By Ian Hollidae, 2025/11/26

It appears that HP and Dell are disabling playback of videos that use the HEVC format on certain PC models because the licensing fee is set to increase in 2026. This obviously brings up a number of questions such as will other venders follow suit, how many end users will ultimately be affected, and how big of a problem will this turn out to be.

From my own perspective, I wonder if this could be the beginning of the end for proprietary formats given the rising importance of video in so many areas such as entertainment and communications. I have to imagine that every major streaming and video chat service, and anyone looking to start a new service, will be looking to cut delivery cost any way they can. And as for the end users, who care nothing about licensing agreements, how many times will they put up with disruptions to vital features.

Regardless of how this all plays out, royalty free formats such as AV1 seem like they have an increasingly bright future.

Tags: Streaming