Codecs

With streaming video data rates, less is always more, unless of course, lower data rates mean visible artifacts. I just finished a review of the ZPEG Engine for x264, which produced bitrate savings of 21% without blocks, banding, mosquitoes, or other problems that would be noticeable by typical viewers. This was an average saving; the data rate reduction in some …

After three years and multiple delays, the Alliance for Open Media froze its AV1 codec bitstream, thus setting up a cacophony of HEVC/AV1 face-offs in booths and meeting rooms at the upcoming NAB Show. These comparisons will largely dictate which codec will replace H.264 as the “it” codec for streaming to desktops, mobile devices, Smart TVs, and OTT devices, though the …

HEVC Advance announced today that it is eliminating subscription and title-by-title royalty fees for non-physical HEVC content distribution, making all streaming, cable, over-the-air broadcasts, and satellite distributions of encoded HEVC content royalty free. HEVC encoded content sold on Blu-ray discs and other storage devices will continue to be subject to a royalty. In a related move, HEVC Advance also reduced hardware royalty …

We’ve known Beamr as an optimization company, and in 2016 they bought Vanguard Video, a codec company. Traditionally, Beamr sold SDKs to large customers, but now they’re launching a cloud transcoding service. I recently interviewed CTO Dror Gill about the new service; here’s the video.

Interested in how Apple’s adding HEVC to HLS is impacting streaming producer’s intent to start encoding with HEVC? How about their attitudes towards the Alliance for Open Media’s AV1 codec? A new report available on the Streaming Media website covers both of these issues and more. Entitled, The Impact of Apple’s HEVC Adoption: A Survey-Based Report, the report asks how quickly the …

The skinny: Apple, a member of the MPEG LA H.264 and HEVC patent pools, and staunch supporter of standards (and avoider of open source-codecs) broke ranks and joined the Alliance for Open Media. Give me more: Apple has always deployed standards-based codecs, and Steve Jobs was very negative on Google’s VP8 open-source codec when launched. Alliance for Open Media (AOM) …

On January 5, roughly 27 months after the inception of the Alliance for Open Media (AOM), Apple appeared on the organization’s website as a “founding member.” Like everyone else, we first read the story on CNET, and CNET likely found out when the Alliance simply updated its website. As you probably know, AOM was formed in September 2015, during the height of …

At its June 2017 Worldwide Developer’s Conference, Apple announced support for HEVC playback in HTTP Live Streaming (HLS) delivered to iOS, MacOS, and tvOS end points. For many, this announcement raised more questions than answers, which we hope to address in this article. By way of background, at Streaming Media West 2017, I co-produced a preconference session on encoding HEVC …

It’s easy to imagine the deployment of HEVC as a case study in business and technology schools about how not to launch a technology. Not only do you have a launch cycle that clearly limited adaption, you also have classic illustrations of two of the major problems related to standard-essential patents, patent holdup, and royalty stacking. Patent holdup refers to the practice …

A short one. Before my trip to Stockholm last week, I sent a list of questions regarding AV1 to David Ronca, Director of Encoding Technologies at Netflix. As a company, Netflix has been very open and gracious about sharing their opinions and test results, both in their excellent blog posts and in many articles in many publications. Netflix’s scale and encoding …