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Google added HEVC support in Chrome

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Re: Google added HEVC support in Chrome

#171
post #118
post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh "great". Software patents were such a mistake.

Surely that depends - is this a bunch of generic and vague detail-less patents, or do they provide the actual information required to implement the thing it purports to describe. The core problem with “software patents” in the US sense is that the patent office appear to grant them by default if they are vague, only accepts specific types of pre-existing evidence that they are not new or novel, and once a patent is g…

> at the same time I think that everyone on HN does believe that IP should exist, and people should have rights to what they create.

Maybe, but I've never seen people protesting the idea that math can't be patented, and compression methods are pretty close.

Re: Google added HEVC support in Chrome

#172
post #10

On one hand, that's great for anyone watching HEVC content in Chrome. On the other, I'd prefer to not see further adoption of HEVC and instead see increased deployment of VP9 and AV1 wherever possible. Let MPEG-LA and the other HEVC patent pools+holders... well I'll leave the rest to your imagination. Future looking, no one should even touch VVC/H.266. Unfortunately the above rant does not address the gap in hardware…

I think it's remarkable that the pirate scene has barely touched VP9 or AV1. We discussed this 2.5 years ago, nothing really has changed except there's more H.265 than before. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19362098

Pirates don't care about codec licences the same way they don't care about the copyright of the content they pirate. Therefore they will always pick the codec which is easiest to target, has hardware for encoding and decoding readily available. Most either watch content on PCs, smart TVs, nvidia shield / firestick and almost none of those have av1 hardware support (maybe PCs but only recently).

Re: Google added HEVC support in Chrome

#173
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Submarine patent lawsuits have the same probability for both of them. But guaranteed patent leeching applies only to HEVC. So HEVC has only downsides, no upsides in comparison.

If you've paid for HEVC you can say 'hey, I tried to do the right thing'. If you don't pay for AV1 it looks like you were trying to avoid doing the right thing.

> If you don't pay for AV1 it looks like you were trying to avoid doing the right thing.

No it doesn't.

Re: Google added HEVC support in Chrome

#174
post #10

On one hand, that's great for anyone watching HEVC content in Chrome. On the other, I'd prefer to not see further adoption of HEVC and instead see increased deployment of VP9 and AV1 wherever possible. Let MPEG-LA and the other HEVC patent pools+holders... well I'll leave the rest to your imagination. Future looking, no one should even touch VVC/H.266. Unfortunately the above rant does not address the gap in hardware…

> does not address the gap in hardware support between HEVC and AV1 for efficient accelerated decoding I'm rooting for AV1 just the same as everyone else, but it's still nowhere close to HEVC in terms of hardware support, or even general quality/efficiency. It's just going to take some more time.

Imo it's mostly just Apple holding it back. Once Safari starts supporting AV1, then websites will start using it

Re: Google added HEVC support in Chrome

#175
post #167
post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple isn’t causing a problem in the manner you’re implying - they’ve been using those codecs for years at this point. All that’s happening here is chrome is adding support for an existing standardized format that is used by the general public in presumably sufficient amounts to warrant the complexity.

If Apple can stop using it to not proliferate it switching to AV1 by default and aren't doing it, then you can say they are part of the problem due to their size. I.e. if you meant that Google went out of the way to enable it in Chrome because Apple users produce so much content with it (because of Apple), then Apple are causing a problem. Compare it to someone who makes products that dump toxic waste in the environm…

Presumably heif and/or hevc had an advantage when Apple adopted them as the default formats. Given they’re primarily on mobile devices it’s reasonable to assume there is hardware support. So switching to something else means battery life impact on everything else.

What you are saying, is that because Google didn’t support a standard format that has been around, and in wide spread use, for years Apple should make all of its devices worse.

Which is BS.

Re: Google added HEVC support in Chrome

#176
post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While true, I think it was illustrating the "damned if you do, damned if you don't" approach HN takes to Google in general.

Well, Google invades our privacy. Google holds its users hostages to money. I am glad that HN is doing its job to stop Google.

Hostages? I'd say Google is better than most regarding data portability, assuming that's what you're referring to, offering 'takeout' for just about everything.

Re: Google added HEVC support in Chrome

#177
post #94
post #10

On one hand, that's great for anyone watching HEVC content in Chrome. On the other, I'd prefer to not see further adoption of HEVC and instead see increased deployment of VP9 and AV1 wherever possible. Let MPEG-LA and the other HEVC patent pools+holders... well I'll leave the rest to your imagination. Future looking, no one should even touch VVC/H.266. Unfortunately the above rant does not address the gap in hardware…

I hope that AV1 doesn't get the same treatment as Opus though: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33158475 Royalty-free matters less when it turns out these bad actors can punish people for it. It's a little worrying frankly.

Do you know that Google basically punishes others fir not using VP9 and AV1?

https://www.protocol.com/youtube-tv-roku-issues

Re: Google added HEVC support in Chrome

#178
post #15

Every new software and hardware is moving towards the royalty free, agile and efficient AV1 codec. But out of nowhere and 9 years after its release, they add support to the mother of all royalties HEVC codec. Probably had some kind of deal to benefit their android partner Samsung, since they own pretty much most of HEVC patents. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Efficiency_Video_Coding#P...

Royalty free, agile etc. codec is aggressively pushed by Google on pain of removing support for and not allowing to run its products https://www.protocol.com/youtube-tv-roku-issues

Also, support for HVEC in existing devices is already there and not going anywhere: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33339193

Re: Google added HEVC support in Chrome

#179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with your assessment. The reference to “box” makes me think it was definitely the container. I also don’t see the codec called MP4, it’s usually spelled out MPEG-4.

".mp4" is just a file extension, the source of the colloquial name for the container. But both the container and the codec are named MPEG-4 and both are colloquially called "MP4." "Box level" is apparently referring to types of cryptography, "S-boxes are non-linear transformations of a few input bits that provide confusion and P-boxes simply shuffle the input bits around to provide diffusion"[1] The basic function of…

different box

Re: Google added HEVC support in Chrome

#180
post #16

No Widevine support so 1080p tops streaming; yay. It's supper frustrating in 2022 to need to switch to my Fire stick just to play UHD(R). Edit: Except with the Netflix windows app; it will do it.

What's the correlation between no widevine support and streaming resolution?
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