91–100 of 170 posts
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Everything you can instruct a computer to do is just math, yes. "Instructions on how to use the math" is, unsurprisingly, also more math. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lambda_calculus
I don't quite understand how you do not recognize that that is a strong argument against your position.
Because the US endorses the concept of "essential patents," meaning you need to pay a licensing fee to be lawfully allowed to perform the math that transforms data into A/V content. Never to mention the two blatant issues with this, being: 1) video codecs are the exemplary "we'll patent math and there's nothing you can do about it" scam, since that's literally all a video codec is 2) a process being "essential" to a…
> video codecs are the exemplary "we'll patent math and there's nothing you can do about it" scam, since that's literally all a video codec is Most software is literally all math.
I really don't understand how the parent commenter fails to see that this makes "X is math" basically a meaningless statement because it is always trivially true and makes their position "math shouldn't be patented" completely untenable.
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- Neither Linux nor Windows provide one, due to licensing costs - Most browsers do not deem it worth the risk of relying on host software decoders, as the plug&play infrastructure behind them usually translates into "nobody feels responsible for patching anything" which translates into incalculable vulnerabilities That leaves MacOS (why bother when Safari exists), iOS (dito), and Android (why bother when Android user…
Microsoft provides a separate h265 codec you can buy in the Microsoft store: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/p/uitbreidingen-voor-hevc-vi... Some hardware comes with the codec pre-purchased (my laptop does). I don't think I've ever heard of anyone buying a codec in the MS Store, though. I think most Android phones come with HEVC support. Mine did, anyway; I suppose it's up to the vendor to choose if they want to supp…
The official requirements for Android phones can be found on the Android CDD (https://source.android.com/compatibility/cdd). From a quick look at the CDD for Android 12, section 2.2.2 says that the required codecs for encoding are "H.264 AVC" and "VP8", and for decoding are "H.264 AVC", "H.265 HEVC, "MPEG-4 SP", "VP8", and "VP9". So it seems that all Android 12 phones will come with HEVC decoding support, but not necessarily encoding support. Looking at past CDDs, it seems that "H.263" was required for encoding and decoding before Android 7.0, and "H.265 HEVC" was required for decoding starting with Android 5.0.
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> In general it's kind of a moot point by now, just go with AV1. You don't always get to decide. E.g. IP cameras will generally support both h.264 and h.265 these days, with HEVC doing vastly better than AVC, yet if that output has to go near a browser, instead of through dedicated software... SOL. Can't do anything with it. The hardware can, the software can't. And AV1 is decode-only anyway, and only supported in th…
It's not just browsers. One popular Windows-based video surveillance platform has hardware decode support for H264, but it's software only for H265; that's on both Windows clients and Android mobile. That means your H264 cameras show up instantly but H265 takes a few seconds per stream, and too many of them on one screen means you're skipping frames. At least two companies I installed these for decided to double thei…
Because the US endorses the concept of "essential patents," meaning you need to pay a licensing fee to be lawfully allowed to perform the math that transforms data into A/V content. Never to mention the two blatant issues with this, being: 1) video codecs are the exemplary "we'll patent math and there's nothing you can do about it" scam, since that's literally all a video codec is 2) a process being "essential" to a…
I mean, is a video codec really just "math"? There's a binary payload description and algorithms involved for applying said math as well. I'm no expert in the field, so I'm actually asking in good faith here...
Practically this means that every encoder / decoder for patent encumbered formats has to have some form of licensing just to interact with the format even if they somehow reverse engineered the specification and built a cleanroom implementation (at least as far as I understand it, IANAL)
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I don't quite understand how you do not recognize that that is a strong argument against your position.
Insofar as GP seems to be against software patents in general, it is not an argument against his position, is it?
Rather than providing a basis of not allowing software to patented, I think it makes the statement "X can be encoded as math" trivially true - and therefore uninteresting.
In so far as there is value in patents on any systematic procedure at all, the position that "software should not be patentable because it can be encoded as math" is completely untenable.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
- Neither Linux nor Windows provide one, due to licensing costs - Most browsers do not deem it worth the risk of relying on host software decoders, as the plug&play infrastructure behind them usually translates into "nobody feels responsible for patching anything" which translates into incalculable vulnerabilities That leaves MacOS (why bother when Safari exists), iOS (dito), and Android (why bother when Android user…
Microsoft provides a separate h265 codec you can buy in the Microsoft store: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/p/uitbreidingen-voor-hevc-vi... Some hardware comes with the codec pre-purchased (my laptop does). I don't think I've ever heard of anyone buying a codec in the MS Store, though. I think most Android phones come with HEVC support. Mine did, anyway; I suppose it's up to the vendor to choose if they want to supp…
It's common that the manufacturer doesn't actually get a patent license, they get "indemnity". If someone were to sue you, the chip manufacturer would handle it, because they have their own patents and have cross-licensed with the others in the pool. You may have to pay the chip manufacturer for the indemnity in addition to the chip costs, i.e. "paying protection money". "That's a nice restaurant you have there, it would be a shame if someone set it on fire. We can protect you from bad people like that."
New Edge supports it, if you have the h265 extension from the microsoft store (cmd "start ms-windows-store://pdp/?ProductId=9n4wgh0z6vhq"). It's also the only (?) browser that supports AC-3 audio. Thanks for nothing, Dolby. There's barely any content though (possibly premium VODs on Netflix etc). Bilibili (kinda like Chinese youtube) offers HEVC (and AV1) playback, if your browser supports it. Example: https://www.bi…
It's odd that the browser supports AC-3 but the MS video player does not unless you pay for the codec, while all the other video players include it. Going with AV1 is not an option for the vast majority of people as it requires hardware support. If you try using AV1 on a computer that didn't come with a hardware decoder for it, your machine will crawl. I force h264 in YouTube for this reason instead of using VP9.
My computer doesn't have a hardware decoder for AV1 (as shown by "vainfo"), yet AV1 videos play perfectly fine on it, both within the browser (including on Youtube) and outside it. Playing the AV1 demo (https://demo.bitmovin.com/public/firefox/av1/) on the browser at its maximum resolution uses only around half of the CPU.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I mean, is a video codec really just "math"? There's a binary payload description and algorithms involved for applying said math as well. I'm no expert in the field, so I'm actually asking in good faith here...
Everything you can instruct a computer to do is just math, yes. "Instructions on how to use the math" is, unsurprisingly, also more math. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lambda_calculus