I'm wondering how will MPEG2 decoding be handled now that the MPEG2 patents are finally expiring? Will the codec be unlocked automatically with new versions of Raspbian?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U ... -2_patents
And there is also link to 24 pages long pdf with word 'expired' on almost all lines except few first named MYxxx and PHxxx.Please note that the last US patent expired February 13, 2018, and patents remain active in Philippines and Malaysia after that date.
Code: Select all
Patent Number Licensor Expiration Date
PH 1-1993-47458 GE Technology Development, Inc. 7/17/2019
MY 118172-A GE Technology Development, Inc. 9/30/2019
MY 118444 Sony Corporation 11/30/2019
MY 118734-A Thomson Licensing 1/31/2020
PH 1-1995-50216 Thomson Licensing 2/13/2020
MY 128994 GE Technology Development, Inc. 3/30/2022
MY 141626-A GE Technology Development, Inc. 5/31/2025
Not to be contentious, but I did make the distinction - in fact I begged the Pi Foundation to clarify - because the past story has always been that the Pi Foundation (and by extension heroic lovely wonderful folks at Broadcom) had no choice but to pass along that fee because of those bad-ol-boyz at MPEG LA.The various remarks above are misleading.
what part of SOC don't you understandRichardS wrote: ↑Mon May 21, 2018 7:47 am....rant rant rant
With the Pi 3b being such an underwhelming disappointment (No more RAM, No 4k video,marginally improved CPU, and 1/3 speed 1G Ethernet), unlocking the MPEG2 codec would have been a nice thank you to those who have continued to support the Raspberry Pi despite a LOT of competition from other more powerful boards.
Nothing is ever "as simple as that".RichardS wrote: ↑Mon May 21, 2018 7:47 amNot to be contentious, but I did make the distinction - in fact I begged the Pi Foundation to clarify - because the past story has always been that the Pi Foundation (and by extension heroic lovely wonderful folks at Broadcom) had no choice but to pass along that fee because of those bad-ol-boyz at MPEG LA.The various remarks above are misleading.
Now those annoying MPEG LA fees are no longer applicable, and because Broadcom's development cost of this firmware have been recouped a million times over with the literally MILLIONS of chips they have sold using this technology, if they CHOOSE to do this it's only because they CHOOSE to rip everyone off.
You are correct, they can set any damn price they want. If they choose to charge a million dollars for million year old technology, FINE - just PLEASE don't insult everyone's intelligence by dressing it up in officious BS language to make it sound like it's some kind of frigging law of nature - it's a CHOICE.
But before you buy some more bad will for Broadcom, you might want to Google "MPEG2 patents expire" and see how many hits you get, and the general celebratory tone.
So, when EVERYONE on the Planet Earth is celebrating the END of MPEG LA's stranglehold on MPEG2 technology, Broadcom and the Pi Foundation decide to figuratively kick everyone in the teeth and say "hold on there pardner, MPEG LA ain't the only thieves on the Planet you know" . . .
With the Pi 3b being such an underwhelming disappointment (No more RAM, No 4k video,marginally improved CPU, and 1/3 speed 1G Ethernet), unlocking the MPEG2 codec would have been a nice thank you to those who have continued to support the Raspberry Pi despite a LOT of competition from other more powerful boards.
But someone, somewhere has CHOSEN to flip everyone the collective bird on this instead, and come up with a series of lame excuses instead.
That's fine, as you stated, that's their right, but just SAY IT -"we believe that we should gouge everyone for 25 year old tech, BECAUSE WE CAN"
Not because they have to, but rather, because they WANT TO.
It's as simple as that.
I didn't say "huge" disappointment I said "underwhelming" which I think fairly captures how most of us felt who expected a full blown Raspberry Pi 4 release this year - and before someone goes into full-on lecture slapdown mode to explain-the-obvious, YES I know that Eben said no new Pi's this year - him saying it doesn't make it less disappointing. Or from my personal experience, make it so. I have learned the painful lesson over the years to not put a lot of faith in the veracity of these kinds of pronouncements, after being BURNED literally 3 times in a row, when I bought into "No new Pi models for a long time" shtick from the Pi Foundation and bought the "underwhelming" current model - just weeks before a much less disappointing model was released.
But what if the dealer said it would be 22 thousand and 5USD with the 5USD to cover their expenses in handling the transaction?If you went to a car dealer and were considering a car with a window sticker price of 22 thousand and was told that "after dealer markup, that'l be 220 thousand" would you think they were gouging, or would you just roll over and "pay the vig".
maybe they paid upfront the cost to the licence holders and charge you in the cost of the SOC
so that's 20million *.35 == $7mil cost to the foundation for something that only a small number of people needSo, as you can see, after Jan 2018, the agreement can be voluntarily terminated on 30 days notice, so no one is 'locked in' to anything, and the royalty rate for Consumer Products is $0.35 per unit.
The charge for H264, for example, is already paid in the cost of the Pi because its a) A much better codec than MPEG2 b) Used by a lot more people c) Needed to run the camera. We only charge for these other codecs separately because the number of users is small, and not everyone wants to pay for something they don't use. Most other SBC suppliers are either charging upfront, or breaking the licence terms. However, their sales are small compared with the Pi, so charging upfront does not, as you point out, have such a huge affect on total revenue. You are correct, $7M less revenue if we had added the MPEG2 0.35c to every Pi from first launch.RaTTuS wrote: ↑Thu May 24, 2018 8:22 ammaybe they paid upfront the cost to the licence holders and charge you in the cost of the SOCso that's 20million *.35 == $7mil cost to the foundation for something that only a small number of people needSo, as you can see, after Jan 2018, the agreement can be voluntarily terminated on 30 days notice, so no one is 'locked in' to anything, and the royalty rate for Consumer Products is $0.35 per unit.
[edited and removed a lot of other stuff]