Big Squeeze

摘要

A thicket of patent and licensing disagreements―including accusations that Microsoft has swiped intellectual property―threatens to stall deployment of next-generation compression technologies. As a result, broadcasters and cable and DBS operators will have to wait for technologies that promise more channels, more storage, and more subscribers. The patent difficulties center on Microsoft's Windows Media 9 (WM9) and subset VC-9, which is under review by Society of Motion Picture Television Engineers (SMPTE). For its part, the MPEG-4, Part 10 Advanced Video Codec (generally called H.264) has met resistance to its high licensing fees.