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Intel's SVT-AV1 Video Encoder Saw Yet Another Performance Boost In April

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  • #11
    Originally posted by andreano View Post
    As we speak, Sisvel is doing the world a mega-disfavor by trying to monetize undisclosed submarine patents in VP9 and AV1, by definition killing them as royalty-free formats.
    I'm not worried. If Sisvel actually had something that they really believed was a valid patent used in VP9/AV1, we'd be in court or they would have had their big payoff by now (most likely the latter). They are not even claiming to have any applicable patents, more likely they just are fishing for anyone to submit such potential patents to their pool.

    Basic patent trolling in other words. As I see it, if they actually end up having any patents that could be infringed upon, the companies behind AV1 would simply choose to pay Sisvel rather than going to court, which is what Sisvel wants, since preventing AV1/VP9 usage won't make them any money.

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    • #12
      Originally posted by tildearrow View Post
      > use cases that the movie industry needs
      DRM?
      DRM (at least those based on CENC) is defined in terms of container and ABR protocol (DASH, HLS, …).

      So AV1 wrapped in mp4 and DASH should be fine, I suppose.
      Last edited by andreano; 03 May 2019, 01:18 PM.

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      • #13
        Originally posted by tildearrow View Post
        DRM? Or maybe just the fact that it's proprietary?
        DRM has nothing to do with the codec, it's handled in the container, you can have DRM with VP9 and AV1 as well. Also HEVC is not proprietary, the spec is open. It's royalty burdened however.

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        • #14
          Originally posted by Grinch View Post
          if they actually end up having any patents that could be infringed upon, the companies behind AV1 would simply choose to pay Sisvel rather than going to court, which is what Sisvel wants, since preventing AV1/VP9 usage won't make them any money.
          Well, I don't get the impression that Sisvel has any idea that killing free software is going to hurt their business at all, just like every other FRAND licensor in history, with the exception of HEVC Advance (which made a software exception): In an interview with Ozer, Sisvel explicitly didn't rule out software licensing.

          So be prepared to be legally required to pay Sisvel a small amount of money when you compile or download libaom, dav1d, VLC, Firefox, etc. Obviously, nobody will pay them, just like nobody pays MPEG-LA when they compile or distribute ffmpeg, but that doesn't make it any less criminal, which is why most distros (that care anyway) have such a problem with patent encumbered software.

          The cost is microscopic to the end user, but 100% damning to support in distros, web browsers and the rest of the legally compliant part of the free software ecosystem. But greed is like that: The last tree on Easter Island was also chopped down for much less than it was worth.
          Last edited by andreano; 03 May 2019, 03:28 PM.

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          • #15
            The good news about the patent agreement required for AV1 is that Google owns a lot of the patents. The AV1 license is "self destructing" so if you pay Sisvel, you then also need to buy patents from Google. Google probably ain't going to make that cheap for you.

            Basically, any Sisvel customer is going to get sued.

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            • #16
              Originally posted by OneTimeShot View Post
              The good news about the patent agreement required for AV1 is that Google owns a lot of the patents. The AV1 license is "self destructing" so if you pay Sisvel, you then also need to buy patents from Google. Google probably ain't going to make that cheap for you.

              Basically, any Sisvel customer is going to get sued.
              Uh.....................wuh?

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              • #17
                Originally posted by andreano View Post
                Who has a future, pessimistic edition:

                As we speak, Sisvel is doing the world a mega-disfavor by trying to monetize undisclosed submarine patents in VP9 and AV1, by definition killing them as royalty-free formats. If anything, it will be a datapoint on how incredibly destructive standard-essential patents are compared to what they are worth, which is nothing, because AoM in this case would never have used the patents if they had known about them.
                You assume that AOM hasn't already seen the patents Sisvel is trying to bring and they deemed them to not infringe with AV1 (or are confident they could invalidate the patents). AOM did an extensive patent search during AV1 and I'm sure first thing they did is look into the existing patents. Sisvel in the past obtained Nokia patents so my guess is they will present some of those, but I really doubt that they'll pull some unknown patents from who knows where. So we'll have to wait and see when they present the patents, but I'm sure that AOM is well prepared for this (they expected it would happen sooner or later anyway).

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                • #18
                  Originally posted by quikee View Post
                  You assume that AOM hasn't already seen the patents
                  Not exactly. I'm assuming the uncontroversial fact that patents are elusive (AoM could have paid lawyers for a thousand man-years and still overlooked some), which would put AoM at the mercy of Sisvel to disclose them. If you want to believe in that amount of goodwill from Sisvel (that Sisvel is sharing this information with AoM, so that AoM would be in a position to agree or disagree), then that just strengthens Sisvel's trustworthiness until we hear AoM's position. Behind closed doors or lawsuit, they must eventually come to an agreement.

                  Originally posted by quikee View Post
                  Sisvel in the past obtained Nokia patents so my guess is they will present some of those, but I really doubt that they'll pull some unknown patents from who knows where.
                  Interesting!

                  I know I'm pessimistic: VP8 has won in court before, and the worst that could happen is that VP9 and AV1 would be in the same category as h.26{4,5}. I agree that we shall wait and see.

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                  • #19
                    Originally posted by andreano View Post
                    I know I'm pessimistic: VP8 has won in court before, and the worst that could happen is that VP9 and AV1 would be in the same category as h.26{4,5}. I agree that we shall wait and see.
                    By the time anything like that would happen, the next AV1 would likely be using the Daala stuff.

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