Most video codecs such as H.264, H265/HEVC, MPEG-2, MPEG-4… requires the manufacturer to pay a license fee. The fees are then added to the final product, but the actual codec fees are usually unknown to the end user. One of the exceptions are VC-1 and MPEG-2 license fees for Raspberry pi boards which are sold separately for respectively £1.20 ($1.58 US) and £2.40 ($3.16 US). So I assumed that licenses pricing was mostly private and negotiated based on volume. But a recent article stated that HEVC Advance, independent licensing administrator, revised the royalties for lower-price devices (<$40) with the price table below providing a good insight into pricing for different device types, unit prices and regions. The new discounted royalty rate category applied to consumer and commercial products selling for less than $40 including set-top boxes, surveillance cameras, game console and others. A simplified Patent License Agreement (PPL) was also announced in order […]
H.265 / HEVC License Pricing Updated for Low Cost Devices
