HEVC licensing

[Jeff Pulera]

I think they just sent that letter to EVERY video company in the phone book is what it was. Carpet bomb the country with scary letters and see what shakes out. I was just a work-at-home dad making DVDs for weddings, school plays, dance recitals. I lost some sleep over it for a few nights, all worried someone was coming after me for some evil wrongdoing. Then I came to my sense and realized they were fishing. Never heard from them again.

Thanks

Jeff

[Gary Huff]

So you don't even know for sure if it was legitimately from MPEG LA?

[Jeff Pulera]

Originally Posted by Gary Huff

So you don't even know for sure if it was legitimately from MPEG LA?

Yes, it definitely was from MPEG LA, it was official letterhead and such

[Gary Huff]

Originally Posted by Jeff Pulera

it was official letterhead and such

No one could ever fake a letterhead!

[Jeff Pulera]

Gary,

Your posts all seem adversarial, to me and others. I don't know what you're getting at.

I'm stupid? I've been duped?

I got the letter, it was real, I lost sleep over it at the time.

Best regards,

Jeff

[Gary Huff]

Originally Posted by Jeff Pulera

I got the letter, it was real, I lost sleep over it at the time.

You got a letter, not sure if it was real or not. You don't remember what it said exactly, I cannot find evidence of anyone else getting such a letter, and you sure don't seem to have posted anything about it. Did it even purport to be from MPEG-LA? Perhaps you're misremembering what you got claiming to be from the MPAA instead?

You're responding to a post that is based on an irrational fear that using any camera that shoots H.264 or H.265 might open an operator up to legal action. You responded with a claim that you cannot verify, backup, or even demonstrate was even from the group in question. Doing something like that is, in my opinion, FUD and contributes nothing of value. Until you can demonstrate evidence that MPEG-LA was, indeed, going around sending threatening letters to small operators like yourself in order to get some payouts, and knowing the human memory is absolutely not reliable, I'm not going to let your little anecdote go unchallenged.

[Jeff Pulera]

What is your deal? I never said I "wasn't sure" if it was real or not, that's you.

This was about 18-20 years ago, because still at my old home when I was a full-time videographer.

I received a letter from MPEG LA explaining that they were in charge of handling the MPEG-2 rights and royalties and that if I was producing MPEG-2 videos, I was supposed to be paying them.

I'd never heard of them before, so you can bet I looked them up online and found that yes indeed, they were in charge of that stuff. I at first thought I was being singled out, like they "caught me" or something, but I came to realize they were likely sending out thousands of these letters to videographers all over the country. So I simply did not respond. End of story.

It was NOT a scam, it was from MPEG LA. It did NOT instruct me to get $400 worth of Green Dot cards from Walgreen's in the next 4 hours or face arrest.

I don't get why you are being so weird about this whole subject. Basically calling other people liars or something.

[Mark Williams]

Gary becomes adversarial in many of his posts. I have found it best just to ignore him.

[Gary Huff]

So what, exactly, is the takeaway from your post? Are you recommending that people refrain from utilizing any cameras that record to a codec that MPEG-LA holds the patent on? If not, why not?

[Andrew Smith]

Agreed re Gary. Enough.

Andrew

[Dave Baker]

Originally Posted by Gary Huff

You're responding to a post that is based on an irrational fear that using any camera that shoots H.264 or H.265 might open an operator up to legal action.

No he is not! It is not an irrational fear, it is a notice in the GoPro manual, in a prominent place, warning that the licence is limited. My question was what do others do about this, not when can I expect to be arrested by the patent police.:-)

[Gary Huff]

Originally Posted by Dave Baker

My question was what do others do about this, not when can I expect to be arrested by the patent police.:-)

You've already heard from Andrew that DVD distributors in Australia were driven out of business by the MPEG-LA licensing fees. You read that Jeff was sent a letter letting him know that he might owe royalties, which he lucked out on by simply ignoring and not consulting with a lawyer.

I think what you and others should do is very clear. Not use a GoPro for anything other than home movie captures. It's just too risky.

[Dave Baker]

Gary, I was making a point, not asking the question again. But thanks anyway.

[Gary Huff]

You are literally left with only a single option, I was making that more clear than before.

[Andrew Smith]

Further demonstration that HEVC isn't the replacement codec everyone thought it was going to be, with h.264 being extended to performing encodes of 4K content at even 60P. This video is of one of the Matrox people talking in 2017 about what has been learned by experience.

AV over IP - what is the voice of experience saying to us? | AVTV On Demand - YouTube

Granted, this is within the context of Video over IP (networks) for streaming to multiple destinations such as signage displays etc, but the common issue is generating encodes that work within a certain bandwidth and still deliver the required quality.

In addition to the awesome hardware video encoders such as the ('my precious' :-) ) MXO2 I/O box and encoder, and the Monarch HDX streaming gear, Matrox also more recently developed the Maevex series of hardware video encoders for 4K streaming and recording. Note the specifications page and the video encoding codecs available: H.264/MPEG-4 Part 10 (AVC) only.

Andrew