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Cisco Developing Royalty Free Video Codec: Thor
An anonymous reader writes: Video codec licensing has never been great, and it's gotten even more complicated and expensive in recent years. While H.264 had a single license pool and an upper bound on yearly licensing costs, successor H.265 has two pools (so far) and no limit. Cisco has decided that this precludes the use of H.265 in open source or other free-as-in-beer software, so they've struck out on their own to create a new, royalty-free codec called Thor. They've already open-sourced the code and invited contributions.
Cisco says, "The effort is being staffed by some of the world's most foremost codec experts, including the legendary Gisle Bjøntegaard and Arild Fuldseth, both of whom have been heavy contributors to prior video codecs. We also hired patent lawyers and consultants familiar with this technology area. We created a new codec development process which would allow us to work through the long list of patents in this space, and continually evolve our codec to work around or avoid those patents."
Cisco says, "The effort is being staffed by some of the world's most foremost codec experts, including the legendary Gisle Bjøntegaard and Arild Fuldseth, both of whom have been heavy contributors to prior video codecs. We also hired patent lawyers and consultants familiar with this technology area. We created a new codec development process which would allow us to work through the long list of patents in this space, and continually evolve our codec to work around or avoid those patents."
Why couldn't they contribute to Theora since that was the entire point of it was to be a royalty free video codec.
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
The Daala team has also experimented with integrating some Thor's features into Daala. It's likely that the codec developed by the IETF Internet Video Codec working group will be built from the best features of Daala, Thor and any additional contributions.
There is no way not to infringe on pretty much any kind of video compression tech by now
Unless of course you happen to own the IP rights to the video compression tech in question. Thor is built on patents Cisco owns.
Doesn't it all come down to math? That is, the algorithms being used for compression is just math. How can these patents remain valid?
They shouldn't, but companies have discovered that if they state a patent as a machine that implements said algorithm, then any other machine that implements it, even if done in a completely different way, is considered to be infringing. An computers that run a program are considered machines that implement an algorithm.
Theora, based on VP3, is roughly H.263-class technology comparable to Sorenson Spark (FLV) and MPEG-4 ASP (DivX and Xvid). H.264 and VP8 are a generation ahead of it in rate/distortion performance at Internet bitrates, and Thor is intended to be a generation ahead of H.264.
Marvel shares a parent company with Pixar, which has released OpenSubdiv as free software and just announced plans to do the same with Universal Scene Description. On that basis, I can think of companies more evil than Disney, such as The Tetris Company co-founded by Alexey "free software should never have existed" Pajitnov.
You could argue everything in the world boils down to math and physics, and that ALL patents should therefore be invalid.
But honestly - if someone IS going to patent software at all, a novel *algorithm" is one of the first things that should be allowed since it's actually a specific IMPLEMENTATION of an idea. The really shitty patents are those that just patent semi-abstract ideas (which shouldn't be allowed by patent rules anyway) or obvious user interface elements (electronic TV program guides, rounded corners...)
They're working on Thor through the IETF Internet Video Codec working group and committing to royalty-free licensing for those patents. It will be difficult for Cisco to walk back from that. Many codecs make use of patents which are licensed under royalty-free terms. Baseline JPEG does, Opus does, VP8 and VP9 do.
It depends how US courts see the IBM PC compatible https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... and Clean room design https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... for the movement of images and sound over a server, network to an end device, user.
The problem is the US offered and court protected "codec" is turning US hardware exports into international internet toll booths for expensive codecs.
Hard to sell the next gen "internet" hardware if every user has to pay a fee just for moving their own data (movie, sound) along to their own users.
A codec tax per screen, device, user, connection would hurt global sales just for been connected.
Other nations and their broadcasters, startups will just look to other solutions that are free and will change hardware imports.
If the codec tax part is removed, hardware sales are safe globally. Who will be the first big brand to to offer new compression as a free part of ongoing hardware contracts?
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
your brightly polished license-free codec is going nowhere.
Not really. The target for NetVC is the Internet and particularly the web (HTML5 video and WebRTC). It doesn't matter if it isn't used in studio production or theatrical distribution. That wasn't the goal in the first place.
For those of us who are nowhere (and happy to live there), nowhere is grand central station. I don't need no stinking brightly polished codec. I just need the video equivalent of Opus.
...precisely until the moment that Cisco decides it isn't free any more.
Dare I say "until they drop the hammer"? /ducks
John
Don't you mean "Thithco"? :P
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
The hardware manufacturers are irrelevant. What matters is whether the web distributors and web browsers support it, as well as the various encoding utilities that people use to transcode video.
Personally I don't expect it to gain much traction, but it will because those "new technology" companies and products aren't supporting it, not because the tired old hardware manufacturers don't. Nowhere has Cisco suggested this would be used for the next generation of BluRay devices, or to address the needs of 4K video anywhere but on the internet.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
From the summary:
We also hired patent lawyers and consultants familiar with this technology area. We created a new codec development process which would allow us to work through the long list of patents in this space, and continually evolve our codec to work around or avoid those patents.
I'm so glad that patents are doing their intended purpose of encouraging progress. Nothing fosters progress like taking a long, circuitous route instead of the straight and patently obvious one.
It all comes down to levers. Any machine made of metal or wood is a bunch of levers, arranged in some way to be useful. (Realizing that cranks and gears are simply levers that go all the way around).
If someone invents a NEW way of arranging levers to make something that does something USEFUL, they can apply for a limited-time"monopoly on that invention. If someone invents a NEW way of arranging of arranging goto statements to create a new thing that something something useful, they can similarly also apply for a patent.
Such is necessary because software is a large series of logic 'gates'. That exact same arrangement of gates can be built in C, silicon, PHP, or copper coils. A scissor is a scissor whether it's made in steel or in brass. An mpeg decoder is an mpeg decoder whether it's made in silicon or made in C - it's the same machine.
Because patents are issued by government bureaucrats, there is little incentive for the patent workers to do a good job, so we end up with bad patents, patents on "inventions" which are not new, and are not useful. That happens with "inventions" made with wood and"inventions made with C#.
The anti-patent activists have spread a misconception that "math can't be patented ", and therefore any use of math can't be patented. That's plain false. The actual text is "the laws of nature, including the laws of science and mathematics" are not patentable. In other words, you can't patent gravity, but you CAN patent an invention based on gravity, such as a new type of elevator. You can't patent magnetism, you can patent a new type of motor which uses magnetism. You can't patent multiplication, you can patent a new invention which uses multiplication to create some useful new thing (such as a better code ).
Cisco might not need to. They are in the unique position of benefiting from more video streaming.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
Don't forget: Cisco has an interest in everybody trying to stream hi-def video across the Internet.
No sig today...
Clean room gets around copyright. Patent is a whole other ball of wax. In particular, even if you created a design entirely on your own, if someone else beats you to the punch with a similar enough design to fall under the patent, you're still screwed.
That's why software patents are so reviled, combined with the relatively loose standards the USPTO puts towards software patents (or at least did in the past.. wasn't there some supposed reforms recently?) If I patent "icon with rounded corners," then you basically can't build any software that includes an icon with a rounded corner without running afoul of my software, even if you had no idea that I existed never mind seeing my code or copying my algorithm.
And to make things even worse, since you probably think "rounded corners" is a pretty mundane design idea (its been around for many thousands of years in the not-computer part of the world after all,) you probably aren't even going to bother with a patent search until my lawyers come knocking on your door making outrageous "damages" claims.
Really, Google is the only company that matters. And maybe Netflix.
Those two companies probably handle as much video in a day as Philips and Samsung and all of the other traditional video companies do in a year.
Google in particular is uniquely positioned to sway the entire industry since they provide both the most popular video service (Youtube) and one of the most popular video clients (Chrome browser.)
Whatever codec Google decides to adopt, its simply going to take over the world. Youtube is too big an entity in the video space to be ignored by other browsers (playback support,) by video editing software (production support,) etc.
Of course that's not to say Samsung and Philips and whoever can't do their own thing and run with whatever codecs they feel like in the traditional video domain (disc players, etc) but that's all "behind the scenes" anyway for most people. You plug in a disc and unless you're trying to rip it or something, it generally just works. Its only when you get online that codecs and whatever crap start cropping up and getting in your way.
(There's a third pseudo-entity that can promote a chosen codec.. the video rippers. Nobody with half a brain thinks video piracy is going away any time soon and whatever those guys do is by far the most in-your-face when it comes to codec selection since there's absolutely no intervening entity between the video file and the decoder except the user.. Youtube only has to convince Microsoft, Apple and Firefox to support their codec. The rippers have to convince everybody. But they have the advantage of not having to pander to their audience -- the audience panders to them for the most part. So they do whatever the they feel like and if you want to download the latest movie its your own problem to know what the fuck a codec is and find the appropriate one.)
That's always been the case. There's no shortage of stories and anecdotes about two people who invented similar contraptions at similar times and one happened to win the race to the patent office.
The difference is that software patents are so ubiquitous and so generalized that you pretty much can't write "Hello, World!" without stepping on the toes of some software giant or other.
When your patent is for "storage, transmission and playback of a sequence of digitally encoded images," you potentially cover everything from a 1980s ASCII art up to the latest quarter-billion-dollar blockbuster, depending on how widely you interpret the phrase "digitally encoded images."
If non-software patents were allowed to be that vague, you'd see things like a patent for "Ice cream machine" cover everything from the cone you scoop it in all the way back to milking the damned cow.
You could argue everything in the world boils down to math and physics, and that ALL patents should therefore be invalid.
That's a pretty obvious red herring. Of course everything is physics (math is an abstraction we use to describe physics.. nothing in the real world is "made of" math.) Not that physics isn't patentable. You can't patent a physical law, but you can certainly patent a device you invent that makes use of said law.
As for algorithms.. yes algorithms probably should be patentable. The concept really isn't all that bad. Where things get ugly in the real world is that currently:
a) They're allowed to be extremely vague and thus often cover many many similar algorithms that aren't actually the same.
b) They have an extremely narrow interpretation of "obvious."
c) They have absurdly long lifespans. 20 years may be reasonable for real world engineering advances but software changes so fast that 20 months might be closer to a useful exclusion period. 20 years ago, "the internet" was barely a known word outside academia and nerds. We're still working around patents from an era where you could choose to solder in your own math co-processor. 20 years for a software patent is just insane, regardless of how well the system is implemented.
Of these, I would say (c) is by far the worst. (a) and (b) are definitely issues as well, but both of them would be significantly mitigated if (c) was dealt with in a reasonable manner.
I like it! *smash* another!
True, but building reputation would be good, also. For an example of the need: Google search: Cisco problems.
Cisco has a vested interest in things that use more bandwidth because it makes people buy more routers, but don't forget that Cisco also sells a load of high-end video conferencing systems. They're not just doing this to get other people to use it, they're doing it because they want to use it in their own stuff. If it's widely adopted by others, then this will mean that people will produce hardware implementations and that will reduce the CPU requirements for the products Cisco sells, making them cheaper to produce (Cisco's video conferencing stuff doesn't sell enough units to be worth an ASIC just for them - a fast enough DSP or CPU is cheaper than a custom ASIC). If it ends up in most smartphones, then that means that Cisco will be able to sell client software for their systems that runs on every phone your employees have.
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Slashdot: Where a thread about Thor goes from Marvel to Stargate SG-1, without ever going near norse mythology.
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Really, Google is the only company that matters. And maybe Netflix.
You might have those the wrong way around, at least for the US market. I didn't find newer figures in a quick search, but in 2013 YouTube consumed 18.69% of downstream bandwidth in the USA, Netflix consumed 31.62%. Netflix passed one third a little while ago, I'm not sure how YouTube has grown in that period, but I suspect it's still around 2/3 of the use of Netflix.
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Nope, programmer for 23 years. Big projects, international projects, projects generating millions a year.
Obviously your claim was merely to poison the well.
"This is precisely issue (a) I stated -- overly vague patents."
Nope, the ALGORITHM patent *IS* "To catch a mice". READ A FUCKING PATENT. While you're googling, also look for "simplified example" or "analogy".
"Whoever first came up with the idea for quicksort probably spent many many hours trying to figure out the most efficient way he could come up with to sort a list of items. Is that worth a patent?"
No. He has copyright to monetise his efforts. And what algorithm is it anyway? It's only IMPLEMENTED in the code, but the PATENT doesn't HAVE the code and doesn't rely on the code. What is implemented is "a quick sorting method".
"But "Spring-loaded mechanism to catch mice using a baited pad" is a lot more realistic for a patent claim"
But an ACTUAL mousetrap has the BLUEPRINT and the blueprint doesn't consist of "a spring loading mechanism". It includes the entire thing. Inlcuding the latch, the trigger, the entry and exit, the materials it is made of, the manufacturing of the components, and so on. Someone can come along with a spring loaded mousetrap that uses a different trap door form and be a different patent.
An algorithm version would be "using a spring loaded mechanism" and cover ANY spring loaded mechanism. Even under your utopian idea where the patent has to say "used in a mousetrap to trap mice" rather than the real world we have where it says "such as for catching mice in a mousetrap".
"There will always be some interpretation involved because patenting "this exact blueprint" isn't going to serve the purpose of patents"
Why not? It used to. And you could see how much changed to see if it was entirely new, or whether the new bit was merely an addition, therefore the non new parts either had to be still patented or were infringing.
"But on the other hand there are certainly classes of algorithms that are fundamental to computer operation in general and locking them up in a patent is absurd."
ALL algorithms are absurd to patent. And software should not be patented because any reasonable analogue of a patent of software would be "the code". Which is still under copyright, so doesn't damn well need patent too.
"software patents really need to expire within about 2-5 years."
But they need to be proper patents, not "Catch a mouse" patenting of the goal of the software. Which would mean patented software loses copyright and becomes open when the patent expires. If it doesn't, how the hell does the patent get used when it expires? If you have to write your own code, then surely that would be "better code" or at least DIFFERENT code, therefore would get a DIFFERENT patent and never would have had to wait until the other patent expired.
And if it were released without code, that actual implementation would not be possible to write. You would still have to invent a new implementation.
Algorithms should not be patented because they don't require invention to make, they require invention to IMPLEMENT, because the algorithm exists in a virtual world where only the mathematics that needs to be applied exists.
Same with software, it's virtual. And software patents would have to supercede copyright and require the actual code be used as blueprint, and nobody will accept the lesser protection of patent over copyright for their implementation of an algorithm. And if the patent is actually for the algorithm, then it's not a software patent, it's an algorithm patent.
To some extent, ya. But DRM formats and streaming/container formats are a bigger issue for them - on the vast majority (nearly all? all?) of their supported platforms, the video is h.264.
Google in particular is uniquely positioned to sway the entire industry since they provide both the most popular video service (Youtube) and one of the most popular video clients (Chrome browser.)
Don't forget that without hardware decoding support in mobile/tablets a new codec will have a very tough time. Being able to make demands for the Android platform might be just as important.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
There is a lot of stuff going on with HEVC:
1) Ultra HD Blu-ray is about to roll-out based on HEVC
2) ATSC 3.0 new digital broadcast standard with HEVC is being finalized
3) DVB and others are considering HEVC for digital broadcast
4) UHD/4K with HEVC is being deployed by OTT like Netflix as well as direct broadcast satellite like DirecTV and wireline like BT.
The HEVC Advance patent pool unlimited content royalties that was recently announced are giving content distributors a lot of concern. In the professional content world, it is understood that enabling technology intellectual property needs to be paid, but when you are talking about unlimited percentages of "all direct & indirect revenue" from content, not only is the cost too high, but the accounting is impossible.
Meanwhile from a bit rate versus quality level, VP9 is clearly not performing as well as HEVC.
If Cisco can show that Thor can perform nearly was well as HEVC, there are a lot of content distribution companies that will take it more seriously than they would have just a few months ago because of the HEVC Advance content royalty.
However the enabling factor would be if Cisco (and other Thor implementers) will indemnify users (i.e. content distributors) from any infringement by the use of their encoders/decoders.
Two quibbles, though I wholeheartedly agree with your overarching points.
In particular, even if you created a design entirely on your own, if someone else beats you to the punch with a similar enough design to fall under the patent, you're still screwed.
Yes and no. "Prior user rights" exist in many countries, which permit the continued use of a patented idea by people who independently came up with the idea for the patent before the patent was filed, provided it wasn't disclosed, of course, since if it was disclosed it would count as prior art that can be used to invalidate the patent. But yes, for existing patents, you're quite right, and I completely agree with your assessment about why it makes software patents a horrible, horrible thing.
If I patent "icon with rounded corners," then you basically can't build any software that includes an icon with a rounded corner without running afoul of my software [...]
Not so, since you can't patent rounded corners...at least not in the sense that we typically talk about patenting stuff. There's a major distinction between utility patents, which are what we're typically referring to when we say "patents", and design patents, which are much more similar to trademarks in terms of what they protect. Design patents are for purely ornamental, non-functional protection and can be invalidated if they contain any utility. They must also contain a set of claims that narrowly and uniquely define your product (e.g. "rounded corners" is insufficient, but "rounded corners + chamfered edge + flat screen + black border around screen + edge-to-edge glass + logo on back + aluminum clad + specified dimensions" may work to describe an iPad), and the claims are always considered in concert with one another rather than independently (i.e. lots of companies, including both Apple and Samsung, have design patents that specify "rounded corners", but they have other claims in those patents that set them apart). Apple's infamous "rounded corners" patent was a design patent, of which "rounded corners" was just one claim out of many.
Which is to say, I agree with the point you're making, but you picked an example that's been widely misrepresented and misunderstood, simply on account of the fact that people are unaware of the existence of design patents and how they differ from utility patents. They're much harder to violate. I'd be much more concerned about overbroad or "existing idea + on a computer" utility patents.