Libav Adds OpenH264 Encoder Support: Good Performance, BSD Licensed

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Libav Adds OpenH264 Encoder Support: Good Performance, BSD Licensed

The FFmpeg-forked Libav project has added an OpenH264 encoder wrapper to their libavcodec as an alternative to x264...

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=MTg4MTY

[karasu]

"the performance and quality is comparable to x264"
I'm looking forward for benchmark about that. Or is OpenH264 only about decoding?

About the licensing, How could Cisco gave permission to use this patented technology since it's the MPEG-LA who holds the patents?

[Awesomeness]

About the licensing, How could Cisco gave permission to use this patented technology since it's the MPEG-LA who holds the patents?

MPEG LA does not hold any patents. It's an agency for the actual patent holders to bundle patents into pools (among the patent holders are Cisco Systems Canada Co. and Cisco Technology, Inc.): http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/...atentList.aspx
Parties, who wish to distribute a codec, can just go to MPEG LA and license the entire bulk of patents instead of negotiate deals with every single patent holder (although the party is still free to try to broker better deals on their own, even though I doubt that they can reach better deals).

The MPEG LA system is not as evil as clueless people often make sound. License fees are capped and in many conditions do not even have to be paid at all.
In Ciscos case they likely already reached the cap through their VoIP business.

Seriously, more people should read the documents at http://www.mpegla.com/

[drakkan]

Phoronix: Libav Adds OpenH264 Encoder Support: Good Performance, BSD Licensed

The FFmpeg-forked Libav project has added an OpenH264 encoder wrapper to their libavcodec as an alternative to x264...

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=MTg4MTY

I'm using openh264 for enconding since some time, the performance and quality are not really comparable with x264

- openh264 cpu usage is much lower than x264
- openh264 support only baseline profile

[karasu]

Thank you for the explanation.

[Mathias]

"the performance and quality is comparable to x264"

Important distinction from the commit log:

Performance- and qualitywise it is comparable to x264 in ultrafast mode.

Meaning the quality is just above piss-poor.

*edit* I kinda doubt Michael understood anything from that commit message:

and it's [OpenH264] simpler to hookup

Hooking it up as an encoder in libavcodec also simplifies comparing it against other common encoders.

Maybe Michael has "hooked up" Openh264 himself and thus has further knowledge, but the commit doesn't say a thing about how easy it is to hook-up OpenH264.

[user82]

Why, just why?
x264 is opensource, extremely advanced and fully flexible in speed/quality choice.
If anyone wanted fast and poor quality at least use the GPU.
Don't get me wrong, it is great to see opensource effort, but this does not make any sense at all?

[GreatEmerald]

Hm. My Firefox has OpenH264 as a "plugin", which is just sitting there saying "will be installed shortly". Apparently "shortly" is longer than about half a year... And I don't see why it's needed, when there's GStreamer and FFmpeg.

[brad0]

when there's GStreamer and FFmpeg.

Be gone GStreamer garbage.

[schwarzman]

The MPEG LA system is not as evil as clueless people often make sound. License fees are capped and in many conditions do not even have to be paid at all. In Ciscos case they likely already reached the cap through their VoIP business.

However there is a serious misconception about OpenH264 regarding the patents: From a free software perspective it is NOT safe to use OpenH264. Cisco's patent license only covers personal and non-commercial use (as every h264 patent license, even though from semi-professional cameras). If you use anything h264-related in a commercial setting you still need patent licenses so OpenH264 can not be included in Fedora or Debian for example (even if Cisco could provide "trustable" binaries).