The stakeholders in H.264 are dominated by global industrial giants like Mitsubishi, NTT and Toshiba - about half are based in Korea and Japan. AVC/H.264 Licensors
In the list of 817 H.264 licensees, Japan, China and Korea are extraordinarily well represented in every category. OEM manufacturing. Brand name consumer and industrial tech. Broadcast, cable and satellite distribution.
What I see in H.264 is vertical integration.
Encoders and decoders produced in the tens of millions for every product category.
Brand name consumer products. Cell phones. Webcams. Camcorders. Blu-Ray players. HDTVs. Set top boxes.
Industral and broadcast tech.
A search of Google Shopping for "H.264 WiFi Camera" - typically home security video - will return 1,600 hits.
Tell me how the geek stops this.
How he keeps the cheap, versatile, Asian H.264 product out of his home markets. How he does it without igniting a trade war.
They'll come mug you for money at that point and it's NOT cheap.
It's dirt cheap.
Retail sale, disks or downloads:
Where an end user pays directly for video services on a title-by-title basis...royalties for video greater than 12 minutes (there is no royalty for a title 12 minutes or less) are...the lower of 2% of the price paid to the Licensee (on first arms length sale of the video) or $0.02 per title
Paid subscription services:
Where an end user pays directly for video services on a subscription-basis (not ordered or limited title-by-title), the applicable royalties per legal entity payable by the service or content provider are:
100,000 or fewer subscribers per year. No royalty. 100,000 to 250,000. $25,000 250,000-500,000. $50,000. 500,000 to 1 million $75,000. Over $1 Million. $100,000.
Broadcast, Cable and Satellite:
where remuneration is from other sources, in the case of free television...satellite and/or cable Transmission, and which is not paid for by an End User), the licensee (the broadcaster) may pay...according to one of two royalty options:
(i) a one-time payment of $2,500 per AVC transmission encoder
or (ii) annual fee per Broadcast Market
starting at $2,500 per calendar year per Broadcast Markets of at least 100,000 but no more than 499,999 television households $5,000 per calendar year per Broadcast Market which includes at least 500,000 but no more than 999,999 television households and $10,000 per calendar year per Broadcast Market which includes 1,000,000 or more television households.
Free distribution over the Internet:
In the case of Internet broadcast for which the End User does not pay remuneration for the right to receive or view, i.e., neither title-by-title nor subscription), there will be no royalty during the first term of the License (ending December 31, 2010), and after the first term the royalty shall be no more than the economic equivalent of royalties payable during the same time for free television.
The Cap
In the case of the sublicenses for video content or service providers, the maximum annual royalty ("cap") for an enterprise (commonly controlled legal entities) is... $5 million per year in 2010.
$5 million a year for as many free H.264 video downloads (over 12 minutes) as Google has the capacity to host.
Linux has fewer games than Windows, so games would be more highly valued by Linux users than Windows users.
The Windows gamer also has choices like Gog.com. Classic MSDOS and Windows games. All genres. Ready to Run under Windows 7. $6 to $10. Bundles $10-$15.
Windows users already pay through the nose, so they don't have anything leftover to donate.
The economies of scale in building for a platform with a 90% market share are enormous.
WalMart - the world's largest and most aggressive deep discount retailer - has never been able to significantly undercut the OEM Windows system on price or features.
The naive user running MSE with automatic updates enabled was left unscathed by Cornflicker and Alureon.
We are talking about the internet. The web. And marketshare. Sorenson Spark and On2 VP6 are the winners, and h264 is tiny, almost vanishing by comparison.
We are talking about cell phone video.
Webcams.
Camcorders.
The Flip Pocket HD at $125. The Sony Handicam at $3500. A casual search of Google Shopping returns 3,600 hits for "H.264 camcorder."
Industrial and home security video. "H.264 WiFi Camera," 1,200 hits.
We are talking about services like Netflix and Hulu. Home video standards matter when the decoder is built into your Internet enabled HDTV, video game console, Blu-Ray player or STB.
That decoder will be H.264 not Sorenson Spark.
We are talking about hardware accelerated H.264 video in Flash and Silverlight.
1. This license is only for playing video encoded into the format.
The fee is paid by the OS or hardware manufacturer. Maxes out at $5 million a year for Apple or Microsoft. Smaller deployments, 10 to 20 cents a unit. No charge for sales of less than 100,000 units.
2. If you want to use a video editor to edit or create video in this format, you need a license, and you can't use Free programs to do so.
Use any tool you want. MPEG LA is all about licensing codecs and content on a commercial scale.
3. If you want to sell your created video in H.264 format, you also need a license to do so.
Only for videos 12 minutes and over and only if you are raking in the green.
Gross $100K or so and you will have to pay MPEG LA the lower of 2% of the price paid to you (on first arms length sale of a video) or $0.02 per title.
There is no charge for paid subscription services if you have less than 200,000 subscribers.
4. In the USA, it is illegal to use Free implementations of the codec to study or share.
You are - again - for all practical purposes, invisible to MPEG LA until you begin distributing media content on a commercial scale.
Both Apple and Microsoft, two of the more influential forces in the decision, are stakeholders in MPEG LA. Add the fact that they both probably feels slightly anxious over the seemingly immortal Open Source guys, that just refuses to keel over, but invades market after market.
The major stake holders in H.264 are global industrial giants:
H.264 licensors include fifteen of the biggest names in global manufacturing and tech.
Mitsubishi. NTT. Philips. Samsung. Toshiba....
The 817 licensees include hundreds of other names the geek should recognize.
H.264 support is in the cell phones they make.
Web cams. Camcorders. Video game consoles. Mobile Internet devices and PCs of every description. Industrial and security video. Broadcast, cable and satellite technologies.
Theatrical production and home video. The set-top box. The Internet enabled HDTV.
Mozilla's Firefox can ignore H.264 in the browser.
But Mozilla can't keep Amazon.com from stocking 3,500 flavors of the H.264 HD camcorder, priced from $125-$5,000.
It can't get shelf space for the non-existent Theora or VP8 product in WalMart.
There are some things a commercially viable OEM Linux PC must deliver at retail. H.264 support is one of them. It needs to be in hardware. it needs to competitive - and it needs to be there today.
The Supreme Court has given science the legal definition that a "beyond a reasonable doubt" equates to 99.9% certainty
Citation needed.
"Proof beyond a reasonable doubt" is not a formula or a slogan, to be sold, like Ivory soap, as "99 and 44/100% pure."
It only means, that in the light of all the evidence presented, the jury can in good conscience say that the defendant's guilt has been proven to their satisfaction and that any questions which remain will not alter their decision.
You realize that if it wasn't for a theocracy (Christian/Rome) the state would have no interest in a... wait for it... SACRED institution like Marriage.
Citizenship in pre-Christian Rome came with the expectation that you would settle down and raise a family. Insuring the survival of the city and the continuity of its culture.
The state's involvement in marriage was a given and could easily be defended in purely secular terms.
I think the fact that it was "pornographic" is missing the point. This guy is not paying attention, yet will be voting on bills that will affect our entire country.
Think Tallahassee, not Washington.
Mike Bennett is one of Florida's 40 state senators.
In a small body like this, your hyper-ventilated speech on the floor is routinely boiled-down into a 30-second sound-byte for home town consumption.
It tells your colleagues nothing they don't already know.
Western Union launched its transcontinental telegraph service in 1861. Keyboard entry and alphanumeric printing for the telegraph appears along about 1902. Frederick G. Creed
The only missing piece of the puzzles are direct telephone-like dialing and affordable "Telex" machines for home and office use.
If carrier neutrality won't be regulated then I want all government/carrier deals to be outlawed. I want to be able to sign up with anyone who is willing to toss me a line.
and who would that be where "the last mile" costs are high?
For (b) (1) where an end user pays directly for video services on a title-by-title basis (e.g., where viewer determines titles to be viewed or number of viewable titles are otherwise limited), royalties for video greater than 12 minutes (there is no royalty for a title 12 minutes or less) are (beginning January 1, 2006) the lower of 2% of the price paid to the Licensee (on first arms length sale of the video) or $0.02 per title (categories of licensees include legal entities that are (i) replicators of physical media, and (ii) service/content providers (e.g., cable, satellite, video DSL, internet and mobile) of VOD, PPV and electronic downloads to end users).
10 Where an end user pays directly for video services on a subscription-basis (not ordered or limited title-by-title), the applicable royalties per legal entity payable by the service or content provider are (beginning January 1, 2006) 100,000 or fewer subscribers during the year = no royalty; greater than 100,000 to 250,000 subscribers during the year = $25,000; greater than 250,000 to 500,000 subscribers during the year = $50,000; greater than 500,000 to 1,000,000 subscribers during the year = $75,000; greater than 1,000,000 subscribers during the year = $100,000.
Is it naive to suggest that "Free Culture" and "Non-Commercial" - just might have similiar and related meanings?
Because Microsoft made a deal with MPEG-LA, that's why. MPEG-LA makes money off patent licensing.
The profit in licensing is elsewhere.
In professional production and distribution. In hardware.
Microsoft pays into MPEG-LA about twice as much as it receives back for rights to H.264. Much of what Microsoft pays in royalties is so that people who buy Windows (on a new PC from an OEM or as a packaged product) can just play H.264 video or DVD movies. Microsoft receives back from MPEG-LA less than half the amount for the patent rights that it contributes because there are many other companies that provide the licensed functionality in content and products that sell in high volume.Follow Up on HTML5 Video in IE9
Don't believe it?
Then try counting the number of industrial giants like Mitsubishi and Toshiba on this list: AVC/H.264 Licensees
IE is becoming less and less relevant every day. For one it's loosing marketshare on the desktop, but also very importantly is the fact that mobile devices are quickly becoming the preferred medium that people use to interact with the web.
How many of those mobile devices support H.264 video in hardware?
How many have a video camera?
Pretty much all of them.
Microsoft's support for H.264 is in the OS not the browser and is accessible to anyone.
Third-party applications that simply make calls to the H.264 code in Windows (and which do not incorporate any H.264 code directly) are covered by Microsoft's license of H.264.Follow Up on HTML5 Video in IE9
The OS could be Win 7, Win 7 Mobile, or Win 7 Embedded for your STB.
Slashdot Mirror
The stakeholders in H.264 are dominated by global industrial giants like Mitsubishi, NTT and Toshiba - about half are based in Korea and Japan. AVC/H.264 Licensors
In the list of 817 H.264 licensees, Japan, China and Korea are extraordinarily well represented in every category. OEM manufacturing. Brand name consumer and industrial tech. Broadcast, cable and satellite distribution.
What I see in H.264 is vertical integration.
Encoders and decoders produced in the tens of millions for every product category.
Brand name consumer products. Cell phones. Webcams. Camcorders. Blu-Ray players. HDTVs. Set top boxes.
Industral and broadcast tech.
A search of Google Shopping for "H.264 WiFi Camera" - typically home security video - will return 1,600 hits.
Tell me how the geek stops this.
How he keeps the cheap, versatile, Asian H.264 product out of his home markets. How he does it without igniting a trade war.
$5 million a year for as many free H.264 video downloads (over 12 minutes) as Google has the capacity to host.
Strike this.
The $5 million cap applies to mega-corporations like Disney distributing content through many commonly owned channels and services.
They'll come mug you for money at that point and it's NOT cheap.
It's dirt cheap.
Retail sale, disks or downloads:
Where an end user pays directly for video services on a title-by-title basis ...royalties for video greater than 12 minutes (there is no royalty for a title 12 minutes or less) are...the lower of 2% of the price paid to the Licensee (on first arms length sale of the video) or $0.02 per title
Paid subscription services:
Where an end user pays directly for video services on a subscription-basis (not ordered or limited title-by-title), the applicable royalties per legal entity payable by the service or content provider are:
100,000 or fewer subscribers per year. No royalty.
100,000 to 250,000. $25,000
250,000-500,000. $50,000.
500,000 to 1 million $75,000.
Over $1 Million. $100,000.
Broadcast, Cable and Satellite:
where remuneration is from other sources, in the case of free television...satellite and/or cable Transmission, and which is not paid for by an End User), the licensee (the broadcaster) may pay...according to one of two royalty options:
(i) a one-time payment of $2,500 per AVC transmission encoder
or (ii) annual fee per Broadcast Market
starting at $2,500 per calendar year per Broadcast Markets of at least 100,000
but no more than 499,999 television households
$5,000 per calendar year per Broadcast
Market which includes at least 500,000 but no more than 999,999 television households
and $10,000 per calendar year per Broadcast Market which includes 1,000,000 or more television households.
Free distribution over the Internet:
In the case of Internet broadcast for which the End User does not pay remuneration for the right to receive or view, i.e., neither title-by-title nor subscription), there will be no royalty during the first term of the License (ending December 31, 2010), and after the first term the royalty shall be no more than the economic equivalent of royalties payable during the same time for free television.
The Cap
In the case of the sublicenses for video content or service providers, the maximum annual royalty ("cap") for an enterprise (commonly controlled legal entities) is... $5 million per year in 2010.
$5 million a year for as many free H.264 video downloads (over 12 minutes) as Google has the capacity to host.
License terms.
Five years. 10% increase cap on renewals.
SUMMARY OF AVC/H.264 LICENSE TERMS
The essence of a social networking site is that it is social - a gathering place that draws a critical mass of users.
Most like that sense of connection - and almost none of them are geeks.
"Think of being able to buy your own domain name... Broadcast{ing to) your micro-blogging service of choice."
They aren't thinking that at all.
Linux has fewer games than Windows, so games would be more highly valued by Linux users than Windows users.
The Windows gamer also has choices like Gog.com. Classic MSDOS and Windows games. All genres. Ready to Run under Windows 7. $6 to $10. Bundles $10-$15.
Windows users already pay through the nose, so they don't have anything leftover to donate.
The economies of scale in building for a platform with a 90% market share are enormous.
WalMart - the world's largest and most aggressive deep discount retailer - has never been able to significantly undercut the OEM Windows system on price or features.
The naive user running MSE with automatic updates enabled was left unscathed by Cornflicker and Alureon.
Talk is cheap.
Market to the geeks, and the plebs will follow. If for nothing else than they don't want to seem out of the loop
This explains why the iPad has been such a failure.
Why Linux owns the lion's share of the desktop.
Oh wait....
The vast majority of my extended family uses firefox right now because I put in on there and hid IE on them until they got used to it.
Tell me how this makes the geek any less arrogant and manipulative than Steve Jobs.
We are talking about the internet. The web. And marketshare. Sorenson Spark and On2 VP6 are the winners, and h264 is tiny, almost vanishing by comparison.
We are talking about cell phone video.
Webcams.
Camcorders.
The Flip Pocket HD at $125. The Sony Handicam at $3500. A casual search of Google Shopping returns 3,600 hits for "H.264 camcorder."
Industrial and home security video. "H.264 WiFi Camera," 1,200 hits.
We are talking about services like Netflix and Hulu. Home video standards matter when the decoder is built into your Internet enabled HDTV, video game console, Blu-Ray player or STB.
That decoder will be H.264 not Sorenson Spark.
We are talking about hardware accelerated H.264 video in Flash and Silverlight.
And yet it's the best selling console of this generation. Fancy that...
You could argue with some truth that the Wii is the best-selling console of the last generation. The standard-definition generation.
the reasons this is a bad thing in the long run are as follows:
Summary of AVC/H.264 Licensing
1. This license is only for playing video encoded into the format.
The fee is paid by the OS or hardware manufacturer. Maxes out at $5 million a year for Apple or Microsoft. Smaller deployments, 10 to 20 cents a unit. No charge for sales of less than 100,000 units.
2. If you want to use a video editor to edit or create video in this format, you need a license, and you can't use Free programs to do so.
Use any tool you want.
MPEG LA is all about licensing codecs and content on a commercial scale.
3. If you want to sell your created video in H.264 format, you also need a license to do so.
Only for videos 12 minutes and over and only if you are raking in the green.
Gross $100K or so and you will have to pay MPEG LA the lower of 2% of the price paid to you (on first arms length sale of a video) or $0.02 per title.
There is no charge for paid subscription services if you have less than 200,000 subscribers.
4. In the USA, it is illegal to use Free implementations of the codec to study or share.
You are - again - for all practical purposes, invisible to MPEG LA until you begin distributing media content on a commercial scale.
Both Apple and Microsoft, two of the more influential forces in the decision, are stakeholders in MPEG LA. Add the fact that they both probably feels slightly anxious over the seemingly immortal Open Source guys, that just refuses to keel over, but invades market after market.
The major stake holders in H.264 are global industrial giants:
Fujitsu, Hitachi, Mitsubishi, NTT, Panasonic, Philips, Siemens, Samsung, Sony, Toshiba.... AVC/H.264 Licensors
The 817 H.264 H.264 licensees include damn near every other recognizable brand name in consumer and industrial tech on the planet.
China and Japan and Korea are particularly well-represented. In OEM hardware. In broadcasting. In home video.
The Open Source guy isn't immortal here.
He's roadkill. Street pizza.
Little Dolly Dumpling tied to the railroad tracks.
H.264 licensors include fifteen of the biggest names in global manufacturing and tech.
Mitsubishi. NTT. Philips. Samsung. Toshiba....
The 817 licensees include hundreds of other names the geek should recognize.
H.264 support is in the cell phones they make.
Web cams. Camcorders. Video game consoles. Mobile Internet devices and PCs of every description. Industrial and security video. Broadcast, cable and satellite technologies.
Theatrical production and home video. The set-top box. The Internet enabled HDTV.
Mozilla's Firefox can ignore H.264 in the browser.
But Mozilla can't keep Amazon.com from stocking 3,500 flavors of the H.264 HD camcorder, priced from $125-$5,000.
It can't get shelf space for the non-existent Theora or VP8 product in WalMart.
There are some things a commercially viable OEM Linux PC must deliver at retail. H.264 support is one of them. It needs to be in hardware. it needs to competitive - and it needs to be there today.
Citation needed.
"Proof beyond a reasonable doubt" is not a formula or a slogan, to be sold, like Ivory soap, as "99 and 44/100% pure."
It only means, that in the light of all the evidence presented, the jury can in good conscience say that the defendant's guilt has been proven to their satisfaction and that any questions which remain will not alter their decision.
But that form factor really stinks if you have bad eyes and big fingers.
which is another way of saying that we all grow older.
it's a one-two marketing punch when you have a product that appeals to your youthful self-image and the cold hard reality of the present.
Product that doesn't sell even at the WalMart deep discount price isn't kept in stock.
Because creating a *complete* font that looks good is a lot of work.
It's a rare and extraordinary craft.
Consider these Five Classic Type Faces from a Cooper Union introduction to typeface design:
Garamond: French. Old Style. 1617
Baskerville: English. Transitional. 1757.
Bodoni: Italian. Modern. 1780.
Century: American. "Egyptian." 1894.
Helvetica: Swiss. Contemporary. 1957.
You realize that if it wasn't for a theocracy (Christian/Rome) the state would have no interest in a ... wait for it ... SACRED institution like Marriage.
Citizenship in pre-Christian Rome came with the expectation that you would settle down and raise a family. Insuring the survival of the city and the continuity of its culture.
The state's involvement in marriage was a given and could easily be defended in purely secular terms.
I think the fact that it was "pornographic" is missing the point. This guy is not paying attention, yet will be voting on bills that will affect our entire country.
Think Tallahassee, not Washington.
Mike Bennett is one of Florida's 40 state senators.
In a small body like this, your hyper-ventilated speech on the floor is routinely boiled-down into a 30-second sound-byte for home town consumption.
It tells your colleagues nothing they don't already know.
So the guy predicted text messaging. Impressive.
Western Union launched its transcontinental telegraph service in 1861. Keyboard entry and alphanumeric printing for the telegraph appears along about 1902. Frederick G. Creed
The only missing piece of the puzzles are direct telephone-like dialing and affordable "Telex" machines for home and office use.
If carrier neutrality won't be regulated then I want all government/carrier deals to be outlawed. I want to be able to sign up with anyone who is willing to toss me a line.
and who would that be where "the last mile" costs are high?
The license isn't for the camera, it is for professional - for profit - use of the codec.
SUMMARY OF AVC/H.264 LICENSE TERMS [PDF]
For (b) (1) where an end user pays directly for video services on a title-by-title basis (e.g., where viewer determines titles to be viewed or number of viewable titles are otherwise limited), royalties for video greater than 12 minutes (there is no royalty for a title 12 minutes or less) are (beginning January 1, 2006) the lower of 2% of the price paid to the Licensee (on first arms length sale of the video) or $0.02 per title (categories of licensees include legal entities that are (i) replicators of physical media, and (ii) service/content providers (e.g., cable, satellite, video DSL, internet and mobile) of VOD, PPV and electronic downloads to end users).
10 Where an end user pays directly for video services on a subscription-basis (not ordered or limited title-by-title), the applicable royalties per legal entity payable by the service or content provider are (beginning January 1, 2006) 100,000 or fewer subscribers during the year = no royalty; greater than 100,000 to 250,000 subscribers during the year = $25,000; greater than 250,000 to 500,000 subscribers during the year = $50,000; greater than 500,000 to 1,000,000 subscribers during the year = $75,000; greater than 1,000,000 subscribers during the year = $100,000.
Is it naive to suggest that "Free Culture" and "Non-Commercial" - just might have similiar and related meanings?
Because Microsoft made a deal with MPEG-LA, that's why. MPEG-LA makes money off patent licensing.
The profit in licensing is elsewhere.
In professional production and distribution. In hardware.
Microsoft pays into MPEG-LA about twice as much as it receives back for rights to H.264. Much of what Microsoft pays in royalties is so that people who buy Windows (on a new PC from an OEM or as a packaged product) can just play H.264 video or DVD movies. Microsoft receives back from MPEG-LA less than half the amount for the patent rights that it contributes because there are many other companies that provide the licensed functionality in content and products that sell in high volume. Follow Up on HTML5 Video in IE9
Don't believe it?
Then try counting the number of industrial giants like Mitsubishi and Toshiba on this list: AVC/H.264 Licensees
IE is becoming less and less relevant every day. For one it's loosing marketshare on the desktop, but also very importantly is the fact that mobile devices are quickly becoming the preferred medium that people use to interact with the web.
How many of those mobile devices support H.264 video in hardware?
How many have a video camera?
Pretty much all of them.
Microsoft's support for H.264 is in the OS not the browser and is accessible to anyone.
Third-party applications that simply make calls to the H.264 code in Windows (and which do not incorporate any H.264 code directly) are covered by Microsoft's license of H.264. Follow Up on HTML5 Video in IE9
The OS could be Win 7, Win 7 Mobile, or Win 7 Embedded for your STB.