It’s because those codecs require SDK’s that are expensive to license. That’s not a Linux specific issue - it’s always been that way for the non-studio version of Resolve (with some exceptions on MacOS since the ProRes codecs are already part of the OS).
replyIs it surprising that they’d rather make features that cater to a large portion of their user base instead of a tiny fraction of it?
replySomeone was posting recently how it cost him tens of dollars of LLM Agent time to reverse engineer Linux Davinci and add codec he wanted back in.
replyThis is one of the the cases where “the language model won't necessarily respect IP law” is really relevant. Individual users may be able to get away with this because they're too scattershot to sue, and users in some jurisdictions may actually be fine regardless, but broadly, the patent licensing around things like H.264 is not something BMD can afford to ignore. AFAIK the biggest reason Google was pushing WebM in the first place was because they, a huge corporation, were balking at being under the thumb of the MPEG LA!
replyI appreciate that it can be confusing for users that patents can still apply to techniques where implementations exist that are both libre and gratis from a copyright perspective, but this has been an issue for Linux-adjacent software distribution for ages—like, see how Debian used to put certain stuff that was encumbered by patents in the US but not in other jurisdictions in special “non-US” repository sections, that sort of thing. It's not Black Magic's doing that the codec space is like this. I wish people wouldn't make so many mocking assumptions sometimes.
Haha yeah was about to post this very comment. I'm glad to see they have their priorities in order instead of checks notes supporting MP4 on Linux, the most common type of goddamn encoding. GoPro footage literally does not work with Resolve outside Windows.
reply