A couple of additional data points on AV1 encoding as follow-ups to my Streaming Media article here. First, a colleague asked about 4K encoding times on Twitter. Second, a reader recommended using the row-mt switch for VP9. So, I encoded a ten-second 4K test file on the same single-CPU ZBook as the Streaming Media article.…
Sorry for the visual but couldn’t resist. Just got the following email from Unified Patents. All the normal caveats apply; I haven’t reviewed the filings (and won’t) and Unified may not succeed though they’ve had some recent successes. Why the hate on Velos? In contrast to the transparency with which MPEG LA and HEVC Advanced…
In this January 2019 article in Streaming Media Magazine, I reported that two patent holders in the MPEG-LA patent portfolio group had sued Huawei and ZTE in Germany for patent infringement and had won. As stated therein, “the judgment was particularly onerous; not only did the court order the two companies to stop selling the offending…
As we transition from H.264 to VP9, HEVC, AV1, and soon VVC (Versatile Video Coding), it’s important to understand the fundamentals of codec comparisons and how to evaluate their effectiveness and utility. In this expanded column I’ll cover both. Evaluating the Evaluation Let’s begin with how to evaluate the evaluation. I start by identifying the…
I’ve been pondering what drives codec adoption since I joined compression company Iterated Systems back in 1993. Tonight, I have the opportunity to explore the subject in detail at a meetup sponsored by Bitmovin as an adjunct to the Demuxed conference here in San Francisco. Entitled The Battle of the Codecs: AV1 vs VVC, the…
Lots going on in the codec world, lots to analyze. But for the most part in this article, I’m going to let the pictures do the talking. New HEVC Codec Leaders Emerge I’m a big fan of Moscow State University tools and reports. Unlike many codec analysts, MSU asks the codec vendors to suggest the…
I recently wrote an article for Streaming Media where I tested AV1 playback from YouTube in Chrome. I mentioned that I couldn’t make Firefox Nightly work, though it also should play the YouTube content. Some folks from Mozilla got in touch and detailed the steps to make it work. 1. Download Firefox Nightly here. 2. Go to…
In his Essential Patent Blog, intellectual property attorney David Long recently reported that a jury trial in Federal District Court in Texas found that Chinese smartphone manufacturer Huawei infringed upon an H.264-related patent owned by PanOptis, a non-practicing entity (NPE). The jury also found that the H264 award wasn’t limited by FRAND (Fair, Reasonable, and Non-Discriminatory)…
New Service by Unified Patents Assists Companies with Patent-Related Royalty Claims Monday, September 10, 20182:00 PM ESTRegister below Companies deploying HEVC and other video technologies face skyrocketing licensing costs and uncertainty about future demands. In 2017, Apple paid Nokia $2 billion dollars in unexpected H.264 royalties, while last month Chinese smartphone manufacturer Huawei was ordered to…
In his Essential Patent Blog, intellectual property attorney David Long recently reported that a jury trial in Federal District Court in Texas found that Chinese smartphone manufacturer Huawei infringed upon an H.264-related patent owned by PanOptis, a non-practicing entity (NPE). The jury also found that the H264 award wasn’t limited by FRAND requirements typically applied…