[opendtv] Re: News: Is Apple Planning A Move Against Ogg Theora?
- From: Kilroy Hughes <Kilroy.Hughes@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 5 May 2010 19:23:34 +0000
[CB] The new Apple API for h.264 playback on GPUs allows the browser developer
to get around this problem. I suspect that Microsoft will provide a similar
API, if in fact they have not already done so.
[KH] Microsoft has provided DXVA video acceleration APIs in Windows since the
early days of DVD and MPEG-2. H.264 and VC-1 extensions were added a few years
ago by some folks down the hall, including Gary, the chair of JVT, which
developed H.264.
My perception of the royalty situation is a little different, maybe because I
was there. Many of the patent holders were sharing $300 million a year on
MPEG-2 royalties of $2.50 per decoder that they wanted to keep on coming,
despite patent expirations and codec evolution. Their position was identical
terms to MPEG-2, possibly a combined license ... use what you want, but just
keep the gravy coming. In a world moving to HD, it was all about chip
decoders, so On2, DivX, VPn, etc. software codecs didn't matter: MPEG was the
only choice for disc players, satellite boxes, etc.; so patent holders,
especially the ones who didn't build stuff, figured they were the only water
seller in the desert and thirsty people would have to pay whatever they
demanded.
But, an alternative codec, VC-1, was standardized, licensed for ten cents a
decoder (capped), used about half the CPU cycles/battery, and got better
results in constrained bitrate HD visual testing. (A new "high" profile was
subsequently added to H.264 that borrowed VC-1's adaptive block sizes) It was
adopted for HD DVD and Blu-ray, demonstrated by EBU/DVB over satellite, used
for mobile broadcast demos, implemented on chips ... it was enough of a
competitive threat to change the discussion from $2.50 to 25 cents. It was
also apparent that H.264 would be an added royalty because almost all H.264
devices would continue to support MPEG-2 (e.g. disc players, receivers,
computers) and pay that royalty in addition. With Internet video, that may be
changing.
Apple was supportive, but at the time was a computer company with around 3%
market share (playing Sorenson and the failed MPEG-4 Part 2 video codec), and
just making a name for itself in MPEG-2 DVD authoring tools. Not the situation
today where they have millions of portable video devices, a download store for
video, and around 10% market share of PC sales.
PS. Some codec licenses don't follow the rules people are assuming in the
HTML5 <video> tag discussion ... they are licensed per "application". A
browser, a media player product, a disc player product, and an operating system
on one computer can each be charged ... as though they were physically separate
hardware components. Mostly the case for some well-known audio codecs (which
cost more than video codecs). I'm not aware of any problem paying multiple
times for sharing an H.264 decoder.
Kilroy Hughes
-----Original Message-----
From: opendtv-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:opendtv-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of Craig Birkmaier
Sent: Tuesday, May 04, 2010 5:18 AM
To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [opendtv] Re: News: Is Apple Planning A Move Against Ogg Theora?
At 8:26 PM -0400 5/3/10, Albert Manfredi wrote:
>I think the point of the article, and the subject line, suggest that
>both Microsoft and Apple plan only on the H.264 codec for the future.
>For whatever reasons, and apparently the reasons are different, all of
>those other options that the flexibility of PCs is supposed to support,
>with no problem, become moot. So, ATSC originally went to MPEG-2, and
>Microsoft, Apple, and Adobe, 20 years later, go to H.264. And oh, I
>forgot, so does ATSC, for M/H.
There are two major reasons that major players in the video codec market are
moving to h.264:
1. Reasonable licensing terms for computers and new mobile devices;
2. Widespread industry support for GPU hardware acceleration of h.264.
One can look at the licensing terms for h.263 (MPEG-2) and h.264 and easily see
why the computer industry is moving to h.264. For MPEG-2 the license fee
dropped this year to $2 per decoder and $2 per encoder with no cap on total. It
is worth noting that MPEG-LA says that the new licenses will run until the
patents expire. For h.264 the cost for a computer for an decoder AND encoder is
25 cents with a cap of $5 million per year.
h.264 was developed in an essentially "open" standards process and there are
well established licensing terms from MPEG-LA. I would also note that Apple was
instrumental in getting the more reasonable terms for licensing of h.264 from
MPEG-LA; they have IP in the standard and used that sabre to negotiate more
favorable terms for large scale deployments on PCs and other computing devices.
Hence, both Apple and Microsoft, and now Adobe are paying the $5 million per
year to license h.264 for their platforms and/or applications.
Far more important, at least to Jobs, is power consumption, especially on
mobile platforms. After issuing the Thoughts on Flash letter, Jobs noted in an
e-mail that running h.264 using the hardware GPU in the iPad will provide
about 10 hours of video playback time from a single battery charge; running the
same video using the Flash h.264 software codec on the CPU reduces the time
that video can be played to five hours.
>I'm not sure how Mozilla and Opera can hope to compete. Do they expect
>all web sites to be accommodating of them?
It is not an issue of the web sites, although MPEG-LA does offer a license for
streaming web sites as well. The issue is how h.264 is decoded. If Mozilla and
Opera were to include a software h.264 codec in their browsers, they would be
liable for the $5 million annual license fee. If instead they call an OS level
API that runs the codec on hardware, then the OS vendor and GPU vendor pay the
license fees.
The new Apple API for h.264 playback on GPUs allows the browser developer to
get around this problem. I suspect that Microsoft will provide a similar API,
if in fact they have not already done so.
>
>As the article states,
>
>"Ironically, this position puts Apple and Microsoft hand-in-hand, as
>both companies are backing H.264--and that codec only--for HTML5 video
>rendering. To Microsoft, H.264 video represents a broad, standardized
>solution that allows users to benefit from hardware-based video
>acceleration. As well, adopting other codecs like Ogg Theora could put
>Microsoft in shakier legal territory versus the more centralized
>ownership and licensing of H.264."
>
>[ ... ]
>
>"... Instead of locking people into some proprietary solution it
>created, Adobe has spent millions of dollars to enable use of a more
>standard format."
>
Yes, Adobe is supporting h.264, but they have not given up on their proprietary
codec. I think it is likely that Adobe will increasingly move to h.264,
probably using hardware acceleration when available.
In reality, Adobe is still in a very good position to exploit HTML5 as they
move away from Flash. They already have the attention and support of the
creative community; all that is required is that they optimize their tools for
HTML5 rather than FLASH output.
Regards
Craig
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