Google Plans to Push Royalty-Free VP9 Video Codec Instead of H.265, Apple Not Onboard
Although VP8, which was Google’s initial attempt at a royalty-free video codec didn’t gain much traction, the search giant is now focusing its efforts on ultra-high-resolution 4K video with its new VP9 codec, with a large scale unveiling with YouTube multiple hardware partners set to take place next week according to a new report.
Google is expected to debut the new VP9 codec as an alternative to H.265 at next week’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nevada. According to GigaOm, VP9 is capable of streaming 4K video on YouTube with fewer bandwidth needs. The company is said to already have a slew of hardware partners that have pledged support, including ARM, Intel, Broadcom, Marvell, NVIDIA, Samsung, Sony Sharp and Toshiba. Unsurprisingly not among the list of initial hardware supporters is Apple.
The successor to VP8 has been in development at Google for some time and the company has suggested its intention is not to completely replace H.265. Instead, Google says it hopes to create a royalty-free alternative that could ease bandwidth issues associated with 4K video content on its popular streaming site, YouTube.
Francisco Varela, global director of platform partnerships at YouTube, dismissed speculation that VP9 versus H.264 would be “war of the video codecs.” Instead, he suggested that YouTube could add support for H.265 in the future, alongside VP9. He claimed that YouTube’s main goal is to reduce the amount of data necessary to stream ultra-definition 4K video. The new VP9 codec aims to reduce bandwidth necessary by half, and went as far as to predict that YouTube users will be “surprised” whenever a video has to stop to buffer by 2015.
We’ll have to wait and see how the VP9 codec’s success pans out. If it truly does become successful, Apple may consider picking it up.
Source: GigaOm
Posts
0 comments:
Post a Comment