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0 pointsshmerl13y ago0 comments

Support for H.264 in the hardware is commonplace, while support for VP8 is limited to few new SoCs and is virtually absent in any video dedicated hardware. You don't see it as a domination of closed formats?

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Hupo13y ago

H.264 isn't exactly "closed" per se - the standard itself is freely available[1], which is why we have great free and open source encoders and decoders for it. What you mean by "closed" is most likely just "patent-encumbered", which it most certainly is and which affects anyone wanting to use it commercially (at the moment you can use it freely for non-commercial purposes on the internet, but this may or may not change in the future).

[1] http://www.itu.int/rec/T-REC-H.264-201201-I/en

shmerlOP13y ago

By closed I mean not available for free use and distribution, for example in open source projects which can't pay any royalties. May be saying free format would sound more clear, since you are right, closed is a bit ambiguous, as it can also mean a format without published specification which needs to be reverse engineered to be used.

Also, I don't think that H.264 forbids only commercial use. Can you freely distribute their decoders and encoders? What about putting them in hardware for non commercial use?

zanny13y ago

The fine print of H264 says as a consumer you can implement the codec without paying a license fee for non commercial personal use. That does, however, mean all the free implementations like in FFMPEG are liable because since they are open sourced they are not restricted to consumer use.

taligent13y ago

Open source projects can't pay royalties. But people who use them can be forced to.

The idea that VP8/VP9 will gain traction and remain royalty free is laughable.

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