Clarifying HEVC licensing fees, royalties, and why vendors kill HEVC support
by Scharon Harding from Ars Technica - All content on (#752D5)
You don't notice good video compression-until it's not there.
For years, people have streamed high-resolution video without thinking about the tech behind it. But when companies clash over which hardware, software, and services can use modern codecs likeHEVC/H.265, the idea that it all "just works" quickly falls apart.
For some Dell and HP customers, that illusion has already been shattered. When the companies disabled HEVC support built into the CPUs of select PCs, it raised uncomfortable questions: Why remove a capability that's already a part of third-party hardware? What do OEMs and chipmakers pay to support HEVC-and are HEVC patent holders effectively double-dipping on licensing fees and royalties?