No, you can't do that with H.264
Well, so how much does the licensing actually cost?  On their website MPEG LA mentions there are certain thresholds to "minimize the impact on lower volume users" (<a href="http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/AVC/Pages/Intro.aspx" rel="nofollow">http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/AVC/Pages/Intro.aspx</a>). If you're running an consulting business using this format is it so weird to pay a little (or maybe nothing?) to use it?<p>I'm pretty sure you can find outrageous (and oftentimes unlawful) things in most licenses (that's more or less the point), but come on, do you really think MPEG LA will ever sue your friend that watched your x264 encoded clip of your cat on his iPhone? (Which they found out about... how?)