Re: [rtcweb] Straw Poll on Video Codec Alternatives

[Roman Shpount <[e-mail]>]

   1.

   All entities MUST support H.264
   1.

      Are you in favor of this option [Yes/No/Acceptable]:

 No

   1.

      Do you have any objections to this option, if so please summarize
      them:


 Not acceptable to anybody who is not already using H.264 due to its
licensing schema. To license H.264 you need to make a deal with MPEG-LA.
After this you need to make a deal with Nokia and other people not part of
MPEG-LA. As a result you are going to get rights to decoder. Encoder is not
specified by the standard and there are no obligations for MPEG members to
declare anything, so you are more then likely exposed to addition IPR risks
when implementing a good encoder. You cannot afford not to license since if
you are real business (ie one generating money or taking investor money)
you cannot afford such business risk. Even if you are planning to
distribute less then 100K codec instances you will still need a license
since MPEG-LA terms are ambiguous enough that you would want to have a
contact that clarifies what exactly you can do. After you jumped through
all these licensing hoops you are still exposed to all the potential
undisclosed IPR with your only hope that patent trolls will go after the
bigger guys first (from my experience they will not).


 Using Cisco binary codec is also unacceptable unless you are doing
something basic since it limits what you can do by requiring to use their
pre-built binary. I am building conferencing servers, so I expect that I
will need to optimize the codec for my needs. I will need to build custom
optimized VP8 to H.264 transcoder. I will need to build custom H.264
bitrate adaptation (ie H.264 to H.264 transcoder to adjust bitrate). All of
this is not an option with Cisco binary.



   1.

   All entities MUST support VP8
   1.

      Are you in favor of this option [Yes/No/Acceptable]:

 Acceptable

   1.

      Do you have any objections to this option, if so please summarize
      them:


 It is acceptable since implementation is provided by Google under
reasonable license terms. It is not a strong yes since VP8 is not formally
defined by any standard's body.



   1.

   All entities MUST support both H.264 and VP8
   1.

      Are you in favor of this option [Yes/No/Acceptable]:

 No

   1.

      Do you have any objections to this option, if so please summarize
      them:


 Not acceptable due to H.264 licensing. Creates additional burden on
development and support



   1.

   Browsers MUST support both H.264 and VP8, other entities MUST support at
   least one of H.264 and VP8
   1.

      Are you in favor of this option [Yes/No/Acceptable]:

 No

   1.

      Do you have any objections to this option, if so please summarize
      them:


 Not acceptable due to H.264 licensing. Creates additional burden on
development and support



   1.

   All entities MUST support at least one of H.264 and VP8
   1.

      Are you in favor of this option [Yes/No/Acceptable]:

 No

   1.

      Do you have any objections to this option, if so please summarize
      them:

 Does not result in MTI.



   1.

   All entities MUST support H.261
   1.

      Are you in favor of this option [Yes/No/Acceptable]:

 No

   1.

      Do you have any objections to this option, if so please summarize
      them:

 Quality is not acceptable for modern video communications



   1.

   There is no MTI video codec
   1.

      Are you in favor of this option [Yes/No/Acceptable]:

 No

   1.

      Do you have any objections to this option, if so please summarize
      them:

 Video is essential to WebRTC



   1.

   All entities MUST support H.261 and all entities MUST support at least
   one of H.264 and VP8
   1.

      Are you in favor of this option [Yes/No/Acceptable]:

 No

   1.

      Do you have any objections to this option, if so please summarize
      them:

 Essentially makes H.261 an MTI, but its quality is not acceptable for
modern video communications



   1.

   All entities MUST support Theora
   1.

      Are you in favor of this option [Yes/No/Acceptable]:

 No

   1.

      Do you have any objections to this option, if so please summarize
      them:

 No better then VP8 since it never went through a standard body, but much
worse quality wise.



   1.

   All entities MUST implement at least two of {VP8, H.264, H.261}
   1.

      Are you in favor of this option [Yes/No/Acceptable]:

 No

   1.

      Do you have any objections to this option, if so please summarize
      them:


 Additional burden on implementation and support with a strong option of
using H.261 for call which is not acceptable due to quality.



   1.

   All entities MUST implement at least two of {VP8, H.264, H.263}
   1.

      Are you in favor of this option [Yes/No/Acceptable]:

 No

   1.

      Do you have any objections to this option, if so please summarize
      them:


 Additional burden on implementation and support with a strong option of
using H.263 for call which is not acceptable due to quality and additional
IPR licensing requirements



   1.

   All entities MUST support decoding using both H.264 and VP8, and MUST
   support encoding using at least one of H.264 or VP8
   1.

      Are you in favor of this option [Yes/No/Acceptable]:

 No

   1.

      Do you have any objections to this option, if so please summarize
      them:

 Decoding H.264 has exactly the same licensing issues as encoding it, so it
is as unacceptable for me as simple H.264 support



   1.

   All entities MUST support H.263
   1.

      Are you in favor of this option [Yes/No/Acceptable]:

 No

   1.

      Do you have any objections to this option, if so please summarize
      them:

 Quality is much worse then H.264 and VP8. Still requires IPR licensing



   1.

   All entities MUST implement at least two of {VP8, H.264, Theora}
   1.

      Are you in favor of this option [Yes/No/Acceptable]:

 No

   1.

      Do you have any objections to this option, if so please summarize
      them:


 Additional support burden. Theora can be used for communications but its
quality is much worse then VP8 or H.264



   1.

   All entities MUST support decoding using Theora.
   1.

      Are you in favor of this option [Yes/No/Acceptable]:

 No

   1.

      Do you have any objections to this option, if so please summarize
      them:

 Does not create an MTI



   1.

   All entities MUST support Motion JPEG
   1.

      Are you in favor of this option [Yes/No/Acceptable]:

 No

   1.

      Do you have any objections to this option, if so please summarize
      them:


 Resulting quality would be so bad it would be almost unusable.

______________

Roman Shpount