[asterisk-biz] Re: [asterisk-users] H.264 *Not Patented*

[Matthew Rubenstein]

On Sat, 2007-01-27 at 11:33 -0500, Lee Jenkins wrote:
> Matthew Rubenstein wrote:
> > 	The H.264 codec patent by Qualcomm has been ruled invalid by a San
> > Diego Federal jury:
> > http://www.eetimes.com/news/semi/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=197001066 .
> > That means that H.264 codecs can now be written, distributed and revised
> > freely under any license their authors choose, including GPL, public
> > domain, or any other, and $free now that royalties are no longer
> > required.
> > 
> > 	How does H.264 compare with GSM and G.729 in CPU demand (MIPS:Kbps) and
> > audio quality at low bitrates? GSM is $free, but G.729 is higher quality
> > (tho patented with at least $10 per running codec instance royalties).
> > Will H.264 become the favorite high-quality Asterisk codec, or will it
> > perhaps force G.729 to become free, or negligibly cheaper?
> 
> Although I wouldn't complain about a free G.729 codec, I have to be 
> honest in saying that $10.00 isn't that great of an expense considering 
> the better call quality you get.

	It's a question of scale. If I've got a Pentium that can handle 400
unencoded legs max, by the time I get through with multiparty
conferences, streaming and maybe recording unencoded, I might have only
50-75 simul calls, which is about $650 in codec licenses on a $650 PC.
That's cheap in terms of value, but expensive in terms of cost.
Especially if  I want to run thousands of simul calls, which doubles my
5-figure cost to 6-figures. While I'd rather spend the money on
operations staff and developers who can add features and reliability.
-- 

(C) Matthew Rubenstein