To the author... MPEG-LA is not the "creator of H.264".... they are a patent holding entity that aggregates all the patents related to H.264 under a single license that offers indemnification from patent lawsuits for all licensees and really low royalty fees. The low royalty fees and indemnification translate into huge volume for H.264. This money goes to covering licensees in case they are ever sued for use of H.264 (indemnification), part of it goes to pay MPEG-LA, and the rest (I presume) is divided up among the many many patent holders for H.264 (including Apple, Microsoft, Sony and LG).
This benefits all the companies involved because they get a relatively cheap way to get a standard video codec that they can all use and a vehicle by which to license it to others (like Google).
H.264 has got to be the most sensible patent license on the planet. Now it seems from this writing that there are patents pertaining to H.265 that are not owned under a single license from MPEG-LA yet (i.e.: somebody is going after H.265 licensees rather than throwing in with MPEG-LA).
Either way, MPEG-LA did not create anything -- the companies who own the related patents created H.264 (I think Sony is one of the biggest contributors)
HandBrake can already make you an H.265 file (what can even play it?) but doing so takes 5x longer than an MP4 of the same thing.
1) Since HandBrake is open source there are other apps that use HandBrake's encoders internally which support H.265/HEVC. iVI is one of them, which is one of my favorites due to the amount of time it saves me with labeling and organizing.
3) The time it takes to encode can be a problem, especially for 4K UHD content, but as the user it's not any more compromising as when H.264 or MPEG-4 Part-2 first became common for watch videos. If we had to encode our own they may have taken even more time with that older HW. I remember having a 1x CD burner. 1x for a CD burner, which means around 80 minutes to burn a full CD to play in a standard CD player. I would suspect that even now I could encode a 2.5 hour 1080p movie faster than 1x with HandBrake from H.264 (which means decoding it first) to H.265/HEVC… and that's without having a dedicated chip for decoding.
The big concern for consumers will be playback. Sure, it works now because computers can handle it in the CPU (and maybe GPU), and we've had H.265/HEVC en/decoding in the iPhone and iPad for a year now (providing you're using FaceTime with another 2014 iDevice and over cellular. I assume the cellular requirement only needs to be on one end. So is that a dedicate chip or is that done via the standard CPU (and GPU)? Regardless, H.265/HEVC won't be ready for primetime — especially from Apple — until such time as they can get the power consumption down which means increasing the efficiency of at least the decoding for playback.
I hope that time will be next week, which means I hope Apple will also offer 4K UHD content on their iTunes Store for sale and rental, since in this age if you want to offer 4K UHD content you need it to be H.265/HEVC, not H.264 or VP9, like Netflix and YouTube offer. I would hope that all these services can flip a switch to have H.265 encodes enabled because they've been planning for this day for a couple years since encoders came online. I also hope that even 1080p iTunes Store content has been converted to H.265/HEVC and will detect the device or even ask, but I'm going to guess Apple will simply keep those the same. However, if they have done so, I would hope Apple (and other company that has been selling protected content) will allow you to re-download your media in H.265/HEVC because it would use less space.
Finally, we still need the iTunes app to be updated to support H.265/HEVC playback, and I hope Apple will build in an option to re-encode everything with the click of a button so you can save considerable space in your iTunes Library. Outside of the many great things about the aforementioned iVI software, is that it you can pause the encodes if you want to get back more processing from your Mac. Apple could incorporate something like that for recoding your iTL video files, just like it does with Spotlight and FileVault where it will auto-pause or reduce its processor usage if you're actively using the machine. Despite all the above conveniences… I don't expect Apple to do them.
To the author... MPEG-LA is not the "creator of H.264".... they are a patent holding entity that aggregates all the patents related to H.264 under a single license that offers indemnification from patent lawsuits for all licensees and really low royalty fees. The low royalty fees and indemnification translate into huge volume for H.264. This money goes to covering licensees in case they are ever sued for use of H.264 (indemnification), part of it goes to pay MPEG-LA, and the rest (I presume) is divided up among the many many patent holders for H.264 (including Apple, Microsoft, Sony and LG).
This benefits all the companies involved because they get a relatively cheap way to get a standard video codec that they can all use and a vehicle by which to license it to others (like Google).
H.264 has got to be the most sensible patent license on the planet. Now it seems from this writing that there are patents pertaining to H.265 that are not owned under a single license from MPEG-LA yet (i.e.: somebody is going after H.265 licensees rather than throwing in with MPEG-LA).
Either way, MPEG-LA did not create anything -- the companies who own the related patents created H.264 (I think Sony is one of the biggest contributors)
MPEG-LA has a great licensing program. Low fees, a $6.5 million yearly cap and free to use for small companies/websites.
If HEVC Advance starts gouging users (like their $100 million cap) then it "might" cause some to consider VP10. If that happens I expect HEVC Advance to "reconsider" their fees.
Not to mention H.265 is already here. Whether x.265, FFmepg, and apps like Handbrake, VLC, MPV2, etc.
Yes, I'm already downloading... Ahem h265 video files.... Small and pretty ;-).
A 720P Elementary episode plays at 14% on my AMD (10-6700) computer. Haven't tried 4K but I'm guessing I'd be maxing the APU without some specific hardware to do it. My computer screen is not even 4K, it's 2.5K, so no biggie :-).
Yes, I'm already downloading... Ahem h265 video files.... Small and pretty ;-).
A 720P Elementary episode plays at 14% on my AMD (10-6700) computer. Haven't tried 4K but I'm guessing I'd be maxing the APU without some specific hardware to do it. My computer screen is not even 4K, it's 2.5K, so no biggie :-).
I wish I had more time to do some testing on encode times and resource requirements on my MBP.
Didn't those guys at Pied Piper create this compression algorithm? And Google just ripped them off? /s
That involves lossless compression. VP6/7/8/9/10 and h.261(MPEG-1),h.262(MPEG-2),h.263("MP4"/DIVX/XVID, MPEG4 part 2),h.264(AVC/XAVC,AVC-S,etc MPEG-4 part 10),h.265(HEVC) are all lossy compression, and both sets of lossy compression standards work on floating point YUV colorspace, not integer-based RGB colorspace. So even a "lossless" compression to one of these codecs by turning off quantiziation results in colorspace losses. The "XVID" code was so good that Sigma Designs stole it. Everyone else steals libx264 (every "video converting" shovelware product you see out there blatantly steals it, or links to it in an external library)
Like, gradients in animation have to be "dirtied" up otherwise you get this really gross color-banding effect when compressed to any lossy codec. This also applies to video games. It's one of the first things you notice when you have an 8-bit or 10-bit IPS panel. People with TN panels or generally cheap TV's probably don't realize it's not supposed to look that gross or don't care if they're slightly colorblind.
So Google’s the new Sony, refusing to use actual standards and just making their own incompatible garbage. I hate WebM and I hate the fact that they don’t encode YouTube higher than 720 MP4 anymore.
Now I'm sure you are just doing one of your typical replies, but do they, what propriety formats has Sony released in the last decade?
I think that many posters here have failed to realise the problem with H.265 / HEVC is the licensing royalties. MPEG-LA have perfectly reasonable fees that encourage use and takeup of the tecnhologies they license, and have, overall, been fairly benevolent as an entity. Hence the popularity of MPEG2, H.264, and what looked like continuing with H.265/HEVC.
Unfortunately, a group of patent holders, HEVC Advance, has recently emerged asking for massive licensing fees for the patents they hold, that they claim apply for HEVC. They did not emerge during the design of the codec itself, only afterwards. They COULD really damage the potential for HEVC on the market, out of pure greed.
A lot of companies put time, effort, money into H.265/HEVC implementations, in hardware and software, and now it seems that it will not be as popular. This is because of the new STREAMING ROYALTY that the HEVC Advance group is demanding (0.5% of *revenue* is a lot). Having support for something is not useful if nobody is streaming that something because of the cost of doing so.
Apple, of course, are in a better position because they will be doing the streaming and the hardware and the ecosystem. Maybe they will arrange a one-off fee to cover all future costs (i.e., a special deal), or they will sue the group into the ground.
The main point about the VC codecs that Google bought, and now design/enhance themselves, is that it is meant to be royalty free, i.e., they won't incorporate a patented mechanism if the owner of the patent wants fees. I guess they leverage their own patent base to come to agreements with other patent holders for stuff they really need, or arrange one-off licensing fees. No idea really, as it's all company-internal stuff.
Apple's stuck with H.265 for 4K however. The next Apple TV will use an A8, and that's got H.265 in hardware.
One QT question regarding 4K content in general: Is 4K only available "natively" for current productions? How about old movies from the 80s, 90s etc. Is the source material analog, hence nearly unlimited w.r.t. digitizing? Or is there a natural limit beyond which 4K, 8K, nK is just upscaling?
And what about viewing? I haven't done the math, but when you assume a natural distance to the screen based on its size, how much benefit is there in 4K and beyond? Which "k" represents the average eye resolution taking into account screen size/viewing distance?
When does it turn into spec whoring?
Edit: This is what I found in wikipedia:
Quote:
One advantage of high-resolution displays such as 8K is to have each pixel be indistinguishable from another to the human eye from a much closer distance. On an 8K screen sized 52 inches (132 cm), this effect would be achieved in a distance of 50.8 cm (20 inches) from the screen, and on a 92 in (234 cm) screen at 91.44 cm (3 feet) away. Another practical purpose of this resolution is in combination with a cropping technique used in film editing. This allows filmmakers to film in a high resolution such as 8K, with a wide lens, or at a farther distance from a potentially dangerous subject, intending to zoom and crop digitally in post-production, a portion of the original image to match a smaller resolution such as the current industry standard for high-definition televisions (1080p, 720p, and 480p).[4]
So it appears that 8K recording makes sense, 8K streaming not so much, and beyond that the spec whoring begins - unless, of course, I prefer to watch Star Wars Epsiode 15twenty cm away from my 4m diagonal screen ;-)
I knew a guy in college that had a Minidisc system in his MR2. Blew my Mind. It really was an incredible technology, especially for the time. Sony is a great technology engineering firm, they just really have no sense of, I don't know, it's like they can't see the big picture or something. Very weird.
To the author... MPEG-LA is not the "creator of H.264".... they are a patent holding entity that aggregates all the patents related to H.264 under a single license that offers indemnification from patent lawsuits for all licensees and really low royalty fees. The low royalty fees and indemnification translate into huge volume for H.264. This money goes to covering licensees in case they are ever sued for use of H.264 (indemnification), part of it goes to pay MPEG-LA, and the rest (I presume) is divided up among the many many patent holders for H.264 (including Apple, Microsoft, Sony and LG).
This benefits all the companies involved because they get a relatively cheap way to get a standard video codec that they can all use and a vehicle by which to license it to others (like Google).
H.264 has got to be the most sensible patent license on the planet. Now it seems from this writing that there are patents pertaining to H.265 that are not owned under a single license from MPEG-LA yet (i.e.: somebody is going after H.265 licensees rather than throwing in with MPEG-LA).
Either way, MPEG-LA did not create anything -- the companies who own the related patents created H.264 (I think Sony is one of the biggest contributors)
You are correct MPEG-LA did not create anything it is just a holding house for IP.
But it not good for patent holders. I specifically dealt with MPEG IP and the way the MPEG-LA licensing is writen if you choose to use it then any IP you have regarding MPEG you are required to cross license all that IP whether you want to or not. Also MPEG-LA also requires that everyone in the chain of deliverying MPEG content must have license, otherwise, they run the risk of being sued. The way MPEG-LA licensing is wrtten it could be argue that even the network providers should have a license to allow streaming content created with MPEG-LA IP over their networks. Most of the IP in MPEG-LA is open source, so it not alway the best solution to a specific problem.
Long and short if you are a company who is using MPEG-LA IP and you found a unique way to address a specific issue in video you can not with hold that IP from the group. Also if your product is used with another product which has MPEG-LA Ip your IP maybe at risk. If you try to sue someone for infringing on your patents and they find out your product was distibuted with another product with MPEG-LA IP your patent IP maybe invalidated due to the way MPEG-LA licensing is writen.
MPEG-LA was an attempt to create a very large open source IP for video and reduce anyone's control over the technology. The example that has been cited to me was the whole VHS IP, which everyone had to pay royalities to TDK and for years TDK had a strangle hold on VHS videos.
People who do not create unique IP love MPEG-LA since they get to use the efforts of losts of people at a minimal cost, however, if you are the one investing all the time and money developing the IP, then you may not really benefit. MPEG-LA is far more complicated than people realize and I worked with IP lawyers who were solely focus on this and dealing with the issues of their licensing requirements. We would not use any MPEG-LA IP in conjuction with our products because of the IP issues it creates.
I am willing to bet that Part of the reason Apple does not give back to the Open source community as well as does not use the MPEG-LA is they do not want their unique solutions being used by everyone else.
The patent royalty charged by the HEVC group for H.265 probably makes it MORE likely to become popular than Google's "free" alternative (although, the 0.5% of all revenue will probably get a lot of pushback and will likely be lowered, IMO).
The patent royalty fee is better looked upon as a patent immunity fee. The HEVC group protects you from being sued for using the H.265 codec. Google's "free" codec, OTOH, offers no patent immunity, and opens up the users of the codec to being sued by trolls as well as legitimate patent holders.
One QT question regarding 4K content in general: Is 4K only available "natively" for current productions? How about old movies from the 80s, 90s etc. Is the source material analog, hence nearly unlimited w.r.t. digitizing? Or is there a natural limit beyond which 4K, 8K, nK is just upscaling?
And what about viewing? I haven't done the math, but when you assume a natural distance to the screen based on its size, how much benefit is there in 4K and beyond? Which "k" represents the average eye resolution taking into account screen size/viewing distance?
So it appears that 8K recording makes sense, 8K streaming not so much, and beyond that the spec whoring begins - unless, of course, I prefer to watch Star Wars Epsiode 15twenty cm away from my 4m diagonal screen ;-)
There are actual charts, and believe me, 4K makes no sense at a normal viewing distance unless yo
Considering living room size, central vision vs peripheral and how wide our field of view is, I'd say being closer than 1.5 times the TV size makes no sense (even though in theory you could go closer as chart shows). That means only the upper level of the blue UHD line makes any sense for your eyes, and how furniture is normally aranged.
This means 65 inch is the absolute minimum TV size one should contemplate if buying a 4K (if you don't mind sitting 8 feet away (meaning sofa is 6 feet from this big ass TV). A more realistic scenario has the sofa at 8-10 feet minimum and a 75-85 inch TV being the target size. That's one hell of a big TV :-).
For 3D content though, it would make more sense since you'd have half the original resolution, so you could sit closer.
8K makes no sense for movies (it takes a 200 inch screen were you're sitting 14 feet away to make a difference!)
It's fantastic though for a whole wall multimedia wall.
Ahh... I remember the Nintendo hating magazines claiming UMD was gonna be HUGE and destroy the Nintendo DS.
I'll never forget the article where they called it the biggest news of the year. 2nd place was the invention of the Wii remote. ????
Is Memory Stick that annoying thing called Pro Stick II or something? The one they require for the PSP/Vita and their cameras?
Or is that another failed format?
Comments
Google loving to wow investors with nothingness, VP10 might look like @ss compared to h.265
See: http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/avc/Documents/avcweb.pdf
This benefits all the companies involved because they get a relatively cheap way to get a standard video codec that they can all use and a vehicle by which to license it to others (like Google).
H.264 has got to be the most sensible patent license on the planet. Now it seems from this writing that there are patents pertaining to H.265 that are not owned under a single license from MPEG-LA yet (i.e.: somebody is going after H.265 licensees rather than throwing in with MPEG-LA).
Either way, MPEG-LA did not create anything -- the companies who own the related patents created H.264 (I think Sony is one of the biggest contributors)
1) Since HandBrake is open source there are other apps that use HandBrake's encoders internally which support H.265/HEVC. iVI is one of them, which is one of my favorites due to the amount of time it saves me with labeling and organizing.
2) There are several apps that will decode H.265/HEVC content. VLC being the most common of these.
3) The time it takes to encode can be a problem, especially for 4K UHD content, but as the user it's not any more compromising as when H.264 or MPEG-4 Part-2 first became common for watch videos. If we had to encode our own they may have taken even more time with that older HW. I remember having a 1x CD burner. 1x for a CD burner, which means around 80 minutes to burn a full CD to play in a standard CD player. I would suspect that even now I could encode a 2.5 hour 1080p movie faster than 1x with HandBrake from H.264 (which means decoding it first) to H.265/HEVC… and that's without having a dedicated chip for decoding.
The big concern for consumers will be playback. Sure, it works now because computers can handle it in the CPU (and maybe GPU), and we've had H.265/HEVC en/decoding in the iPhone and iPad for a year now (providing you're using FaceTime with another 2014 iDevice and over cellular. I assume the cellular requirement only needs to be on one end. So is that a dedicate chip or is that done via the standard CPU (and GPU)? Regardless, H.265/HEVC won't be ready for primetime — especially from Apple — until such time as they can get the power consumption down which means increasing the efficiency of at least the decoding for playback.
I hope that time will be next week, which means I hope Apple will also offer 4K UHD content on their iTunes Store for sale and rental, since in this age if you want to offer 4K UHD content you need it to be H.265/HEVC, not H.264 or VP9, like Netflix and YouTube offer. I would hope that all these services can flip a switch to have H.265 encodes enabled because they've been planning for this day for a couple years since encoders came online. I also hope that even 1080p iTunes Store content has been converted to H.265/HEVC and will detect the device or even ask, but I'm going to guess Apple will simply keep those the same. However, if they have done so, I would hope Apple (and other company that has been selling protected content) will allow you to re-download your media in H.265/HEVC because it would use less space.
Finally, we still need the iTunes app to be updated to support H.265/HEVC playback, and I hope Apple will build in an option to re-encode everything with the click of a button so you can save considerable space in your iTunes Library. Outside of the many great things about the aforementioned iVI software, is that it you can pause the encodes if you want to get back more processing from your Mac. Apple could incorporate something like that for recoding your iTL video files, just like it does with Spotlight and FileVault where it will auto-pause or reduce its processor usage if you're actively using the machine. Despite all the above conveniences… I don't expect Apple to do them.
MPEG-LA has a great licensing program. Low fees, a $6.5 million yearly cap and free to use for small companies/websites.
If HEVC Advance starts gouging users (like their $100 million cap) then it "might" cause some to consider VP10. If that happens I expect HEVC Advance to "reconsider" their fees.
Can't wait for Adobe to glom VP10 for the next version of Flash.
Why worry about that? Adobe hasn't focused on Flash for some time. It's insignificant to their revenue at this point.
Not to mention H.265 is already here. Whether x.265, FFmepg, and apps like Handbrake, VLC, MPV2, etc.
Yes, I'm already downloading... Ahem h265 video files.... Small and pretty ;-).
A 720P Elementary episode plays at 14% on my AMD (10-6700) computer. Haven't tried 4K but I'm guessing I'd be maxing the APU without some specific hardware to do it. My computer screen is not even 4K, it's 2.5K, so no biggie :-).
I wish I had more time to do some testing on encode times and resource requirements on my MBP.
That involves lossless compression. VP6/7/8/9/10 and h.261(MPEG-1),h.262(MPEG-2),h.263("MP4"/DIVX/XVID, MPEG4 part 2),h.264(AVC/XAVC,AVC-S,etc MPEG-4 part 10),h.265(HEVC) are all lossy compression, and both sets of lossy compression standards work on floating point YUV colorspace, not integer-based RGB colorspace. So even a "lossless" compression to one of these codecs by turning off quantiziation results in colorspace losses. The "XVID" code was so good that Sigma Designs stole it. Everyone else steals libx264 (every "video converting" shovelware product you see out there blatantly steals it, or links to it in an external library)
Like, gradients in animation have to be "dirtied" up otherwise you get this really gross color-banding effect when compressed to any lossy codec. This also applies to video games. It's one of the first things you notice when you have an 8-bit or 10-bit IPS panel. People with TN panels or generally cheap TV's probably don't realize it's not supposed to look that gross or don't care if they're slightly colorblind.
Now I'm sure you are just doing one of your typical replies, but do they, what propriety formats has Sony released in the last decade?
I think that many posters here have failed to realise the problem with H.265 / HEVC is the licensing royalties. MPEG-LA have perfectly reasonable fees that encourage use and takeup of the tecnhologies they license, and have, overall, been fairly benevolent as an entity. Hence the popularity of MPEG2, H.264, and what looked like continuing with H.265/HEVC.
Unfortunately, a group of patent holders, HEVC Advance, has recently emerged asking for massive licensing fees for the patents they hold, that they claim apply for HEVC. They did not emerge during the design of the codec itself, only afterwards. They COULD really damage the potential for HEVC on the market, out of pure greed.
A lot of companies put time, effort, money into H.265/HEVC implementations, in hardware and software, and now it seems that it will not be as popular. This is because of the new STREAMING ROYALTY that the HEVC Advance group is demanding (0.5% of *revenue* is a lot). Having support for something is not useful if nobody is streaming that something because of the cost of doing so.
Apple, of course, are in a better position because they will be doing the streaming and the hardware and the ecosystem. Maybe they will arrange a one-off fee to cover all future costs (i.e., a special deal), or they will sue the group into the ground.
The main point about the VC codecs that Google bought, and now design/enhance themselves, is that it is meant to be royalty free, i.e., they won't incorporate a patented mechanism if the owner of the patent wants fees. I guess they leverage their own patent base to come to agreements with other patent holders for stuff they really need, or arrange one-off licensing fees. No idea really, as it's all company-internal stuff.
Apple's stuck with H.265 for 4K however. The next Apple TV will use an A8, and that's got H.265 in hardware.
One QT question regarding 4K content in general: Is 4K only available "natively" for current productions? How about old movies from the 80s, 90s etc. Is the source material analog, hence nearly unlimited w.r.t. digitizing? Or is there a natural limit beyond which 4K, 8K, nK is just upscaling?
And what about viewing? I haven't done the math, but when you assume a natural distance to the screen based on its size, how much benefit is there in 4K and beyond? Which "k" represents the average eye resolution taking into account screen size/viewing distance?
When does it turn into spec whoring?
Edit: This is what I found in wikipedia:
(src: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/8K_resolution)
So it appears that 8K recording makes sense, 8K streaming not so much, and beyond that the spec whoring begins - unless, of course, I prefer to watch Star Wars Epsiode 15twenty cm away from my 4m diagonal screen ;-)
Now I'm sure you are just doing one of your typical replies, but do they, what propriety formats has Sony released in the last decade?
Aren't you clever, limiting the time frame to 10 years? Most of us are more than 10 years old. Are you?
Betamax
Digital Audio Tape
Minidisc
ATRAC compression
Memorystick
Universal Media Disc
http://www.fastcompany.com/1290466/sonys-long-list-format-failure-betamax-memorystick-micro
Betamax
Digital Audio Tape
Minidisc
ATRAC compression
Memorystick
Universal Media Disc
I knew a guy in college that had a Minidisc system in his MR2. Blew my Mind. It really was an incredible technology, especially for the time. Sony is a great technology engineering firm, they just really have no sense of, I don't know, it's like they can't see the big picture or something. Very weird.
To the author... MPEG-LA is not the "creator of H.264".... they are a patent holding entity that aggregates all the patents related to H.264 under a single license that offers indemnification from patent lawsuits for all licensees and really low royalty fees. The low royalty fees and indemnification translate into huge volume for H.264. This money goes to covering licensees in case they are ever sued for use of H.264 (indemnification), part of it goes to pay MPEG-LA, and the rest (I presume) is divided up among the many many patent holders for H.264 (including Apple, Microsoft, Sony and LG).
See: http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/avc/Documents/avcweb.pdf
This benefits all the companies involved because they get a relatively cheap way to get a standard video codec that they can all use and a vehicle by which to license it to others (like Google).
H.264 has got to be the most sensible patent license on the planet. Now it seems from this writing that there are patents pertaining to H.265 that are not owned under a single license from MPEG-LA yet (i.e.: somebody is going after H.265 licensees rather than throwing in with MPEG-LA).
Either way, MPEG-LA did not create anything -- the companies who own the related patents created H.264 (I think Sony is one of the biggest contributors)
You are correct MPEG-LA did not create anything it is just a holding house for IP.
But it not good for patent holders. I specifically dealt with MPEG IP and the way the MPEG-LA licensing is writen if you choose to use it then any IP you have regarding MPEG you are required to cross license all that IP whether you want to or not. Also MPEG-LA also requires that everyone in the chain of deliverying MPEG content must have license, otherwise, they run the risk of being sued. The way MPEG-LA licensing is wrtten it could be argue that even the network providers should have a license to allow streaming content created with MPEG-LA IP over their networks. Most of the IP in MPEG-LA is open source, so it not alway the best solution to a specific problem.
Long and short if you are a company who is using MPEG-LA IP and you found a unique way to address a specific issue in video you can not with hold that IP from the group. Also if your product is used with another product which has MPEG-LA Ip your IP maybe at risk. If you try to sue someone for infringing on your patents and they find out your product was distibuted with another product with MPEG-LA IP your patent IP maybe invalidated due to the way MPEG-LA licensing is writen.
MPEG-LA was an attempt to create a very large open source IP for video and reduce anyone's control over the technology. The example that has been cited to me was the whole VHS IP, which everyone had to pay royalities to TDK and for years TDK had a strangle hold on VHS videos.
People who do not create unique IP love MPEG-LA since they get to use the efforts of losts of people at a minimal cost, however, if you are the one investing all the time and money developing the IP, then you may not really benefit. MPEG-LA is far more complicated than people realize and I worked with IP lawyers who were solely focus on this and dealing with the issues of their licensing requirements. We would not use any MPEG-LA IP in conjuction with our products because of the IP issues it creates.
I am willing to bet that Part of the reason Apple does not give back to the Open source community as well as does not use the MPEG-LA is they do not want their unique solutions being used by everyone else.
The patent royalty charged by the HEVC group for H.265 probably makes it MORE likely to become popular than Google's "free" alternative (although, the 0.5% of all revenue will probably get a lot of pushback and will likely be lowered, IMO).
The patent royalty fee is better looked upon as a patent immunity fee. The HEVC group protects you from being sued for using the H.265 codec. Google's "free" codec, OTOH, offers no patent immunity, and opens up the users of the codec to being sued by trolls as well as legitimate patent holders.
One QT question regarding 4K content in general: Is 4K only available "natively" for current productions? How about old movies from the 80s, 90s etc. Is the source material analog, hence nearly unlimited w.r.t. digitizing? Or is there a natural limit beyond which 4K, 8K, nK is just upscaling?
And what about viewing? I haven't done the math, but when you assume a natural distance to the screen based on its size, how much benefit is there in 4K and beyond? Which "k" represents the average eye resolution taking into account screen size/viewing distance?
When does it turn into spec whoring?
Edit: This is what I found in wikipedia:
(src: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/8K_resolution)
So it appears that 8K recording makes sense, 8K streaming not so much, and beyond that the spec whoring begins - unless, of course, I prefer to watch Star Wars Epsiode 15twenty cm away from my 4m diagonal screen ;-)
There are actual charts, and believe me, 4K makes no sense at a normal viewing distance unless yo
Considering living room size, central vision vs peripheral and how wide our field of view is, I'd say being closer than 1.5 times the TV size makes no sense (even though in theory you could go closer as chart shows). That means only the upper level of the blue UHD line makes any sense for your eyes, and how furniture is normally aranged.
This means 65 inch is the absolute minimum TV size one should contemplate if buying a 4K (if you don't mind sitting 8 feet away (meaning sofa is 6 feet from this big ass TV). A more realistic scenario has the sofa at 8-10 feet minimum and a 75-85 inch TV being the target size. That's one hell of a big TV :-).
For 3D content though, it would make more sense since you'd have half the original resolution, so you could sit closer.
8K makes no sense for movies (it takes a 200 inch screen were you're sitting 14 feet away to make a difference!)
It's fantastic though for a whole wall multimedia wall.
Ahh... I remember the Nintendo hating magazines claiming UMD was gonna be HUGE and destroy the Nintendo DS.
I'll never forget the article where they called it the biggest news of the year. 2nd place was the invention of the Wii remote. ????
Is Memory Stick that annoying thing called Pro Stick II or something? The one they require for the PSP/Vita and their cameras?
Or is that another failed format?