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> HEIC was developed by the MPEG folks And the MPEG folks were so cool with video, all that licensing BS. Sounds great. No thanks!

ralfd 1y ago
Arent all MPEG patents expired?
- culturestate 1y ago
  No, they’re in a patent pool. There’s what looks like a relatively up-to-date list at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Via-LA#H.265/HEVC_licensors https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Via-LA#H.265/HEVC_licensors
  - TeMPOraL 1y ago
    5203 active patents for HEVC, 1480 for H.264. That's just plain insane! I get that video formats are complex, but complex enough to consist of 5000+ distinct, nontrivial inventions?
    - j16sdiz 1y ago
      Many of those are just marginally related, and might not apply to the actual standard.
culturestate 1y ago
Confusingly, there are two different MPEGs in this context. MPEG the standards group is organized by ISO and IEC, along with JPEG. The one you’re thinking of - MPEG LA, the licensing company - is a patent pool (which has since been subsumed by a different one[1]) that’s unaffiliated with MPEG the standards group. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Via-LA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Via-LA
- nottorp 1y ago
  So what good is it to have a separate entity doing the standard when the standard is unaffordable outside the top 500?
throw0101c 1y ago
> And the MPEG folks were so cool with video, all that licensing BS. Sounds great. No thanks! Not wrong, but this is a different topic/objection than the GP's 'being locked into Apple's ecosystem'. And as the Wikipedia article for HEIC shows, there's plenty of support for the format, even in open source OSes. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Efficiency_Image_File_Format#Operating_systems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Efficiency_Image_File_For...
- leguminous 1y ago
  As far as I know, that's only support for the container format. You can't actually decode HEIC without also installing libde265, which you are supposed to have a license for. I'm not even sure how you'd go about getting an individual license.
  - throw0101d 1y ago
    > You can't actually decode HEIC without also installing libde265, which you are supposed to have a license for. I'm not even sure how you'd go about getting an individual license. Debian doesn't seem to have a problem with it: * https://packages.debian.org/search?keywords=libde265 https://packages.debian.org/search?keywords=libde265 * https://packages.debian.org/search?keywords=libheif https://packages.debian.org/search?keywords=libheif

ralfd 1y ago

Arent all MPEG patents expired?

culturestate 1y ago
No, they’re in a patent pool. There’s what looks like a relatively up-to-date list at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Via-LA#H.265/HEVC_licensors https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Via-LA#H.265/HEVC_licensors
- TeMPOraL 1y ago
  5203 active patents for HEVC, 1480 for H.264. That's just plain insane! I get that video formats are complex, but complex enough to consist of 5000+ distinct, nontrivial inventions?
  - j16sdiz 1y ago
    Many of those are just marginally related, and might not apply to the actual standard.

culturestate 1y ago

Confusingly, there are two different MPEGs in this context. MPEG the standards group is organized by ISO and IEC, along with JPEG. The one you’re thinking of - MPEG LA, the licensing company - is a patent pool (which has since been subsumed by a different one[1]) that’s unaffiliated with MPEG the standards group. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Via-LA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Via-LA

nottorp 1y ago
So what good is it to have a separate entity doing the standard when the standard is unaffordable outside the top 500?

throw0101c 1y ago

> And the MPEG folks were so cool with video, all that licensing BS. Sounds great. No thanks! Not wrong, but this is a different topic/objection than the GP's 'being locked into Apple's ecosystem'. And as the Wikipedia article for HEIC shows, there's plenty of support for the format, even in open source OSes. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Efficiency_Image_File_Format#Operating_systems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Efficiency_Image_File_For...

leguminous 1y ago
As far as I know, that's only support for the container format. You can't actually decode HEIC without also installing libde265, which you are supposed to have a license for. I'm not even sure how you'd go about getting an individual license.
- throw0101d 1y ago
  > You can't actually decode HEIC without also installing libde265, which you are supposed to have a license for. I'm not even sure how you'd go about getting an individual license. Debian doesn't seem to have a problem with it: * https://packages.debian.org/search?keywords=libde265 https://packages.debian.org/search?keywords=libde265 * https://packages.debian.org/search?keywords=libheif https://packages.debian.org/search?keywords=libheif