HEVC licensing squeeze pushes hardware makers to drop support as AV1 gains ground
The article explains that HEVC/H.265 relies on patent licenses managed by pools like Access HEVC Advance and Velos, with rising royalties and multi-year terms pressuring OEMs. As a result, several vendors (e.g., Dell, HP, Synology) have disabled hardware HEVC support to avoid licensing costs and litigation risk, forcing users to rely on software decoding or pay for extensions. Nokia and other patent holders have pursued lawsuits, contributing to the complexity and risk around HEVC. AV1, a royalty-free open alternative developed by AOMedia, is gaining traction but faces compatibility and hardware hurdles, offering a potential path forward for open video codecs.
