31 ms·
MPEG-2 Patents Have Expired
- anonymfus 9y agoExcept in Philippines and Malaysia?
- SllX 9y agoAn obsolete movie format, but a large amount of stored media exists in this format so ultimately a win. I would like to say something to the effect of there being just a tiny bit less rent-seeking in the world today, but I'm sure by tomorrow the seeds will be planted for millions more rent-seeking opportunities in the future.
- taeric 9y agoMy understanding from a long time ago was that the formats were actually competitive if you consider computation requirements. Size of the data was larger, but not by so much that it was scary. There a good modern comparison of the formats?
- astrange 9y agoThis isn't far off especially if you count on-CPU decoding. MPEG2 is sensible for the time, but can't scale to larger pixel resolutions or lower bitrates well. The generation after MPEG2 (VP7, MPEG4 ASP, Theora) though, pretty much sucked universally and there was no good reason for it… second-system effect?
- taeric 9y agoThis makes me realize how behind I am. The generation you mention as being bad is what I think of as latest generation. :)
- anabis 9y agoMost digital TV broadcasts use MPEG-2, don't they?
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- FrankBooth 9y agoMPEG-2 TS as a container, something more modern for the video/audio codecs.
- muxator 9y agoDVB-T2 can use a variety of codecs. From 2022 some European countries (Germany, Italy, Czech Republic, Slovakia) will pass their broadcasting system to DVB-T2 with H.265. Since January 2017 new TVs must support HEVC decoding. Sadly, no AV1...
- digi_owl 9y agoDo wonder how many will be left hanging high and dry with that transition.
- kelnos 9y agoHopefully they'll do something similar to what the US did during the analog->digital switch: provide external tuner hardware to people who can or won't upgrade their televisions either free or subsidized.
- colechristensen 9y agoIn the US transition to digital transmission, nobody was left high and dry. Perhaps mildly confused or inconvenienced by the need to get and setup a government subsidized converter box. Doubtful this would go any different for the above.
- merb 9y agowe will see how good DVB-T2 will be... I don't think it will get critical mass and it will end up being used for LTE/next gen. I mean it's mostly a paid service, at least in germany and it will not have any benefits over next gen mobile network. at some point it's easier to merge terrestial over IP, especially if you can have IPv6 only networks, which makes some stuff simpler (multicast + mcast routing). Also LTE next can already do everything DVB-T2 is capable of, so I doubt that without any full free plans that DVB-T2 will gain traction. There is also a standard for mobile television called MBMS which will probably kill of any dvb-t stuff in the long term. Edit: since we talked about a codedc. most of these services currently use H.264 and I do not think that they will migrate to H.265. Guess as soon as mobile devices ship with hardware AV1, there will be Mobile TV with AV1.
- stickydink 9y agoDVDs are still created and purchased all over the world, I don't think it's quite obsolete yet?
- digi_owl 9y agoAnd likely never will be. Newer codecs basically exist because video resolutions outpace storage space (for questionable benefits). MPEG2, much like MP3, are "good enough" for most common usage.
- zanny 9y agoA megabyte saved is still a megabyte saved. An mp3 sourced from a FLAC at 320kbps is ususally indistinguishable from 128kbps Opus to me, but I can often tell the difference between that and a 128kbps mp3. I encode all my music in 128kbps Opus on my storage constrained devices for that reason.
- Spooky23 9y agoThe value of that MP3 vs FLAC is like 90% less than it was 20 years ago.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- Houshalter 9y agoBandwidth and storage have been slowing down and stagnating for some time now. My internet isn't much faster than 10 years ago. The difference between video codecs makes a huge difference in the quality of video I get to see.
- ttsda 9y agoMy internet is way faster compared to 2008. Probably had something like 10Mbps back then, paying less for 1Gbps fiber-to-the-home now.
- telesilla 9y agoStill used in the audio world to this day, because it has a short coding delay. This patent expiry will be good news to many.
- Crontab 9y agoThis is a striking example of the need to shorten software patents; if we really must have them at all.
- digi_owl 9y agoSoftware patents are really an aberration crafted by decades of questionable court rulings. As best i recall they started out as production process patents that involved computers to monitor and time. Before that, specific instances of code were protected by copyright. And is what allowed Compaq to produce one of the first proper clean room IBM PC clones (because they could defend in court that they had not copied any of the IBM BIOS code), and thus leading to where we sit today.
- pitaj 9y agoI'd rather the patent system be abolished than have the current patent system. Same applies to Copyright. The entire state of IP with the DMCA is just abysmal.
- jacquesm 9y agoBe careful, you just might get what you wish for. There definitely are major problems with the patent system and with copyright but without them there would be other problems taking the place of the ones that we have now. Reform is the way to go, and reform - good reform anyway - is hard to get right.
- eikenberry 9y agoReform would be best, but Abolishing them would be better than the status quo.
- shmerl 9y agoSoftware patents shouldn't exist to begin with.
- Retr0spectrum 9y agoI'm inclined to agree with you, but why?
- torstenvl 9y agoBecause patents are not intended for mathematical principles or business processes, and that's essentially all software really is. Applying mathematical principles to the implementation of business processes and calling it "business logic" shouldn't magically create a new legal status.
- shawnz 9y ago> patents are not intended for [...] business processes Says who? > that's essentially all software really is The implementation of MPEG2 is "business logic"? I wouldn't call it that.
- TheDong 9y agoThe software implementation of mpeg2 is covered under copyright. The math/algorithms/whatever are covered by patents. I could write a totally distinct implementation of mpeg2 called "myvideoencoder" which used the same math, and the patent would make that a violation of their rights. Math isn't patentable per numerous rulings in the past, but somehow once a computer is doing math really fast it becomes patentable.
- jcranmer 9y agoWhat's being patented isn't the math, it's the implementation of that math. As a counterpoint that argues why software patents should exist, I'll point out this. If you build a mechanical feedback mechanism that acts as a controller for some chemical process, no one doubts that said controller meets the patentability criteria. So why should we penalize inventors for emulating that controller in software instead of doing it in hardware? (Note: this scenario is effectively the one that established the patentability of software). The real problem is that the bar for novelty and obviousness in software ought to be much, much higher, and software, having shorter development cadence, needs shorter patent protection times. The most useful change to patent law would be to have patent times adjust to reflect typical development cadences, as opposed to being fixed across all fields.
- herogreen 9y agoI wonder if this will affect the existence of the Raspberry Pi's binary blob ? I remember Liz Upton saying "[MPEG2 licensing] is a reason we have to keep the blob, unfortunately, or we’d be sued into a smoking hole in the ground by the MPEG LA" on this page: https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/a-birthday-present-from-broadcom/ https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/a-birthday-present-from-bro... Also does it mean that the Raspberry Fundation could provide the MPEG2 hardware decoder license key for free ? (currently: http://www.raspberrypi.com/mpeg-2-license-key/ http://www.raspberrypi.com/mpeg-2-license-key/)
- gsnedders 9y agoIf the only license is involved is the patent license, then they could likely provide it for free. However, it's not implausible the manufacturer of the hardware decoder takes some of the fee.
- userbinator 9y agoI'm actually surprised that that hasn't been cracked yet --- or at least, a quick search didn't find anything (do let me know otherwise!); as we all know too well these days, Google isn't particularly neutral in terms of what search results it wants to show anymore. That said, the RPi being the closed system it is, it's not surprising that no real hacker/cracker types would bother with it and the community remains mainly docile. But given the publicity and popularity, it is a little surprising.
- mmozeiko 9y agoIt is cracked. Here's a simple patch: https://www.reddit.com/r/raspberry_pi/comments/5x7xbo/patch_for_mpeg2_vc1_license/ https://www.reddit.com/r/raspberry_pi/comments/5x7xbo/patch_...
- reacweb 9y agoDo you mean that enabling the Pi's hardware decoding of MPEG-2 and VC-1 video files without paying for a license key just requires to patch a single byte with this command ? cd /boot ; cp start.elf start.elf_backup && perl -pne 's/\x47\xE9362H\x3C\x18/\x47\xE9362H\x3C\x1F/g' < start.elf_backup > start.elf
- amelius 9y agoAs an aside, MPEG-LA already moved on, forming other patent pools such as for CRISPR (the gene editing technology). See their website: http://www.mpegla.com/main/default.aspx http://www.mpegla.com/main/default.aspx
- zanny 9y agoAh yes, the sweet taste of abusing state institutions to hold back scientific progress. First it was efficient video and audio compression, now it will be life saving treatment. Ain't the world such a better place for MPEG-LA existing... (that being said, if MPEG-LA wasn't around, someone else would have formed just as evil a patent tyrant company to act as the arm of big media). MPEG-LA is just a symptom of broken IP law just as much as patent trolls and the Eastern District of Texas getting parks built by global corps are.
- notyourwork 9y agoWithout disagreeing I would encourage you to provide an alternative solution to the current (as you describe) broken system. The system was put in place to protect us, if it isn't serving its purpose we need to be more objective and declare how it could be better implemented.
- wtetzner 9y agoJust to be clear, it wasn't put in place to protect us, it was put in place to encourage innovation.
- amyjess 9y agoFor those wondering about MPEG-2's applications (compared to, e.g., MPEG-1 and MPEG-4), it's the primary standard used for DVD-Video. Blu-ray makes some use of MPEG-2, especially for the FBI warnings, but it's not too popular for the actual features. It's also used in ATSC and DVB broadcast video, but I'm not sure how popular it is compared to MPEG-4.
- jcl 9y agoOn reading the title, I was kind of hoping that it meant that all DVD player creators would be free to stop imposing the artificial restrictions present on many DVDs, like region locks, "unskippable" tracks, etc. But it looks like the primary driver of those restrictions is actually the DVD Copy Control Association, which I'm guessing holds a different set of IP and legal agreements than MPEGLA does.
- upofadown 9y agoI looked at the page count on the PDF and thought; 25 pages of patent references for MPEG2, that's insane. Then I looked at the list of patents for HEVC(H.265)...
- Paul-ish 9y agoWhy doesn't the "original title" rule apply here?
- acd 9y agoI think software patents are unfair because companies claim monopoly or a license fee. Patented software will be built on previous software work so they are not unique pieces of inventions that stand on their own shoulders. Shortly software patents wants sole right use while building on others software work. Claiming fees for previous inventions. Software should compete on skill of implementation and not legal departments. Thus patents can also be viewed as anti competitive. Whereas big companies with legal departments/ patent trolls can go after smaller competitors.
- gryzzly 9y agoDoes this mean that Electron issues with MPEG codecs are non-issues now? I mean the discussion here https://github.com/electron/electron/issues/633 https://github.com/electron/electron/issues/633 and https://github.com/electron/libchromiumcontent/issues/174 https://github.com/electron/libchromiumcontent/issues/174
- ksec 9y agoThe page wasn't very clear, is it Mpeg-2 Video ( H.262 )? Or All Mpeg-2 ? Because AAC is part of Mpeg-2 as well. And just wondering, is it possible to extend H.262 to support 4K resolution, different size Microblock, call it something else rather then Mpeg-2 without hitting any patents infringement?
- gbraad 9y agoThe statement: "patents remain active in Philippines and Malaysia after that date" worries me...