I recently wrote an article for Streaming Media where I tested AV1 playback from YouTube in Chrome. I mentioned that I couldn’t make Firefox Nightly work, though it also should play the YouTube content. Some folks from Mozilla got in touch and detailed the steps to make it work. 1.  Download Firefox Nightly here. 2.  Go to about:config and click “I accept the …

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A recent consulting project involved computing the VMAF, SSIM, and PSNR scores of 30 fps 480p video encoded from a 60 fps 1080p source file. I’ve not performed measurements like this in the past and assumed that simply converting the 60 fps sources file to 30 fps via the “-r” option would convert from 60 fps to 30 fps and …

In his Essential Patent Blog, intellectual property attorney David Long recently reported that a jury trial in Federal District Court in Texas found that Chinese smartphone manufacturer Huawei infringed upon an H.264-related patent owned by PanOptis, a non-practicing entity (NPE). The jury also found that the H264 award wasn’t limited by FRAND (Fair, Reasonable, and Non-Discriminatory) requirements typically applied to patents …

New Service by Unified Patents Assists Companies with Patent-Related Royalty Claims Monday, September 10, 20182:00 PM ESTRegister below Companies deploying HEVC and other video technologies face skyrocketing licensing costs and uncertainty about future demands. In 2017, Apple paid Nokia $2 billion dollars in unexpected H.264 royalties, while last month Chinese smartphone manufacturer Huawei was ordered to pay PanOptis $7.7 million for use …

In his Essential Patent Blog, intellectual property attorney David Long recently reported that a jury trial in Federal District Court in Texas found that Chinese smartphone manufacturer Huawei infringed upon an H.264-related patent owned by PanOptis, a non-practicing entity (NPE). The jury also found that the H264 award wasn’t limited by FRAND requirements typically applied to patents essential to a …

I’m not going to IBC, but if you are, please check out AV1 hardware encoding acceleration from Socionext. Here’s the blurb from the press release.  There will be a demonstration of the world’s first hardware-based implementation of an AV1 encoding system. AV1 is a new, advanced video data compression standard established by theAlliance for Open Media, a consortium that includes Socionext, …

My first look of the AV1 codec is up on Streaming Media Magazine. Here’s the pithy summary.  “These tests revealed glimpses of very alluring quality as compared to existing codecs, but at a current encoding cost that’s far beyond what the vast majority of video publishers can afford to pay. How many devices will play AV1 without some form of …

Number of hours of streaming required to recoup 60-minute encoding cost.  Author’s note: The author would like to acknowledge the shocking fact that he is not perfect and that this lack of perfection often reveals itself, quite embarrassingly, in spreadsheet-intensive articles. I did the best I could and checked every number and assumption multiple times, but if something doesn’t look right, …

MPEG is working on a new coding standard called Versatile Video Coding (VVC). A colleague recently sent me a presentation from Thierry Fautier, VP Video Strategy at Harmonic, which contained some preliminary encoding results to be formally presented at a paper given at IBC. The presentation was from a short talk Thierry gave at the Mile High Video 2018 conference. The presentation …