Japan broadcasters NHK, TBS, NTV, TV Asahi, Fuji TV and TV Tokyo have adopted the AVC/H.264 video coding for mobile segment digital terrestrial broadcasting.
The broadcasters and MPEG LA have also agreed on royalties and other terms of license under essential patents owned by many parties to be offered as part of a joint license.
The patent licensing accord is the result of discussions over many months to assure both the practicality and applicability of the license terms to Japanese broadcast conditions. Under the accord broadcasters will have the option of paying a one-time fee of $2500 for each encoder using in transmitting the AVC/H.264 video. The one-time fees would be offered as an alternative to annual fees. They will cover the use of AVC/H.264 video for free cable and free satellite as well as free terrestrial broadcast television.
AVC/H.264 video coding refers to the MPEG-4 Part 10 AVC/H.264 standard, an advanced video encoding and decoding technology jointly developed between the Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) of the International Standards Organization/International Electrotechnical Commission (ISO/IEC) and the Video Coding Experts Group (VCEG) of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU).
