The patent dispute in the EU over 4K and HDR on Disney+ is expanding to the alternative VP9 codec Disney+ turned to as a solution, meaning that Disney+ could once again lose 4K.
The saga began in February, when Dolby Vision and 3D disappeared from Disney+. The formats returned in mid-March, only to disappear again in June many EU countries. In July, 4K and HDR10 were also removed from Disney+.
This is due to an ongoing patent dispute with a company called InterDigital, which has so far prevailed against Disney at the Unified Patent Court (UPC) in Europe and in a Brazilian court. The dispute specifically concerns patents related to HDR and HEVC.
4K returned, but may disappear again
In August, Disney+ began restoring 4K – but not HDR – on certain devices and for certain titles by switching from HEVC to the VP9 video codec. In practice, this means that movies and series must be re-encoded in VP9.
But VP9 is not exempt from the dispute, claims InterDigital:
- "We expanded our litigation against Disney in Europe’s Unified Patent Court over Disney’s ongoing infringement of our innovation related to VP9 encoding technology. This is important because in our dispute, Disney has used VP9 to support 4K video content as a possible workaround to its ongoing infringement of our technology. Our position is clear; any use of VP9 continues to infringe our patented innovation, and Disney cannot use it to avoid paying us fair royalties while also delivering an inferior experience to its customers," said Josh Schmidt, Chief Legal Officer at InterDigital, and continued:
- "We first approached Disney about a license several years ago. We would have much preferred to conclude an amicable agreement then. We went to court only because that route was closed to us."
Amazon Prime Video has steered clear of a similar dispute by entering into a patent agreement with InterDigital.
What's next for Disney?
VP9 can deliver 4K streaming – YouTube does so as well – but not HDR. Despite this, Disney has said that it will restore HDR at a later date. But how?
It is possible that Disney plans to move to the newer AV1 video codec, which can deliver both 4K and HDR. However, AV1 is not yet widely supported by Smart TVs and streaming players.
The next step will depend on the outcome of the expanded VP9 lawsuit. VP9 was originally introduced by Google in the 2010s as a royalty-free video codec. If Disney loses again, it will inevitably raise another question: Can AV1, which is also promoted as royalty-free, avoid patent litigation? The whole streaming industry is watching.
