All things related to multicast

["Richard Mavrogeanes" <>]

Joel,

No one intends to be criminal, I'm certain.  Now-adays, you can barely
do anything without infringing on some patent...it's only a question of
whether you know it and what you can do about it, and whether the patent
owner really cares.

I think you are spot on.  It is easy to license the MPEG-2 portfolio and
get yourself in a legally defensible position. It is much more complex
to license MPEG-4 patents because you have to deal with multiple parties
and the expense rises rather quickly. 

"The first thing we do," said the character in Shakespeare's Henry VI,
is "kill all the lawyers." :)

/rich




 

-----Original Message-----
From: Joel Jaeggli 
[mailto:]
 
Sent: Thursday, July 13, 2006 12:46 PM
To: Richard Mavrogeanes
Cc: Dave Devereaux-Weber; Frank Fulchiero; Todd Needham (RESEARCH); Ben
Fineman; Research Channel Working Group; wg-multicast
Subject: Re: Joint Techs HD Multicast

Richard Mavrogeanes wrote:
> The problem is that VLC player does include a decoder (or at least it 
> used to), making it bad practice to use because they don't pay the 
> mandatory royalty and therefore they and the users become liable.

Mandatory in the sense that we live under a different patent regime than
the software developers did. Not in the sense that they are therefor
criminals.

> The
> VBrick player can take advantage of an existing DVD decoder allowing 
> it to decode MPEG2 for 'free',

Licensing the mpeg-2  portfolio isn't really that difficult or expensive
and I've always be sort of surprised that more people don' do it, other
than the obvious distaste for buying intangible products from
monopolistic cartels...

  or it can be purchased with a MPEG-2
> decoder. By the way, the VBrick player now supports SSM.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Dave Devereaux-Weber 
> [mailto:]
> Sent: Thursday, July 13, 2006 9:58 AM
> To: Frank Fulchiero
> Cc: Joel Jaeggli; Todd Needham (RESEARCH); Ben Fineman; Research 
> Channel Working Group; wg-multicast
> Subject: Re: Joint Techs HD Multicast
> 
> Frank,
> 
> I do not think that the operation of the MPEG2 codec in VLC is 
> contingent on the presence of a DVD drive.
> 
> Dave
> 
> 
> Frank Fulchiero wrote:
>> Dave, correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't VLC decode MPEG2 TS if the

>> client computer (PC or Mac) has a DVD drive installed, which takes 
>> care of the MPEG2 licensing issues?
>>
>> Just wondering if this also applies to HD MPEG2.
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Frank Fulchiero
>> Digital Media Specialist
>> Connecticut College
>>
>> "a little fish in big video"
>>
>>
>> On Jul 12, 2006, at 4:55 PM, Dave Devereaux-Weber wrote:
>>
>>> Because of licensing concerns, Windows Media, Quicktime and Real do 
>>> not include a codec for MPEG2 with their free distribution.
>>> Quicktime has an optional MPEG2 codec, but it is simple profile, not
>>> MPEG2 Transport Stream.  VBrick has VPlayer, which adds an MPEG2 
>>> codec to Windows Media, but only works on Windows-based systems (not

>>> Apple or *NIX).
>>>
>>> Michael Wellings tells me that he can only encode WM in software up 
>>> to 720p in real time.  I'll look at the docs of the Tandberg codec I

>>> am renting, and see if it can do VC-1 or MPEG4.
>