The battle to provide the standards for next generation video codecs just got serious, as the giants behind three royalty-free designs pooled their resources in order to gang up on the HEVC platform. Cisco, Google and Mozilla are all placing their video codec efforts into the new Alliance for Open Media, which is pursuing an open standard that will not carry patent fees, unlike the dominant H.264 codec. They are joined by Microsoft, Amazon, Intel, Netflix and others, a formidable combination which may mean the reign of H.264’s successor, HEVC, is very short indeed. A royalty-free codec has been a goal of companies like Google for years, especially as video has become so central to the mobile and online experience…