AV1 and the Video Wars of 2027(hacks.mozilla.org)
hacks.mozilla.org
AV1 and the Video Wars of 2027
https://hacks.mozilla.org/2018/08/the-video-wars-of-2027/
15 comments
> I have no idea what you want me or others to do, even after reading this 3 times.
I think that's actually pretty clear. Keep pushing for free and open standards. Oppose lock-in and patent protection racket.
I think that's actually pretty clear. Keep pushing for free and open standards. Oppose lock-in and patent protection racket.
> Keep pushing for free and open standards. Oppose lock-in and patent protection racket.
The commenter is looking for a list of specific, actionable steps they can take to make sure AV1 "wins". Unfortunately (as the author effectively acknowledges), there really aren't any.
My worry about seeing thinkpieces like this is that Mozilla hasn't been able to influence Apple through AOMedia — it's not accidental that Apple is still missing from the front page — and so is resorting to general-audience emotional appeals. I'd go so far as to say that "here's how the sky will fall" posts like this are harmful to their cause.
The commenter is looking for a list of specific, actionable steps they can take to make sure AV1 "wins". Unfortunately (as the author effectively acknowledges), there really aren't any.
My worry about seeing thinkpieces like this is that Mozilla hasn't been able to influence Apple through AOMedia — it's not accidental that Apple is still missing from the front page — and so is resorting to general-audience emotional appeals. I'd go so far as to say that "here's how the sky will fall" posts like this are harmful to their cause.
Apple are just being their usual lock-in jerks. Influencing them for anything positive is only possible under heavy pressure. In this case they were pressured, because various systems with video playback are not going to play along with HEVC racket schemes. I.e. for Apple's video services to be able to reach more users, they'll be forced to support AV1.
In more practical down to earth terms, what you or any other regular user can do is to ditch Apple products and avoid paying them any money. Vote with your wallet.
In more practical down to earth terms, what you or any other regular user can do is to ditch Apple products and avoid paying them any money. Vote with your wallet.
Poison Apple Fanpersons: forego the niceties of your iPhone, and support manufacturers who aren't in lockstep with the evil forces who want to use IP law to control all content and technology forever.
Gah,
Look, the digital video world exploded, 90% of it using MPEG's standards(MPEG1/2 to start with, h.264 now. HVEC/av1 is just a blip) they were all patent encumbered
FFMPEG runs 60% of the digital media world. _if_ patents were to be called in, places like disney, netflix & fox would have to spend literally billions swapping out FFMPEG or licensing it.
Your phone/computer pays a h264 tax, in the same way that they pay ARM/intel, qualcomm, wifi alliance, HDMI alliance et al.
HVEC gives you more efficient 4k, and HDR, but for most people that just isn't important. Streaming services still use h.264, because there is not hardware/software support upstream.
Now, the thing that will decide it is the speed/quality/cost tradeoff. If the hardware doesn't support a codec, it won't be used.
AV1 has a really slow encoder, so until that has changed it's not going to be used for on-the-fly encoding (live or just in time delivery from mezzanine codec)
for industry noise, see https://www.ibc.org/delivery/codec-wars-the-battle-between-h...
Look, the digital video world exploded, 90% of it using MPEG's standards(MPEG1/2 to start with, h.264 now. HVEC/av1 is just a blip) they were all patent encumbered
FFMPEG runs 60% of the digital media world. _if_ patents were to be called in, places like disney, netflix & fox would have to spend literally billions swapping out FFMPEG or licensing it.
Your phone/computer pays a h264 tax, in the same way that they pay ARM/intel, qualcomm, wifi alliance, HDMI alliance et al.
HVEC gives you more efficient 4k, and HDR, but for most people that just isn't important. Streaming services still use h.264, because there is not hardware/software support upstream.
Now, the thing that will decide it is the speed/quality/cost tradeoff. If the hardware doesn't support a codec, it won't be used.
AV1 has a really slow encoder, so until that has changed it's not going to be used for on-the-fly encoding (live or just in time delivery from mezzanine codec)
for industry noise, see https://www.ibc.org/delivery/codec-wars-the-battle-between-h...
fwiw I've been starting to get HEVC streams from time to time on Windows desktop Chrome when watching Youtube.
Are you sure it's HEVC, because that would be news indeed.
I've never heard of Youtube serving anything but h264 or VP8/VP9.
I've never heard of Youtube serving anything but h264 or VP8/VP9.
Yes, I saw the CPU usage icon in the taskbar fill more than usual and instantly enabled the "Stats for Nerds" overlay and the codec was shown there.
I don't know where you get your sources. Netflix switched to HVEC for 4K and YouTube is using VP9 whereever possible. Those are the biggest players on the market.
On the US market. Which is not only market in existence, nor even biggest one. Take China for example - where neither Netflix nor YouTube are present.
> Compared with the US, China still has plenty of room to grow in a country with a population of about 1.4 billion and 751 million internet users. The proportion of internet users who pay for video content has increased more than 10 times in four years, rising to 13.2 per cent in 2016, and is expected to further increase to 40 per cent in 2022, iResearch said. By comparison, Netflix’s US-based paying members represented around 28.1 per cent of total internet video users in the country as of the end of 2016.
https://www.scmp.com/tech/article/2137870/chinas-consumers-a...
> Compared with the US, China still has plenty of room to grow in a country with a population of about 1.4 billion and 751 million internet users. The proportion of internet users who pay for video content has increased more than 10 times in four years, rising to 13.2 per cent in 2016, and is expected to further increase to 40 per cent in 2022, iResearch said. By comparison, Netflix’s US-based paying members represented around 28.1 per cent of total internet video users in the country as of the end of 2016.
https://www.scmp.com/tech/article/2137870/chinas-consumers-a...
>On the US market
It doesn't matter, when people or any English media speaks of the world, what they really meant was mostly English speaking World. Ignoring China most of the time.
Not the first time I have seen something like World First, World biggest etc when it is not true.
It doesn't matter, when people or any English media speaks of the world, what they really meant was mostly English speaking World. Ignoring China most of the time.
Not the first time I have seen something like World First, World biggest etc when it is not true.
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So they have 13.2% of 751M ~= 99.1M (and that's all subscribers, of all services in China). Meanwhile, Netflix alone has 130M users worldwide.
How are they not the biggest service?
How are they not the biggest service?
You are comparing 2016 China numbers with 2018 Netflix numbers.
Talking about paying users only, maybe Netflix is still on the top - not for long, of course.
> According to research firm IHS Markit, video streaming in China will more than quadruple from $3.5 billion in 2015, to $17.6 billion in 2020. Membership payment will take up a bigger share of the pie, increasing over 500% to $2.6 billion, with the rest coming from advertising revenue.
But talking about active users, iQiyi now have more than 500 million active users.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/ywang/2018/03/07/the-billion-do...
Talking about paying users only, maybe Netflix is still on the top - not for long, of course.
> According to research firm IHS Markit, video streaming in China will more than quadruple from $3.5 billion in 2015, to $17.6 billion in 2020. Membership payment will take up a bigger share of the pie, increasing over 500% to $2.6 billion, with the rest coming from advertising revenue.
But talking about active users, iQiyi now have more than 500 million active users.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/ywang/2018/03/07/the-billion-do...
You are comparing 2016 China numbers with 2018 Netflix numbers
Yes, but it's all Chinese services combined, not just their top 1st. Unless every of those Chinese subscribers pay for the same service, Netflix is still probably the 1st worldwide paying video service.
But talking about active users, iQiyi now have more than 500 million active users.
Which is small compared to YouTube's 1.8 billion.
But fair enough, maybe YouTube and iQiyi are the biggest players; foepys was still at least half-right.
It does seem that iQiyi is using HEVC for high-res content as well, so the point still stands :)
Yes, but it's all Chinese services combined, not just their top 1st. Unless every of those Chinese subscribers pay for the same service, Netflix is still probably the 1st worldwide paying video service.
But talking about active users, iQiyi now have more than 500 million active users.
Which is small compared to YouTube's 1.8 billion.
But fair enough, maybe YouTube and iQiyi are the biggest players; foepys was still at least half-right.
It does seem that iQiyi is using HEVC for high-res content as well, so the point still stands :)
VP9/10 is a whole 'nother story.....
4k on netflix is still only a small amount, as the people that have either a 4k TV, the bandwidth and device to play it on are still quite rare.
4k on netflix is still only a small amount, as the people that have either a 4k TV, the bandwidth and device to play it on are still quite rare.
Yeah, I cringed when reading this. The whole 'good guys' routine with Cisco, Google, Mozilla stepping up to fight the evil 'malcorp' for justice was pretty embarrassing.
I'm all for a 'de facto' standardisation around a royalty free codec, which is what we get with AV1, but lets not pretend that these companies are doing this for any altruistic reasons.
Everything is moving to streaming, and video usage will only keep growing, so for these huge companies, having what is increasingly a core part of their business in the financial hands of third parties is an extremely unattractive position.
Google was already dead set on leaving this dependency, and now when they started work on their third generation codec (VP10) many other companies started to get the message, prompted in a large part no doubt by the HEVC patent fiasco, which now has resulted in AV1.
>AV1 has a really slow encoder, so until that has changed
Well, optimization has likely only recently started in earnest, given that the bitstream was frozen this summer. Personally I'm more interested in the RAV1e AV1 encoder in the works from Xiph than I am in the 'official' one.
I'm all for a 'de facto' standardisation around a royalty free codec, which is what we get with AV1, but lets not pretend that these companies are doing this for any altruistic reasons.
Everything is moving to streaming, and video usage will only keep growing, so for these huge companies, having what is increasingly a core part of their business in the financial hands of third parties is an extremely unattractive position.
Google was already dead set on leaving this dependency, and now when they started work on their third generation codec (VP10) many other companies started to get the message, prompted in a large part no doubt by the HEVC patent fiasco, which now has resulted in AV1.
>AV1 has a really slow encoder, so until that has changed
Well, optimization has likely only recently started in earnest, given that the bitstream was frozen this summer. Personally I'm more interested in the RAV1e AV1 encoder in the works from Xiph than I am in the 'official' one.
> The whole 'good guys' routine with Cisco, Google, Mozilla stepping up to fight the evil 'malcorp' for justice was pretty embarrassing.
Yep.
If anyone wants to know what Google and Mozilla would do in the face of corporations closing off the Internet, you can look at what they _actually did_ with Encrypted Media Extensions.
Yep.
If anyone wants to know what Google and Mozilla would do in the face of corporations closing off the Internet, you can look at what they _actually did_ with Encrypted Media Extensions.
EME was made to discourage the creation of proprietary systems for adding DRM, not to appease corporations.
DRM is fundamentally proprietary. Just because the container around it is defined in a standard does not in any way discourage the creation of proprietary systems -- it by definition facilitates them (and therefore appeases corporations that produce DRM content).
The whole "DRM will happen one way or another, EME is better" is only an acceptable argument if you don't have an issue with DRM (because then you can argue that EME is "nicer" than non-EME because EME is a "standard form" of DRM).
Making it frustrating for people to access DRM content results in a distrust of DRM vendors and a general dislike of DRM -- which is (in my view) a positive outcome. Facilitating DRM in a way that makes it much easier for people to view it is not a neutral position in a world where "DRM is inevitable".
The whole "DRM will happen one way or another, EME is better" is only an acceptable argument if you don't have an issue with DRM (because then you can argue that EME is "nicer" than non-EME because EME is a "standard form" of DRM).
Making it frustrating for people to access DRM content results in a distrust of DRM vendors and a general dislike of DRM -- which is (in my view) a positive outcome. Facilitating DRM in a way that makes it much easier for people to view it is not a neutral position in a world where "DRM is inevitable".
so DRM is OK as long as it's enclosed within a standardised protocol?
EME is the better option if you believe DRM is going to happen one way or the other: it can be contained and ideally used cross-platform, not just on blessed end-devices.
EME is bad if you believe DRM would die/be less common if no standard existed.
EME is bad if you believe DRM would die/be less common if no standard existed.
>ideally used cross-platform, not just on blessed end-devices.
Tough luck with that though since EME only specifies how to communicate with DRM, and the actual DRM consists of multiple 100% proprietary black boxes that only work on blessed end devices and browsers. And since different browsers have different black boxes, you need to play ball with Apple, Google, Microsoft, and every other unique DRM vendor.
EME is a disgrace that should have never come to pass. Premium media should rather be forced to peddle their own clients entirely separate from browsers if they insist on non-cross-platform black box bullshit.
I'm not against content protection in itself, but EME was 100% marketed on false pretenses because it's just as much of a proprietary plugin system than what came before, with just as terrible cross-platform story too. If instead we had content protection schemes implemented in eg. WebAssembly, then we could actually talk about a cross-platform system that also doesn't immediately close out smaller browser vendors from the market.
Tough luck with that though since EME only specifies how to communicate with DRM, and the actual DRM consists of multiple 100% proprietary black boxes that only work on blessed end devices and browsers. And since different browsers have different black boxes, you need to play ball with Apple, Google, Microsoft, and every other unique DRM vendor.
EME is a disgrace that should have never come to pass. Premium media should rather be forced to peddle their own clients entirely separate from browsers if they insist on non-cross-platform black box bullshit.
I'm not against content protection in itself, but EME was 100% marketed on false pretenses because it's just as much of a proprietary plugin system than what came before, with just as terrible cross-platform story too. If instead we had content protection schemes implemented in eg. WebAssembly, then we could actually talk about a cross-platform system that also doesn't immediately close out smaller browser vendors from the market.
> EME is the better option if you believe DRM is going to happen one way or the other
Waterboarding is the better option if you believe that torture is going to happen one way or the other.
Waterboarding is the better option if you believe that torture is going to happen one way or the other.
That analogy doesn't work because the people doing the waterboarding have the power to choose not to use torture in the first place. Whereas the W3C can't choose for content producers to not use DRM--they will do it regardless.
> That analogy doesn't work because the people doing the waterboarding have the power to choose not to use torture in the first place.
The Hollywood studios also have the power not to enforce having to use DRM on their licensees.
The Hollywood studios also have the power not to enforce having to use DRM on their licensees.
Right, but nobody is defending them.
from an economic perspective, I'd rather DRM be as expensive to utilise as possible. A world where media conglomerates have to spend money keeping their DRM up-to-date on every new end-user device is one where they may be more likely to think about the cost/benefit of alternative options.
They will only keep it up-to-date on those with enough market share. No Linux. Maybe Mac. For the slightly smaller players, on mobile, maybe only Iphone, or Iphone + Flagship Android.
which when added up provides a viable market segment for a company that does not insist on DRM. Especially as the mobile device market continues to fragment.
Mozilla decided that providing this feature serves their users better than not providing it. Especially that users can turn it off. ( https://mat.tl/disable-eme-in-chrome-and-firefox.html )
Firefox was forced by Chrome, and Chrome in turn was probably forced by trying to remain a viable platform instead of Netflix et al. simply providing their own desktop apps. (Though I'm only guessing, if you have direct knowledge of the what and why, please do share.)
Firefox was forced by Chrome, and Chrome in turn was probably forced by trying to remain a viable platform instead of Netflix et al. simply providing their own desktop apps. (Though I'm only guessing, if you have direct knowledge of the what and why, please do share.)
> Firefox was forced by Chrome, and Chrome in turn was probably forced by trying to remain a viable platform instead of Netflix et al. simply providing their own desktop apps.
The kind of users who are not opposed against DRM already have lots of browsers to choose between. On the other hand, people who are will now feel deeply betrayed by the Mozilla Foundation.
The kind of users who are not opposed against DRM already have lots of browsers to choose between. On the other hand, people who are will now feel deeply betrayed by the Mozilla Foundation.
> will now feel deeply betrayed by the Mozilla Foundation.
Was there an explicit or implicit covenant by Mozilla and those users?
Was there an explicit or implicit covenant by Mozilla and those users?
And then there are people like me, who are opposed to DRM, yet don't feel betrayed.
If you're opposed to a browser that can be used by DRM modules, Firefox was already not an option, since it supported NPAPI, and therefore DRM as Flash, Silverlight, etc. If you were using Firefox, you were already accepting that compromise. EME is simply a continuation of the status quo.
If you're opposed to a browser that can be used by DRM modules, Firefox was already not an option, since it supported NPAPI, and therefore DRM as Flash, Silverlight, etc. If you were using Firefox, you were already accepting that compromise. EME is simply a continuation of the status quo.
Why would the producers of the content choose to license it to DRM-free delivery services though? Unless you are suggesting that Desktop Linux users are a viable market segment for triple-A content producers themselves, which I doubt.
I don't know the answer to that, but it's a market that startups could potentially capitalise on. It would also not just be desktop linux users, but anyone not using the top N web clients (where N is chosen by said media provider to provide the best cost/benefit to maintaining the DRM on those platforms).
Meh. They can do what they want, but that was the end of my donations to Firefox.
In September 2015, I was one of the people celebrating the expiration of Mp3's license.
I scoured the web looking for others talking about it. I brought it up on Reddit, no one seemed to care. I still don't hear it talked about often.
I scoured the web looking for others talking about it. I brought it up on Reddit, no one seemed to care. I still don't hear it talked about often.
"Oh but it's a dead format! Who would possibly want to write mp3s today?
Even now Wikipedia's audio pages don't link to the MP3s directly. You have to click through to Wikimedia Commons and find the transcodes at the bottom.
[deleted]
I remember the _weirdest_ news cycle where like >4 news sites (including The Guardian iirc) ran articles calling MP3 a "dead" format now that the patents expired.
Definitely felt like a "wet streets cause rain" story.
Definitely felt like a "wet streets cause rain" story.
A large proportion of all "news" is placed by PR companies, essentially advertising but with maybe some light fact checking. It's cheaper than buying advert space.
Fraunhofer essentially wrote these stories, complete with the plug for its newer (patented) audio formats so that's why they say MP3 is dead rather than hooray it's free.
Fraunhofer essentially wrote these stories, complete with the plug for its newer (patented) audio formats so that's why they say MP3 is dead rather than hooray it's free.
The insidious bit about patents licensed to device makers or big content generators is the consumer never sees a bill. The devices or professionally produced content cost more to cover the fee, but the users never see it. There never is a choice to pay or choose an alternative. How would they know to care?
Author’s Note: This post imagines a dystopian future for web video, if we continue to rely on patented codecs to transmit media files. What if one company had a perpetual monopoly on those patents? How could it limit our access to media and culture? The premise of this cautionary tale is grounded in fact. However, the future scenario is fiction, and the entities and events portrayed are not intended to represent real people, companies, or events.
If this were from a personal blog of an Mozilla employees I would have been perfectly fine with it. Instead it carries the name of Mozilla, and most of the story are simply fiction.
I don't know why the title is 2027, and 2027 was never mentioned again within the article. And for those who knows, 2027 is the year all AVC / H.264 patents expires.
I sometimes wish we could extend H.264 and create a new codec in a way, we will have a better codec that is patents free by 2027.
If this were from a personal blog of an Mozilla employees I would have been perfectly fine with it. Instead it carries the name of Mozilla, and most of the story are simply fiction.
I don't know why the title is 2027, and 2027 was never mentioned again within the article. And for those who knows, 2027 is the year all AVC / H.264 patents expires.
I sometimes wish we could extend H.264 and create a new codec in a way, we will have a better codec that is patents free by 2027.
Except the point where the evil monopoly buys the patents and keeps refreshing the patent pool, thus locking things like H.264 away forever.
If that was valid we would never had a patent free MPEG-2 and MP3 codec by now.
Eh, it's a good message but the dystopia is a little too over the top and reduces it's efficacy at making a statement.
>Meanwhile MalCorp found a way to tweak the law so its patents would never expire. It proposed a special amendment, just for patent pools, that said: Any time any part of any patent changes, the entire pool is treated as a new invention under U.S. law.
This is a little silly. Patent law isn’t like copyright law. The term has never changed appreciably.
This is a little silly. Patent law isn’t like copyright law. The term has never changed appreciably.
I am sure it refers to drug patent evergreening, which is a real and prevalent phenomenon.
Fat wallet companies can and do game the system. They patent every new minor feature, creating a rolling portfolio of patents that collectively never expire.
It may be true that individually, each patent is mostly bullshit -- slight re-wording of prior art. But do you feel like a lucky punk, as an individual or small outfit, going up against EvilCorp's $1200/hr cap'n of their debate team in HS lawyers, a dozen times over five years? (with non-technical judges & juries as the final arbiter of your fate)
It may be true that individually, each patent is mostly bullshit -- slight re-wording of prior art. But do you feel like a lucky punk, as an individual or small outfit, going up against EvilCorp's $1200/hr cap'n of their debate team in HS lawyers, a dozen times over five years? (with non-technical judges & juries as the final arbiter of your fate)
I've always wondered about this. Why is it that I've never heard of large corporations trying to lobby patent law into extending, much like how it happened over and over with copyright law? Had this battle already happened and I just never heard about it, or is there something in the law (or norms/culture surrounding it) that makes people never consider doing so?
It does happen with drugs in the US, but in a roundabout way. In a nutshell, the original manufacturer releases a new version of their product with a new patent and it's existence makes the manufacture of the old clones illegal unless they go through an independent regulatory process.
I don't know much about drug regulation, but that sounds crazy. Do you have more info?
Some "life science" companies, in particular pharmaceutical, can extend the life of their patents by 5 years in some jurisdictions (at least here in Europe). This is called a Supplementary Protection Certificate [0] and is subject to certain conditions (e.g. clinical trials took a long time).
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supplementary_protection_certi...
EDIT: typo
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supplementary_protection_certi...
EDIT: typo
It's not exactly an extension though--it's that they didn't get the benefit of the early part of their patent term because of regulatory delays, so they get to pad the back end to make up for that.
The entire debt-based economy is based on extracting more dollars from "consumers". This is also part of the reason for DRM for example.
Get rid of debt! Abolish banks! No more loans! No more debt! Everyone has to save up money before they can do anything! That will fix DRM somehow!
It's the As-A-Service model - the idea that software not only shouldn't be free, but also shouldn't even by run by the client. It's a pretty fundamental renegotiation of the terms of ownership.
On better days I see it as a last gasp by entrenched interests to re-establish the landlordism of old now that compilers are free.
On better days I see it as a last gasp by entrenched interests to re-establish the landlordism of old now that compilers are free.
Read this if you want the other side of the story:
http://blog.chiariglione.org/a-crisis-the-causes-and-a-solut...
> So don’t expect that in the future you will see the progress in video compression technology that we have seen in the past 30 years.
Google has bought a whole "camp" which is badmouthing MPEG for monetary reasons. Nothing has been over-hyped as much as AV1. Who is really evil? In the end it will all be about SSIM in non-geologic time scale.
> So don’t expect that in the future you will see the progress in video compression technology that we have seen in the past 30 years.
Google has bought a whole "camp" which is badmouthing MPEG for monetary reasons. Nothing has been over-hyped as much as AV1. Who is really evil? In the end it will all be about SSIM in non-geologic time scale.
> Google has bought a whole "camp" which is badmouthing MPEG for monetary reasons. Nothing has been over-hyped as much as AV1. Who is really evil? In the end it will all be about SSIM in non-geologic time scale.
I will always sympathize with the side that does not enforce protection money (i.e. patent fees) upon others via violence (e.g. legal system).
I will always sympathize with the side that does not enforce protection money (i.e. patent fees) upon others via violence (e.g. legal system).
That "violence" has allowed to fund video research.
I'm really confused.
We went from everyone backing an open codec to a dystopia with no explanation of how, only what.
The writing style is fun but makes it impossible to tell what parts are shared by our reality.
We went from everyone backing an open codec to a dystopia with no explanation of how, only what.
The writing style is fun but makes it impossible to tell what parts are shared by our reality.
> makes it impossible to tell what parts are shared by our reality
Actually, it's pretty straightforward. Everything before 2018 really happened in our reality. Everything afterward is dystopian speculation.
Actually, it's pretty straightforward. Everything before 2018 really happened in our reality. Everything afterward is dystopian speculation.
Yes. However, it is still difficult to discern what is verbal flourish and what is a step along the way to dystopia.
By difficult, I mean impossible, and there's a large number of commenters talking past eachother about this issue.
By difficult, I mean impossible, and there's a large number of commenters talking past eachother about this issue.
AV1 will win if torrents adopt it...
nah. scene stuff operates within it's own alternate reality. 10 bit x264, and 10/12 bit x265 are either the default for some scenes (anime) or popular in others. there's zero hardware support for them yet, so in my mind they haven't won. AV1 will win if cheap decoding chips flood the market.
Likewise the scene adopted MKV and everybody else kept using MP4 or TS.
Container choices are way less important. You can convert losslessly from one to another.
Though Matroska is the clear winner in this regard.
I think that it did not spread more because initially most players could not seek in MKVs immediately but you had to wait for indexing first.
Is there any other format for multiple audio tracks/multiple subtitles?
mp4, kind off. but tooling for matroska is much nicer, namely mkvtoolnix.
mov - though as the other comments mentioned, mp4 is a variant of mov anyway.
MP4, IIRC - it can definitely do multiple audio tracks (iTunes uses it for AAC and AC3, for example), and I think it can do multiple subtitle tracks.
It's a container
decoding in software is fine (computers are fast, batteries usually aren't a concern for TV connected stuff) for a huge number of people who watch movies, it's the bandwidth and disk space savings we crave, or at least that's my theory.
I personally am super excited for AVIF too. More revolutionary for more people than AV1 video will be? The web will make fantastic use of it in terms of page load times, and reading books in archive.org or something with instant load will be great
I personally am super excited for AVIF too. More revolutionary for more people than AV1 video will be? The web will make fantastic use of it in terms of page load times, and reading books in archive.org or something with instant load will be great
I was informed that so-called 'scene rules' still dictate the use of h264 in order to qualify as a 'scene release'.
I've never seen 10bit h264 used outside of anime, but even there the default seem to be 8-bit h264, at least judging by what the subtitling groups use for their releases.
I've never seen 10bit h264 used outside of anime, but even there the default seem to be 8-bit h264, at least judging by what the subtitling groups use for their releases.
Rockchip has hardware Hi10p support since RK3229 IIRC.
Scene stuff creates demand.
Should've thought about that before implementing h264 support in Firefox, back in the days where Mozilla was still a relevant vendor in the browser market. At this point in time, such articles seem hypocritical.
Part of the reason why open codecs was going to win over HEVC is the multiple patent pools, which H.264 did not have. A lot more effort is being spent on open codecs than in the olden days too.
Not sure why the downvotes - I think it's pretty relevant to view statements in terms of previous positions taken. I'm a big supporter of Mozilla and Firefox is the only browser I use, but another point would be the promotion of the closed ecosystem of Pocket.
I think the downvote is a well deserved punishment for the pointless denigration of Mozzila. I use Chrome at home and was using Firefox at work untill very recently. I had to switch to Edge at work. I also use Internet Explorer (for sites of previsou century). Firefox is around the same level as Chrome on almost everything. Edge is a notch below. Denigration is a poison that hurts a lot.
I agree the tone of the parent comment could use a little work, but think it's a valid point - I'm not sure it can count as denigration if it's something they've actually done.
In terms of "put up or shut up" I should make clear I'm not advocating Mozilla shut up, more that they put up next time something like DRM in browsers is on the table (which they ordinarily do, which is why I use their browser).
In terms of "put up or shut up" I should make clear I'm not advocating Mozilla shut up, more that they put up next time something like DRM in browsers is on the table (which they ordinarily do, which is why I use their browser).
I never denigrated Firefox as a product. It still performs adequately for many users and the source code model is a bit more friendly to FOSS distributions compared to Chrome. I called Mozilla an irrelevant vendor due to their disconnected leadership, diminished browser marketshare and now-fractured community, that makes all such shouty blogposts seem desperate.
If you are interested in dystopian fiction of these sorts, I highly recommend Manna, by Marshal Brain.
In any case, don't think it will be that dystopian. There is competition from elsewhere in the world, you know.
In any case, don't think it will be that dystopian. There is competition from elsewhere in the world, you know.
I doubt I see a day when AV1 seriously used in the wild.
It's encoding is so slow to the point that the encoding speed should be measured by FPD(Frames per Day)
It's encoding is so slow to the point that the encoding speed should be measured by FPD(Frames per Day)
This article is full of cliches and contains no actual technical information on AV1
It also contains no technical information about Disneyland or the Superbowl, despite their mentions.
Technical information about any of the three would be equally (ir)relevant to the article's topic: intellectual property law.
If you're really hard up for technical specs, the most cursory search might reveal https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16796127 regarding https://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/av1/demo1.shtml, or the part 2 follow-up https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17417586 regarding https://hacks.mozilla.org/2018/06/av1-next-generation-video-...
Technical information about any of the three would be equally (ir)relevant to the article's topic: intellectual property law.
If you're really hard up for technical specs, the most cursory search might reveal https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16796127 regarding https://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/av1/demo1.shtml, or the part 2 follow-up https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17417586 regarding https://hacks.mozilla.org/2018/06/av1-next-generation-video-...
> intellectual property law
Please stop perpetuating the use of this term. There is simply no such thing as "intellectual property" and nor are there any "intellectual property laws". The term is perpetuated by proponents of the "intellectual property lobby" which hope to confuse people over what precise laws are being changed, and what precise issues are in dispute.
Not to mention that it is effectively a rewrite of history to pretend that copyright law is somehow a subset of "intellectual property law" -- the closest thing to what we would consider copyright law has existed since 1710 with the Statue of Anne in England. Laws and agreements similar to copyright (though in reality they were systems of censorship) existed even further back than that.
Copyright law, patent law, and trademark law. They are separate laws, with separate rules and regulations, separate rights, and are therefore worthy of separate discussion. Not to mention that most people (understandably) have different views on these different topics -- your opinion on whether the trademark "Coca Cola" should be used by third-parties is probably different to your opinion on whether the text of Alice in Wonderland should be used by third parties, or whether the designs for penicillin should be used by third parties.
The article in question has also (unfortunately) made the same mistake -- conflating patents and copyright law. I say "unfortunately" because I agree with the general point they're making -- that free software and patent-free standards are very important. But conflating the two doesn't make sense and just leads to confusion.
Please stop perpetuating the use of this term. There is simply no such thing as "intellectual property" and nor are there any "intellectual property laws". The term is perpetuated by proponents of the "intellectual property lobby" which hope to confuse people over what precise laws are being changed, and what precise issues are in dispute.
Not to mention that it is effectively a rewrite of history to pretend that copyright law is somehow a subset of "intellectual property law" -- the closest thing to what we would consider copyright law has existed since 1710 with the Statue of Anne in England. Laws and agreements similar to copyright (though in reality they were systems of censorship) existed even further back than that.
Copyright law, patent law, and trademark law. They are separate laws, with separate rules and regulations, separate rights, and are therefore worthy of separate discussion. Not to mention that most people (understandably) have different views on these different topics -- your opinion on whether the trademark "Coca Cola" should be used by third-parties is probably different to your opinion on whether the text of Alice in Wonderland should be used by third parties, or whether the designs for penicillin should be used by third parties.
The article in question has also (unfortunately) made the same mistake -- conflating patents and copyright law. I say "unfortunately" because I agree with the general point they're making -- that free software and patent-free standards are very important. But conflating the two doesn't make sense and just leads to confusion.
The term "intellectual property" was used in 1845 in Davoll et al. v. Brown, 173 years ago.
The WIPO was created in 1967: 51 years ago.
Whatever your personal objections are to a collective term for intangible human creations, claiming that "there is no such thing as intellectual property" is unhelpful to your cause, as that contention is simply absurd.
It is beyond belief that a cabal of lobbyists has convinced practically every nation on earth [1] to collectively supervise a nonexistence.
No, copyright/patent/trademark/trade secret/trade dress/design rights/moral rights/publicity rights/mask work rights/database rights/plant variety rights/geographical indications/etc(^) are not always detailed in separate laws. As early as 1916 the big three were grouped alike: see the Pan-American Convention's "Patents Trade Marks Copyright Status Report" and South Africa's "Patents, Designs, Trade Marks and Copyright Act" both in that year.
Yes, some separation exists for some of these ideas in some jurisdictions - US law separates copyright from trademark, for example, but not from moral rights, which are directly incorporated into copyright law in Title 17 USC. And no, you can't argue that copyright and moral rights are indistinguishable: even after assigning away copyright, an author retains the moral rights (e.g. right to attribution). And of course, the US also groups trade marks and patents together under the purview of the USPTO, and collectively joins invention rights (utility patents), plant variety rights, and design rights (design patents) all under the umbrella of 'patent law'.
Even where there is separation, that separation does not preclude the existence of a collective noun for the set. Nor does assignment into a collective set does imply a "rewrite of history". In fact, nearly all sets must be predated by at least one of their members; it would generally be nonsensical to create and name empty sets before any of their eventual members even exist.
In any case, arguing the merit of individual discussion is nonsequitous -- the existence of a collective name in no way precludes it.
Using your reasoning: "There simply is no such thing as the 'United States of America', nor are there any 'federal laws'. The term is perpetuated by proponents of the 'federal government'. It is a rewrite of history to pretend that that Virginia is somehow a subset of the USA -- the closest thing to what we would consider a state has existed since 1606 with the First Charter of Virginia in England. Native settlers of a similar area existed even further back than that.'
(^) Man, that's awkward. If only there was a term to denote that set that I just needed to name.
1: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/a3/WIPO_members_...
Whatever your personal objections are to a collective term for intangible human creations, claiming that "there is no such thing as intellectual property" is unhelpful to your cause, as that contention is simply absurd.
It is beyond belief that a cabal of lobbyists has convinced practically every nation on earth [1] to collectively supervise a nonexistence.
No, copyright/patent/trademark/trade secret/trade dress/design rights/moral rights/publicity rights/mask work rights/database rights/plant variety rights/geographical indications/etc(^) are not always detailed in separate laws. As early as 1916 the big three were grouped alike: see the Pan-American Convention's "Patents Trade Marks Copyright Status Report" and South Africa's "Patents, Designs, Trade Marks and Copyright Act" both in that year.
Yes, some separation exists for some of these ideas in some jurisdictions - US law separates copyright from trademark, for example, but not from moral rights, which are directly incorporated into copyright law in Title 17 USC. And no, you can't argue that copyright and moral rights are indistinguishable: even after assigning away copyright, an author retains the moral rights (e.g. right to attribution). And of course, the US also groups trade marks and patents together under the purview of the USPTO, and collectively joins invention rights (utility patents), plant variety rights, and design rights (design patents) all under the umbrella of 'patent law'.
Even where there is separation, that separation does not preclude the existence of a collective noun for the set. Nor does assignment into a collective set does imply a "rewrite of history". In fact, nearly all sets must be predated by at least one of their members; it would generally be nonsensical to create and name empty sets before any of their eventual members even exist.
In any case, arguing the merit of individual discussion is nonsequitous -- the existence of a collective name in no way precludes it.
Using your reasoning: "There simply is no such thing as the 'United States of America', nor are there any 'federal laws'. The term is perpetuated by proponents of the 'federal government'. It is a rewrite of history to pretend that that Virginia is somehow a subset of the USA -- the closest thing to what we would consider a state has existed since 1606 with the First Charter of Virginia in England. Native settlers of a similar area existed even further back than that.'
(^) Man, that's awkward. If only there was a term to denote that set that I just needed to name.
1: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/a3/WIPO_members_...
I originally wrote a much longer response, where I argued that in order to group laws together they must have something in common -- and there is nothing that is obviously in common between copyright law, patent law, and trademark law. They all protect different things in different ways, and arguing that they "protect ideas" doesn't really get you anywhere (it doesn't help clarify much -- because in what way can ideas be protected -- and it also isn't really true because those laws protect specific things rather than a more nebulous concept of an idea).
But I found that there is actually a section on the Wikipedia article for intellectual property that outlines the basic argument against the term[1]. I understand why you might find my argument silly on its face (of course people with much more stature than me have used the term "intellectual property" before, making it silly to argue that the term itself is not used anywhere of significance) -- but my main argument is that it is not really easy to come up with a single unifying idea behind "intellectual property laws". You can fairly easily come up with a unifying idea behind "fraud laws" (use of deception to profit in some fashion), or even just "property laws" (people who have a greater claim than anyone else to something are granted certain exclusive rights to it). But the fact that even the Wikipedia article for "intellectual property" cannot describe the concept without immediately breaking it down into the specific sub-rights leads me to believe that it is fairly hard to describe the common idea underlying copyright/patent/trademark laws.
I was probably too forceful in my original response, which wasn't really fitting (since I actually agreed with the general point being made).
> (^) Man, that's awkward. If only there was a term to denote that set that I just needed to name.
I mean, my point is that the only time you need to name them together is when discussing "intellectual property". When it actually comes to filing a patent, or registering a trademark, or suing over a copyright infringement claim, you never would reference those laws together. I agree it's awkward, but I disagree that you would ever need to list them like that (because they are naturally separate concepts that aren't much more related than any other legal concept).
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_property#The_term...
But I found that there is actually a section on the Wikipedia article for intellectual property that outlines the basic argument against the term[1]. I understand why you might find my argument silly on its face (of course people with much more stature than me have used the term "intellectual property" before, making it silly to argue that the term itself is not used anywhere of significance) -- but my main argument is that it is not really easy to come up with a single unifying idea behind "intellectual property laws". You can fairly easily come up with a unifying idea behind "fraud laws" (use of deception to profit in some fashion), or even just "property laws" (people who have a greater claim than anyone else to something are granted certain exclusive rights to it). But the fact that even the Wikipedia article for "intellectual property" cannot describe the concept without immediately breaking it down into the specific sub-rights leads me to believe that it is fairly hard to describe the common idea underlying copyright/patent/trademark laws.
I was probably too forceful in my original response, which wasn't really fitting (since I actually agreed with the general point being made).
> (^) Man, that's awkward. If only there was a term to denote that set that I just needed to name.
I mean, my point is that the only time you need to name them together is when discussing "intellectual property". When it actually comes to filing a patent, or registering a trademark, or suing over a copyright infringement claim, you never would reference those laws together. I agree it's awkward, but I disagree that you would ever need to list them like that (because they are naturally separate concepts that aren't much more related than any other legal concept).
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_property#The_term...
I think what you're encountering is that most broad areas of law immediately break down into specific definitions and lists of rights.
Examine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Admiralty_law and see that in the opening summary the article similarly resorts to naming "marine commerce, marine navigation, salvage, maritime pollution, seafarers’ rights, and the carriage by sea of both passengers and goods" while distinguishing it from the Law of the Sea -- which is again immediately defined-by-list: "navigational rights, mineral rights, jurisdiction over coastal waters, and the maritime relationships between nations."
Sadly, no, "most people" don't feel differently about these rights. In fact, most people cannot even differentiate one from another. This is certainly made no better by the growing use of the umbrella term, but is not caused by it. Search any online art site and find thousands of artists disclaiming "<character> is copyright <entity>", when in fact the only copyright in question is held by the author himself on the drawing he just drew. The artist intends to forswear the trademark, but cannot or at least does not distinguish these legal ideas.
EDIT:
Removed further arguments, because in actuality I agree with you (and this article). My original reaction was a kneejerk to your admittedly overstated claim of nonexistence.
I too am concerned that greed-motivated lobbyists deliberately distort issues to strengthen intellectual property laws against the public interest. Your linked wikipedia section quotes Stallman and Lessig, as well as economists who would prefer the more descriptive term "intellectual monopoly", all objecting to to property's false implication of scarcity.
Examine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Admiralty_law and see that in the opening summary the article similarly resorts to naming "marine commerce, marine navigation, salvage, maritime pollution, seafarers’ rights, and the carriage by sea of both passengers and goods" while distinguishing it from the Law of the Sea -- which is again immediately defined-by-list: "navigational rights, mineral rights, jurisdiction over coastal waters, and the maritime relationships between nations."
Sadly, no, "most people" don't feel differently about these rights. In fact, most people cannot even differentiate one from another. This is certainly made no better by the growing use of the umbrella term, but is not caused by it. Search any online art site and find thousands of artists disclaiming "<character> is copyright <entity>", when in fact the only copyright in question is held by the author himself on the drawing he just drew. The artist intends to forswear the trademark, but cannot or at least does not distinguish these legal ideas.
EDIT:
Removed further arguments, because in actuality I agree with you (and this article). My original reaction was a kneejerk to your admittedly overstated claim of nonexistence.
I too am concerned that greed-motivated lobbyists deliberately distort issues to strengthen intellectual property laws against the public interest. Your linked wikipedia section quotes Stallman and Lessig, as well as economists who would prefer the more descriptive term "intellectual monopoly", all objecting to to property's false implication of scarcity.
I broad-strokes agree with most of what you wrote (and we appear to agree on the main topic), but I did want to make one small correction:
> Your linked wikipedia section quotes Stallman and Lessig, as well as economists who would prefer the more descriptive term "intellectual monopoly", all objecting to to property's false implication of scarcity.
Stallman does actually believe that the term "intellectual property" to group copyright/patent/trademark/... laws is intentionally deceptive and causes confusion[1]. Personally I don't quite agree with all of his arguments, but he does have a far more radical view than the others mentioned in the article.
[1]: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/not-ipr.en.html
> Your linked wikipedia section quotes Stallman and Lessig, as well as economists who would prefer the more descriptive term "intellectual monopoly", all objecting to to property's false implication of scarcity.
Stallman does actually believe that the term "intellectual property" to group copyright/patent/trademark/... laws is intentionally deceptive and causes confusion[1]. Personally I don't quite agree with all of his arguments, but he does have a far more radical view than the others mentioned in the article.
[1]: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/not-ipr.en.html
I'm not clear why you expected it to...?
> Tigt: I have no idea what you want me or others to do, even after reading this 3 times.
> Judy DeMocker [Author]: That’s a valid point.
I'm sure it was fun to write a post that imagines how the use of anything-other-than-AV1 ultimately leads football fans to firebomb police stations in 70 cities. But I'd rather have read a thoughtful post on actually-legitimate reasons to care about this.