Comments on: China approves AVS codec

By: Chinese AVS codec, rivaling H.264, is rising

Chinese AVS codec, rivaling H.264, is rising — Wed, 22 Feb 2006 18:15:53 +0000

[...] Since mid-2002, the Audio Video Coding Standard (AVS) has been inching its way through a relatively open technical-development process. China’s Ministry of Information Industry recently completed a one-year review and quietly approved AVS in December as a candidate for a national compression standard, passing it to the Standards Administration of China, which should formally OK it in the coming months. [...]

By: John R.

John R. — Wed, 14 Dec 2005 03:23:07 +0000

I looked into this a bit. It turns out On2 has a good number of patents, both issued and pending. And with video codecs it’s generally possible to tell if there’s any infringement, even without seeing the source code. It’s also a big uphill challenge for adoption of something new like this, even within China. So my personal view is it’s much ado about not much.

By: Sachin Garg

Sachin Garg — Fri, 09 Dec 2005 16:43:27 +0000

> I hope they have some good patent protection on their IP,
> because that would seem to be the only way they could
> protect their goods in a case like this.

Will those patents be valid in China (without co-operation by chinese authorities)? Moreover, I am not sure if they can go to court against the govt. itself, which seems to be the case here (govt backed atleast).

On the bright side, I feel this will not have any major impact on On2’s business as AVS is gonna have zero support outside China (but if AVS standard is made public, in that case On2’s IP will also be in open, ouch!).

By: Mark

Mark — Fri, 09 Dec 2005 13:47:41 +0000

>Maybe you should try to find out what happened
>with the broken up relationship between On2
>and Beijing E-World.

This is a good conspiracy theory! (And I don’t mean to put it down by using that term.)

I can easily see how a company like On2 could be lured into opening their kimono a little wider than they should by the prospect of becoming part of an emerging Chinese standard.

I hope they have some good patent protection on their IP, because that would seem to be the only way they could protect their goods in a case like this.

By: jorn grammons

jorn grammons — Thu, 08 Dec 2005 18:50:06 +0000

Maybe you should try to find out what happened with the broken up relationship between On2 and Beijing E-World. BEW had a license agreement to use On2’s codec (brandname VP6 and VP5) for the EVD-standard (candidate successor for DVD and supposed to support High Definition).

For some “handy” reason (not a smart one on the side of On2 if you ask me) BEW not only got the technical library of On2’s IP, but also the SOURCE codes. When you know BEW was “closely” related to AND the Chinese Government AND the AVS workgroup, I’m afraid the picture is very clear….

By: Sachin Garg

Sachin Garg — Thu, 08 Dec 2005 17:44:25 +0000

Jim, as said by Mark its a proprietary standard. So we can’t expect technical details to be available online.

This is a part of China’s plans to roll out their own DVD format (as if HD vs Blu-Ray wasnt enough).

By: Jim Leonard

Jim Leonard — Thu, 08 Dec 2005 16:43:12 +0000

Any idea where we can get more info on AVS? Every search I do for “AVS codec” or similar is met with references to avisynth.