At 11:20 PM -0400 4/21/10, Richard C. Ramsden wrote:
As a software engineer. Kon knows not of which he speaks. HTML IS A LANGUAGE! within the spec for HTML 5 is the entire spec for javascript.HTML 5 is still being hashed out. H.264 may yet be supported. The problem is the licensing. The free license was about to expire a month or so ago, and was extended for 4 or 5 yrs. If MPEG LA were to say free forever the debate would be over. No one with any sense wants a sword of Damocles.The free forever is only for the client.MPEG2 is not free. Microsoft is part of the patent pool. Buy a computer with any version of windows a little bit goes to the patent pool. Apple has some arrangements, though it's not for all their systems. If you bought a computer with windows, you've paid the license. MPEG LA has deliberately ignored non-compliance, better to let the unwashed masses think that it's free. That and most people have a windows system lying around somewhere. The license is not per machine, as I understand it. I've been dealing with this sort of crap for more than an decade. Sometimes I think a proctologist goes home at the end of a day feeling cleaner than I do.
Good post Richard!I would note that the MPEG-LA terms for MPEG-2 are far more onerous than for h.264. Apple only supports MPEG-2 on a limited basis - for example the MPEG-2 encoder in iDVD and DVD Studio Pro include MPEG-2 support, which is paid for in the cost of these applications. An MPEG-2 playback component for QuickTime will cost you $19.95.
But with h.264 much better terms were created, especially for computer platforms. As I pointed out in an earlier post, the cost now maximizes out at $5 million a year for Apple or Microsoft, which is the reason it is supported both by QuickTime and Windows Media.
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