Two years ago we published the blog post “Get ready for a multi-codec world”. With the official launch of H.266 (VVC) and the progression of future codecs like AV1 and VP9, it’s a good time to revisit the state of the multi-codec world, and why it’s important to your streaming workflows.
In the last decade, the tech industry has rallied around one codec for streaming video files over the internet: MPEG’s AVC/H.264. Now the market is moving toward a new generation of video codecs that offer 30% to 40% better compression than H.264. Is your organization ready to experience the world of multi-codec implementations?

Adopting the new generation compression technology is important because compressing video files means you can send higher-quality video over the same network infrastructure, for a richer, more compelling viewer experience and reduce delivery costs for popular content.
According to Sandvine’s Global Internet Report 2019, video streaming accounts for over 60% (3% increase from 2018) of all global traffic. However, Sandvine posits that this number is expected to rise significantly by the end of 2020 with an increase of 4K and 8K quality content. Some researchers say that it can even jump up to a staggering 70%.
Based on a similar report from Statista, broken out at the country level – most regions are seeing well over 60% of internet consumption attributed to digital video consumption – with the US clocking in an average of 85%.

In addition, according to Cisco research, as of March 2020, 493 million global consumers own a connected 4K quality TV, by 2023, this number is projected to exceed 831 million – a staggering 66% of all connected TVs. That powerful market dynamic is driving the adoption of new technologies to encode and decode video so it can travel more efficiently over the web. But so far, there is no clear winner in the high-efficiency codec space.

More Devices = More Codecs

With over 431 million global consumers owning 4K connected TV by 2023 and up to 70% of all global internet traffic shifting to video content, it’s more important than ever to implement a multi-codec approach to hit as much of your target audience as possible. According to our 2019 Video Developer Report, there is a huge growth in all modern codecs (see graph below). The bar is an indicator of survey respondents who already use a certain codec and the red line indicates how many additional respondents planned to implement the codecs in the coming year.

Let us know which codecs you use and plan to use in the coming year in our 4th Annual Video Developer Survey here

At first look, the logical approach for companies that support streaming video with H.264 today is to stay the course and to add the next-generation MPEG video codec, HEVC/H.265 to their compression delivery suite. It’s important to note that in mid-2020, another next-gen codec had been finalized to support 4K and 8K streaming devices, Versatile Video Coding (VVC)/H.266.
In terms of compression, H.265 is a significant improvement over H.264 — roughly 50% more efficient. That puts it on par with Google’s VP9 codec, which does not charge licensing fees, but also does not offer full device reach (yet). Then there’s a third player, AV1, which is an open-source codec from AOMedia. Continuing the initial work on VP10, AV1 boasts 70% better compression than H.264. That’s caught a lot of people’s attention, even though there are still some questions around AV1 for many monetization workflows The VVC/H.266 codec promises to reduce bitrate costs by a full 50% over its predecessor, HEVC. (For more info download our AV1 Datasheet)

Managing the codec choices

Today, browser and device makers are fragmented in their support for these new codecs. Apple’s Safari browser supports HEVC/H.265, but not VP9. Google and Firefox are behind VP9 and AV1, and steering clear of HEVC/H.265. So how can savvy businesses get the benefits of more efficient compression and still reach users on all platforms?

Most companies will need to take a more nuanced and pragmatic approach to adopt and support new media codecs. Right now, we have as many as four different high-efficiency video codecs to choose from (including LCEVC/MPEG-5), with more ready for compressing ultra-high-definition video and virtual reality media.

Hybrid and Multi-Codec Approach

The way forward is a hybrid multi-codec approach. Companies will need to continue supporting H.264 to ensure interoperability with every device. At the same time, there’s an opportunity to build out support for HEVC, VP9, AV1, and VVC that deliver higher quality video, for a differentiated service offering.
Implementing this approach requires a clear set of criteria for business goals. For instance:

• Who is the target audience?
• What kind of content are you optimizing for? Is it scheduled, like a sports event? Or is it unexpected, like breaking news?
• How high is expected demand?
• What platforms are watchers most likely to connect on?
• How important is it that this content is high-quality?
• Do you need to support HDR/Dolby Vision content?
• Do you need to support UHD/4K content? 
• How important are download times? What are the acceptable bandwidth costs?
• How many platforms do you need to support? Do they include newer web-enabled devices like set-top boxes and web TVs?

These questions are important when it comes to carefully evaluating how a new codec can enhance your business opportunities — and when it’s not worth the overhead. In the case of  HDR and UHD/4K content, next-gen codecs are required, as h.264 will be impractical and incompatible.

When to invest in better compression

Encoding video content in more than one codec is costly. You’re investing CPU cycles in the encoding work itself, including the costs of power, cooling, and rack space. You’re also paying to store two or more versions of the same file in your data center.
On the plus side, once you encode in a high-efficiency format, you’ve got a smaller file to store, that can stream more quickly to a lot of people and incur lower bandwidth costs. So if demand for that particular asset is high enough, it’s possible to recoup your encoding costs — and deliver a higher quality product than the competition. If a video goes viral, and you can reach the right platforms or user groups with higher quality video, this investment can pay off handsomely.
Building a smart encoding model can help businesses find an optimal solution for each use case. Now – adopting both the VP9 and HEVC would enable you to deliver advanced compression to roughly 98% of the browser users in the US.

Here are some sample use cases.

• An online newspaper has a breaking story that it expects to have broad appeal. The publisher encodes its exclusive footage in HEVC/H.265 and VP9 in addition to H.264, to offset the double hit on encoding costs with lower bandwidth fees, and delivering crisp, clear visuals to mobile phones and laptops.
• A video-on-demand company is the first to get the rights to stream a blockbuster movie in high definition (HD). It anticipates heavy demand in its target market, Asia, where most viewers have web-enabled HD TVs. It encodes the file in H.264, HEVC/H.265, and VP9, to deliver crisp, clear visuals on the big screens.
• A large social media platform has some fast-trending videos and the rest of the footage that only gets played a few dozen times. The video engineers encode the top 20% of the files into HEVC/H.265 and VP9, to improve quality and speed download times for millions of trending content views, and the rest in the good-enough catch-all H.264.

Have a look at this blog post for a more technical explanation of multi-codec streaming.

Components of a smart encoding model

To successfully implement a smart encoding model, companies need tools and information to help them make key decisions, often on the fly. These include:

• An analytics platform that can show user attributes, such as type of device and connection
• Fast encoding tool to stay ahead of user demands
• Video player that supports a range of codecs

These components can help guide your company through the steps of new decision-making processes.

Gather information

Analytics can help companies determine which video assets to re-encode in a high-efficiency codec — especially helpful for mobile devices, web TVs, and set-top boxes. Once you have a clear picture of your audiences, platforms, and demographics, it’s possible to optimize those experiences while containing costs.

Capture opportunities 

Getting higher quality videos to the right audience and platforms at the right time is a new market imperative. Popular content travels quickly; make sure your encoding tool can keep up. Decades ago, it took hours to encode a 30-minute video. Now, the fastest encoding tools work at speeds of 100:1, meaning, a 100-minute video can be encoded in one minute. Faster-than-real-time speeds means that your business can respond quickly to viewers’ interests in a certain media asset — and stay flexible if you want to re-encode for additional platforms on the fly.

Reach every user

Having your content supported all along the streaming pipeline, from encoding media files to play out in a browser. You can simplify this process by standardizing on a video player that supports the full range of codec options available today and is able to identify the user’s device and browser to serve the appropriate content.
Today’s technologies are getting more complex — and more powerful. If you’re considering what high-quality video experiences can bring to your user base, it’s a good time to explore the options. As current demand shows, video has a particularly bright future on the web. What’s next? Equally steep growth curves for emerging technologies like virtual, augmented, and mixed reality, which promises to bring even more compelling educational and entertainment experiences to the web, for distribution across platforms, cultures, and continents.
At Bitmovin, we solve complex video problems, so your team can focus on building your business. As a leading provider of video infrastructure for online media companies around the world, the Bitmovin API offers the support to scale quickly and know it will work.
Have you moved into the multi-codec world yet?

The post Living in a Multi-Codec World – Future Codecs revisited appeared first on Bitmovin.

At Bitmovin’s Southeast Asia Internet Video Debate 2019, video executives shared hot OTT topics ranging from AI to multi-codec and low-latency

As the orange sun set over the Four Seasons Hotel in Mumbai, senior executives and video engineers from India’s leading Internet video streaming companies gathered together at our first APAC Internet Video Tech Social for a one-of-a-kind debate on the future of Internet Video in India and Southeast Asia.
The industry leaders provided insights directly from the front lines of the quickly evolving OTT video landscape at the half-day event. Here were our learnings from this unique event.

The sun sets over Four Seasons Hotel Mumbai, Tuesday, October 15, 2019

“Reverse conference” led to robust debate

The event brought together a unique mix of attendees ranging from senior executives to engineers, product leaders, sales and marketing. Companies represented an industry cross-section of both customer facing OTT providers such as Vuclip and back office technology providers such as Accedo and Irdeto.
Instead of coming to a main event — the attendees were the main event! Throughout the room Bitmovin had set up tables for groups of 5 or 6 people each from a diverse cross section of the industry. The MC at the front of the hall led a quick pace of new topics and questions to get the discussion and debates heating up!

India is now a multi-codec country!

This was a debate, so there were many disagreements. But one thing almost everyone agreed was that India is now a multi-codec country — H.264 is no longer the only codec in town!

For years, the venerable video codec H.264, also known as Advanced Video Coding (AVC), has remained king of video codecs partially because of its value as a “lowest common denominator” codec: almost every device with a screen supports some sort of H.264 video codec playback whether iOS, Android, PCs, set-top-box or even a knockoff phone.
But this convenience comes with a cost to viewers: the newer phones we have in our pockets now come with beefier processors and dedicated hardware decoders with fancier, next generation codecs beyond that go far beyond H.264. This means most consumers and OTT providers waste bandwidth — and viewer battery life — on low quality video.
But the ecosystem of VP9 is here to the rescue! Thanks to the proliferation of Android and Chrome across India, VP9 came up time and again in discussions as a compelling alternative to H.264 with excellent bitrate profiles and deployment capabilities. Device and browser support across much of India and South Asia more generally is increasing to the point where all service providers of reasonable volume are already transcoding into VP9 if not at least exploring next steps to enter the multi-codec world.

Lower latency and sports are fast friends

Low latency through CMAF is seeing continued interest, especially for sports, betting and other live situations where lower latency can add significant viewer value. Attendees seem to accept the importance of a low latency standard and specifically mention CMAF and the positive impact it could bring to the streaming business.

Agree to disagree on AI

The discussion of artificial intelligence brought out genuine disagreement. Viewpoints ranged from true believers who are already exploring AI into their video workflow to skeptics who can’t see past the marketing hype.
Of supporters, some are already integrating AI in the form of object detection, audio transcription or enhanced encoding. These supporters point to those examples proving early commercial viability.
AI detractors made statements that can be summarized as “Examples of speech-to-text have been around for decades and while AI is continuing to get better, things like transcription still show best results having a human in the loop” — especially needed for regulatory compliance such as FCC compliant captions. Others go further to say AI is really just a recycled marketing hype — instead of AI using the word “algorithm” is just not as exciting as the prospect of a sentient computer. 

Focus on developing your core value

Keynote speaker Praveen Singh helped the audience apply ideas to reality. In his role as Head of OTT content and video platforms at Vuclip, a PCCW Media Company, he’s collected a large collection of shared tales on creating multi-region OTT technologies.
His practical advice for entrepreneurial OTT platforms and growing video distributors is to be sure to focus on your unique advantage. Don’t reinvent the wheel! Instead, outsource commodity technology rather than reinventing what’s already been commoditized. Spend time focusing on developing IP in your core business.

Keynote presentation from Praveen Singh, Head of OTT content and video platforms at Vuclip, a PCCW Media Company, Four Seasons Hotel Mumbai, Tuesday, October 15, 2019

One word?

When we asked David Godfrey, Head of APAC for Bitmovin how to summarize the debate and India OTT market in one word: “VP9.” Adoption of Android and Chrome in India is significant — it’s a multi-codec world!

The post State of OTT: India Joins the Multi-Codec World appeared first on Bitmovin.

We’re all living in a Multi-Codec World

DD: What do you think are the key developments in, or threats to, your market sector at the current time?
SL: With streaming becoming one of the preferred ways for consumers to view their favorite content, codecs play a very important role behind the scenes in delivering these high quality streams to consumers. According to Bitmovin’s latest Video Developer Report findings, H.264/AVC is still by far the most popular and widely used video codec, used nine out of ten (91 percent) of all survey respondents. However, planned usage of AV1 is set to triple, with seven percent of respondents having started to work with it and a fifth (20 percent) expected to start using it in the coming year. A common theme that’s emerging in the use of codecs is that many video developers are moving away from using one preferred codec and are starting to select the right codec for the right job. The transition to a multi-codec strategy won’t bring an end to the codec wars immediately, but will help to satisfy uses across all platforms and devices. 
DD: What are the major technology drivers for your business going forward?
SL: Our customers are looking to redefine the viewer experience, while drastically lowering streaming cost, as streaming becomes the preeminent way for broadcasters and content owners to deliver video content. But as well as innovating to bring new experiences to screens everywhere, they must also deliver traditional broadcast quality, through an increasingly diverse set of platforms and devices. 
As the media landscape grows in complexity, and new players come to the market, Bitmovin is shaping the future of video by enabling broadcasters, publishers and social media companies to deliver content simply, efficiently and at the highest possible quality and the lowest possible bitrate. And it’s that balancing act, between quality and bitrate, that Bitmovin sees as fundamental to the challenges facing the industry, as 4K becomes the standard, and 8K and HDR content emerges.

The Future of Video is driven by AI/ML

DD: Can you briefly outline one of your latest product launches or developments?
SL: Bitmovin believe in data driven development, and over the last year, the Bitmovin Player and Analytics product has been taken from a closed beta release to general availability. It was initially created internally to help debug common playback issues, quality snafus and trace problems across the entire workflow chain so that the perfect playback experience is ensured. New features have been added such as Ads Dashboard and Fraud Detection, and all video developers will now be able to test and optimize their current video player experience using the combined Bitmovin Player and Analytics solution, allowing them to troubleshoot and diagnose problems quicker than ever before. 
DD: What are your own observations of IBC 2019 in terms of what it suggests about new technologies and business trends?
SL: The acceleration in Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology was a big discussion at IBC 2019, and Bitmovin’s latest Video Developer Report sees one in four (24 percent) video professionals expecting to start using AI as part of video workflow solutions before the end of 2019. With this sort of technology, developers will be able to deliver personalized high quality video efficiently and reducing costs. 
For other great reads about codecs and AI check out the following links!

• Get Ready for a Multi-Codec World (Blog)
• Multi-Codec DASH Dataset: An Evaluation of AV1, AVC, HEVC and VP9 (Blog)
• Object Detection: Accessible now in the dashboard (Blog)
• Bitmovin Magazine – Autumn Edition

IBC365 is the home of Business knowledge for the global media, entertainment & technology community, as well as the organizer of the world famous IBC Convention.
Don’t forget to sign up for our Newsletter to stay up-to-date with our latest blogs, events, webinars, and much much more!

The post CEO Feature: IBC 2019 Takeaways – VidTech Industry is shifting to a Multi-Codec & Multi-Device World appeared first on Bitmovin.

In the last decade, the tech industry has rallied around one codec for streaming video files over the internet: MPEG’s AVC/H.264. Now the market is moving toward a new generation of video codecs that offer 30% to 70% better compression than H.264. Is your team ready to transition?

Adopting the new generation compression is important today because shrinking video files means you can send higher-quality video over the same network infrastructure, for a richer, more compelling user experience and reduce delivery costs for popular content.
Video makes up roughly 70% of all internet traffic today. That number is expected to rise to 82% in 2021, according to Cisco research. That powerful market dynamic is driving adoption of new technologies to encode and decode video so it can travel more efficiently over the web. But so far, there is no clear winner in the high-efficiency codec space.

To switch or not to switch

Here are some of the factors at play.
At first look, the logical approach for companies that support streaming video with H.264 today is to stay the course and make the move to the next-generation MPEG video codec, HEVC/H.265. But HEVC/H.265 licensing terms are still not fully transparent and the next generation codec has a shrinking device support. For many businesses, that is a roadblock to adoption.
In terms of compression, H.265 is a significant improvement over H.264 — roughly 50% more efficient. That puts it on par with Google’s VP9 codec, which does not charge licensing fees, but also does not offer full device reach. Then there’s a third player, AV1, which is an open source codec from AOMedia. Continuing the initial work on VP10, AV1 boasts 70% better compression than H.264. That’s caught a lot of people’s attention, even though AV1 is still a work in progress. (For more info download our AV1 Datasheet or watch our webinar)

Managing the codec choices

Today, browser and device makers are fragmented in their support for these new codecs. Apple’s Safari browser supports HEVC/H.265, but not VP9. Google and Firefox are behind VP9 and AV1, and steering clear of HEVC/H.265. So how can savvy businesses get the benefits of more efficient compression and still reach users on all platforms?

Most companies will need to take a more nuanced and pragmatic approach to adopting and supporting new media codecs. Right now we have three high efficiency video codecs to choose from, with more on the way for compressing ultra high-definition video and virtual reality media.

The way forward is a hybrid multi-codec approach. Companies will need to continue supporting H.264 to ensure interoperability with every device. At the same time, there’s an opportunity to build out support for HEVC, VP9 and AV1 that deliver higher quality video, for a differentiated service offering.

Implementing this approach requires a clear set of criteria around business goals. For instance:

• Who is the target audience?
• What kind of content are you optimizing for? Is it scheduled, like a sports event? Or is it unexpected, like breaking news?
• How high is expected demand?
• What platforms are watchers most likely to connect on?
• How important is it that this content is high-quality?
• How important are download times? What are the acceptable bandwidth costs?
• How many platforms do you need to support? Do they include newer web-enabled devices like set-top boxes and web TVs?

These questions are important, when it comes to carefully evaluating how a new codec can enhance your business opportunities — and when it’s not worth the overhead.

When to invest in better compression

Encoding video content in more than one codec is costly. You’re investing CPU cycles in the encoding work itself, including the costs of power, cooling, and rack space. You’re also paying to store two or more versions of the same file in your data center.
On the plus side, once you encode in a high-efficiency format, you’ve got a smaller file to store, that can stream more quickly to a lot of people and incur lower bandwidth costs. So if demand for that particular asset is high enough, it’s possible to recoup your encoding costs — and deliver a higher quality product than the competition. If a video goes viral, and you can reach the right platforms or user groups with higher quality video, this investment can pay off handsomely.
Building a smart encoding model can help business find an optimal solution for each use case. For instance, adopting VP9 and HEVC would enable you to deliver advanced compression to roughly 83% of the browser users in the US. The remaining 17% would fall back to H.264 and you would still have complete coverage of every browser.

Source: netmarketshare.com
* Only available in Safari for iOS 11 and macOS High Sierra.
** Only available in Edge 14.14291.
Here are some sample use cases.

• An online newspaper has a breaking story that it expects to have broad appeal. The publisher encodes its exclusive footage in HEVC/H.265 and VP9 in addition to H.264, to offsetting the double hit on encoding costs with lower bandwidth fees, and delivering crisp, clear visuals to mobile phones and laptops.
• A video-on-demand company is the first to get the rights to stream a blockbuster movie in high definition (HD). It anticipates heavy demand in its target market, Asia, where most viewers have web-enabled HD TVs. It encodes the file in H.264, HEVC/H.265 and VP9, deliver crisp, clear visuals on the big screens.
• A large social media platform has some fast-trending videos and the rest of the footage that only gets played a few dozen times. The video engineers encode the top 20% of the files into HEVC/H.265 and VP9, to improve quality and speed download times for millions of trending content views, and the rest in the good-enough catch-all H.264.

HAve a look at this blog post for a more technical explanation of multi-codec streaming.

Components of a smart encoding model

To successfully implement a smart encoding model, companies need tools and information to help them make key decisions, often on the fly. These include:

• An analytics platform that can show user attributes, such as type of device and connection
• Fast encoding tool to stay ahead of user demands
• Video player that supports a range of codecs

These components can help guide your company through the steps of new decision-making processes.
Gather information. Analytics can help companies determine which video assets to re-encode in a high-efficiency codec — especially helpful for mobile devices, web TVs, and set-top boxes. Once you have a clear picture of your audiences, platforms, and demographics, it’s possible to optimize those experiences while containing costs.
Capture opportunities. Getting higher quality video to the right audience and platforms at the right time is a new market imperative. Popular content travels quickly; make sure your encoding tool can keep up. Decades ago, it took hours to encode a 30-minute video. Now, the fastest encoding tools work at speeds of 100:1, meaning, a 100-minute video can be encoded in one minute. Faster-than-real-time speeds means your business can respond quickly to viewers interests in a certain media asset — and stay flexible if you want to re-encode for additional platforms on the fly.
Reach every user. Having your content supported all along the streaming pipeline, from encoding media files to play out in a browser. You can simplify this process by standardizing on a video player that supports the full range of codec options available today and is able to identify the user’s device and browser to serve the appropriate content.
Today’s technologies are getting more complex — and more powerful. If you’re considering what high-quality video experiences can bring to your user base, it’s a good time to explore the options. As current demand shows, video has a particularly bright future on the web. What’s next? Equally steep growth curves for emerging technologies like virtual, augmented and mixed reality, which promise to bring even more compelling educational and entertainment experiences to the web, for distribution across platforms, cultures and continents.
At Bitmovin, we solve complex video problems, so your team can focus on building your business. As a leading provider of video infrastructure for online media companies around the world, the Bitmovin API offers the support to scale quickly and know it will work.
Are you ready for a multi-codec world?

The post Get Ready for a Multi-Codec World appeared first on Bitmovin.

By encoding your videos using a multi-codec approach you can double the quality while still reducing your bandwidth consumption and maintaining maximum device reach.

In the spectrum of online video, you probably already know that H.264 (also known as AVC) is ubiquitous. Nearly every device and operating system supports decoding either on hardware or software. Although this compression technology is widely supported, which is a significant advantage, it is nowhere near as efficient as the next generation codecs in terms of compression rate.
According to Netflix’ experiments, H.265 (also known as HEVC) can deliver up to 50% bitrate savings when compared to previous generation codecs like H.264/AVC. Besides Apple devices equipped with iOS 11 and macOS High Sierra, H.265 is also supported by most 4K SmartTVs and Microsoft Edge for Windows 10 (with hardware decoder present in the device).
Similar to H.265, VP9 is another great option when it comes to reducing bandwidth consumption or delivering higher quality with the same bitrate. Bitrate savings can reach up to 50% compared to H.264, dramatically lowering your CDN costs. VP9 is supported on multiple platforms including Google Chrome, Firefox, Microsoft Edge and Android devices.
Roughly 83% of the internet users in the US could be reached with VP9 and HEVC. The remaining 17% would fall back to H.264 and you would still have complete coverage of every browser. The table below shows the browser market share for desktop and mobile.

Source: netmarketshare.
* Only available in Safari for iOS 11 and macOS High Sierra.
** Only available in Edge 14.14291.

Codec comparison

The figure below shows a side-by-side codec comparison. Maintaining the same visual quality, a Full HD content could be encoded at 4 Mbit/s (50% less than H.264) with H.265/HEVC and VP9.

Saving potential exemplified

As previously stated, roughly 83% of the internet users in the US could be reached with H.265 or VP9, thus benefiting both end users by consuming less bandwidth and also streaming companies by reducing CDN costs. Considering 50% of bandwidth reduction by leveraging these codecs your total saving potential would be of 42%. Under those circumstances, let’s picture the scenario described in the table below:

How to implement multi-codec streaming with Bitmovin

Now that we have established the effectiveness of a multi-codec approach on your online video strategy we can jump right into the “how to” section of the article. First of all let’s evaluate what we can do on the encoding side.
With the Bitmovin API you can encode your content with different codecs like H.264/AVC, H.265/HEVC, VP8, VP9, and recently also AV1. Ultimately the output can be MPEG-DASH, HLS, Microsoft Smooth and/or progressive MP4/WebM/TS.

To work with the Bitmovin API we have API clients for all the major programming languages. Visiting our Github page you will find all of them as well as code examples. For this particular topic of multi-codec streaming we have this Java API Client example which covers everything that is being presented in this article.

Each video and audio stream encoded using a given codec needs to be wrapped in a container. A container/muxing supports multiple streams, such as audio and video tracks. For adaptive streaming formats such as MPEG-DASH and HLS it is common to have separated muxings for audio and videos, however, for progressive formats obviously audio and video tracks needs to be muxed altogether. The table below shows the containers that can be used for each of the codecs.

As shown above, fMP4 muxings can be used to hold H.264 and H.265 segments for both HLS and MPEG-DASH. As a result these segments can be encoded only once and be referenced by a MPEG-DASH and HLS manifest, reducing your storage costs by 50%.
Adaptive streaming formats also allow us to include multiple codecs to the same manifest/playlist, that is the beauty of the solution. By encoding your content like this, you can hand over the logic of choosing the most appropriate codec to the player (you will find more details on that further down).
The examples below show how a multi-codec MPEG-DASH manifest and HLS playlist look like. For MPEG-DASH we use one AdaptationSet for each codec. On the other hand, for HLS we simply list all the variant streams with it’s codecs one below the other.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>
<MPD id="fc7573ef-1945-4eea-91b0-fe6e20e870ca" profiles="urn:mpeg:dash:profile:full:2011" type="static" mediaPresentationDuration="P0Y0M0DT0H0M46.067S" minBufferTime="P0Y0M0DT0H0M2.000S" bitmovin:version="1.19.0" xmlns="urn:mpeg:dash:schema:mpd:2011" xmlns:bitmovin="http://www.bitmovin.net/mpd/2015" xmlns:ns2="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">
    <Period id="437c9a5c-a403-499c-92ca-b24944a70b77" start="P0Y0M0DT0H0M0.000S">
        <AdaptationSet segmentAlignment="true" mimeType="video/mp4">
            <Representation id="990f791b-984f-4566-a3b1-77a0ffbe2e60" bandwidth="875000" width="854" height="480" frameRate="30" codecs="hvc1.1.c.L90.90">
                <SegmentTemplate media="video/875_h265_fmp4/segment_$Number$.m4s" initialization="video/875_h265_fmp4/init.mp4" duration="120000" startNumber="0" timescale="30000"/>
            </Representation>
            <Representation id="6c1b1d6f-8a59-4a97-9424-ee99bb17819b" bandwidth="1175000" width="1280" height="720" frameRate="30" codecs="hvc1.1.c.L93.90">
                <SegmentTemplate media="video/1175_h265_fmp4/segment_$Number$.m4s" initialization="video/1175_h265_fmp4/init.mp4" duration="120000" startNumber="0" timescale="30000"/>
            </Representation>
        </AdaptationSet>
        <AdaptationSet segmentAlignment="true" mimeType="video/webm">
            <Representation id="00f77da9-8658-4afb-9710-0dfb08e7d346" bandwidth="875000" width="854" height="480" frameRate="30" codecs="vp9">
                <SegmentTemplate media="video/875_vp9_webm/segment_$Number$.chk" initialization="video/875_vp9_webm/init.hdr" duration="120000" startNumber="0" timescale="30000"/>
            </Representation>
            <Representation id="60ad47c8-9b48-41a9-8c3d-16fe4c9e56b2" bandwidth="1175000" width="1280" height="720" frameRate="30" codecs="vp9">
                <SegmentTemplate media="video/1175_vp9_webm/segment_$Number$.chk" initialization="video/1175_vp9_webm/init.hdr" duration="120000" startNumber="0" timescale="30000"/>
            </Representation>
        </AdaptationSet>
        <AdaptationSet segmentAlignment="true" mimeType="video/mp4">
            <Representation id="e53c20bd-519d-4881-9e35-6dd1a3817eaf" bandwidth="1750000" width="854" height="480" frameRate="30" codecs="avc1.4D401F">
                <SegmentTemplate media="video/1750_h264_fmp4/segment_$Number$.m4s" initialization="video/1750_h264_fmp4/init.mp4" duration="120000" startNumber="0" timescale="30000"/>
            </Representation>
            <Representation id="8138b60d-2bc8-4eef-91b9-3ef9e27b6cbb" bandwidth="2350000" width="1280" height="720" frameRate="30" codecs="avc1.4D401F">
                <SegmentTemplate media="video/2350_h264_fmp4/segment_$Number$.m4s" initialization="video/2350_h264_fmp4/init.mp4" duration="120000" startNumber="0" timescale="30000"/>
            </Representation>
        </AdaptationSet>
        <AdaptationSet lang="en" segmentAlignment="true" mimeType="audio/mp4">
            <AudioChannelConfiguration schemeIdUri="urn:mpeg:dash:23003:3:audio_channel_configuration:2011" value="2"/>
            <Representation id="3565543a-8524-41ac-98b4-006fcd21eaea" bandwidth="128000" audioSamplingRate="48000" codecs="mp4a.40.2">
                <SegmentTemplate media="audio/128_aac_fmp4/segment_$Number$.m4s" initialization="audio/128_aac_fmp4/init.mp4" duration="192000" startNumber="0" timescale="48000"/>
            </Representation>
        </AdaptationSet>
    </Period>
</MPD>

Example of a multi-codec MPEG-DASH manifest.

#EXTM3U
#EXT-X-INDEPENDENT-SEGMENTS
#EXT-X-VERSION:6
#EXT-X-MEDIA:TYPE=AUDIO,GROUP-ID="audio_128",NAME="audio_128.m3u8",LANGUAGE="en",URI="audio_128.m3u8"
#EXT-X-STREAM-INF:BANDWIDTH=2101985,AVERAGE-BANDWIDTH=1796254,CODECS="avc1.4D401F,mp4a.40.2",RESOLUTION=854x480,AUDIO="audio_128"
video_h265_480p_1750.m3u8
#EXT-X-STREAM-INF:BANDWIDTH=2739681,AVERAGE-BANDWIDTH=2372431,CODECS="avc1.4D401F,mp4a.40.2",RESOLUTION=1280x720,AUDIO="audio_128"
Video_h265_720p_2350.m3u8
#EXT-X-STREAM-INF:BANDWIDTH=2049427,AVERAGE-BANDWIDTH=1824322,CODECS="hev1.1.6.L90.90,mp4a.40.2",RESOLUTION=854x480,AUDIO="audio_128"
video_h264_480p_1750.m3u8
#EXT-X-STREAM-INF:BANDWIDTH=2706785,AVERAGE-BANDWIDTH=2421640,CODECS="hev1.1.6.L93.90,mp4a.40.2",RESOLUTION=1280x720,AUDIO="audio_128"
video_h264_720p_2350.m3u8

Example of a multi-codec HLS playlist.
On the playout side, as you can see in the code example below, by using Bitmovin Adaptive Player you just need to provide the dash, hls and/or progressive URLs as you would normally do. The player is responsible for identifying the most appropriate codec to deliver based on the browser/device capabilities.

var conf = {
  key: 'INSERTPROVIDEDKEYHERE',
  source: {
    dash       : 'http://path/to/mpd/file.mpd',
    hls        : 'http://path/to/hls/playlist/file.m3u8',
    progressive: [{
      url: 'http://path/to/mp4',
      type: 'video/mp4'
    }, {
      url: 'http://path/to/webm',
      type: 'video/webm'
    }]
  }
};
player.setup(conf).then(function(value) {
  // Success
}, function(reason) {
  // Error!
});

Example of a player configuration and setup.
There is also the possibility of having separated manifests/playlists for each codec you want to work with. In this case you would need to handle the logic of choosing the best source on your side – which would not be too complicated and you could have custom business rules as well.

Conclusion

As we were able to see, addressing multi-codec streaming can be a very effective measure towards reducing costs on bandwidth while delivering the same quality of experience to your viewers. Here at Bitmovin we treat this subject seriously and are constantly improving and adding new features such as Per-Title Encoding, Per-Scene Adaptation, Stream Conditions and others.
It is also important to mention that one of the complexities of multi-codec streaming is the increase of computational resources necessary to encode the same content, which usually also leads to higher turn-around times. However, by leveraging on Bitmovin Containerized Video Encoding, where we split the input file into multiple small parts to encode in parallel, this is just a matter of adding more nodes to the cluster, problem solved.
We are looking forward to helping you reduce your CDN costs or deliver higher qualities to your viewers.

The post Efficient Multi-Codec Support for OTT Services: H.264/HEVC/VP9 and/or AV1? appeared first on Bitmovin.