Codecs

When I first heard that Google Chrome played HEVC, I checked the weather in Hades to determine if it had, in fact, frozen over. Reports were inconclusive. Then I started reaching out to colleagues and contacts whose opinions I value to get their reactions and thoughts. Many spoke on the record, and many didn’t. In this article, I’ll attempt to …

I’m joining NETINT’s marketing team and will continue to write, speak, publish, and maintain and expand the courses at the Streaming Learning Center.  Vancouver, BC – August 8, 2022 – NETINT Technologies today, announced the hiring of Jan Ozer in the role of Senior Director, Video Technology Marketing. In this position, Ozer will lead industry benchmarking, technical validation, content creation, and the development of product …

The course Encoding with the AV1 Codec has been updated with new instructions for SVT-AV1 1.0 and FFmpeg/libaom-AV1.  AV1 is a powerful codec but to optimize quality and performance, you have to choose the optimal preset and thread count and then navigate through obscure commands like auto-alt-ref, row-mt, tile columns/tile rows, and lag-in-frames. The course, Encoding with the AV1 Codec, provides …

Just a quick post to note that I’ve finished my work with Sisvel. It was great meeting and working with the talented folks at Sisvel and learning how patent pools operate from the inside. I greatly appreciate the experience and wish Sisvel and the pool members success as they work to protect and monetize their intellectual property rights. The next …

Choosing the wrong per-title encoding service can boost streaming costs by up to 64% and storage costs by 76%. It can also reduce the average video quality delivered to your viewers by up to 9.28 VMAF points. These reports identify the OPEX and quality leaders and save months of testing.  Overview: Per-Title encoding is the most efficient and effective technology …

This post explores the economic factors to consider when choosing a preset for the SVT-AV1 codec. It’s adapted from a new lesson added to the course, Encoding with the AV1 Codec. While this analysis uses the SVT-AV1 codec, it’s useful for choosing a preset for any codec.  I’ve always considered codec preset selection a cost and quality-driven decision. You see …

Just a quick note that I’ve updated the course, Streaming Media 101: Technical Onboarding for Streaming Media Professionals, with new codec lessons for H.264, VP9, HEVC, AV1, VVC, LCEVC, and EVC. Each lesson, which vary in length from 12 to 20 minutes, covers the topics shown in the agenda below. The lessons are designed to bring the students up to …

My State of Video Codecs 2022 article is up on Streaming Media Magazine. The article identifies the most significant announcements from the last year relating to H.264, VP9, HEVC, AV1, Versatile Video Coding (VVC), Low Complexity Enhancement Video Coding (LCEVC), and Essential Video Coding (EVC). If you’re looking for a good way to catch up with these codecs, you’ll find …

I’ve been wondering if publishers still care about constraining their maximum bitrates (see here for more background), so I grabbed my copy of youtube-dl and performed a little study. The TL/DR version seems to be that new media sites like YouTube, Facebook, and Vimeo don’t strictly adhere to the typical 200% constrained VBR limit while traditional publishers seem to, though …

Every year around this time, like an early Christmas present, Bitmovin releases its Annual Video Developer’s Report, a must-read for all streaming media professionals. Now in its fifth year, the report contains valuable insights regarding codec usage, production workflows, and the issues that are keeping streaming professionals up at night, literally or metaphorically. To produce the report, Bitmovin surveyed 538 …