Review: Meta's Video Codec Acid Test (VCAT)

Identifying which phones can handle AV1 decode is the goal of Meta's new VCAT testing tool, for Video Codec Acid Test, which is both the brainchild and the swan song of encoding legend David Ronca. In short, VCAT is an Android app for benchmarking battery drain and system health during HW/SW video decode operations on Android devices.

The Multiview Imperative: How Technical Architecture Determines Streaming Success

The largely unsung hero in YouTube's growth may be a feature that cost the company 99% less to implement than Sunday Ticket: multiview streaming capability. As this article shows, if you're broadcasting sports, multiview--particularly Build Your Own Multiview (BYOMV)--is quickly becoming an expected feature among sophisticated viewers. It's also one of the most affordable and effective ways to amplify the value of your programming, particularly when your content isn't exclusive and faces direct competition in the same market.

AWS GM of M&E Samira Panah Bakhtiar Talks Gen AI and Interactive Sports Streaming

In this Q&A, Samira Panah Bakhtiar, Amazon Web Services (AWS) general manager of me­­dia, entertainment, games, and sports, talks about how AWS and agentic AI are changing the ways streaming workflows are executed. In her interview, she spoke both to the business side of the house and the underlying tech.

The Pros and Cons of Software Decoding for Publishers and Viewers

This article examines recent data on efficiency and power usage for hardware and software decoding and explores how this data shapes the value proposition for publishers opting for software decoding and viewers that wittingly, or unwittingly, watch services that deploy it. It concludes with two short surveys for publishers and consumers that ask for your perspective on and experience with software decoding. Be sure to take the surveys!

Software Decoding and the Future of Mobile Video

If you'll be encoding with SVT-AV1 or VVC, in this article you'll learn a bit about how to optimize your encodes, particularly the trade-offs that pre­sets deliver, and how many logical processors to use. With SVT-AV1, I also explore the qual­ity and playback efficiency of the fast decode option, although I didn't find much to show for it. You can also peruse the FFmpeg command strings used for all encodes.

Buyers' Guide: Hardware Transcoders

Although software transcoding is accept­able for transcoding most VOD streams and even low-volume live programming, most high-volume live applications need hardware for efficient transcoding, both to save you money and to save the planet. This buyers' guide will cover: What hardware transcoders are, what you need to bring to the table to identify the best hardware transcoder, factors to consider when choosing one, choosing a hardware transcoder for cloud workflows, and choosing a hardware transcoder for on-prem workflows.

The State of the Video Codec Market 2025

HEVC rode the 4K/HDR wave to success, but AV1, VVC, and LCEVC lack an equivalent killer app. With CDNs racing to the bottom on pricing and new royalty pools threatening to increase costs, codec adoption is no longer just about technical merit—it's about survival. These are the issues I'll explore in this article.

Buyers' Guide: Third-Party Commercial Streaming Codecs

For some streamers, open-source solutions meet all their needs. For others, commercial codecs deliver efficiency and optimizations that justify the cost. This article explores the factors that influence those decisions.

Review: Osprey Video TALON 4K60 Encoder

This review will showcase Osprey Video's TALON 4K60 encoder and explore its capabilities for ingesting live streams over RTMP and SRT. Readers will learn how to get up and running with the encoder and gain a better understanding of how to use the device. This article will also touch on some of the streaming options available as well as the different options available on the encoder. In addition, I'll share results of latency testing for RTMP ingest. 

Media Over QUIC and the Future of High-Quality, Low-Latency Streaming

Media Over QUIC aspires to streamline the entire streaming process by bringing both contribution and distribution into a single protocol again, reducing the need for intermediary transformations. Since MoQ is still in the early stages of development, it will take some time to see it deliver on this promise.

Review: DVEO Brutus V

This review will highlight Brutus V, DVEO's IP-to-IP multichannel AV1, H.264, and H.265 transcoder for IPTV or OTT. I will touch on Brutus V's options for delivering streams over H.264 and cover streaming delivery over various streaming protocols such as HLS, LL-HLS, Smooth Streaming, and MPEG-DASH. I will also dive into transcoding using H.264 and HEVC.

AI and Streaming Media

This article explores the current state of AI in the streaming encoding, delivery, playback, and monetization ecosystems. By understanding the developments and considering key questions when evaluating AI-powered solutions, streaming professionals can make informed decisions about incorporating AI into their video processing pipelines and prepare for the future of AI-driven video technologies.

Decoding the Landscape: Recent Developments in Video Codec Licensing

Navigating the ever-changing world of video codec licensing can be complex. This article breaks down major IP-related events from the past 18 months, including the new European SEP licensing rules, Avanci's new video patent pool, and the Sisvel-RPX deal. Explore who's making deals, what technologies are involved, and the implications for royalty-free models

The State of Education Video 2024

Is the state of education video in 2024 the quiet before or after the storm? With a pandemic in the rearview mirror, we approach a crossroads where it will be determined whether enterprise-scale video hosting and management services will remain profitable at the prices that schools are willing to carry in the new normal. It's unlikely that we'll cross a point of no return this year, but I recommend keep­ing an eye out for signs that will either allay or am­plify concerns about the long-term future of schools having a degree of ownership and control of the vid­eo services they rely on.

How to Deploy GPAC for FFmpeg Packaging and ABR Distribution

As much as we love FFmpeg for transcoding op­erations, it can get frustrating when packag­ing your content for ABR delivery. By packag­ing, I mean formatting and segmenting your media files, creating manifest files for HLS and DASH, for­matting for CMAF, and managing multiple audio and subtitle streams. Fortunately, there are easier-to-use solutions that are equally open source and equal­ly free. In this article, I'll focus on GPAC, which is a great packaging alternative.

The State of Video Codecs 2024

It's been 3-plus years since the MPEG codec explosion that brought us VVC, LCEVC, and EVC. Rather than breathlessly trumpet every single-digit quality improvement or design win, I'll quickly get you up-to-speed on quality, playability, and usage of the most commonly utilized video codecs and then explore new codec-related advancements in business and technology.

Streamticker: The Biggest Streaming Mergers & Acquisitions of 2023

When it comes to mergers and acquisitions in the streaming industry and M&E marketplace in 2023 and an accounting of the year's most consequential deals, it makes the most sense to open at the close: Disney's early-November announcement that it would fully subsume Hulu into its empire with a buyout that completed an acquisition initiated in pre-pandemic 2019.

Glass-to-Glass Report: Comparing Low-Latency Streaming Providers

In this article, I examine low-latency services provided by streaming CDNs, removing actual vendor names and making conclusions based on delivery method. I'll start with a discussion of the basics of latency before moving on to the testing results and analysis.

Review: NETINT Quadra T1U Video Processing Unit

This review will highlight the NETINT Quadra T1U and explore its capabilities as a video processing unit (VPU) for high-volume encoding and transcoding of single files, encoding ladders, and live streams.

Review: ViCueSoft CodecWar

CodecWar is an analysis service created by ViCueSoft, the developer of codec analy­sis tools VQ Analyzer, VQ DVK, and VQ Probe. As currently configured, the site's ideal users are researchers who are looking for a convenient way to compare codecs using relevant datasets and codec developers who are looking for a structured way to benchmark their codecs against others. In contrast, it's not a particularly convenient way for streaming producers to run experiments to optimise their encoding parameters, although it could grow into this.