Re: [rtcweb] Proposed Video Selection Process

Stefan Slivinski <sslivinski@lifesize.com> Fri, 22 November 2013 05:12 UTC

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From: Stefan Slivinski <sslivinski@lifesize.com>
To: "rtcweb@ietf.org" <rtcweb@ietf.org>
Date: Thu, 21 Nov 2013 23:07:27 -0600
Thread-Topic: [rtcweb] Proposed Video Selection Process
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Subject: Re: [rtcweb] Proposed Video Selection Process
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There appears to be some confusion about codec specific patents and general video coding patents so let me try to clarify:

Both H.264 and VP8 specification describe the DECODER, specifically the format and order of the data in the bitstream.  What does that mean?  It means that for each macroblock there will be information indicating the block type, the motion vectors, the quantizer, the residual, etc.   What the specification does not say is HOW you decide what block type to use, what motion vector to use, what quantizer to use, etc.

A license from mpeg-la and presumably from google will protect you when implementing anything described in the decoder specification.  It will not protect you from the HOW.  So if you think of a really simple motion estimate engine where you search every possible location in the reference frame to find the best match using SAD as a block matching algorithm…guess what?  There’s a patent for that.  If you then decide that if there isn’t a really good match (high SAD), and you decide to do an intra search instead…guess what?  There’s a patent for that.  Your mpeg-la license (and I’m willing to bet vp8 also) won’t protect you if you happen to infringe on those.

I’m not trying to scare everyone but to argue that H.261 is somehow going to protect you from patent infringement is completely without merit.

Something else to keep in mind, many of you are aware that apple recently lost a patent infringement suit from VimetX regarding p2p calling with facetime.
What they are doing isn’t all to different than a p2p using a stun server.

My point here is we should be focusing on choosing the best technology and come up with a solution for dealing with patent trolls at some other level because it’s going to be a wide spread concern, not just a video problem.



From: rtcweb [mailto:rtcweb-bounces@ietf.org] On Behalf Of Justin Uberti
Sent: Thursday, November 21, 2013 6:19 PM
To: Basil Mohamed Gohar
Cc: rtcweb@ietf.org
Subject: Re: [rtcweb] Proposed Video Selection Process


Stefan Wenger posted a fairly detailed analysis of the H.263 situation, which I think also applies to MPEG-2.

TL;DR: no, because patents.
On Nov 21, 2013 6:11 PM, "Basil Mohamed Gohar" <basilgohar@librevideo.org<mailto:basilgohar@librevideo.org>> wrote:
Patents can last longer than 17 years.

http://patents.stackexchange.com/questions/312/how-long-are-software-patents-valid

On 11/21/2013 09:05 PM, David Singer wrote:
> Ok, even though the standard issued in early 1996, more than 17 years ago?
>
> Sent from my iPad
>
>> On Nov 21, 2013, at 6:00 PM, Basil Mohamed Gohar <basilgohar@librevideo.org<mailto:basilgohar@librevideo.org>> wrote:
>>
>>> On 11/21/2013 08:23 PM, David Singer wrote:
>>>
>>> Can someone remind me why classic H.263 (with possibly the minor tweaks for picture size limits etc.) is problematic?
>>
>> For exactly the same reasons H.264 (for some) and VP8 (for others) - IPR
>> issues due to not being old enough for anything patented in the standard
>> to be guaranteed to have expired.
>>
>> --
>> Libre Video
>> http://librevideo.org
>> _______________________________________________
>> rtcweb mailing list
>> rtcweb@ietf.org<mailto:rtcweb@ietf.org>
>> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/rtcweb


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