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Jan Ozer

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I help companies train new technical hires in streaming media-related positions; I also help companies optimize their codec selections and encoding stacks and evaluate new encoders and codecs. I am a contributing editor to Streaming Media Magazine, writing about codecs and encoding tools. I have written multiple authoritative books on video encoding, including Video Encoding by the Numbers: Eliminate the Guesswork from your Streaming Video (https://amzn.to/3kV6R1j) and Learn to Produce Video with FFmpeg: In Thirty Minutes or Less (https://amzn.to/3ZJih7e). I have multiple courses relating to streaming media production, all available at https://bit.ly/slc_courses. I currently work as www.netint.com as a Senior Director in Marketing.

Deep Render: An AI Codec That Encodes in FFmpeg, Plays in VLC, and Outperforms SVT-AV1

While many AI-based codecs are still making their first appearance in white papers, often with tortured playback requirements and no working decoder, the Deep Render codec is already encoding in FFmpeg, playing in VLC, and running on the billions of NPU-enabled devices already in the market. Let’s take a step back. I’ve been following the development of the Deep Render …

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x265 and WPP: What’s Fast Isn’t Always Efficient

If you’re optimizing x265 for speed, enabling Wavefront Parallel Processing (WPP) looks like a no-brainer. Table 1 shows a staggering 7.3x improvement in encoding time. A 3:15 encode with WPP turns into a painful 23:51 without it. The quality penalty? Negligible. VMAF drops just 0.19, with the low-frame VMAF off by only 0.77  (low-frame is the lowest VMAF score of …

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Evaluating DCVC-RT: A Real-Time Neural Video Codec That Delivers on Speed and Compression

Background Authors & Affiliations: Zhaoyang Jia and Linfeng Qi (USTC), Bin Li, Jiahao Li, Wenxuan Xie, Houqiang Li, and Yan Lu (Microsoft Research Asia). This project stems from an open-source effort initiated in late 2023, with code available on GitHub. The paper targets a long-standing obstacle for neural video codecs (NVCs): achieving real-time performance without sacrificing compression quality. Existing approaches …

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Google’s Cookie Reversal: While Advertisers Rejoice, Legal Trouble Lurks in the Weeds

Google just kicked the can down the road—again—on killing third-party cookies in Chrome. While much of the advertising world rejoiced at the announcement, privacy professionals and legal teams should be sweating. This isn’t a free pass. It’s a stay of execution. Specifically, in a statement released on April 22, 2025, Anthony Chavez, Vice President of the Privacy Sandbox initiative, stated:​ …

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HEVC Licensing: Misunderstood, Maligned, and Surprisingly Successful

I’ve been involved in a seemingly never-ending debate that started with the dubious (to me) concept of blaming Brightcove’s recent layoffs on HEVC licensing practices. The three questions involved are: Was HEVC’s licensing structure an aberration or similar to other technologies? Was HEVC a commercial success despite these licensing practices? Why didn’t non-premium content publishers adopt it? I have strong …

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Adobe Updates Premiere Pro for NAB 2025

If you edit using the Adobe Creative Suite, you’ve doubtless heard about the updates released just prior to NAB 2025 (officially the 25.2 release). This article notes the key new features available in my video editor of choice, Adobe Premiere Pro. Generative Extend Generative Extend lets you extend video clips by up to two seconds and audio clips by up …

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TV 3.0 and LCEVC: From Standards Win to Real-World Stakes

One of the more intriguing questions surrounding Brazil’s TV 3.0 broadcast upgrade is whether it will help drive LCEVC’s success. LCEVC seems like a technology in need of a tailwind — will TV 3.0 provide it? Alongside VVC, LCEVC is now mandated in receiver devices as part of the spec, which is a significant milestone. But inclusion in a standard …

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Amazon Takes a License From Nokia: A Milestone for Content-Side Codec Royalties

Nokia has announced a patent agreement with Amazon, covering video technologies used in both “streaming services and devices.” That wording matters. While device licensing is nothing new, this marks one of the clearest public signs yet that content-side patent claims are being taken seriously and successfully enforced. This is the first time Nokia has publicly named a licensee tied to …

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Netflix’s HDR10+ AV1: Finally Matching HEVC for Premium Content Delivery

Netflix just announced that it is delivering AV1 video with HDR10+ to certified devices, which means that AV1 has achieved practical parity with HEVC for premium content delivery. This long-awaited announcement, when combined with YouTube’s proprietary HDR support, tends to indicate that there is a critical mass of AV1/HDR10+ capable devices worth addressing. Let’s review the history. Netflix started streaming …

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Mile High Video 2025: Industry Leaders Discuss VVC Adoption Challenges and Opportunities

At Mile High Video, I interviewed multiple industry executives. Where appropriate, I asked for their perspectives and experiences with VVC. Here are their responses, which have been edited lightly for readability. You can watch the video on YouTube here, or embedded below. Mickaël Raulet, Ateme Q: So what are you seeing with VVC? I know you have a VVC encoder. …

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