This article provides a quick reference for video codec details from H.264 to LCEVC, excluding EVC, because so little progress has been made on productization. Codec Overview Starting at the top, the year released emphasizes how long H.264 has remained the dominant codec, as evidenced by ReThink’s 2023 usage rate of about 72%. Browser penetration, as measured by CanIuse, is …

Recently I was asked to visually illustrate the data rate difference between two HEVC files, one encoded with CBR at 6 Mbps, the other using capped CRF with the same cap. Of course, everyone’s go-to bitrate visualization viewer has always been Bitrate Viewer, which does a great job displaying the bitrate of a single H.264-encoded file. Unfortunately, it can’t input …

I’m proud to speak at NETINT’s Build Your Own Live Streaming Cloud Symposium. We’ve assembled an all-star cast of experts to educate streaming engineers on how to build their own encoding and packaging infrastructure and save a bundle over cloud services.  Speakers include representatives from Wowza, GPAC, id3as (Norsk), Edgio, Greening of Streaming, two of us from NETINT, and two …

Just a quick announcement to let you know that if you’re taking a course on the Streaming Learning Center, you can now access lessons via a mobile app. By way of background,  we use a learning management system called Thinkific to host all Streaming Learning Center courses. Thinkific recently launched its new mobile app for iOS and Android that we …

One of my sweetest memories of bringing up our two daughters was weekly trips to the grocery store. Each got a $5.00 bribe for accompanying their father, which they happily invested in various tchotchkes that seldom lasted the week. When we exited the car, “parking lot rules” always applied, which meant that each daughter held one of Daddy’s hands for …

If you encode with FFmpeg on AWS, you probably know that you have three CPU options: AMD, Graviton, and Intel. Which is the best AWS CPU for FFmpeg? This article reveals all. For those in a hurry, it’s Graviton for x264 and AMD for x265, often by a significant margin. But the devil is always in the details, and if …

To choose the optimal x264 preset, you have to balance encoding and distribution costs. This article shows you how.  Over the last few years, I’ve used the first chart below to represent the tradeoffs associated with different presets and help readers (or listeners) choose a preset. To create the chart, you encode your test files to standard parameters using all …

Below are six video presentations and downloadable PDFs relating to VVC deployment from a session at Streaming Media East in 2023, all from recognized experts from companies developing and deploying VVC. The session was sponsored by Access Advance.  The sessions begin with an in-depth exploration of VVC and how it compares to other codecs such as H.264, HEVC, and AV1. …

Codecs are tools we use to reach our viewers. So, when it comes to codecs, the best ability is play-ability, or the ability to play on the target platforms our viewers prefer to watch. For years, H.264 has remained dominant simply because it played everywhere; but as videos grow larger, faster, and deeper in color, the cost of distributing H.264 …

Deciding whether to encode on-premise or in the cloud is one of the most critical decisions facing any streaming publisher. Two recent articles provide both strong opinions and insights on this decision and are worthy of review. Our take? Do the math and make your own decision. The first article is “Why we’re leaving the cloud,” by David Heinemeir Hannson. …