VP9 video compression

[jayanji]

Google urges fast adoption of VP9 video compression

The computing industry has just begun taking the VP8 codec seriously, but Google wants people to adopt its brand-new successor.
SAN FRANCISCO -- Google is nearly done with its VP9 video technology, and it wants the world to use it.
At its Google I/O conference Wednesday, company employees made the case for the royalty-free, open-source technology as a higher-quality alternative to today's dominant video codec, H.264. Moving to VP9 -- available now in testing on Chrome and YouTube -- will save bandwidth costs.
"If you adopt VP9, as you can very quickly, you'll have tremendous advantages over anyone else out there using H.264 or VP8, (its predecessor)," said VP9 engineer Ronald Bultje in a talk here at Google's developer conference. "You can save about 50 percent of bandwidth by encoding your video with VP9 vs. H.264."
The VP9 specification will be finalized on June 17, but developers can use it today by enabling it through Chrome's about:flags mechanism and visiting YouTube's VP9 video channel.

VP9 is free to use, unlike H.264. HEVC/H.265 also will be free to use once the licensing organization MPEG LA finishes up its patent royalty plans. Google sees that as an unacceptable financial burden for startups, programmers, schools, and others who might want to launch a video project on the Internet.

Google urges fast adoption of VP9 video compression | Internet & Media - CNET News

 

[jayanji]

Updated chrome to Version 29.0.1541.0 dev-m to experience the vp9

 

[jayanji]

The new VP9 codec developed by Google and already integrated into Google Chrome will be arriving on Mozilla Firefox soon.

The VP9 codec has been in the works for quite some time, and Google promises that it will deliver better compression for the same bandwidth and better CPU/GPU utilization.

That being said, it was only a matter of time until other parties started to adopt it, and now it's time for Mozilla to officially make the necessary steps to implement it.

A couple of bugs have been corrected for Firefox, ensuring that the browser has the capability to run VP9-powered content. One is 833023 (vp9) Implement VP9 video decoder in Firefox) and the other one is 918550 (libvpx to version 1.3.0).

As it stands right now, the Firefox 28 users will be the first to experience full support for VP9.

 

[NinadG]

Firefox 28, so there may be atleast 3 months time considering now Firefox 25 is running....

 

[jayanji]

YouTube goes 4K at CES, brings royalty free VP9 to fore front

According to reports YouTube will demonstrate 4K videos at the upcoming CES. That’s not the best news, the best part of this story is that Google will do it using it’s own open sourced VP9 technology. Google acquired the technology from O2 and open sourced it. Google started offering the codec on royalty free basis to vendors to boost adoption.

Google has also learned the hardware partnership game and has already roped in hardware partners to use and showcase VP9 at CES. According to reports LG (the latest Nexus maker), Panasonic and Sony will be demonstrating 4K YouTube using VP9 at the event.

 

[jayanji]

What is VP9?

VP9 is a new video codec that will compress video files to half the size that the current encoding technology, called MPEG-4 or H.264, can achieve. More important, it will be used to compress video files and streams at 4K resolution, which is four times higher than HDTV resolution. VP9 is part of WebM, an open-source project sponsored by Google for creating technology for use with media on the Internet. Google has announced plans to use VP9 for 4K YouTube videos. But VP9 rivals another technology, called HEVC, that also seeks to be the standard for 4K TV.

What is a codec?

A codec (an abbreviation of the term "coder-decoder") is software that uses an algorithm to systematically compress raw video data into a compact form fit for efficiently broadcasting, transmitting over an Internet stream or storing on a DVD or Blu-ray disc, for example. Without a codec, there simply wouldn't be enough bandwidth or storage space for HDTV to be possible.

At the receiving end, the same codec in your TV, computer or disc player uncompresses the data to display the video on your screen. Codecs also remove some detail from video to reduce its size, and a high level of compressions can noticeably degrade image quality. Most pay-TV services use aggressive compression to get all those channels into your cable or satellite receiver, which is one reason the video from your cable box does not look as good as that from a Blu-ray. A good codec will compress video down while causing few defects due to overcompression.

High-definition video can take a lot of data. A full-HD image has about 2 million pixels and potentially millions of colors making up an individual frame, with hundreds of thousands of frames making up a movie.

Why use VP9 for 4K video?

The current MPEG-4/H.264 codec makes it possible to compress the huge amount of information in a film so that it can stream over online video services such as Netflix or YouTube. Those high-definition images are in either 720p resolution (1280 x 720 pixels, or 0.92 million pixels) or 1080p resolution (1920 x 1080 pixels, or about 2 million pixels). The images from a video in the 4K format, also known as Ultra HD, have about 8.3 million pixels (3840 x 2160 resolution). Such a huge jump in detail requires a better way to compress the data in order to transmit or store it. VP9 is twice as efficient as H.264. The result is that current HD content will need only half the data to be streamed, and streaming 4K content will be viable.

What content will use VP9?

Google is ostensibly responsible for the creation of the VP9 codec and has already announced it will be used for 4K content on YouTube. It will also likely be used by the Google Play streaming video service. Each individual service will have to decide whether to start sending data using VP9 instead of the current H.264 codec. And even once content is being made using VP9, there will have to be compatible hardware to run it, from TVs, to set-top boxes to mobile devices. Google has already announced some partners, including chip and component makers ARM, Broadcom, Intel, Marvell, MediaTek, Nvidia, Qualcomm, RealTek and Sigma, as well as TV makers LG, Panasonic, Philips, Samsung, Sharp, Sony and Toshiba.

The other wrinkle is that there is another 4K codec called HEVC (High Efficiency Video Coding) or H.265, developed by the international organizations that created H.264 (as well as its predecessor, MPEG-2). Some video services, such as Netflix, and hardware companies may support only HEVC. Others may support only VP9. Still others may support both 4K codecs, as Samsung and Sony are doing with upcoming 4K televisions.

How is VP9 different from HEVC?

There are technical similarities between VP9 and HEVC, and the overall goal of the two codecs is the same: compress video to use half the data currently required to stream HD video and provide enough compression for 4K video to become viable within the limits of high-speed Internet in people's homes. The biggest difference is that VP9 is an open-source project that can be used by anyone royalty-free, whereas HEVC will require a license to be used. Whether there is an actual difference in compression effectiveness and picture quality remains to be seen when 4K content created with both codecs is widely available.

Can I watch VP9 content now?

No. Even though Google has pushed support of VP9 to its Chrome browser, YouTube is not using it yet to encode content. Even when YouTube or another service begins streaming with VP9, you will only be able to watch it with a compatible television, computer or mobile hardware.

How did VP9 come about?

A company called On2 Technologies created the TrueMotion and TrueMotion2 codecs. For the next version in 2000, the company's CEO, Daniel B. Miller, renamed it Video Processing 3, or VP3. VP3 was made open-source in September 2001, and is now called Theora. Over the years, On2 Technologies created improved versions such as VP4, VP5, etc. The company was acquired by Google in 2010, making future codecs open-source like Theora. VP9 is just the latest of Google's open-source projects meant to improve the delivery of content on the Internet.

What is VP9 - YouTube's 4K Ultra HD Streaming FAQ - Tom's Guide