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H.266/Versatile Video Coding (VVC)

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Re: H.266/Versatile Video Coding (VVC)

#351

Post by otterley »

jimktrains2 wrote: post #347
otterley wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The few HNers who actually care about these things do not make a market that vendors think is worth serving, most likely because it would be unprofitable. There’s not going to be a market if sellers don’t find it profitable.

That's exactly my point: those options don't exist so there is no hard data on what people prefer. It's silly to say the market decided when it's only speculated on the most profitable path, but that doesn't make it the only profitable one.

There have been many attempts to make a market for free hardware, particularly in the mobile phone market. All have failed thus far.

Re: H.266/Versatile Video Coding (VVC)

#352

Post by ajnin »

blacklion wrote: post #346

What I don't understand, why do internationa; standardization organizations allows patent-encumbered technologies to become de-jure standards. MPEG, WiFi, GSM… IMHO, intentional standards must be implementable without any patent fees, or they are very bad standards.

International standardization organizations (like ISO) are not governmental organizations. They are private entities, which sometimes become too involved in official standards. But they are controlled by whoever funds them.

Re: H.266/Versatile Video Coding (VVC)

#353

Post by otterley »

eggsnbacon1 wrote: post #245
otterley wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At 99 cents for the add on, the decision to charge users smells more like a political decision than an economic one. The cost to Microsoft is undoubtedly far less than that. 99 cents is basically the bare minimum you can charge when you accept credit cards as a method of payment.

That's 1% of the cost of windows, for a video codec when there's already dozens of free alternatives

There’s a fixed cap on the royalty rate, so even if we assume Microsoft paid for a license for each copy of Windows sold to customers, on a per-copy basis it would be much less than 1%.

Re: H.266/Versatile Video Coding (VVC)

#354

Post by holloway »

blacklion wrote: post #346

What I don't understand, why do internationa; standardization organizations allows patent-encumbered technologies to become de-jure standards. MPEG, WiFi, GSM… IMHO, intentional standards must be implementable without any patent fees, or they are very bad standards.

A quote from an Ecma presentation

    "ECMA for instance has made all the standards for DVD and optical disks. There were 5 recording formats. So there you are a little bit uneasy, of course. And again after a few beers I can ask the people in the room. Why do you want to have 5 formats? Do you still call that standardization? The answer is always the same: You are well paid. Shut up"
https://youtu.be/wITyO71Et6g?t=226

Re: H.266/Versatile Video Coding (VVC)

#355

Post by joveian »

Unklejoe wrote: post #14

It's interesting that they are able to continue improving video compression. You'd think that it would have all been figured out by now. Is this continued improvement related to the improvement of technology? Or just coincidental? Like, why couldn't have H.266 been invented 30 years ago? Is it because the computers back in the day wouldn't have been fast enough to realistically use it? Do we have algorithms today tha…

Good compression is quite complex and can go wrong in an unimaginable variety of ways. Remember when Xerox copiers would copy numbers incorrectly due to compression? The numbers would look clear, they just wouldn't always be the same numbers that you started with.

https://www.theregister.com/2013/08/06/xerox_copier_flaw_mea...

Re: H.266/Versatile Video Coding (VVC)

#356

Post by blibble »

blacklion wrote: post #346

What I don't understand, why do internationa; standardization organizations allows patent-encumbered technologies to become de-jure standards. MPEG, WiFi, GSM… IMHO, intentional standards must be implementable without any patent fees, or they are very bad standards.

H.265 went absolutely nowhere

Re: H.266/Versatile Video Coding (VVC)

#357

Post by giantrobot »

beervirus wrote: post #343
pcl wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes — many codecs can be optimized for decoding at the expense of encoding. This is appropriate for any sort of broadcast (YouTube, television, etc). Also, in many applications, it’s suitable to exchange time for memory / compute. You can spend an hour of compute time optimally encoding a 20-minute YouTube video, with no real downside. Neither of these approaches are suitable for things like video conferencing, where…

Surely videoconferencing doesn’t actually use 60 FPS...

Some web conferencing would want to do 60fps. There's also realtime streaming like Twitch, PS Now, and Google's Stadia.

Re: H.266/Versatile Video Coding (VVC)

#358

Post by jimktrains2 »

otterley wrote: post #351
jimktrains2 wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's exactly my point: those options don't exist so there is no hard data on what people prefer. It's silly to say the market decided when it's only speculated on the most profitable path, but that doesn't make it the only profitable one.

There have been many attempts to make a market for free hardware, particularly in the mobile phone market. All have failed thus far.

Libre hardware is not the same as a device supporting only royalty free or otherwise libre codecs.

Re: H.266/Versatile Video Coding (VVC)

#359

Post by johnvanommen »

Unklejoe wrote: post #14

It's interesting that they are able to continue improving video compression. You'd think that it would have all been figured out by now. Is this continued improvement related to the improvement of technology? Or just coincidental? Like, why couldn't have H.266 been invented 30 years ago? Is it because the computers back in the day wouldn't have been fast enough to realistically use it? Do we have algorithms today tha…

> Like, why couldn't have H.266 been invented 30 years ago? Is it because the computers back in the day wouldn't have been fast enough to realistically use it?

Here's something to consider:

In 1995, a typical video stream was 640 x 480 x 24fps. That's 7,372,800 pixels per second.

In 2020, we have some content that's 7680 x 4320 x 120fps. That's 3,981,312,000 pixels per second, or a 540 fold increase in 25 years.

The massive increase in image size actually makes it easier to use high compression ratios. I found this out the hard way recently, when I was trying to compress and email a powerpoint presentation that a coworker had presented on video. In a nutshell, the powerpoint doc with it's sharp edges and it's low resolution made it difficult to compress.

Increase framerate plays a factor too; due to decades of research on motion interpolation, algorithms have become quite good at guessing what content can be eliminated from a moving stream.

Re: H.266/Versatile Video Coding (VVC)

#360

Post by lmm »

blacklion wrote: post #346

What I don't understand, why do internationa; standardization organizations allows patent-encumbered technologies to become de-jure standards. MPEG, WiFi, GSM… IMHO, intentional standards must be implementable without any patent fees, or they are very bad standards.

Standards organisations are older than publicly-available software. The concept of "reasonable and non-discriminatory" patent licensing was what they went with, and it seemed sensible at a time when goods were physical and the idea of giving away a product for which standards would be relevant would be ludicrous.
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