Oh look just as the AV1 consortium is also deciding to do shakedowns. It's a good thing the open source community have a history of building functional and well performing codecs, especially when it comes to media formats.
this post was submitted on 04 Apr 2026
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Man I can't wait to upgrade my device/GPU with AV1 hardware support
AI slop bubble fart reverb sfx
AMD's XT 7000 series is available for cheap as already a few gens old, or Intel ARC
If I come up with a concept in philosophy can I patent it and charge money when people use it in their philosophy? Fees for codecs operate on this plane of backwardness. Patents in and of themselves are stupid enough, but the capacity for stupidity within patenting knows no bounds apparently.
Wait, is Stallman right again?
AGAIN?
Stallman only eats open sores.
🪴
tiny bit clickbait, small companies are still at $100,000 unchanged
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not that that should exist, either
What could possibly be worth my predicted lifetime worth of earnings?!?
Here's why it doesn't matter:
"AOMedia Video 1 (AV1) is an open, royalty-free video coding format initially designed for video transmissions over the Internet. It was developed as a successor to VP9 by the Alliance for Open Media (AOMedia),[3] a consortium founded in 2015 that includes semiconductor firms, video on demand providers, video content producers, software development companies and web browser vendors."
The best part of the article is the very end, even if the site makes it look unrelated.
Avanci's Video pool and Access Advance's Video Distribution Patent pool are both now seeking content royalties from streaming services for the use of HEVC, VVC, VP9, and AV1. Access Advance's rates are capped at roughly $63 million per year, and Avanci has published rates of 1.6% to 2.0% of revenue or $0.12 to $0.15 per user per month.
$4.5 million max for H.264 is rookie numbers vs. the $63 million max for AV1
How does someone seek royalties on an open, royalty-free video coding format?
By claiming that you own patents on technology used by said format.
The "open royalty free" aspect applies to companies that are a part of the AOMedia group, if you're not involved with them you're not covered by the patent grants and restrictions in place, and can charge whatever the courts say is cool.
Here's why it does matter
Most server hardware thats out there right now doesn't support av1 encoding, so all of those, literally tens of thousands of them in thousands of spread out data centers have to be replaced with brand new +$1,500 a pop cards that do support it before they can use it
This is only really true if you have extreme throughput requirements, a regular VOD operation can get by fine on software encoding.
If you have the kind of throughput needs that warrant hardware encoders you're going to want to go ASIC anyway, so regular server hardware won't cut it. Like YouTube for example had to build their own ASICs because of the downright absurd scale they are running at
I was gonna say, I like AV1, but my Plex server says otherwise.
I'm using a 15 year old i5 and a GTX 970, having no issues with AV1 video. Curious what hardware you're running.
Neither of those things support AV1 encoding or decoding. Curious how you’ve come to believe you’re having “no issues” with a codec your hardware has no support for.
Software decoding has clearly been sufficient.
Lmao
You don't need HW acceleration to playback AV1. Maybe they watch most of their content at 720p and are software decoding and it's been good enough.
Yeah you’re going to need HW acceleration to encode AV1 on your server “without issues”.
Theres a world of difference between something that’s technically possible and something that will just work without issues of any kind. Something being “good enough” implies the existence of caveats. Mainly being that’d be a shitty experience lol.
I doubt that it's doing real time transcoding in av1, probably just sending the file "as-is" to your client device and you're noticing as modern networks allow real time streaming of files with that size
My server with much newer components does like 5 fps in encoding av1
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And those servers are what process your Twitchs, your YouTubes, your Netflixs and etc services
Most hardware can't decode it either which is very important. Also it's currently being sued over patents
Most hardware is only really true if you account for older hardware in circulation, most new hardware will be shipping hardware decoder support for AV1.
On top of this, the software decoder support is remarkable for AV1, libdav1d is a marvelous piece of software, bringing access to a plethora of devices lacking hardware decoder support.
Can't be too sure about that: https://sh.itjust.works/post/57524423
The whole patent system should just be abolished. And if we can't achieve that, at least software patents.
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The patents have expired everywhere except USA, Brazil and Malaysia.
This is a blatant money grab before they expire everywhere.
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open formats is the way to go. Patents seems more and more like a scam
Figures. Patents are the backbone of capitalism. Some say it invented capitalism as we know it.
I mean, I get the idea of patents. If there were no protection of "ideas", some random person could have one, try to bring it to market but could just be outplayed by a big corporation with enough money to copy this idea and sell it everywhere before he can even start production. They have more resources and money, but might not have had that idea. There should be some protection. Problem is, that these are also abused by the big corporations, so... Maybe we need to fix this somehow.
Software algorithms should not be patentable.
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Patents are a (relatively speaking) newfangled trick to turn ideas into legal "capital." In the same way that a corporation "is" a person.
The backbone of capitalism? I'm not following that.
Patents are a way to spread knowledge, whole still offering some [time limited] protections. Before them, trade secrets were the norm, and way too much knowledge was lost with it's creators.
It's an outdated legalism. 250 years ago, the patent office operated as an incentive to record and register ideas to the public in exchange for exclusive commercial license.
Now that simply isn't an issue
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quietly
Stop putting "quietly" in your fucking headlines, you hacks. This wasn't "quiet", it was very publicly announced.
Via LA told Streaming Media that it contacted unlicensed media companies during 2025 to give them “a window to secure a license” under the previous terms, but the company didn’t go to the trouble of issuing a press release or public announcement, opting instead for direct outreach. Any company that didn’t respond or wasn't contacted now faces the new rate structure as its starting point for negotiations.
Slammed
slammed
Stop putting "slammed" in your fucking comments, you hacks. This wasn't "the WWE", it was very obviously Lemmy.
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Last attempt to squeeze some money before these formats are abandoned in favor of competition, I guess.
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Thing that bothers me is these guys are claiming to have patents over AV1.
The whole point of av1 is it supposed to be free of this bullshit.
Aye, but AV1 uses math to make the videos smaller, which is the same technology h.264 uses, so clearly it's patent infringement!
I’m pretty sure most of the H.264 patents expired or are set to expire next year. Maybe it’s one last cash grab before the best codec ever made is liberated
Honestly probably a good thing long-term, lots of platforms have been dragging their heels in adopting better newer codecs, so maybe this will finally give the justification required to put in the engineering hours.
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