undefined | Better HN

0 pointsanon138513y ago0 comments

>It's always stunned me that the same community that hates on patent trolls is in love with H264

The same community that hates patent trolls continued to use gif and MP3 for many years, so I'm not sure why use of H264 would surprise you. And are people really 'in love' with it? All I see is people who prefer the clearly technically superior option. Not to mention the fact that many of us live in places where software patents are not relevant, and don't feel inclined to use inferior technology just because of the idiocies of the US legal system.

0 comments

3 comments · 1 top-level

ZeroGravitas13y ago· 2 in thread

H.264 is an inferior technology that only exists because of the idiocies of the US legal system. (MPEG-LA specifically asked the US gov if they could set up a patent cartel without being held to account for antitrust). See the excellent comment above by AnthonyMouse that explains the process.

But since those "idiocies" have had their intended effect of squashing competition you don't know what you are missing. Its like everyone complaining about how bad other office suites are when MSFT controls the evolution of the .doc format and Windows.

You'll only notice if we end up locked into using and paying for H.264 long after it stops being technically current.

anon1385OP13y ago

Yes these are all reasons that software development shouldn't be carried out in the USA at all. But in the real world it is and the US is a big market so it impacts the technologies available to me. None of that makes VP8 better than H.264 though.

Back when the US authorities were trying to restrict exporting strong crypto, was the correct response to just use worse crypto, or was it to move crypto development outside the US and tell the US gov to go fuck themselves? I feel it was the latter, but I may be wrong.

jfb13y ago

H.264 is in no way an inferior technology, from a video compression point of view.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse