Video Codec Libraries
The goal of this list is to list the potential encoders and decoders that are available to use, and review what the potential licensing and/or patent issues there might be with each of them. We will be focusing only on codecs that may be suitable for review. The hope is to identify what could be included in precompiled applications without requiring any licensing costs, or side effects (like GPL).
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The libraries below fall into several patent pools.
| Codec | License | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| h264 | AVC/H.264 License Fees - ViaLa (via-la.com) | Mentions first 100000 units per year being free. |
| h265 | HEVC License Fees - ViaLa (via-la.com) | Mentions first 100000 units per year being free. |
| DNxHD | https://www.avid.com/ja/legal/avid-dnxhd-list-of-patent-rights | This is a list of patent's. I have not found anywhere with information about licensing those patents. |
| ProRes | https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT200321 |
Related to the above software patents, its interesting to note the videolan FAQ - https://www.videolan.org/legal.html - which mentions "Neither French law nor European conventions recognize software as patentable. Therefore, software patents licenses do not apply on VideoLAN software."
| Priority | Source | Codecs | Encoder | Decoder | Patent Group | Description | License |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | https://developer.nvidia.com/nvidia-video-codec-sdk | h264 (See patent licenses) | x | x | H264 | Hardware see Video Encode and Decode GPU Support Matrix | NVIDIA Developer | DesignWorks_SDKs_Samples_Tools_License_distrib_use_rights_2017_06_13.pdf |
| 4 | https://developer.nvidia.com/nvidia-video-codec-sdk | h265 (See patent licenses) | x | x | H265 | Hardware see Video Encode and Decode GPU Support Matrix | NVIDIA Developer | |
| 1 | x264, the best H.264/AVC encoder - VideoLAN | h264 (See patent licenses) | x | x | H264 | software | GPL - |
| 4 | x265, the free H.265/HEVC encoder - VideoLAN | h265 (See patent licenses) | x | x | H265 | software | GPL - |
| 1 | https://developer.apple.com/documentation/videotoolbox | h264/h265/Prores (See patent licenses) | x | x | H264 / H265 (Prores | Hardware support Mac only | ? |
| 4 | Intel® Media SDK | h264, h265 | x | x | hardware windows and linux libraries. | End User License Agreements (intel.com) - note this still may not cover the licensing. | |
| 2 | ffmpeg DNxHD encoder/decoder | DNxHD DNxHR | x | x | DNxHD | This seems to be the only open-source library for DNxHD. | lgpl - FFmpeg/dnxhdenc.c at master · FFmpeg/FFmpeg (github.com) - this was developed as part of ffmpeg, with sponsorship by BBC Research. See also: ⚓ T91 Help evaluate/understand Avid DNxHD codec situation (apertus.org) |
| 3 | ffmpeg Prores_ks | Part of ffmpeg - |
Open Source Libraries
Note, there is a patent pool for vp9 and av1 - although it seems like they were not involved with the development of those codecs.
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