I recently consulted with a company that was running capped CRF-type encoding across four codecs simultaneously: x264, VP9, NVIDIA H.264, and NVIDIA AV1. The first two were VOD encoding, the second two live. I was genuinely impressed by the sophistication and practicality of this video engineering setup, so I asked the client if I could share what they were doing. …

On February 12, I interviewed David Ronca, formerly of Netflix and Meta, now RoncaTech, about the latest Beta version of his Video Codec Acid Test, or VCAT, which now includes VVC decode courtesy of Fraunhofer’s open-source VVeC decoder. The interview is available here on YouTube. Here’s an overview of the highlights we covered, with timestamps for the video. To get …

When a codec researcher declares that a newer codec is up to 40% more efficient than the baseline codec, they are making a highly accurate, well-defined claim. However, much like the EPA fuel economy ratings on a new car’s window sticker, these white papers should include a disclaimer stating, “actual bandwidth savings almost certainly will vary.” Given that bandwidth savings …

The marketing story around vibe coding is awe-inspiring: a non‑programmer can describe any app they can imagine, and AI will do all the hard work. No code, no problem. Just vibes. It turns out I was vibe coding before I ever heard the term. My goals were both less and more ambitious. Less ambitious, because I wasn’t trying to build …

Before comparing your existing H.264 encodes to HEVC, AV1, or any other advanced codec, you need a baseline you can trust. In practice, many codec efficiency claims collapse once you examine how inefficient the underlying H.264 ladder actually is. This article focuses on fixing that baseline before any codec comparison begins. Let’s take a step back. This is the second …

Codec decisions used to be an engineering sport. Today, they are capital allocation decisions with legal risk attached. For most of the H.264 era, codec choices were technical and reversible: you ran some tests, watched the BD‑rate curves, and rolled out what looked best on your ladder. If it disappointed, you could back it out with little more than engineering …

As a technologist and part-time couch potato, I appreciate Netflix on many levels. During the evening hours, it’s the creativity and breathtaking beauty of its productions. During working hours, it’s their technical contributions, like per-title encoding and VMAF, and their development and promotion of AV1. Unlike other publishers (cough, cough, Amazon), Netflix has always been amazingly gracious in sharing the …

The acquisition of Via Licensing Alliance’s HEVC and VVC programs by Access Advance is being framed as a cleanup of codec licensing. Instead of dealing with two pool administrators, licensees now deal with one, reducing administrative friction and simplifying negotiations. That’s a real improvement, particularly for device manufacturers, and it may reduce effective royalties at the margin. What it doesn’t …

I recently hosted a Streaming Media Connect panel titled “Benefits and Trade-Offs of Adopting and Implementing Codecs.” The contributors were Hassene Tmar from Meta, Behnam Kakavand from Evolution Gaming, and analyst Alex Davies from Rethink TV. The most striking information was not about future codecs. It was about what AV1 deployment looks like when real companies actually do it. You …

Deep Render entered 2024 with real technical progress on its AI-based codec. The team had a working model, encoding and decoding live in FFmpeg and VLC, published research, funding, and a belief that AI-based compression represented a step change rather than an academic experiment. What they lacked was sustained visibility with streaming professionals who make codec decisions. The gap was …