Re: [rtcweb] H261/MPEG-1 video quality

[Maik Merten <[e-mail]>]

Am 15.11.2013 06:39, schrieb Monty Montgomery:
> Stephan just implied strongly they haven't, despite the 20 years.

Would sure be nice what those disputes Stephan mentions are actually about.

After all, a major premise of IVC (one of MPEG's efforts to get a RF 
codec) is that MPEG-1 video is considered free by now and I see some 
people being active there that are quite IP-aware.

MPEG-2, in contrast, is clearly a worthy target for disputes, being 
mandatory for DVD and BluRay, and there, e.g., appear to be a swath of 
somewhat "meh" IP claims targeting exactly that application and being 
filed or re-filed or re-re-filed long after the coding technology itself 
was ratified.

I see stuff like

"This is a continuation of application Ser. No. *****, filed Apr. **, 
2009, which is a continuation of application Ser. No. ******, filed Jun. 
**, 2005, now U.S. Pat. No. *****, which is a continuation of 
application Ser. No. *******, filed Apr. **, 1996, now U.S. Pat. No. 
*****, which is a continuation of application Ser. No. ******, filed 
Jan. **, 1994, now abandoned, which is entitled to the priority filing 
date of Japanese application ****** filed on Jan. **, 1993, the entirety 
all of which are incorporated herein by reference."

It's unclear to me what this *means* regarding the usability of old MPEG 
technology.


> And, BTW, I was serious when I mentioned Theora earlier as well.

Theora would clearly be preferable over H.261 or MPEG-1. It has a nice, 
widely deployed and tested implementation with BSD-style license, a 
well-written specification, has better coding efficiency than H.261 or 
MPEG-1 and is quite frugal regarding computation.


Maik