Some of the tech industry’s biggest names, including Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Mozilla and Netflix have got together in an alliance to develop next-generation media formats. The group, called the Alliance for Open Media, will combine its collective technology to bring high quality royalty-free still images, audio and video to commercial and non-commercial consumers.

The Alliance describes its mission as pursuing, “A new, open royalty-free video codec specification and open-source implementation based on the contributions of members, along with binding specifications for media format, content encryption and adaptive streaming, thereby creating opportunities for next-generation media experiences.” It further goes on to say that video, which will be the main focus, will be optimized for the web, scalable to any device, and deliver reliable high-quality real-time video.

The main point in this is to sidestep fees paid to MPEG LA, a company that takes part of your cash when you sign-up to something like Netflix. MPEG LA takes this money due to patents held by companies such as Sony for AVC/H.264 codec technology, which is required for taking video and streaming it to your television, desktop or tablet/phone.

Meanwhile HEVC Advance and its Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC), thought of as the successor to H.264, promises to deliver better performance – with a higher cost to boot. While MPEG LA now has its own HEVC codec, it’s thought that companies will end up with a higher licensing cost if they should use it.

And so we have the Alliance, which intends to puts its brains, their own codecs, and legal clout together to develop their own streaming codecs.

David Bryant, Mozilla’s Vice President of Platform Engineering, explained more clearly the reason behind the move, “One of the biggest challenges in developing open standards in a field like video codecs is figuring out how to review the patents. The Alliance provides a venue for us to share the legal legwork without having to worry about it being used against us down the road. That distributes the load, allows us to innovate faster and cheaper, and gives everyone more confidence that we are really producing a royalty-free codec.”

The Alliance, which is part of the Joint Development Foundation,  has not been joined by the likes of Apple or Facebook, but Bryant mentions that the group is open to anyone involved in online of offline video.

Photo credit: FionaKwan via Flickr