DirtyP2002 said:
"For video, all players are required to support H.262/MPEG-2 Part 2, H.264/MPEG-4 Part 10: AVC, and SMPTE VC-1.[112] MPEG-2 is the compression standard used on regular DVDs, which allows backwards compatibility. MPEG-4 AVC was developed by MPEG, Sony, and VCEG. VC-1 is a compression standard that was mainly developed by Microsoft." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BluRay Do you think MS did develop this for charity and gave to to the BDA? Sure MS supported HD-DVD, but they had no big investment in it at all. |
There are no less than 16 separate companies that are deemed to have patents that are essential for VC-1 to work
Effectively Microsoft has been mugged by the attempt to make its VC-1 technology a standard through the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers. In so doing it had to reveal how its codec technology worked, and offer a license, and in going to the respected MPEG LA as a patent pool agent, it exposed its technology to all the know how that went into licensing the MPEG 2 and MPEG 4 Level 10 AVC/H.264 codec that has stolen the market.
Usually all of the combatants (essential patent holders) will argue for some basis or other for splitting the royalty stream, and these rules are not public and they are not always the same. But as a general principle the more patents you hold, the bigger your slice of the patent pool pie. Now that's not absolute, but it can be an indicator.
On that basis every company except Telenor and Sharp will end up getting more money when VC-1 is used, than Microsoft. Of course Microsoft can charge what it likes for any software implementation of its own, but since it has always chosen to (give away) its codec with its media player, this means that it has to cover any licensing bill for patents out of virtually zero direct revenue.
