4 ms·

I worked on a team responsible for image assets. I recall the web team asking for webp support from our image server. I suppose nowadays using `srcset` you can

I worked on a team responsible for image assets. I recall the web team asking for webp support from our image server. I suppose nowadays using `srcset` you can get some optimization in the ratio between file size and quality while still providing fallback for unsupported browsers. Given our image service was dynamic (e.g. it generated then cached images at different sizes, qualities, etc from a single high-res source) adding a new format wasn't that difficult. It meant that the image heavy pages would display more quickly which was a concern especially for mobile. So I am a big supporter for more and better formats. That being said, this AV1 vs. HEVC / AVIF vs. HEIF stuff feels eerily similar to HLS vs. DASH. It's not like these formats have drastically different properties (e.g. GIF vs. JPG vs. PNG) - they are all quite similar. I just want to fast-forward time until whichever one is going to win is standard. It's like VHS vs. Betamax or Blueray vs. HD-dvd. Please just get it over with.

MikusR 7y ago
The difference is that HEVC/HEIF has at least three different patent licensing organizations that all want to be paid. While AV1/AVIF is supposed to be "patent free"
- reggieband 7y ago
  I heard the same about h.264 vs VP9 and it turned out that patent licensing wasn't a long-term issue. For a while you got that license from Flash (if y'all remember when Flash was the way Youtube worked, and I recall mention that it was one of the primary reasons Flash Player was never opened sourced). Then the license for h.264 it was included in every copy of Windows 8 (IIRC). Nowadays no one even mentions the h.264 license. I'm no expert on the new license but it seems the restrictions on HEVC are relatively light. I'm pretty sure it is free to compress and distribute media but the license affects hardware and software encoders/decoders. So maybe your HEVC enabled video card with built-in decoder will be a dollar more expensive. I know that every Apple device shipped comes with HEVC hardware standard for the last few years. I would wager most Android devices too.
  - niftich 7y ago
    From English Wikipedia article "Advanced Video Coding", with cited sources: "The commercial use of patented H.264 technologies requires the payment of royalties to MPEG LA and other patent owners. MPEG LA has allowed the free use of H.264 technologies for streaming Internet video that is free to end users, and Cisco Systems pays royalties to MPEG LA on behalf of the users of binaries for its open source H.264 encoder." (...) "On August 26, 2010, MPEG LA announced that royalties won't be charged for H.264 encoded Internet video that is free to end users.[74] All other royalties remain in place, such as royalties for products that decode and encode H.264 video as well as to operators of free television and subscription channels.[75] The license terms are updated in 5-year blocks.[76]" [74] "MPEG LA's AVC License Will Not Charge Royalties for Internet Video that is Free to End Users through Life of License" (PDF). MPEG LA. August 26, 2010. Retrieved August 26, 2010. http://www.mpegla.com/Lists/MPEG%20LA%20News%20List/Attachments/74/n-10-08-26.pdf http://www.mpegla.com/Lists/MPEG%20LA%20News%20List/Attachme... [75] Hachman, Mark (August 26, 2010). "MPEG LA Cuts Royalties from Free Web Video, Forever". pcmag.com. Retrieved August 26, 2010. https://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2368359,00.asp https://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2368359,00.asp [76] "AVC FAQ". MPEG LA. August 1, 2002. Retrieved May 17, 2010. http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/AVC/Pages/FAQ.aspx http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/AVC/Pages/FAQ.aspx
    - reggieband 7y ago
      > streaming Internet Video that is Free to End Users Yeah, doesn't sound like that would include Netflix, etc. Nor would it include a huge amount of other video that is distributed in other ways. It also doesn't cover using your computer to encode h.264 like your webcam almost certainly does. The fact is you probably have several h.264 enabled devices on your computer right now that are licensed. And just because Cisco is covering the cost for it's open source encoder doesn't mean the license doesn't exist. My feeling is if HEVC wins the race it will be the same. 90% of people won't even notice since your license will be included in your hardware/OS without you ever knowing.
  - threeseed 7y ago
    This is why H.264/H.265 are dominant today. Because end users aren't exposed to licensing. I can freely record video on my Sony camera and watch it on my iPhone, Mac, PS4, Switch etc.
- niftich 7y ago
  I am not a lawyer, and I realize there's a fine line between genuine concern and speading FUD, but in the spring of 2019 I looked into the patent situation around the HEIF container itself [1] -- the container upon which AVIF builds -- and skimmed through the 5 US patents I found, which cover some techniques that can be used in the format. Most of them can probably be avoided for the purposes of an AVIF file, but patent US20160232939A1 [2] in my reading seems to be about in-container signalling to express relationships between a "static media item" and "one or more entities" that together "form a group", and "indicating, in the file, a grouping type for the group". The patent appears to be written in a way to allow this definition to encompass, say, a thumbnail and a bunch of frames thereafter, or, say a master image and a set of pictures derived from it, or alternate camera angles of the same thing. Some of these techniques sound like stuff we've seen before, but as is common in patents, the precise wording of claims is often key, and this is where patent lawyers come in. A thorough look of the AVIF specification [3] and the patents registered with the MPEG LA about this format [1] is likely wise before any widespread deployment that makes use of advanced features of the HEIF container; using it to hold exactly 1 'one-layer' still-image is probably fine. Additionally, in my reading [5], the HEIF reference software released by Nokia [4] includes a patent grant for non-commercial evaluation, testing and academic research only. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19874321 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19874321 [2] https://patents.google.com/patent/US20160232939A1/ https://patents.google.com/patent/US20160232939A1/ [3] https://aomediacodec.github.io/av1-avif/ https://aomediacodec.github.io/av1-avif/ [4] https://github.com/nokiatech/heif/blob/master/LICENSE.TXT https://github.com/nokiatech/heif/blob/master/LICENSE.TXT [5] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19874368 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19874368
- ksec 7y ago
  >While AV1/AVIF is supposed to be "patent free" Thanks to the propaganda spread by Google and Mozilla. AV1 is "Royalty free". Not Patent Free. Not to mention Google patents other people's work into AV1. [1] [1] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/06/inventor-says-google-is-patenting-work-he-put-in-the-public-domain/?comments=1&post=35483697 https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/06/inventor-says-go...
  - onion2k 7y ago
    I'm not trying to defend Google's behaviour, but patents are useful for defending a technology you want to remain open (eg proof that someone else didn't invent it) as much as they can be used to generate license fees. Defensive patents are effectively a way of ensuring the prior art shows up in a patent search. It's possible that these patents are not going to be used to restrict AV1's use.
    - ksec 7y ago
      >It's possible that these patents are not going to be used to restrict AV1's use. Except that is not the case. They email its author on whether they could use it. And in a turn of an event they patents it precisely to stop other video codec from using it.

MikusR 7y ago

The difference is that HEVC/HEIF has at least three different patent licensing organizations that all want to be paid. While AV1/AVIF is supposed to be "patent free"

reggieband 7y ago
I heard the same about h.264 vs VP9 and it turned out that patent licensing wasn't a long-term issue. For a while you got that license from Flash (if y'all remember when Flash was the way Youtube worked, and I recall mention that it was one of the primary reasons Flash Player was never opened sourced). Then the license for h.264 it was included in every copy of Windows 8 (IIRC). Nowadays no one even mentions the h.264 license. I'm no expert on the new license but it seems the restrictions on HEVC are relatively light. I'm pretty sure it is free to compress and distribute media but the license affects hardware and software encoders/decoders. So maybe your HEVC enabled video card with built-in decoder will be a dollar more expensive. I know that every Apple device shipped comes with HEVC hardware standard for the last few years. I would wager most Android devices too.
- niftich 7y ago
  From English Wikipedia article "Advanced Video Coding", with cited sources: "The commercial use of patented H.264 technologies requires the payment of royalties to MPEG LA and other patent owners. MPEG LA has allowed the free use of H.264 technologies for streaming Internet video that is free to end users, and Cisco Systems pays royalties to MPEG LA on behalf of the users of binaries for its open source H.264 encoder." (...) "On August 26, 2010, MPEG LA announced that royalties won't be charged for H.264 encoded Internet video that is free to end users.[74] All other royalties remain in place, such as royalties for products that decode and encode H.264 video as well as to operators of free television and subscription channels.[75] The license terms are updated in 5-year blocks.[76]" [74] "MPEG LA's AVC License Will Not Charge Royalties for Internet Video that is Free to End Users through Life of License" (PDF). MPEG LA. August 26, 2010. Retrieved August 26, 2010. http://www.mpegla.com/Lists/MPEG%20LA%20News%20List/Attachments/74/n-10-08-26.pdf http://www.mpegla.com/Lists/MPEG%20LA%20News%20List/Attachme... [75] Hachman, Mark (August 26, 2010). "MPEG LA Cuts Royalties from Free Web Video, Forever". pcmag.com. Retrieved August 26, 2010. https://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2368359,00.asp https://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2368359,00.asp [76] "AVC FAQ". MPEG LA. August 1, 2002. Retrieved May 17, 2010. http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/AVC/Pages/FAQ.aspx http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/AVC/Pages/FAQ.aspx
  - reggieband 7y ago
    > streaming Internet Video that is Free to End Users Yeah, doesn't sound like that would include Netflix, etc. Nor would it include a huge amount of other video that is distributed in other ways. It also doesn't cover using your computer to encode h.264 like your webcam almost certainly does. The fact is you probably have several h.264 enabled devices on your computer right now that are licensed. And just because Cisco is covering the cost for it's open source encoder doesn't mean the license doesn't exist. My feeling is if HEVC wins the race it will be the same. 90% of people won't even notice since your license will be included in your hardware/OS without you ever knowing.
- threeseed 7y ago
  This is why H.264/H.265 are dominant today. Because end users aren't exposed to licensing. I can freely record video on my Sony camera and watch it on my iPhone, Mac, PS4, Switch etc.
niftich 7y ago
I am not a lawyer, and I realize there's a fine line between genuine concern and speading FUD, but in the spring of 2019 I looked into the patent situation around the HEIF container itself [1] -- the container upon which AVIF builds -- and skimmed through the 5 US patents I found, which cover some techniques that can be used in the format. Most of them can probably be avoided for the purposes of an AVIF file, but patent US20160232939A1 [2] in my reading seems to be about in-container signalling to express relationships between a "static media item" and "one or more entities" that together "form a group", and "indicating, in the file, a grouping type for the group". The patent appears to be written in a way to allow this definition to encompass, say, a thumbnail and a bunch of frames thereafter, or, say a master image and a set of pictures derived from it, or alternate camera angles of the same thing. Some of these techniques sound like stuff we've seen before, but as is common in patents, the precise wording of claims is often key, and this is where patent lawyers come in. A thorough look of the AVIF specification [3] and the patents registered with the MPEG LA about this format [1] is likely wise before any widespread deployment that makes use of advanced features of the HEIF container; using it to hold exactly 1 'one-layer' still-image is probably fine. Additionally, in my reading [5], the HEIF reference software released by Nokia [4] includes a patent grant for non-commercial evaluation, testing and academic research only. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19874321 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19874321 [2] https://patents.google.com/patent/US20160232939A1/ https://patents.google.com/patent/US20160232939A1/ [3] https://aomediacodec.github.io/av1-avif/ https://aomediacodec.github.io/av1-avif/ [4] https://github.com/nokiatech/heif/blob/master/LICENSE.TXT https://github.com/nokiatech/heif/blob/master/LICENSE.TXT [5] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19874368 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19874368
ksec 7y ago
>While AV1/AVIF is supposed to be "patent free" Thanks to the propaganda spread by Google and Mozilla. AV1 is "Royalty free". Not Patent Free. Not to mention Google patents other people's work into AV1. [1] [1] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/06/inventor-says-google-is-patenting-work-he-put-in-the-public-domain/?comments=1&post=35483697 https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/06/inventor-says-go...
- onion2k 7y ago
  I'm not trying to defend Google's behaviour, but patents are useful for defending a technology you want to remain open (eg proof that someone else didn't invent it) as much as they can be used to generate license fees. Defensive patents are effectively a way of ensuring the prior art shows up in a patent search. It's possible that these patents are not going to be used to restrict AV1's use.
  - ksec 7y ago
    >It's possible that these patents are not going to be used to restrict AV1's use. Except that is not the case. They email its author on whether they could use it. And in a turn of an event they patents it precisely to stop other video codec from using it.