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According to Google, YouTube users have now watched a combined 25 billion hours of VP9-encoded video. The VP9 codec, Google's alternative to MPEG LA's H.265/HEVC, can deliver video of the same quality at around half the bitrate of H.264. Google claims that VP9 has allowed users in countries such as Turkey, Mexico, Indonesia, and Brazil to "upgrade" their YouTube viewing from "low definition" resolutions (144p and 240p) to "standard definition" (360p and above).
Now, Google is using VP9 as its main codec for YouTube videos. According to the company, a significant portion of those 25 billion hours of videos played in the last year couldn't have been watched in HD quality without the VP9 codec. "This new format bumps everybody one notch closer to our goal of instant, high-quality, buffer-free videos. That means that if your Internet connection used to only play up to 480p without buffering on YouTube, it can now play silky smooth 720p with VP9," said Google in a blog post.
Google has previously committed to an accelerated 18-month development schedule for successors to VP9. Meanwhile, the Xiph.Org Foundation, Mozilla, and the Internet Engineering Task Force are working on a patent-unencumbered codec named NETVC (formerly Daala). The proponents are aiming to optimize NETVC beyond both VP9 and H.265.
Finally, BBC News and others are reporting on a new contender, a codec called "Perseus" from the company V-Nova. It is being marketed as enabling 4K/2160p streaming for mainstream users.
The company said Perseus is more efficient than industry-standard codecs, claiming that testing shows compression gains of two to three times compared to H.264/AVC, H.265/HEVC and JPEG2000 and substantially less power use compared to H.264 and H.265. The codec scales through "all bitrates," the company said, offering both lossless and lossy quality. V-Nova said SD video can be delivered to mobile devices at bitrates as low as 125 Kbps, and that HD video can be live-encoded at 500 Kbps or less, but also notes that the codec's benefits increase as resolution and frame rates increase. "Good quality" HD can be broadcast at 2 Mbps and UHD at 4 Mbps using existing hardware and infrastructure, the company said.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Wednesday April 08 2015, @01:33AM
How does VP9, NETVC, H.264, H.265/HEVC compare on a license, patent, processing demand and quality based benchmark?
Doesn't find anything on licensing, copyright or patent terms for VP9 and NETVC.
Now we only need a GPU blob update to Raspberry-Pi to run circles around MPEG LA which may find their format obsoleted. Documented GPU opcodes and internal workings is what's needed to make these new codecs to get implemented fast. So manufacturers, either publish or perish as we say.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday April 08 2015, @02:27AM
NETVC is a days old proposal for Daala: "On March 25, 2015, Daala was proposed to the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) for their Internet Video Codec (NETVC) video standard."
"VP9 is an open and royalty free video coding format".
There's some data here, see if you can make it out: https://arewecompressedyet.com/ [arewecompressedyet.com]
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