Samsung has become a Licensor and Licensee of the HEVC Advance HEVC/H.265 Licensing Program.

HEVC/H.265 is a video compression standard. As of now the market is growing and this video compression feature is needed to meet the growing demand for 4K Ultra High Definition video delivered to screens ranging from the largest monitors to the smallest smart phones.

This means as a Licensor, Samsung will make its essential patents available through the HEVC Advance patent pool, which provides a transparent and efficient licensing program for HEVC/H.265 essential patents.  As a Licensee, Samsung can access the large portfolio of patents essential to implementing the HEVC/H.265 video compression standard.

Samsung being one of the largest consumer electronics company, they carry a variety of products, and has begun to offer 4K UHD inputs and outputs for their portfolio; including Galaxy phones, 4K SUHD TV’s, laptops and other products. The latest Galaxy S8 is seen to be supporting this video compression format.

While H.265 is gaining popularity as the industry standard, the adoption rate online for H.265 is relatively low due to the high licensing fee. Many major tech companies including Amazon, AMD, ARM, Cisco, Google, Intel, Microsoft, Mozilla, Netflix, NVIDIA opted to join the Alliance for Open Media, adopting the royalty-free alternative format of AV1. Google remains with their open sourced VP9 codec and doesn’t look to be changing over anytime soon.

“We are very excited that Samsung has chosen to take the lead in bringing 4K UHD technology to the marketplace as well as supporting our efforts at HEVC Advance to facilitate the efficient licensing of the HEVC/H.265 IP that makes 4K UHD technology possible,” said HEVC Advance CEO, Peter Moller. “Having the support of the largest consumer electronics company in the world, and a leader in innovation with one of largest and most important HEVC/H.265 patent portfolios, will help eliminate HEVC/H.265 IP barriers and further accelerate 4K UHD adoption – a big win for consumers and all market participants.”