streaming media

Video: AV1/VVC Update

Posted on by Russell Trafford-Jones

AV1 and VVC are both new codecs on the scene. Codecs touch our lives every day both at work and at home. They are the only way that anyone receives audio and video online and television. So all together they’re pretty important and finding better ones generates a lot of opinion.

So what are AV1 and VVC? VVC is one of the newest codecs on the block and is undergoing standardisation in MPEG. VVC builds on the technologies standardised by HEVC but adds many new coding tools. The standard is likely to enter draft phase before the end of 2019 resulting in it being officially standardised around a year later. For more info on VVC, check out Bitmovin’s VVC intro from Demuxed

AV1 is a new but increasingly known codec, famous for being royalty free and backed by Netflix, Apple and many other big hyper scale players. There have been reports that though there is no royalty levied on it, patent holders have still approached big manufacturers to discuss financial reimbursement so its ‘free’ status is a matter of debate. Whilst there is a patent defence programme, it is not known if it’s sufficient to insulate larger players. Much further on than VVC, AV1 has already had a code freeze and companies such as Bitmovin have been working hard to reduce the encode times – widely known to be very long – and create live services.

Here, Christian Feldmann from Bitmovin gives us the latest status on AV1 and VVC. Christian discusses AV1’s tools before discussing VVC’s tools pointing out the similarities that exist. Whilst AV1 is being supported in well known browsers, VVC is at the beginning.

There’s a look at the licensing status of each codec before a look at EVC – which stands for Essential Video Coding. This has a royalty free baseline profile so is of interest to many. Christian shares results from a Technicolor experiment.

Speakers

Christian Feldmann Christian Feldmann
Codec Engineer,
Bitmovin

Video: Sub-Second Live Streaming: Changing How Online Audiences Experience Live Events

Posted on by Russell Trafford-Jones

There are two main modern approaches to low-latency live streaming, one is CMAF which used fragmented MP4s to allow frame by frame delivery of chunks of data. Similar to HLS, this is becoming a common ‘next step’ for companies already using HLS. Keeping the chunk size down reduces latency, but it remains doubtful if sub-second streaming is practical in real world situations.

Steve Miller Jones from Limelight explains the WebRTC solution to this problem. Being a protocol which is streamed from the source to the destination, this is capable of sub-second latency, too, and seems a better fit. Limelight differentiate themselves on offering a scalable WebRTC streaming service with Adaptive Bitrate (ABR). ABR is traditionally not available with WebRTC and Steve Miller Jones uses this as an example of where Limelight is helping this technology achieve its true potential.

Comparing and contrasting Limelight’s solution with HLS and CMAF, we can see the benefit of WebRTC and that it’s equally capable of supporting features like encryption, Geoblocking and the like.

Ultimately, the importance of latency and the scalability you require may be the biggest factor in deciding which way to go with your sub-second live streaming.

Watch now!

Speakers

Steve Miller-Jones Steve Miller-Jones
VP Product Strategy,
Limelight Networks

Video: Adaptive Bitrate Algorithms: How They Work

Posted on by Russell Trafford-Jones

Streaming on the net relies on delivering video at a bandwidth you can handle. Called ‘Adaptive Bitrate’ or ABR, it’s hardly possible to think of streaming without it. While the idea might seem simple initially – just send several versions of your video – it quickly gets nuanced.

Streaming experts Streamroot take us through how ABR works at Streaming Media East from 2016. While the talk is a few years old, the facts are still the same so this remains a useful talk which not only introduces the topic but goes into detail on how to implement ABR.

The most common streaming format is HLS which relies on the player downloading the video in sections – small files – each representing around 3 to 10 seconds of video. For HLS and similar technologies, the idea is simply to allow the player, when it’s time to download the next part of the video, to choose from a selection of files each with the same video content but each at a different bitrate.

Allowing a player to choose which chunk it downloads means it can adapt to changing network conditions but does imply that each file has contain exactly the same frames of video else there would be a jump when the next file is played. So we have met our first complication. Furthermore, each encoded stream needs to be segmented in the same way and in MPEG, where you can only cut files on I-frame boundaries, it means the encoders need to synchronise their GOP structure giving us our second complication.

These difficulties, many more and Streamroot’s solutions are presented by Erica Beavers and Nikolay Rodionov including experiments and proofs of concept they have carried out to demonstrate the efficacy.

Watch now!

Speakers

Erica Beavers Erica Beavers
Head of Marketing & Partnerships,
Streamroot
Nikolay Rodionov Nikolay Rodionov
Co-Founder, CPO
Streamroot

Webinar: What to See at NAB

Posted on by Russell Trafford-Jones

Date: Friday, March 29th 2019
Time: 11am PT / 2pm ET / 18:00 GMT

NAB is coming around again and the betting has started on what the show will bring. Whilst we can look to last year for hints, here editors from Streaming Media come together to discuss the current trends in the industry and how they will be represented at NAB.

Some highlights of the conversation will be:

  • What HEVC solutions people are showing – the ongoing codec wars are captivating to most people as AV1 tries – and gradually succeeds – to break its ‘too slow’ label, whilst HEVC continues to grow acceptance with its ‘ready to deploy’ label despite the fees.
  • UHD production and delivery – We know that production houses prefer to capture higher resolution as it increases the value of their content and gives them more options in editing. But how far is UHD developing further down the chain. Is it just for live sports?
  • Live Streaming – SRT is bound to keep making waves at NAB has Haivision plans its biggest event yet discussing the many ways it’s being used. SRT delivers encrypted, reliable streams – while there are competitors, SRT continues to grow apace.
  • NDI – This compressed but ultra low latency codec continues to impress for live production workflows – particularly live events, though it’s not clear how much – if at all – it will make its way into top-tier broadcasters.

Much more will be on the cards, so register now for this session on Friday March 29th.

Speakers

Troy Dreier Troy Dreier
Senior Editor,
Streaming Media
Steve Nathans-Kelly Steve Nathans-Kelly
Editor
Streaming Media
Eric Schumacher-Rasmussen Eric Schumacher-Rasmussen
VP & Editor-in-Chief
Streaming Media