Comment by ksec
3 months ago
The problem is double dipping. If Intel and AMD represent 100% of all x86 Laptop. In theory Intel and AMD would pay the HEVC fees once, which is capped IRRC at $100M from all patent pool together. And all x86 devices would have HEVC licenses. HP and Dell shouldn't have to pay for it.
In practice it seems everyone in the value chain are forced to pay, Intel, AMD, Nvidia, HP, Dell and then even browser and software.
Luckily H.264 High Profile is already patent free in many countries and soon to be patent free in US too. Let's hope AV2 really get its act together this time around. Then the world would just be H.264 as baseline and AV2 for high quality.
> The problem is double dipping.
No, the problem is trying to use royalty-bearing formats for internet video. Royalty-free formats like AV1 avoid the problem.
This is the correct answer. AV1 is amazing and with a bit more funding and hardware support it could get us out of this entire mess.
Intel CPUs have had hardware decode for AV1 since Tiger Lake (2020) and hardware encode support since Meteor Lake (2023).
It could get us out of this mess after a decade of it's hardware encoder/decoder being built into things. If we all just switched to it now, if everything shipped with hardware encoder for AV1 now magically, it would still be a decade before the pre-existing computers/devices were no longer used and AV1 could actually be a default. That's only become possible with HEVC recently.
I do look forwards to an open future. But it's no quick solution.
1 reply →
I agree with your end state desire, but don't shrug off the parent point. Why does dell have to think about license fees for a hardware feature sold to them by a CPU company?
Because they're using a video format which demands licencing fees from multiple organisations (Via-LA, Access Advance, Velos Media, Technicolor). They demand payment.
Patent pools consist of a bunch of lawyers seeking to parasitically extract revenue from implementers of the format. They don't do anything else.
They're all going to hike the licencing fees to maximum they can get away with. They will approach businesses and say, "That's a nice codec you've got there. It'd be a shame if anything happened to it."
To HP's and Dell's utter astonishment, they have discovered that when you lie down with dogs you get fleas.
What HP and Dell should do instead is focus on royalty-free video formats like VP9, AV1, and the future AV2 and join the Alliance for Open Media: https://aomedia.org/about/members/
> and then even browser and software.
Firefox is adding non-free codec support like HEVC on the basis that the hardware decoder (reached at through whatever OS API) already has a license.
No double dipping there.
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1963910
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1924066
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1894818
> In theory Intel and AMD would pay the HEVC fees once, which is capped IRRC at $100M from all patent pool together.
My understanding is that the licensing lawyers learned from Cisco doing that with H.264 for Firefox and there isn’t a cap with H.265.
There is definitely a cap with HEVC Advance and VIA. Not sure if they have closed anything about the H.264 loophole.
> In theory Intel and AMD would pay the HEVC fees once
> In practice it seems everyone in the value chain are forced to pay, Intel, AMD, Nvidia, HP, Dell and then even browser and software.
The fee is payed by the one who makes it "available" to the enduser. AMD and Intel pay nothing, they implement "math" accelerating it, but they do not "provide" it to a customer. The fee is collected by the last one in the chain enabling it for the customer.
So Dell selling a product supporting it out of the box as a complete "experience" is the last in the chain. If e.g. Dell doesn't support it and the user acquires the "enabling piece" from the Microsoft Store, then Microsoft has to pay it. That's why U.S. based Linux distros (backed by a company) disable the codecs, because they would be the last in the chain (e.g. by shipping the "enabler" through mesa). For the same reason Firefox would be on the hook, if they ship the "enabling" part - which they get around for h.264 by providing a blob payed by Oracle or relying on the OS facilities for h.265.
Until AV3 finally rolls around, of course. Then the world would be just H.264 as baseline and AV3 for high quality.