Hanwha Gets H.265 HEVC License, Hikvision Refuses

By IPVM Team, Published Nov 12, 2020, 07:53am EST (Info+)

IPVM's August 2020 investigation revealed that two of the industry's biggest companies, Hanwha and Hikvision, have been selling H.265 cameras without HEVC licenses for years.

Now, Hanwha has secured this license but Hikvision has not. This video overviews the situation:

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***** ****** ** ** ******** ****anyone ************ *** *.*** ******** *********** ********* *** ******* ** *** ****—now over 12,000. In light of the thorough independent evaluations that are required for these patents to be included in our pool, no reasonable person could claim otherwise. While we do not comment on the status of individual companies, we are diligently working on getting all H.265 implementers licensed. [emphasis added]

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Comments (6)

Undisclosed Integrator #1

11/12/20 05:46pm

sorry for my lack of knowledge in this area.

would hikvision have to pay licensing fees on every camera that has the "ability" to do H.265? or only if the user is using the H.265?

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John Honovich

IPVM | In reply to Undisclosed Integrator #1 | 11/12/20 05:48pm

Ability, meaning whether it ships with it or not.

Hypothetically, one might imagine a world where royalties are only paid if a user enables a certain feature or as they use it, but that would be infeasible to determine in products like IP cameras where they are generally not even connected to some centralized system for tracking.

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Undisclosed End User #2

In reply to John Honovich | 11/16/20 10:10am

but that would be infeasible to determine in products like IP cameras where they are generally not even connected to some centralized system for tracking.

And in the security industry, one might suggest impossible as anyone worth their salt should probably not be electing to send specific deployed system configuration details to 3rd parties.

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Undisclosed Manufacturer #3

In reply to John Honovich | 11/16/20 01:33pm

Axis cameras for years stated that they included 1 client decoding license for H.264. The first time you clicked on H.264 codec from the web UI it would pop up and have you click the box to confirm that you have purchased a client license for H.264 decoding.... They sold the licenses as a SKU. I doubt many people actually purchased them. IIRC, people would also use a VMS and say that the VMS is used for monitoring and thus the license is from that software...

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Undisclosed End User #2

In reply to Undisclosed Integrator #1 | 11/16/20 10:15am

I think it hinges on putting an implementation of software or hardware that performs H.265 encoding in the device.

The equations to compress a video stream in the H.265 way are patented and the patents owned by a consortium, so that anyone who writes software to implement those equations, puts it on a device, and sells the device, pays per device.

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Undisclosed Manufacturer #3

12/18/20 12:25am

Panasonic and ipro were also just added. Presumably that means they were selling without it as well.

Access Advance Announces Newest Additions to the HEVC Advance Patent Pool

NEWS PROVIDED BY

HEVC Advance

Dec 10, 2020, 23:00 ET

BOSTON, Dec. 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Access Advance ("Advance"), an independent licensing administrator, today announced the addition of over 30 Licensees in recent months, including, ARRIS Solutions (a leading set-top box provider), DJI (a leading drone provider), Google (a leading internet-related services and products provider), Hanwha Techwin (a leading surveillance camera provider), OPPO (a leading global smart device brand), Panasonic (a leading multi-national electronics provider), and Panasonic i-PRO Sensing Solutions (a leading security/surveillance solutions and device provider).

Advance also recently welcomed Digital Insights, Google, and IBEX PT Holdings to the HEVC Advance Patent Pool as Licensors. The HEVC Advance Patent Pool now contains over 13,000 HEVC/H.265 essential patents, and of those patents, almost 11,000 are now available in a pool license exclusively through the HEVC Advance Patent Pool. For a complete up-to-date listing of all licensors and licensees in the HEVC Advance Patent Pool, please visit the Access Advance website.

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