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According to Google, YouTube users have now watched a combined 25 billion hours of VP9-encoded video. The VP9 codec, Google's alternative to MPEG LA's H.265/HEVC, can deliver video of the same quality at around half the bitrate of H.264. Google claims that VP9 has allowed users in countries such as Turkey, Mexico, Indonesia, and Brazil to "upgrade" their YouTube viewing from "low definition" resolutions (144p and 240p) to "standard definition" (360p and above).
Now, Google is using VP9 as its main codec for YouTube videos. According to the company, a significant portion of those 25 billion hours of videos played in the last year couldn't have been watched in HD quality without the VP9 codec. "This new format bumps everybody one notch closer to our goal of instant, high-quality, buffer-free videos. That means that if your Internet connection used to only play up to 480p without buffering on YouTube, it can now play silky smooth 720p with VP9," said Google in a blog post.
Google has previously committed to an accelerated 18-month development schedule for successors to VP9. Meanwhile, the Xiph.Org Foundation, Mozilla, and the Internet Engineering Task Force are working on a patent-unencumbered codec named NETVC (formerly Daala). The proponents are aiming to optimize NETVC beyond both VP9 and H.265.
Finally, BBC News and others are reporting on a new contender, a codec called "Perseus" from the company V-Nova. It is being marketed as enabling 4K/2160p streaming for mainstream users.
The company said Perseus is more efficient than industry-standard codecs, claiming that testing shows compression gains of two to three times compared to H.264/AVC, H.265/HEVC and JPEG2000 and substantially less power use compared to H.264 and H.265. The codec scales through "all bitrates," the company said, offering both lossless and lossy quality. V-Nova said SD video can be delivered to mobile devices at bitrates as low as 125 Kbps, and that HD video can be live-encoded at 500 Kbps or less, but also notes that the codec's benefits increase as resolution and frame rates increase. "Good quality" HD can be broadcast at 2 Mbps and UHD at 4 Mbps using existing hardware and infrastructure, the company said.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by MrGuy on Tuesday April 07 2015, @03:20PM
I applaud NETVC and a few others for trying to do what major standards bodies refuse to do, which is create open standards that anyone can implement without licensing patents. I question that it's possible these days.
While NETVC is being designed to use only code that is either not currently directly patented, or uses patents for which a royalty-free open license is available (e.g. from a patent assigned to the NETVC body), software that is truly not "patent encumbered" feels like a pipe dream in these wild-west days of software patents. If you look at the scorched-earth Samsung vs. Microsoft patent battle, you'll see how incredibly broad interpretations of questionable patents allow the holders to assert those patents against technologies and ideas far away from the original invention. There's a different between "our standard doesn't use techniques that are known to be patented in the way the patented technology does" and "users of this technology don't need to worry about patents being asserted against them."
I'd be STUNNED if MPEG LA (or the companies who hold patents licensed via MPEG LA that encumber current current MPEG standards) didn't have some kind of patents they could assert cover core concepts of the nature of a codec (e.g. "A method for compressing video data for transmission on a network") that they could asset against pretty much any codec.
(Score: 3, Informative) by NCommander on Tuesday April 07 2015, @04:25PM
I'm fairly sure almost all the patents related to MPEG-1, H.-261, and MPEG-2 have expired. Wikipedia seems to agree with me: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MPEG-1 [wikipedia.org]
Still always moving
(Score: 4, Insightful) by MrGuy on Tuesday April 07 2015, @06:32PM
Which is great, and in theory all the patents covering the very basics of a codec should be expired.
That said, MPEG LA's list of CURRENT patents [mpegla.com] that make up their portfolio stretches to 83 pages. That's a LOT of active patents, and I'd wager if they wanted to go to war with a competing codec, there's something on this list that they could use.
(Score: 2) by NCommander on Tuesday April 07 2015, @09:27PM
I did a little looking at this. MPEG-1 was finalized in 1992, which means all its patents should have expired in 2012. If implemented to spec, the sheer age of the thing would constitute a rather obvious prior art defense, and as it was released more than the lifespan of any patent, it should be free and clear. That being said, I appreicate the concern with various submarine patents, but in this one case, I do think its cut and dry enough that a legal case brought against someone using MPEG-1 would likely be summarily dismissed.
If nothing else, even if MPEG-1 isn't a *great* format in this day and age, by sheer age, it does exist as a completely patent free format. Generally for my CC content, I encode WebM/VP8 (I've had encoder problems with FFmpeg+VP9), mostly because I expect Google would fight if someone tried to patent troll them, but I may switch to the old MPEG-1 format now that I've looked this up ...
Still always moving
(Score: 2) by Gravis on Tuesday April 07 2015, @05:28PM
I applaud NETVC and a few others for trying to do what major standards bodies refuse to do, which is create open standards that anyone can implement without licensing patents. I question that it's possible these days.
oh but they can.
While NETVC is being designed to use only code that is either not currently directly patented, or uses patents for which a royalty-free open license is available (e.g. from a patent assigned to the NETVC body), software that is truly not "patent encumbered" feels like a pipe dream in these wild-west days of software patents.
if you worry about "what if"s you will have to worry about people in the future filing patents for technology that is public now because prior art just isn't enough to stop a patent anymore. however, if you worry about shit like that your whole life, you'll never get anything done. the worst thing they can do right now is try to slow us down. so as long as nobody is claiming they have a patent over the tech, it's not patent encumbered. so stop yelling that the sky is falling because it's not.
I'd be STUNNED if MPEG LA (or the companies who hold patents licensed via MPEG LA that encumber current current MPEG standards) didn't have some kind of patents they could assert cover core concepts of the nature of a codec (e.g. "A method for compressing video data for transmission on a network") that they could asset against pretty much any codec.
if they did, it's already expired. most of their patents are from ~1993, so they expired a couple years back.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Tuesday April 07 2015, @06:25PM
"most of their patents are form ~1993, so they expired a couple years back."
Now, if only Software Copyright worked like that . . .
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Tuesday April 07 2015, @07:15PM
It does work like that. Except that the time is much longer. But I can assure you, unless the law is changed again to extend copyright, your grandchildren will be able to use all the software of today for free. That is, if they still find any working hardware that can run it.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by RedGreen on Tuesday April 07 2015, @08:38PM
"It does work like that. Except that the time is much longer. But I can assure you, unless the law is changed again to extend copyright, your grandchildren will be able to use all the software of today for free."
Certainly just like I can use Mickey Mouse created in my Grandfathers time. The blood sucking parasites of the content mafiaa will never let that happen neither will the software industry.
"I modded down, down, down, and the flames went higher." -- Sven Olsen
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday April 07 2015, @08:50PM
It only takes one to ruin the other for everybody.
Of course without copyright there would be no enforceable GPL.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Tuesday April 07 2015, @09:44PM
I'm not arguing against Copyright. I'm arguing against the Continuous Copyright Scheme that Companies like Disney perpetuate. The problem is that a lot of Software will be lost due to stupid Copyright Legislation. There wasn't any Real possibility of saving Any Games Legally, before Gold Old Games. They didn't start legal like either, but mostly just morphed into a legal way to obtain old games. Though with places like the Internet Archive fighting the good fight, there is some glimmer of hope.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Tuesday April 07 2015, @09:58PM
I take back that comment about how GoG started..., apparently I was talking out my badonkadonk.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 1) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Tuesday April 07 2015, @10:49PM
Of course without copyright there would be no enforceable GPL.
Without software copyright there would be no need for an enforceable GPL.
I say this as a fan of the GPL.
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 08 2015, @01:40AM
> Without software copyright there would be no need for an enforceable GPL.
In theory. Since its never happened, all we can do is guess. RMS has a reasonable argument for why that would be the case. But knowing human nature, I think we might end up with the equivalent of BSD-style "what's yours is mine and what's mine is mine" if copyright ever were abolished.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 08 2015, @01:38AM
> Certainly just like I can use Mickey Mouse created in my Grandfathers time.
Copyright doesn't stop you from using the mickey mouse character in your art. You can't copyright a character.
Trademark law is what stops you.
(Score: 2) by RedGreen on Wednesday April 08 2015, @04:27AM
If my art is writing it does indeed stop me from telling a Mickey Mouse story, same shit different pile.
"I modded down, down, down, and the flames went higher." -- Sven Olsen
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 08 2015, @02:58PM
> If my art is writing it does indeed stop me from telling a Mickey Mouse story,
Not really. [rightsofwriters.com] Mickey Mouse is an animated character, not a literary character. If you wrote a story about him you wouldn't be using the same expression. That doesn't mean disney wouldn't sue, just that they would have a much easier time prevailing on trademark grounds.