[M4IF Discuss] RE: [M4IF News] MPEG-4 Visual and Systems Licensing Announced!!

[Fevzi Karavelioglu]

>OK - so let me get this straight...
>
>If say, SA, Mot or TiVo build an MPEG-4 set-top box they pay $0.25 - OK,
>fine. However if the user subscribes to a 200-channel package on DirecTV or
>Digital cable does this mean that every one of those channel
>content-providers must pay $1.25 for a paid-up license to distribute to that
>box? So on a "basic package" - someone (who is likely?) must pay $250 to
>MPEG-LA per sub - if DirecTV has 20M subs by that time (and they'vet gone
>MPEG-4), does that mean they (or somebody) owes MPEG-LA $2.5Billion?

Good question.  The channel line ups change, and channels are added and removed
all the time.  How would you monitor/manage this?
In the case of TiVo it is likely each TiVo box built will cost extra 50 cents
since it may employ both a decoder and an encoder.
If it is true that billions of dollars would have to paid due to $1.25 per
channel then the MSOs cannot afford to adapt MPEG4.
Fevzi.
"William J. Fulco" wrote:
> This license's terms are much better...
>
> Clearly people like Apple and Real and such can just drop the $1M (well,
> maybe "drop" is too flip a word - sorry Dave :-) and pay-off the license for
> the year and then give away millions and millions of encoders/decoders...
> for the little garage-shop codec-implementation house, well - this term
> could be problematic... you're right about the "use for 3 days and then
> discard", I've got a dozen codecs like that on my system easily.... This is
> going to be a tough one. I guess you could make your MPEG-4 codec expire - I
> wonder how that is going to play to the licensing guys? Is it "downloads" of
> MPEG-4 codecs or is it "being used" codecs - I suspect it is the former...
>
> Here's a question I had...
>
> A line in the press release:
>
> "Current cable television, direct satellite television and over-the-air
> broadcast that one day may allow a broadcaster to address its broadcast to a
> specific viewer or subscriber will pay a royalty of $0.25 for the right to
> manufacture and sell each decoder and encoder and the party providing
> content service to the subscriber will pay a royalty of $1.25 for the
> paid-up right to use a decoder to decode and use encoded MPEG-4 Visual
> information."
>
> OK - so let me get this straight...
>
> If say, SA, Mot or TiVo build an MPEG-4 set-top box they pay $0.25 - OK,
> fine. However if the user subscribes to a 200-channel package on DirecTV or
> Digital cable does this mean that every one of those channel
> content-providers must pay $1.25 for a paid-up license to distribute to that
> box? So on a "basic package" - someone (who is likely?) must pay $250 to
> MPEG-LA per sub - if DirecTV has 20M subs by that time (and they'vet gone
> MPEG-4), does that mean they (or somebody) owes MPEG-LA $2.5Billion?
>
> There is that implication about "addressable decoder" - so does that mean
> that only the premium-channels like HBO will have to pay for each sub in a
> system? If I have a premium-super-pack with dozens and dozens of
> movie-channels do I/we/they have to pay (1.25 x (dozens and dozens)) dollars
> for this package?
>
> Maybe this better than $0.02/hour content fee - but I'm not so sure it will
> make CE MPEG-4 work for sat and cable systems. These particular economics
> would seem to favor delivery of TV programming to such set-top devices via
> broadband/web-site (Jordan will be happy) and not previous
> delivery-infrastructure.
>
> But I digress...
>
> ++Bill
> wjf   NetworkXXIII.com
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: discuss-admin   lists.m4if.org
> > [mailto:discuss-admin   lists.m4if.org]On Behalf Of Mikael
> > Bourges-Sevenier
> > Sent: Monday, July 15, 2023 4:43 PM
> > To: 'Rob Koenen'; 'M4IF news (E-mail)'; 'M4IF Discussion List (E-mail)'
> > Subject: [M4IF Discuss] RE: [M4IF News] MPEG-4 Visual and Systems
> > Licensing Announced!!
> >
> >
> > > > However, what happens to companies that provide a freely
> > > downloadable
> > > > player? If I read correctly, they are subject to the $1M/y cap for
> > > > video and $100k/y for Systems, am I correct?
> > >
> > > Sounds like it. If you are not in the video surveillance
> > > business, you
> > > may want to add Audio to your system (and you may even like audio
> > > if you *are* in the surveillance business).
> > >
> > > These companies also seem entitled to distribute the first
> > > 50,000 systems for free. But given the fact that you only
> > > mention the caps and not the per en/de-coder royalties, you
> > > must be thinking Big.
> >
> > These days, an internet player with 'cool' contents can easily reach
> > 50000 installs/year even though many of them are often installed for few
> > days and removed. Then the million dollar question: is there a 30-day
> > money back guarantee? Just kidding ;-)
> >
> > Mike
> >
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> >
>
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