit (twenty cents)
and above 5,000,000 units/year, the rate is $0.10 (ten cents), until the maximum cap amount of $6.5 million/year is paid.

Source: http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/avc/Documents/AVC_TermsSummary.pdf

For now. As has been said elsewhere, in a few years those terms are going to change, and nobody knows what they're going to be yet. If I were planning on being in business then, I'd seriously consider not using H.264. It's a minefield just waiting to be touched off.

yes for "now", but if you actually read the link...

The first term of the License runs through 2010, but the License will be renewable for successive five-year periods for the life of any Portfolio patent on reasonable terms and conditions which may take into account prevailing market conditions, changes in technological environment and available commercial products at the time, but for the protection of licensees, royalty rates applicable to specific license grants or specific licensed products will not increase by more than ten percent (10%) at each renewal.

So the royalty rate can't go up more than 10% every 5 years until the patents expire (which is 2 more times)... However, if it follows the MPEG2 license, it will probably go down to less than 1/2 the price per unit at each 5 year point, but keep the maximum cap.

At less than 100,000 units/year, the H.264 royalty rate is zero. From 100,000 to 5,000,000 units/year the rate is $0.20/unit (twenty cents) and above 5,000,000 units/year, the rate is $0.10 (ten cents), until the maximum cap amount of $6.5 million/year is paid.

Source: http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/avc/Documents/AVC_TermsSummary.pdf

For now. As has been said elsewhere, in a few years those terms are going to change, and nobody knows what they're going to be yet. If I were planning on being in business then, I'd seriously consider not using H.264. It's a minefield just waiting to be touched off.

In places where software patents are a load of hogwash (e.g. europe) h.264 and VP8 are equally open

Guffaw. The problem with your logic is that codec patents aren't software patents. Maybe you should actually look at the list of patents.

At less than 100,000 units/year, the H.264 royalty rate is zero.
From 100,000 to 5,000,000 units/year the rate is $0.20/unit (twenty cents)
and above 5,000,000 units/year, the rate is $0.10 (ten cents), until the maximum cap amount of $6.5 million/year is paid.

Source: http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/avc/Documents/AVC_TermsSummary.pdf

last I heard any H.264 decoder for consumers was un-encumbered for non-commercial use.

Then what's this US $0.20 per unit?

Apple devices have big enough margins to easily absorb proprietary codec royalty fees for H264/AAC whereas Android phones have much smaller margins and this is why Google want a free video codec

The "Enterprise Cap" on H.264 royalties is $6.5 million a year.

The maximum is 20 cents a unit on sales of 100,001 to 5 million units. 10 cents a unit above 5 million units. SUMMARY OF AVC/H.264 LICENSE TERMS

These charges are spread across your entire product line.

MPEG-LA does not seem to know what to do with h264 either

There are 1,027 AVC/H.264 Licensees

Digital television. Broadcast, cable and satellite distribution. Big content. Disney. Blu-Ray. Netflix. Medical imaging. Industrial and militray applications.

Someone seems to have a clue.

While WebM remains little more than mediocre YouTube transcode playable in a browser.

Why no mention of Apple? Or Microsoft? They are both members of MPEG-LA, not to mention other sleazy organizations.

There are about thirty AVC/H.264 licensors, most of them global industrial giants like Mitsubishi, Philips and Toshiba. AVC/H.264 Licensors

There are about 1,030 H.264 licensees. AVC/H.264 Licensees

H.264 is theatrical production, Blu Ray, broadcast, cable and sattelite distribution. Medical, industrial and military applications. There is no such thing as an HDTV set or set top box that doesn't support H.264.

WebM is, well, WebM.

Google is an H.264 licensee. Google is hedging its bets.

Why no mention of Apple? Or Microsoft? They are both members of MPEG-LA, not to mention other sleazy organizations.

There are about thirty AVC/H.264 licensors, most of them global industrial giants like Mitsubishi, Philips and Toshiba. AVC/H.264 Licensors

There are about 1,030 H.264 licensees. AVC/H.264 Licensees

H.264 is theatrical production, Blu Ray, broadcast, cable and sattelite distribution. Medical, industrial and military applications. There is no such thing as an HDTV set or set top box that doesn't support H.264.

WebM is, well, WebM.

Google is an H.264 licensee. Google is hedging its bets.

List of AVC Patents.

Let's start going down the list:

Filing date: Mar. 2, 2004
Filing date: Aug. 8, 2007
Filing date: Aug. 8, 2007
Filing date: Mar. 2, 2004
Filing date: Nov. 22, 2002
Filing date: Dec. 5, 2002
Filing date:Nov. 21, 2002
Filing date: Nov. 28, 2003

And so on. How about we actually talk about patents filed *today* instead of 5-10 years ago?

The difference between you and I on this is that I actually have patents pending in the field and a patent attorney I've discussed things many times with.

Modern OSs provide such an API for playing audio and video, and some (ie. Mac OS and Windows) even provide licensed proprietary codecs... not to mention that OS-provided codecs often work with things like video drivers to provide hardware acceleration that is transparent to applications.

Canonical licenses both MP3 audio and H.264 video for its OEM partners: which may help to explain why the Ubuntu Linux PC has some presence and visibility on retail shelves.

Licensed Companies, AVC/H.264 Licensees

My understanding, from TFPR, is that the card does h.246 encoding onboard(and the manufacturer of the card has paid their protection money to the MPEG LA) so the driver has no h.246 related duties, it just configures the card and collects the encoded output.

It is not "protection money."

It is a royalty.

It is royalty that maxes out at 20 cents per unit after the first 100,000 units you sell each year.

Unless your are producing on an industrial scale, the custom boards you are buildi for the academic and hobbyist market aren't of the slightest interest to the MPEG-LA.

SUMMARY OF AVC/H.264 LICENSE TERMS

The MPEG LA announced their call for VP8 video patents and then they spent a month looking for them. It's now over a month since their patent search ended, so do they have any patents relevant to VP8 or not? I guess not:

http://www.mpegla.com/main/pid/vp8/default.aspx