avc

Qualcomm shows horsepower of next-gen H.265 video

BARCELONA, Spain--H.264 is today's leader when it comes to mainstream video encoding technologies, but it will have to share the stage in 2013 with a successor called H.265 that can squeeze a video into nearly half the file size.

H.264, also known as the Advanced Video Codec (AVC), defines how a video can be compressed for reduced storage requirements and--very importantly given the online video explosion--for streaming across networks. H.265, also called High Efficiency Video Codec (HEVC), uses new techniques to compress video even more.

Qualcomm, a San Diego-based chipmaker that's on the international standards group developing H.265, … Read more

H.264: Free forever for free video streaming

The group that licenses patents for the widely used H.264 video encoding and streaming technology has committed to charge no royalties ever for use by Web sites that use it for freely available video.

In February, the MPEG LA previously had declared free streaming wouldn't require royalty payments through December 31, 2015. On Thursday, it lifted that limit forever, a move that could remove some hesitation to use H.264, also known as AVC, on Web sites.

The move, although made earlier than the licensing group had to, isn't a major surprise. For one thing, adding a … Read more

Is H.264 a legal minefield for video pros?

If you're a digital-video professional--the sort of person who records weddings, sells stock footage, or edits B-roll--chances are good you deal with the H.264 video encoding technology. But after reading software license agreements, you might well wonder if you have rights to do so.

A recent blog post by Harvard Ph.D. student Ben Schwartz, including the provocative phrase "Final Cut Pro Hobbyist," put the spotlight on license terms in Apple's video-editing software by questioning when professionals may use H.264 video. A similar "personal and non-commercial activity" license requirement appears in Adobe … Read more

Google yanks open-source project after copyright complaint

In response to a copyright complaint, Google has taken down an open-source project called CoreAVC-for-Linux it had hosted on its Web site.

Google didn't share details, but said on the project site that it removed CoreAVC-for-Linux from its Google Code site after receiving a complaint under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).

CoreAVC itself is proprietary software for Windows supplied by a company called CoreCodec. The software can play video encoded with the H.264 standard.

According to a cached version of the Google Code page, CoreAVC-for-Linux provides patches to open-source media player software such as MPlayer or MythTV … Read more