4 ms·

And... patents.

• ihsw 14y ago
  That is an inevitability.
  • azakai 14y ago
    There are open alternatives like Daala. The patented codec won last time (H.264), but history might not repeat itself this time.
    • greyfade 14y ago
      That will depend on who chooses to implement which. If hardware manufacturers choose H.265, VP9 and Daala will be marginalized purely because of performance concerns. If, on the other hand, VP9 or Daala can be implemented in hardware cheaply enough and with good enough electrical characteristics, perhaps OEMs can be persuaded to use it.
      • alexkcd 14y ago
        Sadly, the best compression techniques are fairly obvious and have been patented. The economics of this space have always favored better codecs over licensing concerns. Savings in bandwidth often negate the cost benefits of a free codec. High end video recording/editing tools used by most content creators are expensive, such that a codec license amounts to only a small fraction of the cost. Pirates care about high quality and fast downloads. They don't care about licensing costs for obvious reasons. H.265 merely standardizes on a set of the best known compression techniques that meet certain compression vs processing constraints. It just so happens that most of these techniques are patented. Which in turn is why MPEG-LA exists. This will continue to be true going forward. The only way to make a free codec viable is to fix the patent system. I'm all for patent reform, but as I mentioned elsewhere, I'd much rather discuss h265 tech here, and leave the patent debate for the numerous posts we're sure to continue to see on HN.
        • nextparadigms 14y ago
          So what happens if VP9 and Daala are significantly better then? By your logic they should be adopted instead of h.265.
          • alexkcd 14y ago
            Yes, if 1) VP9/Daala are significantly better, and 2) they don't come out much later than h265. VP8 failed on both accounts compared to h264. To see why, read: http://x264dev.multimedia.cx/archives/377 http://x264dev.multimedia.cx/archives/377 (not an unbiased source admittedly, but the technical analysis is accurate).
    • graue 14y ago
      Daala link for the lazy: https://xiph.org/daala/ https://xiph.org/daala/
• alexkcd 14y ago
  No different than h264 in that regard. I'd rather we discuss the technical merits of this technology than have another patent debate. Not that I wouldn't agree, just that if you want to talk patent reform, it might be better suited to do so in a dedicated HN posting. As far as encoding technology goes, this is pretty exciting. Looking forward to the first wave of 4K TVs & cell phone cameras hitting the market. (Disclaimer: I'm the cofounder of a startup specializing in high quality cellphone videos)
  • jfb 14y ago
    High quality cellphone videos? Tell us more.
    • alexkcd 14y ago
      We remove handshake by computing optimally smooth camera paths. Some example videos shot on a handheld iPhone using our app: http://luma.io/v/Brl http://luma.io/v/Brl http://luma.io/v/BtN http://luma.io/v/BtN http://luma.io/v/Brm http://luma.io/v/Brm More info here: http://luma.io http://luma.io
      • nwh 14y ago
        The "Get Luma" button on that page just kicks me to http://itunes.luma.com/ http://itunes.luma.com/ (the home page).
        • alexkcd 14y ago
          Fixed. Thanks!
      • jfb 14y ago
        I'd love to chat with you about luma. My cofounder and I worked on something substantially similar before YC. Ping me at the email in my profile?
        • alexkcd 14y ago
• josephlord 14y ago
  Owned by the standards participants will have to be licensed on an FRAND basis. So while it won't do Free software any good the situation won't be much worse than for AVC unless Google/Motorola or Samsung win in their current cases with Microsoft and Apple about the meaning of FRAND commitments. If FRAND commitments are weak or loose many companies may fight to get the biggest slice of the benefit which could effectively kill the standard.
  • nullc 14y ago
    H.265 will 'add' a bit more than ten years of life to the encumbrance, so in that regard it is worse. The competitive pressure of RF formats against H.264 drove the licensing fees _very_ low (with many use-cases made no cost, but even the w/ fee cases are basically 1/10th the AAC royalty rates). H.265 looks like it will have many more patent holders too. But it will likely be several years before there exists an even incomplete H.265 pool license, so it may be a while to see how much worse (or better) the rates are compared to H.264.