[Libav-user] Libav, licensing, h.264

[Alex Cohn]

On Wed, Mar 27, 2013 at 6:19 AM, Brad O'Hearne
<brado at bighillsoftware.com> wrote:
> On Mar 26, 2013, at 9:04 PM, Clément Bœsch <ubitux at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Thanks for the reply, Clement!
>
>> The h264 decoder is under LGPL.
>
> I need not only the decoder, but the encoder as well. I read the link sent...I wasn't clear on it -- is the encoder under GPL? If so, do you have any idea what other commercial outfits are using the h.264 encoding? Surely they aren't all rolling their own h.264 codec...

There exist some commercial alternatives. But to the best of my
knowledge, x264 is simply superior both in terms of performance,
features, and maintenence.

As mentioned before, it is quite possible to obtain a x264 commercial license.

This license does not cover the per-use fee to MPEG alliance, which is
a body that represents the patent-holders of h264-related patents.

Another important note: some platforms may support built-in h264
encoder, which may be limited in functionality, but accelerated in
hardware (dedicated DSP or the graphical processor). The tricky part
with that, you probably don't have to pay patent fees if you use such
encoder.

Sincerely,
Alex Cohn