Big Tech declaring AV1 royalty-free “doesn't mean that it is," critic says.
  • network_switch@lemmy.mlEnglish
    521·
    7 months ago

    Screw Dolby. I’ll only ever encode in AV1 and in the future AV2. HEVC won’t ever be ubiquitous like h.264 and VVC has already had support dropped by Intel processors after only one generation of hardware support. 6 years after the standard was finalized and VVC is still practically non-existent in consumer hardware

    • JohnWorks@sh.itjust.worksOPEnglish
      10·
      7 months ago

      Til Intel had and dropped support for VVC. Also TIL it’s 6 years old I thought it was still in active development.

  • db2@lemmy.worldEnglish
    40·
    7 months ago

    Rather, the AV1 specification was developed after many foundational video coding patents had already been filed, and AV1 incorporates technologies that are also present in HEVC.

    Like file()

  • Venia Silente@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    131·
    7 months ago

    We all knew this was going to happen one day or another.

    Where’s Theora these days, byw? Wasn’t it the encoding blessed by the license druids?

    • FG_3479@lemmy.worldEnglish
      11·
      7 months ago

      Theora is an old and very inefficient codec. VP8, VP9, and now AV1 have succeeded it.

            • Venia Silente@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
              11·
              7 months ago

              In the US system at least it matters not if your claim is legitimate, the mere fact that you can file it poses a severe risk.

              Patent system needs fixing from the foundations up. Or even better, full abolition.

              In the meantime, what’s the better actually open codec to reencode to?

              • flying_sheep@lemmy.mlEnglish
                1·
                7 months ago

                AV1. Netvc didn’t happen, and parts of Daala and Thor were integrated into AV1. Google has the only relevant patents and gave the world an irrevocable license to use it freely.

                This is as close as you can get. The sisvel patent trolls will put their grubby fingers onto everything you can call “video codec”, and make up ways they can milk people stupid enough to pay them.

    • chillpanzee@lemmy.mlEnglish
      26·
      7 months ago

      The license is royalty free. AOMedia requires it’s contributors to contribute royalty free, and AOMedia has worked hard to ensure it doesn’t infringe anyone else’s IP, but that doesn’t stop other companies (some patent trolls) from asserting “You can’t do xyz without infringing some obscure patent I own.” These companies (like Dolby) target the companies that license AV1, and say “You’ve infringed my IP. Pay me $x per product that implements AV1, or I will sue you for much greater damages.” So AV1 really is licensed royalty free, what we have here is a third party that isn’t part of AOMedia (that really liked making money the old way) trying to extract revenue on dubious claims of patent essentiality.

      The fun part is that nobody really knows (or cares) whether AV1 is really infringing any IP. They know that the threat of litigation is likely to induce enough people to just pay that the whole charade is worth it. And perhaps ironically, the companies like Dolby want to litigate even less than the companies they are threatening because litigation tends to be a winner take all thing. If they lose, then nobody pays them; not even the companies they bullied into paying. The video codec IP world has operated this way for decades. This is what AOMedia hoped to change. It’s Governing Members are some heavy hitters. If they were to defend AV1, they could easily out-muscle players like Dolby. That might happen, but these sorts of things play out over a very long time horizon.