Royalty-Free MPEG Video Proposals Announced

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Royalty-Free MPEG Video Proposals Announced

Posted by timothy on Saturday December 10, 2011 @01:07AM from the good-times-ahead-and-clear-sailing dept.

theweatherelectric writes "Rob Glidden notes on his blog that MPEG has recently 'announced it has received proposals for a royalty-free MPEG standard and has settled on a deliberation process to consider them.' There are two tracks toward royalty-free video currently under consideration by MPEG. The first track is IVC, a new standard 'based on MPEG-1 technology which is believed a safe royalty-free baseline that can be enhanced by additional unencumbered technology described in MPEG-2, JPEG, research publications and innovative technologies which are promised to be subject to royalty-free licenses.' The second proposed track is WebVC, an attempt to get the constrained baseline profile of H.264 licensed under royalty-free terms. Rob Glidden offers an analysis of both proposals. Also of interest is Rob's short history of why royalty-free H.264 failed last time."

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Or you can just... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-12-10 01:22 · Score: 5, Insightful

Or you can just tell the MPEG-LA group to screw themselves and use VP8.
This "Intellectual Property" business is a bunch of crap.
1. Re:Or you can just... by InsightIn140Bytes · 2011-12-10 01:34 · Score: 1, Insightful
  
  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).
2. Re:Or you can just... by dzfoo · 2011-12-10 01:36 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  And what do you do with the sections of your workflow that are not specifically Web-based?
  H.264 is a video industry standard, which includes myriad delivery media. VP8 is a web video technology.
  -dZ.
  
  --
  Carol vs. Ghost
  ...Can you save Christmas?
3. Re:Or you can just... by Vanders · 2011-12-10 01:51 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  And use inferior technology that is a patent minefield?
  "Inferior" is subjective, and I'd love to see any proof you have that VP8/WebM 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
  Where did you get such a silly idea from? An H.264 license simply provides you a license to the patented technologies in H.264 that are owned by the MPEG-LA members. There are no guarantees or indemnities against any non-MPEG-LA member from suing you and everyone else for using H.264.
  
  The risk from submarine patents for H.264 is exactly the same as VP8.
  
  --
  Syllable : It's an Operating System
4. Re:Or you can just... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-12-10 01:56 · Score: 1
  
  I think you made a typo:
  
  At least with H.264 I can be certain that my business IS going to be taken to court one day and I lose it all.
  Have you been under a rock and not keeping up with the behavior of the MPEG-LA? Denial is not just a river in Egypt. And as to "inferior" what are you talking about? Inferior in what way? I suppose VP8 is inferior in the sense that it won't make the MPPEG-LA executives rich.
5. Re:Or you can just... by InsightIn140Bytes · 2011-12-10 01:59 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  The risk from submarine patents for H.264 is exactly the same as VP8.
  No it's not. There are huge amount of companies, both big and small, using H.264. If there ever comes a problem with non-MPEG-LA member, I have a much smaller change of being directed alone. And even if I am, there are so much at play with H.264 that I'm sure to get help with it. You can't say the same for VP8. Hell, even Google isn't trusting VP8 enough to put it in HTML5 video draft.
  
  As far as "subjective" quality issues go, this article sums it up good:
  
  VP8, as a spec, should be a bit better than H.264 Baseline Profile and VC-1. It's not even close to competitive with H.264 Main or High Profile. If Google is willing to revise the spec, this can probably be improved.
  
  VP8, as an encoder, is somewhere between Xvid and Microsoft's VC-1 in terms of visual quality. This can definitely be improved a lot.
  
  VP8, as a decoder, decodes even slower than ffmpeg's H.264. This probably can't be improved that much; VP8 as a whole is similar in complexity to H.264.
  
  With regard to patents, VP8 copies too much from H.264 for comfort, no matter whose word is behind the claim of being patent-free. This doesn't mean that it's sure to be covered by patents, but until Google can give us evidence as to why it isn't, I would be cautious.
  
  VP8 is definitely better compression-wise than Theora and Dirac, so if its claim to being patent-free does stand up, it's a big upgrade with regard to patent-free video formats.
  
  VP8 is not ready for prime-time; the spec is a pile of copy-pasted C code and the encoder's interface is lacking in features and buggy. They aren't even ready to finalize the bitstream format, let alone switch the world over to VP8.
  
  With the lack of a real spec, the VP8 software basically is the specâ"and with the spec being âoefinalâ, any bugs are now set in stone. Such bugs have already been found and Google has rejected fixes.
  
  Google made the right decision to pick Matroska and Vorbis for its HTML5 video proposal.
6. Re:Or you can just... by ogrisel · 2011-12-10 02:00 · Score: 1
  
  Because the media industry primary goal is to produce videos that are not to be broadcasted on the web? Yeah television is the probably media of the future.
7. Re:Or you can just... by makomk · 2011-12-10 02:02 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  In fact, there have been submarine patent attacks on h.264 in the past, whereas WebM hasn't encountered any yet.
8. Re:Or you can just... by Vanders · 2011-12-10 02:09 · Score: 2
  
  So your strategy for not getting sued by a patent troll is to hide behind the big guys? Then use WebM and hide behind Google. Either way, lying about the patent situation with VP8 is dishonest, and you should probably stop doing that.
  
  As far as "subjective" quality issues go, this article sums it up good:
  
  Yes, we've all seen the highly unbiased article by the x264 developer. It's just as subjective as anyone else's article. It's mostly moaning about the specification, a claim on one hand that VP8 is "too close to H.264 for comfort" while at the same time a claim that VP8 "probably can't be improved that much", and yet more subjective and biased opinion on which the author prefers the most. Surprise, an x264 developer prefers H.264!
  
  Until you define "better" or "best", it's subjective. Until you define what use cases you're applying your measurements too, it's subjective. H.264 is better is some things. VP8 is better in others. Mostly though, VP8 and H.264 are of comparable quality under normal viewing conditions.
  
  --
  Syllable : It's an Operating System
9. Re:Or you can just... by TheTurtlesMoves · 2011-12-10 02:14 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  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.
  
  No you can't. They do *not* protect you from 3rd party patents that and it explicit states in the license agreement that its between you and the 3rd party, not them. MPEG-LA offer *zero* immunity or guarantees. In fact guess how many 3rd parties have come forward with claims on MPEG-LA licensed codecs? Now guess with either Theora or VP8?
  It does not matter what you do, you are not safe from patent trolls. Paying one of em does nothing to remove the rest.
  
  --
  The Grey Goo disaster happened 3 billion years ago. This rock is covered in self replicating machines!
10. Re:Or you can just... by andydread · 2011-12-10 02:30 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  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?
11. Re:Or you can just... by Vanders · 2011-12-10 04:02 · Score: 2
  
  Google has made it VERY clear that they HAVE NOT and WILL NOT offer indemnity for their users.
  That's fine. The MPEG-LA do not indemnify their licensees either.
  
  That is one thing MSFT should be given credit for as they make it clear they WILL indemnify their customers.
  I'm not sure what Microsoft licenses for Android have to do with the MPEG-LA.
  
  the free codecs currently suck balls
  Which, as I said in a previous post, is subjective and isn't supported by the reality of the situation. Under normal viewing conditions, WebM and H.264 are comparable.
  
  --
  Syllable : It's an Operating System
12. Re:Or you can just... by isorox · 2011-12-10 04:39 · Score: 1
  
  Because the media industry primary goal is to produce videos that are not to be broadcasted on the web? Yeah television is the probably media of the future.
  I have an editor in Syria that's shot some local footage, and wants to incorporate some library material, before feeding it back to base.
  Once in base it's reversions for various outlets (childrens news). A few graphics are then added.
  The editor is on a 192kbit bgan, and has a 5 minute package to send back, sending uncompressed video around the place just won't work.
  How do I get this footage back in
  1) A high quality
  2) A decent time
  But I need to be able to change that footage later, which tends to mean bringing it back to an iframe format.
  Eventually the media goes onto the web for a few thousand people to watch, and is compressed to h264 at 1mbit and looks crap. It's also broadcast to 200m people having gone through various devices as SDI (or HD-SDI) and looks a bit better.
  I control both the sending end in Syria, and the receiving end in base. I can use H264, VP8, mjpeg, DV25, DNXhd or whatever I want. Unfortunately h264 is the best solution.
13. Re:Or you can just... by Vanders · 2011-12-10 04:57 · Score: 1
  
  Sure, your scenario is bang on and I don't think anyone would seriously suggest that H.264 isn't a great solution for that work. However, this bit:
  
  Eventually the media goes onto the web for a few thousand people to watch
  That bit right there is where VP8 can just as easily replace H.264, and where Google are not surprisingly positioning it with WebM. As you're transcoding the original high quality source anyway, you lose nothing transcoding it to VP8 instead of back to H.264.
  
  --
  Syllable : It's an Operating System
14. Re:Or you can just... by Goaway · 2011-12-10 04:58 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Again the bullshit about x264 developers being "biased".
  He also helped write the fastest VP8 decoder available, you know. Why did he do that if he was so biased against it?
  Enough of these ridiculous ad hominem attacks. The guy is incredibly competent in the field, and nobody who's attacked him for what he said is anywhere close.
15. Re:Or you can just... by Goaway · 2011-12-10 04:59 · Score: 1
  
  VP8 absolutely and objectively technically inferior to h.264. Anybody with any kind of understanding of the field knows that.
16. Re:Or you can just... by Goaway · 2011-12-10 05:01 · Score: 1
  
  Anybody who works in video distribution knows that distribution may require a different license than just encoding. Encoding software does not and can not include that license.
17. Re:Or you can just... by makomk · 2011-12-10 05:15 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  He's not exactly biased, he just doesn't grasp how weird the patent situation around h.264 is. Apparently a lot of the patents are quite narrow and easy to avoid because narrow patents are easier to defend in court, and the various companies just rely on their control of the standardization process to make sure that the standard is written in such a way that it necessarily infringes their patents. On2 claim to have worked around all the patents.
18. Re:Or you can just... by jo_ham · 2011-12-10 05:36 · Score: 1
  
  MPEG is not MPEG-LA.
19. Re:Or you can just... by westlake · 2011-12-10 06:50 · Score: 1
  
  Or you can just tell the MPEG-LA group to screw themselves and use VP8.
  There are about thirty H.264 licensors --- most of them global giants in manufacturing like Mitshubishi.
  These are the companies that dominate every link in the hardware chain from the studo camera to your tv set. Your Internet enabled HDTV doesn't need a browser, it only needs the client app.
  Open the Metro UI in Windows 8 and the H.264 or HEVC Netflix app will be there. "Web Standards" no longer matter when you can distribute higher quality or more secure video outside the web.
  There are close on to 1100 H,264 licensees.
  That is for all practical purposes a global Fortune 1000 in content production and video distribution. Inclusive of commercial, industrial, medical, and military applications.
  The web is ony one small slice of a very big pie.
20. Re:Or you can just... by SuricouRaven · 2011-12-10 09:44 · Score: 1
  
  "There are no guarantees or indemnities against any non-MPEG-LA member from suing you and everyone else for using H.264."
  
  There is one. If such a company does sue you, then the MPEG-LA is going to come to your aid. Not in your support, but to defend their turf - their patent pool is massively devalued if it is incomplete. That means they'll either throw money at the responsible company until they agree to sell the patent, or come to your aid with the best lawyers in the field and a practically endless amount of money for legal costs.
21. Re:Or you can just... by SuricouRaven · 2011-12-10 09:46 · Score: 1
  
  I'm sure they picked a confusingly similar name deliberatly.
22. Re:Or you can just... by Thundersnatch · 2011-12-10 11:19 · Score: 1
  
  Under normal viewing conditions, WebM and H.264 are comparable.
  No, they really aren't. Every rigorous quantitative and rigorous qualitative (large sample sizes and double-blind) study has shown that the best available VP8 encoders require almost 2x the bitrate of the best H.264 high profile encoders.
  VP8 is basically useless, as it is very likely encumbered by patents (12 different companies have made claims, and Google will not offer indemnification for a reason). So it isn't free, it is extremely slow, and it requires twice as many bits. I operate a commercial video site, and guess what? Our H.264 licenses cost less than the extra storage and bandwidth WebM would require. And the WebM tool chain sucks.
23. Re:Or you can just... by Raenex · 2011-12-10 12:35 · Score: 1
  
  Anybody who works in video distribution knows that distribution may require a different license than just encoding. Encoding software does not and can not include that license.
  That sounds pretty absurd to me. It's like if somebody patented a drug, and then the maker of the drug was charged twice, once to make, and second to distribute the drug, and then the doctor was charged for prescribing the drug.
  You really can't distribute a file just because it is encoded in a certain format? Really?
24. Re:Or you can just... by hairyfeet · 2011-12-10 14:33 · Score: 1
  
  Thanks Thundersnatch and you notice I got modded down for pointing out reality? Like I said i'm willing to put up with a sucky baseline simply because the WEB SHOULD BE FREE FOR ALL TO USE and I don't want Apple and MSFT with MPEG-LA locking it behind a paywall, but it don't make the codecs less shitty.
  I've tried Dirac,WebM, and Theora and frankly even old Xvid gave me a better picture at a significantly lower file size than any of the above. And as you pointed out its not the license that bites you in the ass, its the bandwidth. while i don't run a video site I DO have to deal with a LOT of customers that have bandwidth limited connections and I have to keep abreast of such things as i have to find the best formats for them to use dropboxes and the like to share little Timmy's first words with the family in Chicago.
  And while I still think the price of a free Internet is worth paying, as we can always have a video in the baseline format as the lowest common denominator along with MP4 or H.264 and then let the user decide which format to watch, I have to call a spade and spade and all the free ones seriously suck. To get the same level of quality I got in an 800Mb Xvid or DivX 5 video i had to end up with a file nearly twice the size and honestly? its still not quite as good, with more artifacts and pixelation. And compared to H.264 it wasn't even a contest, it was more like three times the size to equal a good H.264 encode.
  
  --
  ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
25. Re:Or you can just... by Goaway · 2011-12-10 14:49 · Score: 1
  
  Yes, that is how the licensing works.
  This is probably preferable to the alternative, which would be that encode licenses would be astronomical sums. With license fees dependent on distribution, that means that those that can afford to pay a lot pay the largest part of the money involved, and smaller companies get away with small sums.
26. Re:Or you can just... by stms · 2011-12-10 14:59 · Score: 1
  
  "Inferior" is subjective
  Not that the rest of your point isn't valid but if you say that Inferior is subjective (even though it's kind of true). You haven't taken the time to compare the codecs. If you want to distribute media over the internet in higher than 480p H.264 is your only real option.
27. Re:Or you can just... by evilviper · 2011-12-10 17:48 · Score: 1
  
  Or you can just tell the MPEG-LA group to screw themselves and use VP8.
  That's... productive. Obviously we don't want the MPEG involved, they're just a standards body that's brought us MPEG-1 (VCDs), MP3s, MPEG-2 (DVDs, HDTV, ALL broadcast back-ends, etc), DivX, and H.264. Clearly they are useless...
  Honestly, if they were to basically adopt VP8, maybe enhance it a bit, and standardize it, it might actually make some headway, instead of being the in-thing among the 1% of people who follow /. regularly. If nothing else, their stamp of approval would be likely to get manufacturers out there ramping up production of VP8 encoder and decoder chips, and would grab the interest of lots of big companies out there. Maybe Google would stop dragging their feet on converting Youtube, and forcing Android device manufacturers to have WebM as an option everywhere, on equal footing with H.264.
  Instead, here we are. Are the libavcodec guys going crazy optimizing their VP8 encoder? Is anyone really putting any effort into it, or is it just an also-ran after H.264 already had the market locked-in?
  
  --
  Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
28. Re:Or you can just... by tlhIngan · 2011-12-10 18:29 · Score: 1
  
  So your strategy for not getting sued by a patent troll is to hide behind the big guys? Then use WebM and hide behind Google. Either way, lying about the patent situation with VP8 is dishonest, and you should probably stop doing that.
  Well, WebM has one advantage - it's small and the people using it aren't really that rich. No patent troll will sue now because there's no money to be made.
  H.264 doesn't have that advantage, so if there really was a submarine patent someone's sitting on, they're losing a lot of life on that patent by waiting - it's been out for years, and used everywhere, compared to WebM's tiny userbase. Chances are, everyone would be violating your patent.
  You start small, like a small company. They won't have the resources to overturn the patent, and it helps give legitimacy to your patent. You then use those judgments to go after bigger guys. And what's bigger than going after the entire video industry?
  WebM? It's used by a few small places, and Google's probably arranged matters that YouTube's use would be some tiny payout in the end. However, when one of the big guys, like say Intel or Broadcom or Marvell with lots of money start baking WebM hardware into their chips, life gets more interesting as there's now real big money in there.
  So it may be hiding behind big companies, but any patent troll would love to sue for someone so ubiquitous as h.264 - the millions of things that do h.264 and you can extract licensing fees for.
  Suing for WebM right now? Silly if you want to make money. Wait for it to become highly popular and entrenched so switching away is difficult (like h.264 is right now), which guarantees money for a long while yet. WebM doesn't have it so if there was a violation, Google would just work around it because it's easy to make these changes when few use it than when practically the entire world is using it.
29. Re:Or you can just... by aix+tom · 2011-12-10 22:41 · Score: 1
  
  Yeah. It's always a better choice to just pay the guys that come along, look around, and say "Nice business you have there. Wouldn't it be a shame if something happened to it?"
30. Re:Or you can just... by Vanders · 2011-12-11 01:04 · Score: 1
  
  12 different companies have made claims
  Claims are meaningless. Lets see them actually sue. Not a single company making such a claim has ever sued On2, Xiph or Google. They can't have much faith in their own claims.
  
  Google will not offer indemnification for a reason
  Yes, because the MPEG-LA also do not offer indemnification. Double standards much?
  
  Every...study has shown that the best available VP8 encoders require almost 2x the bitrate of the best H.264 high profile encoders.
  Got links?
  
  --
  Syllable : It's an Operating System
31. Re:Or you can just... by evilviper · 2011-12-11 12:16 · Score: 1
  
  I'm well aware of the difference. This story is about MPEG, so at best the original statement is off-topic and meaningless. Secondly, they're (unfortunately) very closely related anyhow, and everything I said still stands.
  
  --
  Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
32. Re:Or you can just... by Thundersnatch · 2011-12-12 03:45 · Score: 1
  
  Every...study has shown that the best available VP8 encoders require almost 2x the bitrate of the best H.264 high profile encoders.
  Got links?
  Sure... this is the most comprehensive qualitative test I've seen, using a huge varietry of sources and metrics. See conclusions section on page 93, which shows WebM requiring >2x the bits of x264 for the same quality.
  A rigorous subjective comparison can be found here, using the Double Stimulus Continuous Quality Scale methdololgy.
  Note in both subjective and objective comparisons, WebM takes 2x or more bits to achieve the same quality at web bitrates of ~500 kbps.
  At much higher bitrates, the quality differences narrow. But high bitrates aren't valuable for Internet use cases, and in any case at 2.5 Mbps and SD resolution, even inefficient codecs like MPEG-2 or WMV8 look good.
33. Re:Or you can just... by tlhIngan · 2011-12-12 04:58 · Score: 1
  
  12 different companies have made claims
  Claims are meaningless. Lets see them actually sue. Not a single company making such a claim has ever sued On2, Xiph or Google. They can't have much faith in their own claims.
  You want to know why there's no lawsuits? There's no money in it.
  Ever notice that all the lawsuits come out AFTER a product is launched and is successful? Patent trolls don't go after people when change is still possible. When someone is making money hand over fist, or when something is so entrenched that change isn't possible without screwing over the world, that's when they strike. The first is easy - if you're making a ton of money, you have a ton of money for licensing fees. The second is even easier - if it's a fundamental patent, it's too late to change.
  Of the companies you mention, only Google has any money worth suing for. And they're not rolling out VP8 in any great haste. If they were super confident, they should roll it out everywhere and into their doubleclick ads as well to get the plugin installed everywhere.
  A close look at history reveals this is the case. Creative suing Apple over the iPod hierarchical interface. Rambus suing RAM makers over DDR. And various other patent trolls. It always happens AFTER a product is successful and making lots of money.
  Apple, TiVo, etc., are Doing It Wrong(tm) because they're going after products that are early in their life cycle to not make much money. I mean, if you want to sue Samsung over the Galaxy Tab, wait for Samsung to make healthy profits then sue for extra damages already. Injunctions against sales? Why do you want to reduce your patent infringement damage claims? Let them make money then sue for the treble damages post-sales.
  The VP8 patent trolls will come out after hardware manufacturers start making the hardware to support it in droves and it's so widely used that changing it is impossible. There's no statute of limitations on when a patent infringement lawsuit may be launched (other than the patent has to be in effect).
  The people using VP8 right now are tiny in numbers, very little money is being made, and the standard is volatile. Launching a lawsuit now just means they'll work around it - if something breaks, no big deal as few people were using it.
Re:Failed? by Trepidity · 2011-12-10 01:22 · Score: 4, Informative

He's saying that the attempt to define a royalty-free "baseline" subset of h.264 was unsuccessful, not that h.264 itself failed.

--
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Just use WebM for the web by Anonymous Coward · 2011-12-10 01:29 · Score: 3, Informative

WebM is already royalty-free, and it out-performs h.264. Where is the problem?
Support: here is a performance comparison of the latest iteration of the WebM encoder hardware, showing also previous versions and a h.264 encoder for comparison.
http://blog.webmproject.org/2011/11/time-of-dragonflies.html
If WebM is better anyway, already royalty-free, and WebM/HTML5 is supported by more browsers than h264/HTML5, then why on earth shouldn't people just go ahead and use WebM.
Where is the issue?
1. Re:Just use WebM for the web by JAlexoi · 2011-12-10 01:34 · Score: 2
  
  Hardware with baked in VP8
2. Re:Just use WebM for the web by InsightIn140Bytes · 2011-12-10 01:40 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  It maybe supported by more browsers, but in terms of market share of said browsers, H.264 leads. The native browsers of two largest OS, IE and Safari, only support H.264. That's what counts. And frankly, H.264 support is included in both OS and is technically better. It would be stupid to choose lesser solution only because authoring tools don't need to pay small licensing costs. I'm glad they haven't done that decision either. at least once better technology wons over idealistic views.
3. Re:Just use WebM for the web by John+Betonschaar · 2011-12-10 01:40 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  [quote]Support: here is a performance comparison of the latest iteration of the WebM encoder hardware, showing also previous versions and a h.264 encoder for comparison.
  http://blog.webmproject.org/2011/11/time-of-dragonflies.html%5B/quote%5D
  I hope you realize that the comparison you linked to compares ENCODER quality between two decoders (H264 and WebM) made by the same company? It says nothing about the abilities of WebM as a codec.
  Try this one instead:
  http://x264dev.multimedia.cx/archives/377
4. Re:Just use WebM for the web by makomk · 2011-12-10 02:04 · Score: 1
  
  Good luck running x264 on your mobile phone, which is the platform both of those hardware encoders are targetting.
5. Re:Just use WebM for the web by Elbart · 2011-12-10 03:52 · Score: 1
  
  Why would you run an ENcoder on a mobile phone?
6. Re:Just use WebM for the web by VortexCortex · 2011-12-10 04:05 · Score: 1
  
  It would be stupid to choose lesser solution only because authoring tools don't need to pay small licensing costs.
  Hey! I'm an indie dev with Zero initial capital! I want my players to be able to capture video feeds of in-game play and upload them to video sites. I also want to open source the game at some point... Guess which codec standard PREVENTS THIS? Not WebM. I'm sorry, H.264 isn't even an option for me. It was trivial for me to include a WebM encoder in my code, took one afternoon. It's also natively supported by the most used video upload site... Youtube. I can't even begin the process of legally doing the same with H.264.
  To me the lesser solution is H.264... the VERY MUCH LESSER solution is a stripped down version of it -- Which is what TFA is talking about having made license free.
  Also: HTML5 has a video tag. That's great! Northing's stopping us from having two or more video codecs installed so you can deliver H.666 or whatever, but the fact is: If you want ANYONE to be able to compile a browser or any other program that contains a video encoder / decoder, H.264 is not an option. Make VP8 the standard and your Windows & Mac OSs can still come with H.264 codec plugins. That's fine, but think about people that want to use Free Software... we can't use H.264 for that; Each user can't pay license fees just to compile their own software & FOSS projects can't pay license fees for every single user who compiles the project either (technically each compilation is a different product).
  Also: As for patent worries? HAHAHA! You have to be shitting me right? I mean... considering my codebase is over 100,000 SLOC, and the USPTO is FULL of bogus trivial & over-broad software patents, an optional component such as a Video Codec is the LEAST of my worries. At least with WebM, if a video myself or a user produced gets popular Google won't come knocking asking for a payout... like they currently WILL with H.264.
  I'm all for competition in video standards, but the fact is: H.264 should NOT be a web standard. They're taking about making a CRAPPY version of it "license free" -- Who give a damn when THE FULL VERSION of VP8 is available now, and as has been said: Either codec has just as many submarine patent worries as ANY TRIVIAL SOFTWARE does.
  The science of fanboism says you'll stick to your initial choice fervently and illogically no matter how much we banter back and forth, but I'm taking facts here man: Crippled H.264 vs Full VP8 as a web standard... It's no contest you fool.
7. Re:Just use WebM for the web by Vanders · 2011-12-10 05:00 · Score: 2
  
  What do you think happens when you point the camera on your phone at something and hit the record button? Those terrible videos people upload to YouTube don't encode themselves.
  
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8. Re:Just use WebM for the web by Goaway · 2011-12-10 05:03 · Score: 2
  
  WebM is not in any way better than h.264, and your link does not support this claim.
9. Re:Just use WebM for the web by makomk · 2011-12-10 05:18 · Score: 2
  
  Because you want to record a video? Pretty much all mobile phones have hardware allowing them to encode video in real time these days; some of the newer smartphones even support recording in 1080p.
10. Re:Just use WebM for the web by TwinkieStix · 2011-12-10 05:38 · Score: 1
  
  When I am using the rear facing camera to capture videos of my family or the front facing camera for video conferencing.
11. Re:Just use WebM for the web by Goaway · 2011-12-10 07:29 · Score: 1
  
  Youtube uses an ancient and broken encoder. Comparing it to anything is meaningless.
12. Re:Just use WebM for the web by NearO · 2011-12-10 07:38 · Score: 1
  
  x264 has a variety of settings that allow you to tweak the quality/speed ratio. It also has (and is getting more) ARM assembly optimizations, which should be useful for use on a number of phones. It's a really well optimized piece of software over a number of platforms.
  
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13. Re:Just use WebM for the web by SuricouRaven · 2011-12-10 09:50 · Score: 1
  
  You are right, IE and Safari both support h264 but not WebM. I wonder why that would be?
  
  Oh, yes. Microsoft and Apple are both MPEG-LA members, and stand to profit substantially from the success of h264. Whereas WebM is the product of one of their rivals.
  
  I can't see either of those browsers getting WebM support any time soon - and those browers which can support WebM are excluded from h264 by patent and licencing concerns. We're back in the bad old days of Netscape vs IE, where web designers had to write seperate pages for the two semi-compatible browsers and return one based on user-agent.
14. Re:Just use WebM for the web by SuricouRaven · 2011-12-10 09:53 · Score: 1
  
  Ignoring your x/h confusion, h264 both encoding and decoding works very well on mobile devices. The key is hardware acceleration. It takes great amounts of processor time on a plain old general-purpose processor to handle video (My old C2D struggled on 1080p h264), but if you have purpose-built silicon to handle the hard parts like motion estimation/compensation than it becomes quite practical even for mobiles. The downside is that you can't add new codecs using a simple software plugin.
15. Re:Just use WebM for the web by citizenr · 2011-12-10 10:44 · Score: 1
  
  Good luck running x264 on your mobile phone, which is the platform both of those hardware encoders are targetting.
  This is exactly what I am doing just fine at 720p on my phone, what exactly is the problem?
  
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16. Re:Just use WebM for the web by shutdown+-p+now · 2011-12-10 12:15 · Score: 1
  
  The native browsers of two largest OS, IE and Safari, only support H.264.
  
  Two important things of note here.
  First, on Windows, only IE9 supports HTML5 video at all. Past versions of IE are still more popular than IE9, largely because it's not bundled with any OS out of the box. It'll take some time to change.
  Second, IE does support WebM, just not out of the box. It requires a separate download of the codec. I don't know for sure, but I think that Safari also supports installable codecs for HTML5 video on OS X. It definitely does not support them on iOS.
Re:Is he implicitly admitting... by JAlexoi · 2011-12-10 01:33 · Score: 1

No. There has always been a goal of having a royalty free H.264 version. Even if it would be patent encumbered.
Re:Failed? by TheSunborn · 2011-12-10 01:45 · Score: 1

[quote]There isn't any costs involved in streaming, playing or showing H.264 content.[/quote]
Really? Did they change the license without telling anyone?
Why use mpeg? by sgt+scrub · 2011-12-10 01:48 · Score: 2

What is wrong with just using Theora?

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1. Re:Why use mpeg? by bk2204 · 2011-12-10 04:47 · Score: 1
  
  Theora isn't as great a video codec as VP8 or H.264.
2. Re:Why use mpeg? by Goaway · 2011-12-10 05:05 · Score: 1
  
  It is not known to be patent-free, unlike MPEG-1. MPEG-1 is, due to its age, patent-free by definition.
3. Re:Why use mpeg? by Em+Adespoton · 2011-12-10 08:06 · Score: 1
  
  It has a completely different target... as does MPEG-1 and MPEG-2. Theora goes after the same target as MPEG-2 IIRC.
4. Re:Why use mpeg? by evilviper · 2011-12-10 17:35 · Score: 1
  
  What is wrong with just using Theora?
  Absolutely everything...
  Theora really can't even compete with MPEG-1 on either video quality at a given bitrate, or performance. It was very specifically designeed for extremely low quality, extremely low resolution, extremely low bitrate streaming video, over a decade ago...
  Theora is the perfect example of how NOT to run a project. They dicked around with alpha and beta versions of Theora for a decade, and in all the time we've got basically nothing to show for it. If they had their asses in gear, we could have easily had Theora as the video codec behind HDTV in the US... It could have been the first and only video codec for open source operating systems back when it was released, in the dark days of XAnim and then avifile, before libavcodec. Instead, VP3 was Windows/Mac only, and it took an enternity to get it stable. If they had just stuck with the VP3 bitstream they would have had a good sized installed base, been an obvious upgrade path for everyone that had already licensed and used VP3, and would have been THE codec to use on Linux/BSD and other platforms, and could even have been the big internet video codec at the turn of the millenia, instead of DivX.
  But, of course, none of that happened. These days, it's ancient and useless. You might as well say "Why buy a new car, why not just use that Model-T over there?" To illustrate just how badly fucked up the situation is, consider a couple examples. I already mentioned that VP3 was up for consideration as the HDTV codec, and LOST. Winamp's FLV streaming video format they were pushing started off with support for VP3, NOT Theora... they'd rather use a decade old DLL. And while Theora was forking the VP3 format, presumably making quality improvements and such, On2, the company that gave it to them (when VP4 came out) went on to develop VP5, VP6, VP7, and finally VP8 in that time. Compare the progress made... VP8 very seriously competes with H.264, Theora does not.
  Now that VP8 is open source in the form of WebM, this is obviously the way to go if you control the ecosystem. Theora is not the way to go, and the complete failure that is Theora is probably why Google chose to maintain control of WebM, rather than depend on another half-assed open source project to develop it further, and push companies to adopt it.
  
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5. Re:Why use mpeg? by sgt+scrub · 2011-12-11 04:38 · Score: 1
  
  Interesting reply. What do you think of x264?
  
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  Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
6. Re:Why use mpeg? by evilviper · 2011-12-11 09:12 · Score: 1
  
  Interesting reply. What do you think of x264?
  What is there to think about it? It's an H.264 implementation, so it comes with all the patent problems that go with it.
  Most people find it to be the best video codec out there. Personally, I have some reservations... It does a couple things like include a small amount of high frequency random noise that I find very unsightly and distracting, and it also washes out the picture a bit, and there are no settings to allow you to adjust this behavior (afaik). Whether these two issues are obvious depends on the video itself, but generally, I avoid it for videos I want high quality and have a high enough bitrate to make that happen with other codecs.
  
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Re:Failed? by InsightIn140Bytes · 2011-12-10 01:49 · Score: 4, Informative

On August 26, 2010 MPEG LA announced that H.264 encoded internet video that is free to end users will never be charged for royalties.[10] All other royalties will remain in place such as the royalties for products that decode and encode H.264 video.[11]
Re:Failed? by Vanders · 2011-12-10 01:57 · Score: 4, Informative

You said

There isn't any costs involved in streaming, playing or showing H.264 content.
The Wikipedia article you quote says

All other royalties will remain in place such as the royalties for products that decode and encode H.264 video.
So there is a cost to "play" or "show" H.264 encoded content.

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Syllable : It's an Operating System
MPEG or MPEG-LA? by Compaqt · 2011-12-10 02:01 · Score: 1

"MPEG has received" or MPEG-LA?
I thought I read here on Slashdot that -LA is different from just plain old MPEG.
So who is actually doing the receiving? Good guys/bad guys?

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1. Re:MPEG or MPEG-LA? by hedwards · 2011-12-10 03:31 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  MPEG has been around for a long time, they're the ones responsible for creating the actual IP. MPEG-LA is the patent trolls that have managed to cobble together a number of questionable patents to make people pay for h.264.
Re:Failed? by makomk · 2011-12-10 02:01 · Score: 2

So basically the people watching the videos still have to pay license fees for the players they need to view them with, and the companies streaming the videos still need to pay license fees for the encoders required to produce the videos, MPEG LA have just graciously agreed not to charge a license fee for streaming them from the fee-paying encoders to the fee-paying decoders unless the end users have to pay for access.
Yes, this is needed by ciaran_o_riordan · 2011-12-10 02:12 · Score: 4, Informative

From the point of view of technological progress, proposing the use of 20-year old technology is shameful, but it really is the only solution. (until software patents get abolished)
This was also suggested by Nokia during the html5 standard discussion of the video tag:
http://en.swpat.org/wiki/Use_software_and_functionality_from_20_years_ago
And remember, this problem is caused not by trolls but by the MPEG-LA signatories: Columbia University, Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute of Korea (ETRI), France TÃ©lÃ©com, Fujitsu, LG Electronics, Matsushita (Panasonic), Mitsubishi, Microsoft, Motorola, Nokia, Philips, Robert Bosch GmbH, Samsung, Sharp, Sony, Toshiba, and Victor Company of Japan (JVC).

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Re:Failed? by TheSunborn · 2011-12-10 02:22 · Score: 2

That is only if the content is "free to end users".
Re:Good for Firefox by hairyfeet · 2011-12-10 02:42 · Score: 3, Interesting

I'd be more concerned about HTML V5, as both apple and MSFT are pushing like mad to lock it behind a paywall with H.264 which as we all know is patented so badly you can pretty much give up on FOSS ever having a free version, not for another 15-20 years at least.
This is why I never understood the FOSS flash hate or why they would run to embrace an obviously hostile to FOSS group like MPEG-LA over Adobe. Sure flash isn't the greatest but have you EVER seen them complain about a distro including flash? Hell they don't even complain about gnash and I wouldn't be surprised if they eventually open flash up. Compare this to MPEG-LA that basically went "Pay your $699 license fee you cock smoking teabagger!" to Firefox and made it QUITE clear you will NOT be shipping H.264 in a browser or OS without cutting a check. of course being proprietary both Apple and MSFT can and do just cut them a check and both want to "fucking kill Google" so they're just fine with H.264.
I just hope the developers here will put their money where their mouths are and refuse to touch HTML V5 until it has a free codec as the standard, be it Theora, be it WebM (which I think is quite nice actually) or be it the royalty free MPEG 1+2 in TFA. The web should be free to all, be you proprietary or FOSS, and ATM HTML V5 is anything but and that is before they add the MPAA DRM on top which i'm sure will never work in FOSS OSes as unlike Apple and MSFT they don't support kernel level DRM..

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Re:Good for Firefox by Alan+Shutko · 2011-12-10 03:51 · Score: 1

Flash contains the ability to play h.264 video. Are you saying that Adobe is friendlier to FOSS because they wrote the check and give you a binary to run in your FOSS browser?
Re:Failed? by Goaway · 2011-12-10 04:54 · Score: 1

The free costs for web content are only temporary.
No, they are permanent.
Patented equations by JDG1980 · 2011-12-10 06:15 · Score: 1

I know many of the patents in H.264 are on specific equations used for the integer DCT equivalent, Hadamard transform, and so on. My question is, does a patent cover an equation that is not specifically written in the patent but is mathematically equivalent? If not, couldn't some of the patent encumbrances be worked around in this fashion?
Re:Good for Firefox by hairyfeet · 2011-12-10 09:08 · Score: 1

Actually that is only fairly recently and I'd argue in large part because Apple refuses to support anything else. before that most of the flash video i came across was VP6 which is of course now completely free thanks to Google buying On2. As for the other poster...what's wrong with MP4? I LIKE MP4, its low resource, it plays nicely, especially the DivX and Xvid versions, and you can buy tons of sub $50 set top boxes that play the format. hell one of my biggest sellers to customers with kids is the Nbox settop which plays DivX and Xvid and is great for loading a HDD full of Dora vids on so little Becky doesn't cry when the disc gets scratched, so what is wrong with MP4?

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Re:Good for Firefox by JDG1980 · 2011-12-10 09:54 · Score: 1

Virtually every video card, whether discrete or integrated, sold in the past 5 years supports full H.264 bitstream decoding in hardware. This means the hardware vendor already paid the license fee. Why can't Firefox just use this feature (accessible via DXVA on Windows, and I believe VA-API on Linux) to stream H.264 in HTML5?
Re:Failed? by Snaller · 2011-12-10 10:44 · Score: 1

Yes there is something wrong with charging for them. The whole process must be free for the betterment of all mankind.

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They don't get it by GPLHost-Thomas · 2011-12-10 15:05 · Score: 2

They still don't get it do they? We don't want a ROYALTY free format, but also a PATENT FREE format.
1. Re:They don't get it by jrincayc · 2011-12-11 03:42 · Score: 1
  
  I think there are only two major patent free video formats right now, Motion JPEG and H.261. Theora and VP8 are patented, but the patents are allowed to be used royalty free.
Re:Good for Firefox by dave87656 · 2011-12-10 17:56 · Score: 1

Is there a way for the browser (or OS) to query the graphics card to find out if this support is available?
Title was supposed to be... by Zanadou · 2011-12-11 02:37 · Score: 1

"Royalty-Free MPEG Video Proposals Proposed."
Re:Why? by jrincayc · 2011-12-11 03:44 · Score: 1

As Rob Glidden has pointed out, half of MPEG-2 patents expire in 2012, and a lot more in 2013:
http://www.robglidden.com/2011/12/half-of-mpeg-2-patents-expire-in-2012/
You're just repeating the "Theora sucks" meme by pslam · 2011-12-12 15:04 · Score: 1

I don't have to explain:
Theora really can't even compete with MPEG-1 on either video quality at a given bitrate, or performance. It was very specifically designeed for extremely low quality, extremely low resolution, extremely low bitrate streaming video, over a decade ago...
This isn't true. There's plenty of results out there which say Theora is, while not the best, a good codec. To quote Wikipedia: More recently however, Xiph developers have compared the 1.1 Theora encoder to YouTube's H.264 and H.263+ encoders, in response to concerns raised in 2009 about Theora's inferior performance by Chris DiBona, a Google employee. They found the results from Theora to be nearly the same as YouTube's H.264 output, and much better than the H.263+ output.
There are plenty of people proclaiming that because it doesn't come out top, it's useless. Theora is far from useless: the results in any scenario that H.264 (even main profile) would be used, are still usable if you select Theora instead. They just aren't as pretty, because it's just not designed to the same constraints as H.264.
Becoming the HDTV standard would be an unrealistic goal. You attribute Theora not becoming the dominant standard due to Xiph's mishandling of the codec. The more obvious reason is politics: the MPEG group exists specifically to create audio/video standards which can be licensed. Broadcasters and content providers generally only use MPEG standards, and they just love licensing.
I'm interested to know what your theory is that Xiph could drive HDTV standards and have handled this better than a small company could?
1. Re:You're just repeating the "Theora sucks" meme by evilviper · 2011-12-17 20:24 · Score: 1
  
  There's plenty of results out there which say Theora is, while not the best, a good codec. To quote Wikipedia:
  Wkipedia is a shit-hole, end of story. There's tons of utterly inaccurate crap on there, which will never go away. There have been plenty of fights over quality on there for many years, but eventally the fair-minded give up and the cult of Xiph & RMS stay, and corrupt it.
  The idea that Theora can remotely compete with H.264 is positively laughable. That you believe it either suggests you've got a TERRIBLE source of information, or you're drinking the kool-aid too, and I'm wasting my time even responding to you. Try to find ANY experts outside of Xiph that agree with their assessment. It's hard enough getting experts to admit that WebM/VP8 is nearly as good as H.264.
  
  Becoming the HDTV standard would be an unrealistic goal. [...] I'm interested to know what your theory is that Xiph could drive HDTV standards and have handled this better than a small company could?
  It's not *my* theory... VP3 was up for consideration as the HDTV standard when it was open sourced.
  Xiph's decision to go with a different bitstream and their own container format COMPLETELY stalled development on the video format itself for close to a decade. If they had hit the ground running, and just started improving the quality and performance of the existing DLLs, and developing utilities to handle the format on Linux/BSD/etc., adoption of VP3 could have gone through the roof right away, and quality could have been drastically higher than MPEG-2, offering a clear, major benefit (not just license fees). Instead they split the base (plenty of VP3 is still out there, incompatible with Theora), wasted many years taking it nowhere, annihilated the interested developer base (compare the ffmpeg community to the Theora community--or compare the mailing lists in the early days with today) and left it stagnating while the wide world adopted then dropped several other formats in that time, instead of standardizing on VP3.
  Remember, when VP3 was released, we were still in the RealPlayer days. Real was popularly deprecated as WMV gained hold, in parallel Divx gained a lot of popular support and undermined WMV's dominance. Then Quicktime adopted Divx (MPEG-4 SP) in a MOV container, which gained it some support. And Flash started gaining ground over all of the above with it's primitive H.263 codec, then VP6 of all things, and finally H.264.
  It shouldn't take a rocket scientist to figure out all the spots in that time line where a completely free codec like VP3, with a nice big installed base, with high quality (easily better than Divx, probably as good as WMV) and an active developer community, could have jumped into the fray, and stayed there, to the exclusion of all others, and become dominant.
  
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