MediaRecorder Patent Costs

[Kenobi-san]

Hi guys,

I'm considering implementing the video recording on a potential client web project, but before I go down that route I'd like to know more about this new feature.

It seems to encode the video client-side, which is great. However, with the lack of native MediaRecorder support on iOS mobile browsers, and even on Android it seems we can only encode .webm, i'm assuming you're using your own encoder packaged with the rest of your code, in web assembly or something similar. Is that correct?

My fear is that, if that's the case, then any project implementing it would have to register with MPEG-LA and be subjected to the usage terms of their AVC/H.264 patent portfolio license.
The license states that the each downloaded encoder would be counted, with the first 100k downloads/video encodes being free, and each consecutive video costing $0.20, which is not a small figure!

Have you considered how we can use this feature without incurring massive costs if the video recording part of a project is mildly successful?

Thanks in advance for any help you can give me.

Leo