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Jury Rules That H.264 is Not Patented
Dr Kool, PhD writes "According to Bloomberg, a jury ruled against Qualcomm in their patent lawsuit against Broadcom. Qualcomm had sought $8.3 million in damages for patent infringement stemming from Broadcom's H.264 encoder/decoder chips. From the article: 'The patents, covering a way to compress high-definition video, are unenforceable in part because Qualcomm withheld information from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, jurors in San Diego said today after deliberating less than six hours.' This ruling clears the way for H.264 to become a widely adopted open standard."
Aren't there already existing [open] developments that surpass H.264 already ?
Doesn't this make H.264 only free of the two patents held by Qualcomm? There has to be dozens and dozens of other patents used as AFAIK H.264 is just a profile (AVC) of MPEG-4?
And afaik again, MPEG-4 is very far from being patent encumbered.
According to the article, the case is going to the jury, and that "experts" believe that the jury will find against Broadcom, not Qualcomm. I'm not seeing anything that says that the jury has ruled on anything.
Your reality is lies and balderdash and I'm delighted to say that I have no grasp of it whatsoever. - Baron Munchausen
The only truly, intentionally open standard I know of is Theora, and I really haven't heard much about it.
For that matter, I haven't heard any measurements lately of AAC vs Vorbis, but it seems to me that unless Vorbis is actually better, the best way to encode a video would be h.264+aac, probably wrapped in ogm or mkv, but could also work as avi or mov.
Of course, I often just keep the original DVD stream around, which means -- what -- mpeg2+aac?
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
This is otherwise known as MPEG-4
Hopefully this will mean that movie codecs will be part of a respectable Linux distribution instead of getting relegated to 'extras'?
You have two major ones that can beat out H.264 in quality and file sizes... potentially.
They are Snow, which is a experimental codec being developed out of the FFMPEG project, and there is Dirac which is being developed by the BBC as a open standard for web-based HD content.
Both of these are based on 'wavelett' style technology which is something that is fairly unique about them. The downside though is that Snow, while being much simplier then Dirac, suffers from a lack of development and stability (not crash-iness, but change-iness). Dirac is not mature enough for use. Both of them still use WAY to much CPU to be usefull currently, but both offer possibilities of compression and quality that surpass even H.264.
Theora is completely open, having the benifit from patent donated to open source by a corporation for their codecs, but it suffers from high CPU utilization and a very serious lack of visual quality.
It's not like with Ogg vs MP3 or Flac vs whatever were those guys offer good compression, quality, and lower cpu usage as well as being open source. With Theora vs Mpeg4-related stuff (Xvid/Divx, h.264. AVC, etc) it is not realy in the same ballpack. It is more closely related to Mpeg1 in quality.
And when I mean 'quality' I mean the ability to provide high quality image at high compression, which is the whole point behind things like Theora and H.264.
Already Linux and Free software people have a good H.264 implimentation thanks to the FFmpeg people. Their mpeg4 Divx-stuff is already very high quality.. much better then anything from Xvid or Divx, they have the beginnings of very good H.264 support and have decoding and encoding speeds that rival the best propriatory codecs aviable. They need to fill out some of the H.264 features, but if this is true that H.264 is truly usable in Free software environment, then I expect that development will very quickly take off as the people become aware of this and Linux distros will want to jump on the opportunity to provide world-class HD support!
This should also pave the way for future adoption of Dirac and maybe Snow since then the use of ffmpeg libs should increase in both Linux and Windows-land. Once people get used to it and programs start shipping with ffmpeg libs then this will make it easier for these projects to gain acceptance as ffmpeg is multi-codec and will include these open source technologies as they come out.
I must've gotten those confused for years without noticing. Thanks for pointing that out.
Still, there you go. Mostly some very good advice, although I imagine that vorbis is really acceptable. I use flac for my music, but that's mostly because I don't like to lose more quality than I have to by transcoding, and you never know when I might buy something like an iPod and have to transcode -- flac->aac is better than, say, vorbis->aac. And also because my music collection is small enough that that works.
But for video, it's all on my laptop, desktop, or MythTV box, so I figure I'm good as long as I leave it in a format that ffmpeg can play, and avoid transcoding unless I'm really running into space issues.
And yes, I know why you'd use h.264 -- it seems better than the rest at pretty much every level, so the only reason I wouldn't encode to it is if I'm artificially forced into something else (DVD only supports mpeg2), or if Theora is actually better, which I doubt. Seems like h.264 might be a better target for Ogg.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Surely a judge rules, not a jury? Juries render verdicts.
>No. H.264 is only PART of MPEG 4
But is its the "I can use it to watch pr0n" part of MPEG 4?
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
Article linked is yesterday's announcement that it's going to the Jury. Here's the link and text of the right article:
Broadcom sees win for 'H.264' industry
By Kathryn Balint and David Washburn
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITERS
January 27, 2007
After just six hours of deliberating, a federal jury found yesterday that chip maker Broadcom did not infringe on two patents held by San Diego-based Qualcomm and determined in two advisory votes that Qualcomm had withheld key information from a standards-making body and the patent office.
Union-Tribune file photo
San Diego-based Qualcomm lost a round in federal court yesterday against Southern California chip-making rival Broadcom.
Qualcomm, which accused Irvine-based Broadcom of infringing on two video-compression patents, was seeking $8.3 million in damages for one of the patents. It did not seek any damages for the other patent.
The San Diego jury's unanimous decision is a win for manufacturers that comply with the same video-compression standard as that used by Broadcom.
Qualcomm had argued that one of the two patents at issue was incorporated into the H.264 industry standard used in millions of consumer devices, such as high-definition DVD players and Apple video iPods.
"We're grateful for the jury's verdict - a resounding victory for Broadcom," said David Rosmann, vice president of intellectual property litigation for the company. "This is a victory not just for Broadcom, but for the entire H.264 industry."
Qualcomm had little to lose in the case but everything to win.
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If it had prevailed in its patent-infringement claims, it potentially could have asked courts to ban products that used the industry standard or sought royalty payments from their manufacturers.
Yesterday's decision does not affect Qualcomm's core business of licensing cell phone technology.
A loss for Broadcom, however, could have resulted in the ban of some of its chips and could have cost the company possibly hundreds of millions of dollars in future royalty payments.
The U.S. District Court case was just one of seven lawsuits between the two companies scheduled for trial this year.
"There certainly was a significant upside potential for us, but it was all upside, no downside," said Qualcomm executive vice president and general counsel Lou Lupin. "For Broadcom, it was all downside, no upside. It probably won't have any impact on us one way or the other. It's just the latest round in a series of battles."
The speed with which the nine-member jury returned the verdict was stunning, particularly for a case that involved more than 40 hours of testimony and evidence akin to a graduate-level college course on video compression.
Jury foreman David Ingraham, a Carmel Valley resident and retired vice president of finance and planning for McGraw-Hill, said the quick verdict came about because each jury member entered deliberations with a strong understanding of the evidence.
"I'm not going to say we were all electrical engineers, because we aren't," Ingraham said. "But people listened carefully to the testimony and took good notes - and it came down overwhelmingly on one side."
The jury did find that the two Qualcomm patents in question in the case were valid, a loss to Broadcom, which had argued otherwise.
One of the biggest blows to Qualcomm came in the form of advisory votes, sought by the judge, in which the jury questioned Qualcomm's integrity.
In one advisory vote, the jury found "clear and convincing evidence" that Qualcomm had withheld previous scientific studies on video-compression from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office when applying for one of the patents in question. The jury's advisory vote said that the patent is "unenforceable due to Qualcomm's inequitable conduct in the patent application process."
In the second advisory vote, the jury found that Q
It's got a higher quality/bitrate, but it's much more processor intensive to decode, which translates directly to battery power. Case in point: playing video on an iPod (which only supports h264) will drain the battery in an hour or two, where as DivX video on a Creative player will give you 5-6 hours on a similar battery.
If you're optimizing for space, sure, h264 is great. However, most PMPs are hard drive based, and thus have lots of space to spare.
How does H.264 compare with GSM and G.729 codecs, in terms of performance (CPU MIPS:Kbps) and quality (at different Kbps)? GSM isn't patent encumbered ($free and freePL), but G.729 is patented and licenses cost at least $10 per codec instance (and up, up, up). Is a $freePL H.264 codec a good compromise between the two current favorites, or better/worse than both the current alternatives?
--
make install -not war
Story Errors: I would have thought that, after all these years, Slashdot editors would have learned to be editors. Often Slashdot stories are posted that show not even the simplest examination, such as this one, that references an article that does not support was said in the Slashdot story.
This is more of the real story Broadcom sees win for 'H.264' industry (January 27, 2007). However, the article does NOT say that the patents were invalidated; they have not been invalidated.
This statement from the Slashdot story is incorrect: "This ruling clears the way for H.264 to become a widely adopted open standard." If that were true, it would be important, but it is not true, for three reasons: 1) The patents have not been invalidated (yet). 2) There can be an appeal. 3) There are other patents.
I have no idea whether Qualcomm's idea rose to the ideal patent standard but I'd bet dollars to donuts the jury didn't either. Given the time constraints, they can't possibly learn enough to understand the technology to determine whether Qualcomm had a lousy patent or Broadcom was infringing. Patent enforcement decisions make about as much sense as flipping a coin.
Patents are designed by and implemented by attorneys. They're the beneficiaries of this system, not the public nor the inventor. The inventors and public just end up getting screwed.
I would have thought that, after all these years, Slashdot editors would have learned to be editors.
Ok, that's worth a +5 "funny" right there.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
It's not just the pirates. I have a DVD player that says it supports MPEG-4, but it doesn't actually do so. It merely supports MPEG-4 codecs in AVI files.
Similarly, those asshats at Sony couldn't be bothered to implement MPEG-4 containers, so they invented "AVCHD", which is MPEG-4 codecs in an MPEG-2 container.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
And anyway, Isn't that supposed to be the glory of the "new" Web? If you assume that privileged editors have no valuable input to the process, well, they stop trying to make any valuable input into the process. Not that Slashdot "editors" have ever tried very hard...
"It is our blasphemy which has made us great, and will sustain us, and which the gods secretly admire in us." - Zelazny
It's perfectly fine to use Matroska, especially when you want to include SSA subtitles (very common in anime releases) or SRT subtitles (also common with anime due to being able to be muxed in an OGM container). Sure, GPAC (MP4Box et al.) can automatically convert SRT subtitles to Timed Text (ISO/IEC 14496-17), but that's not always desired (SSA subtitles can be styled in many different ways; TT cannot).
Also, you can't mux [Ogg] Vorbis in an MP4 container (I believe you can do that in a MOV/QuickTime container, however; also, using the private data stream hack doesn't count), and Vorbis can match, better, or come close to (dependent on source material) the quality of AAC at the same bitrates. Also, if H.264 (ISO/IEC 14496-10 for those who care) is truly now a public domain standard, then it would be far more desirable to mux H.264 video with Vorbis audio as both are open, unencumbered standards. It would also be good to do this in Matroska as that is also an open, unencumbered standard (QuickTime's file format may or may not be patented, but I'd guess it is).
Now I'd definitely recommend using MP4 if everything you're muxing is part of the MPEG-4 (ISO/IEC 14496) standard (e.g. H.264 (or even DivX/Xvid), AAC, TT) as that would make most sense, but beware the limitations of the MP4 container format. The "subtle differences" between MP4 and QuickTime/MOV are the codecs supported.
'Yes, firefox is indeed greater than women. Can women block pops up for you? No. Can Firefox show you naked women? Yes.'
Theora+Vorbis is pretty good actually. You can get a 2 hr movie in 540x360 looking quite good, in my opinion.
Download some movies and see for yourself: http://btjunkie.org/search?q=theora
There's a really easy-to-use DVD-to-Theora ripper available now that runs under GNOME: http://thoggen.net/
Did anyone notice that one of the spokesmen for the companies had the title of Vice-President for Intellectual Property Litigation? I don't know that I want to do away with software patents altogether (maybe, I'm not sure), but it bothers me when a company has a department, evidently important enough to be headed by a vice president, dedicated to litigation. Here's another vote for some serious reform in the patent system.
Qualcomm wants to control video on mobile devices.
..er..'convincing' regulators
http://www.qualcomm.com/mediaflo/index.shtml
That's why they spent so much time and money
to allow them to take over part of the spectrum for mobile video transmission.
Verizon and other carriers want this so they can move video off of their
digital voice lines and on to something parallel with a different infrastructure.
An infrastructure that, no doubt, the carriers will recieve loads of federal funding
to complete (even though it won't be opened up to benefit anyone but Qualcomm financially).
I don't think this loss is much of a blow to them really. They have many other chip
monopolies to exploit.
Why wouldn't you recommend MPEG-PS or MPEG-TS, given that the former is the only format supported by DVD and HD-DVD and the latter the only format supported by DVB and Bluray? At least use "for internet distribution".
Come on, there's one thing everyone knows. No matter how horribly an anime kiddy is doing at school, no matter how dumb-as-dogshit they are at fundamentals of grammar and language, you can count on them being perfectly fluent in modern slang Japanese, especially when it comes to something KAWAIII!!!!
The jury said the patents are valid, just not enforceable.
- Murphy's Corollary: - It is impossible to make things foolproof because fools are so ingenious.
I'm sure the file format is patented, but it's also an open format. They offer licenses to anyone who wants to use it. The license is a simple - "We're not liable for damages..." type of license. It's a whole 8 page PDF and is available here. I should also note that Apple has some open source projects that utilize this standard. Most notably, the quicktime streaming server. The FFmpeg project also supports the .mov file format without any legal action from Apple.
It the .mov file format is good enough technically, it might be worth supporting as a standard. It would allow for better cross platform support as Apple maintains a good implementation for Windows and MacOS. Proprietary applications would not have to worry about dealing with open source licensing as they could just deal with Apple. The open source community could then focus on their own stuff without worrying about Windows/MacOS. And when popularizing a file format, one does have to consider Windows/MacOS.
A truly open and free standard is always preferred. But without the support from 90% of the market, it's just not practical. This appears to be the only real problem with Matroska.
Now where is a reasonable video chat program that takes advantage of it? Us windows kids gotta be jealous of iChat for how much longer? Is Ekiga ever going to come out gtk?
rhY
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
If you're talking about something tiny -- suppose YouTube switched over to mpeg4 -- then the CPU requirements become pretty irrelevant compared to other concerns. (YouTube via Flash uses 50% of my CPU, the same video via mplayer/ffmpeg uses 0.3%. I imagine if YouTube switched to h.264 in .mov format (thus insisting on QuickTime), you'd have two immediate results: Everyone and their dog would have QuickTime, and it would also use _less_ CPU (in the browser) and look _better_ than it does now.)
If you're talking about something huge -- say, 1080p -- first, generally systems hooked up to a display device that can handle it will also have the CPU to handle it. But also, 20% is significant. 20% is the difference between, say, 20 gigs and 16 gigs. It may be only 20%, but it's also 4 gigs.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!