Problem or Opportunity? Steve Jobs on Standardizing Royalty Free Codecs
June 3, 2010 – 4:38 pm | No Comment

As readers of this blog know, I am a long-time proponent of royalty-free standardization as the best option for open Web media, preferable to informal, vendor-run open-sourcing of undocumented or unreviewed Intellectual Property Rights.
MPEG, an …

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Broadband Policy

A Royalty-Free Network Policy For Broadband

Digital TV

16 years of “Grand Alliance”, not royalty-free yet?

Interactive TV

Fixing the Sad State of this Promising Convergence

Java DTV

Royalty-Free Java for DTV

OMS Video

Sun Microsystems’ Open Media Stack and OMS Video codec

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Articles in Broadband Policy

MPEG Issues Resolution on Type-1 (Royalty-Free) Standardization
April 26, 2010 – 12:36 pm | 6 Comments
MPEG Issues Resolution on Type-1 (Royalty-Free) Standardization

MPEG — Working Group 11 of  ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 29 — has issued a resolution seeking active participation in developing a Type-1 (royalty-free) video coding standard.
“Given that there is a desire for using royalty free …

Four Ways to Tell if the FCC’s Open Set Top Interface is On Track
March 18, 2010 – 2:11 pm | No Comment
Four Ways to Tell if the FCC’s Open Set Top Interface is On Track

It is gratifying to see the FCC Broadband Plan include an open set top recommendation (4.12), firmly grounded in the FCC’s continuing responsibility to implement section 629 of the 1996 Telco Act to …

Gateway To Nowhere: Standards-Bashing Won’t Fix Set Top Gridlock
February 5, 2010 – 11:45 pm | No Comment
Gateway To Nowhere: Standards-Bashing Won’t Fix Set Top Gridlock

Standards “would thwart, not advance, innovation” and “entail crippling delays”  because they are “extremely time consuming, often divisive, and sometimes used by one faction to block the progress of another or to promote its own …

FCC Video Device Innovation Notice: We Need an Open Video Internet!
December 14, 2009 – 11:02 pm | No Comment
FCC Video Device Innovation Notice:  We Need an Open Video Internet!

The FCC Video Device Innovation Notice [1] asks one of the most fundamentally central questions to the prospect of not only a viable Broadband Plan for America, but also to the very future of the …

Royalty free codec standards — don’t settle for less
December 9, 2009 – 10:37 pm | No Comment
Royalty free codec standards — don’t settle for less

After a lively debate, the IETF appears to be moving forward with a royalty-free audio codec standardization activity.  Here’s to its successful launch and positive outcome.
I’ve put a brief summary at the mpegrf.com site, and …

“Conflict Through Consensus”: Europe’s Hybrid Broadbanders Paint on UK’s Project Canvas
September 10, 2009 – 11:11 pm | No Comment
“Conflict Through Consensus”: Europe’s Hybrid Broadbanders Paint on UK’s Project Canvas

A “Julius Stonian” observation:  standards groups aren’t “consensus organizations”, they are political organizations. Winners declare their way the “consensus”, and changes in political context shift the “consensus”.
So reflects calls in several slides at yesterday’s Hybrid …

“Trust But Verify”: IPR & BBC’s Project Canvas
August 31, 2009 – 6:46 pm | No Comment
“Trust But Verify”: IPR & BBC’s Project Canvas

I have filed comments in the UK Project Canvas public consultation.  To catch up on the UK context with global implications, watch James Murdock’s mesmerizing anti-BBC screed, and say…
“This is the BBC.”
Perhaps no other single …

6 Things You Should Know About Open Video & Open Standards
June 11, 2009 – 11:35 pm | No Comment
6 Things You Should Know About Open Video & Open Standards

It is very exciting to see the “Open Video” movement taking off and finding voice with the upcoming Open Video Conference.
This well-earned “open breakthrough” has been a long time coming.  After all, open standards, and …

Royalty-Free Standards Can Be America’s Broadband Advantage
June 8, 2009 – 9:27 pm | No Comment

I have filed comments (available here) to the National Broadband Policy Notice of Information (09-51).  Excerpt from the executive summary:
Open standards, and particularly royalty-free standards, are the very foundation of the Open Internet as we …

Patent Fights Fuel US DTV’s Slide from World Stage
April 29, 2009 – 5:24 pm | One Comment
Patent Fights Fuel US DTV’s Slide from World Stage

The “FATT” is fighting back this week in comments filed at the US FCC against the “Coalition United To Terminate Financial Abuses of the Television Transition” (CUT FATT) proposal to address patent overreaching in the …