H.264 to be royalty free forever

Mike Halsey MVP
Aug 27, 2010
Updated • Dec 5, 2012
Music and Video, Video
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The H.264 video codec has been proving extremely popular of late, enabling all of us to watch quality, high-definition video on the web and in our homes.  Microsoft and Apple have also both come forward to announce ongoing support for H.264 HD video in HTML5 in their new browsers.

Now, the MPEG LA standards organisation responsible for the codec have answered the concerns of business and consumers by announcing the standard will remain royalty-free forever.

In the past some companies have decided to cash in on the popularity of standards they introduce, as was tried with JPEG, and this news will come as a relief to software and hardware makers building the standard into their programs and devices.

The announcement also means that browser makers, Opera and Firefox, who would not have money to pay such a royalty, can safely introduce H.264 video support into their browsers, following Microsoft, Google and Apple.

In the breaking story from Business Wire, it was said that...

MPEG LA announced today that its AVC Patent Portfolio License will continue not to charge royalties for Internet Video that is free to end users (known as “Internet Broadcast AVC Video”) during the entire life of this License. MPEG LA previously announced it would not charge royalties for such video through December 31, 2015 (see http://www.mpegla.com/Lists/MPEG%20LA%20News%20List/Attachments/226/n-10-02-02.pdf), and today’s announcement makes clear that royalties will continue not to be charged for such video beyond that time. Products and services other than Internet Broadcast AVC Video continue to be royalty-bearing.MPEG LA's AVC Patent Portfolio License provides access to essential patent rights for the AVC/H.264 (MPEG-4 Part 10) digital video coding standard. In addition to Internet Broadcast AVC Video, MPEG LA’s AVC Patent Portfolio License provides coverage for devices that decode and encode AVC video, AVC video sold to end users for a fee on a title or subscription basis and free television video services. AVC video is used in set-top boxes, media player and other personal computer software, mobile devices including telephones and mobile television receivers, Blu-ray Disc™ players and recorders, Blu-ray video optical discs, game machines, personal media player devices and still and video cameras.

This is excellent news for everybody going forward.

Source : NeoWin and Engadget

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Comments

  1. ilev said on July 27, 2012 at 5:42 pm
    Reply

    Beware of http://loginhelper.com/web-browser-maintenance/

    WOT warning.

    Warning: Keep out. IP/Hostname/Website created in order to perpetrate fraudolent activities against users. For any question, reference to this user: http://www.mywot.com/user/915771.

    Fraudolent activity detected: Phishing-Activity “

  2. Fine citizen said on July 27, 2012 at 10:17 pm
    Reply

    hehe, I saw 1100hp Ford GT with a cute blonde video :p

  3. ilev said on July 28, 2012 at 5:46 am
    Reply

    “the excellent Web Browser Maintenance” ?

    It is a malware site flagged by WOT.

    1. Martin Brinkmann said on July 28, 2012 at 9:10 am
      Reply

      Well since it is my site I’m pretty sure it is not a malware site.

      1. ilev said on July 28, 2012 at 9:59 am
        Reply

        Martin,

        Nevertheless WOT flags it.

        Maybe you should take action with WOT.

        Warning: Keep out. IP/Hostname/Website created in order to perpetrate fraudolent activities against users. For any question, reference to this user: http://www.mywot.com/user/915771.

        Fraudolent activity detected: Phishing-Activity ”

        http://www.mywot.com/en/scorecard/loginhelper.com?utm_source=addon&utm_content=warn-viewsc

      2. ilev said on July 28, 2012 at 10:00 am
        Reply

        Martin,

        Nevertheless WOT flags it.

        Maybe you should take action with WOT.

        Warning: Keep out. IP/Hostname/Website created in order to perpetrate fraudolent activities against users. For any question, reference to this user: http://www.mywot.com/user/915771.

        Fraudolent activity detected: Phishing-Activity “

      3. Martin Brinkmann said on July 28, 2012 at 10:49 am
        Reply

        Those are untrue I have requested a review.

  4. James said on December 31, 2012 at 8:37 pm
    Reply

    Martin,

    I tried this out and while I appreciate the sleek and intuitive design, I think YouTube needs to pick a theme and stick with it. I love having distinct categories tucked away at different corners, so this looks a bit disorganized for me. Do you know of any Userscript I can use to revert my YouTube homepage back to classic view?

    Best,
    James

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