Bandwidth-hungry video is viewed as an insatiable beast by those who are delivering it over crowded networks. Better compression and mobile network advances have relieved some congestion but the flames of UHD and virtual reality are licking at the heels of cellular networks. TV broadcasters think they can help relieve some of that congestion with […]
Archive | Video compression
Apple Makes Play for Video’s Future at WWDC 2017
The big news out of Apple’s recent developers conference wasn’t the new, more powerful iMac Pro or refreshed Macbooks. It was the news that Apple was embracing HEVC compression across its product lines. (OK, it was big news if you’re a video compression junky!) Apple threw both of its arms around HEVC at its World […]
Emerging Markets Have Different Ideas about the Latest Video Tech
Many of the new video-tech tools are delivering the latest premium viewing experience (Ultra HDTV) to consumers mainly in developed economies. You’d be forgiven for assuming that the latest compression technologies’ sole purpose is to enable the delivery of UHD video to high-end TV displays. This application of the new technology gets all the attention, […]
Tech Emerging Markets: IP Owners Cutting New Deals
Variable royalty pricing for the right to use proprietary technologies in high-tech consumer products is a trend that is afoot. While it lacks the drama of the Apple vs. Samsung smartphone patent wars, it is happening for some of the same reasons. Recent developments have both patent-pool licensors and individual companies creating a two-tier royalty […]
Will AI Power the Next Leap in Video Compression?
Artificial intelligence’s (AI) role in the digital content economy isn’t merely confined to better anticipating what TV series you’d like to binge watch next. It’s increasingly being brought to bear to solve a more challenging (and equally long-standing) technical problem: how to shave off bits from a video file without fatally compromising quality. While the […]
A 360-Degree Video Future? Codec is Key
Today, encoding standard 6:9 4K video footage is well served by the newest codecs. But getting to a future of fully immersive 360-degree video recording is where encoding will go next. That destination will be dependent on massive processing power and the most efficient codecs possible that deliver high-quality results. Consumers’ astounded initial reactions to […]
Tech Giant IP Love Fest? Probably Not
Battles among today’s big dogs of high tech can create some pretty dramatic headlines. This is particularly true for intellectual property battles—especially when those battles come with multibillion dollar price tags and the threat of product-distribution injunctions. One bad judgement or verdict can send stock prices plummeting and execs running for cover. It’s a lot […]
Next-Gen Video Codecs: The New Landscape
Recent news that licensing costs for HEVC/H.265 may rise has created some uncertainty regarding its industry-wide adoption. These business-side wranglings are opening the door, however slightly, to alternatives to HEVC, of which there are now several actively under development and/or in deployment. Even before the licensing uncertainty, Google’s VP9 was enjoying growing support among chip […]
Video Compression Business is Dull: Think Again!
Two recent events are causing the sands to shift underneath the otherwise stable world of video compression: the introduction of a new video compression technology and a second patent pool for the latest MPEG/ITU standard, HEVC/H.265. Although unrelated, both events could collectively serve to destabilize the next critical step in the evolution of the TV/video […]
VP9’s Surge of SoC Support Won’t Derail HEVC
HEVC may be the presumptive king of next-generation compression technology, but the Google-backed rival VP9 has kicked off 2015 with a growing show of support. At CES, several DTV semiconductor manufacturers revealed SoCs that included both HEVC and VP9 decoding. They include MediaTek, whose MT5595 SoC is being deployed in Sony’s 2015 lineup of Android […]