HEVC Advance eliminates streaming royalties

[TomV]

Good news for HEVC adoption...
HEVC Advance announced today that it is eliminating subscription and title-by-title royalty fees for non-physical HEVC content distribution, making all streaming, cable, over-the-air broadcasts, and satellite distributions of encoded HEVC content royalty free. HEVC encoded content sold on Blu-ray discs and other storage devices will continue to be subject to a royalty. In a related move, HEVC Advance also reduced hardware royalty rates on some lower cost products.

http://www.streamingmedia.com/Articles/News/Online-Video-News/HEVC-Advance-Cuts-Content-Fees-on-Streaming-123828.aspx#.Wqib_OnO7AE.linkedin

[Selur]

Nice. Thanks for the info. :)

[hajj_3]

more info: http://www.hevcadvance.com/pdfnew/RoyaltyRatesSummary.pdf

[iwod]

There is still problems with Velos Group, and the missing technicolour, which isn't in any of the pool.

On one hand I really would like HEVC just get over it, merge all the pool, announce $80M Enterprise Cap, with free quota for volume less then certain amount on startup, HEVC Still images are exempt from royalty.

On the other hand, I really would like AV1 to be great and just shut them up once and for all, and banish them for eternity.

I think all the HEVC companies are playing a very dangerous game here.

[WhatZit]

I think all the HEVC companies are playing a very dangerous game here.

Yeah, they're banking on AV1 continuing to be an underperforming morass, inspired no doubt by the fact that all calendar milestones have thusfar been missed by the AOM.

Still, relying on someone else's slow cooking of a delicious recipe to make your own unsavory slop appear more palatable is dangerous myopia. All the other guy has to do is turn up the heat, and you're left with nothing competitive. How can you compete with something that's both free and tastier?

Whilst HEVC for physical media appears locked in, streaming/download is where the future's at. This change really needed to happen more than a year ago to further entrench HEVC as a standard for all distribution.

As it stands now, all the big streaming players are looming over the AOM's stove waiting for the AV1 pot to boil. That all these companies have been ALLOWED to even CARE about AV1 is entirely the fault of the HEVC patent holder's short-sightedness.

[hajj_3]

Whilst HEVC for physical media appears locked in, streaming/download is where the future's at. This change really needed to happen more than a year ago to further entrench HEVC as a standard for all distribution.

HEVC will likely be used be all/nearly all new terrestrial/satellite/cable tv platforms. AV1 will likely only be used on a small number of IPTV-only tv platforms. h265 is dead on the web, it is a shame that apple decided to embrace it a few months ago.

[IgorC]

AV1 will likely only be used on a small number of IPTV-only tv platforms.
yeah, AV1 will likely only be usen on a small number platforms like VP9... like Youtube, Netflix (mobile users). Yeah, very small platforms.

[hajj_3]

yeah, AV1 will likely only be usen on a small number platforms like VP9... like Youtube, Netflix (mobile users). Yeah, very small platforms.

I was talking about tv platforms now online.

[Neillithan]

This is both good and bad.

When streaming royalties for AVC were eliminated, this was good because the web was already heavily switched to AVC and eliminating royalties only eliminated the paranoia.

Eliminating royalties for HEVC might increase adoption, but with AV1 on the horizon, I'm not 100% certain it will be effective. Firefox is more likely to implement AV1 than HEVC since Firefox is all about a free, open internet... etc etc..... AV1 definitely fits with their ideology. And Google is backing the holy hell out of AV1, so it's pretty much guaranteed to make it into Chrome.

Meanwhile, adoption of HEVC is going to be limited to ... Safari? lol.... Stupid. Absolutely stupid. Who the hell would adopt HEVC when AV1 is coming? Plus, HOW.... HOW do you adopt HEVC if browsers won't adopt it?

[foxyshadis]

This is both good and bad.

When streaming royalties for AVC were eliminated, this was good because the web was already heavily switched to AVC and eliminating royalties only eliminated the paranoia.

Eliminating royalties for HEVC might increase adoption, but with AV1 on the horizon, I'm not 100% certain it will be effective. Firefox is more likely to implement AV1 than HEVC since Firefox is all about a free, open internet... etc etc..... AV1 definitely fits with their ideology. And Google is backing the holy hell out of AV1, so it's pretty much guaranteed to make it into Chrome.

Meanwhile, adoption of HEVC is going to be limited to ... Safari? lol.... Stupid. Absolutely stupid. Who the hell would adopt HEVC when AV1 is coming? Plus, HOW.... HOW do you adopt HEVC if browsers won't adopt it?

Apps. Netflix tends to put new features in its app first nowadays, both Windows store and the various mobile and set-top versions. Amazon basically doesn't update Amazon video at all anymore, the app is the only place to get a half-decent experience. I know most people don't use apps on Windows, but I've found Netflix's and Amazon's to be significantly more stable, user-friendly, and faster. The primacy of the web browser is shifting back to local applications once again.

[Roph]

AV1 released; https://aomedia.org/the-alliance-for-open-media-kickstarts-video-innovation-era-with-av1-release/

AV1 should become widespread, as anyone who's anyone is in the alliance. Hell, even apple recently joined. All hardware manufacturers are in, so hardware encode/decode should be mainstream in a few generations.

[WhatZit]

AV1 should become widespread, as anyone who's anyone is in the alliance.

This whole sorry patent pool saga will appear in marketing textbooks for decades to come, probably replacing/addending the "Case Studies In Stupidity: VHS vs BETA (or HDDVD vs BluRay)" sections.

Still, you never know, there's maybe a year before AV1 makes it into widespread consumer silicon. I wonder what HEVC Advance will be doing in that time? Probably sticking their fingers in their ears and yelling "LaLaLaLaLaLa"...