Clarifying HEVC licensing fees, royalties, and why vendors kill HEVC support
Summary
Several technology companies like Dell, HP, Acer, and Asus have stopped supporting a video format called HEVC (H.265) on some of their devices. This is due to complicated and costly licensing fees related to patents owned by companies such as Ericsson, InterDigital, and Nokia. Without HEVC support, playing or editing high-quality videos like 4K streams becomes slower or harder on affected devices.Key Facts
- HEVC (High Efficiency Video Coding) is a video format that allows efficient streaming of high-quality video, like 4K and HDR.
- Popular streaming services like Netflix and Apple TV+ use HEVC to deliver clear videos.
- Some PC makers disabled HEVC support built into Intel and AMD CPUs starting in 2024.
- Licensing HEVC technology involves paying fees and royalties to multiple patent holders.
- Patent holders include Ericsson, InterDigital, and Nokia, who charge different fees depending on licensing arrangements.
- Some companies, including Acer and Asus, were blocked from selling PCs in Germany for infringing a Nokia HEVC patent.
- Users on affected devices may need to buy HEVC video extensions (such as from the Microsoft Store) or use software players like VLC to play HEVC files.
- Removing hardware HEVC support can make playing or editing HEVC videos slower because software must handle the video tasks instead.
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