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Netflix Keeping Bandwidth Usage Low By Encoding Its Video With VP9 and H.264/AVC Codecs (slashgear.com)

Posted by msmash on from the magic-sauce dept.

Netflix announced last week that it is getting offline video downloads support. The company has since shared that it is using VP9 video compression codec to ensure that the file sizes don't weigh a lot. An anonymous reader shares an article on Slashgear (edited): For streaming content, Netflix largely relies on H.264/AVC to reduce the bandwidth, but for downloading content, it uses VP9 encoding. VP9 can allow better quality videos for the same amount of data needed to download. The challenge is that VP9 isn't supported by all streaming providers -- it is supported on Android devices and via the Chrome browser. So to get around that lack of support on iOS, Netflix is offering downloads in H.264/AVC High whereas streams are encoded in H.264/AVC Main on such devices. Netflix chooses the optimal encoding format for each title on its service after finding, for instance, that animated films are easier to encode than live-action. Netflix says that H.264 High encoding saves 19% bandwidth compared to other encoding standards while VP9 saves 36%.

6 of 76 comments (clear)

  1. what about h.265? by anthony_greer · · Score: 3, Informative

    I hear it does great things for 4k, so it seems that it would be really great for HD, and even older 720 or 480 content too.

    1. Re:what about h.265? by Dwedit · · Score: 4, Informative

      Nobody wants to pay the licensing fees for it, so it's dead in the water.

    2. Re:what about h.265? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      The H.265 licensing is expensive (both in terms of each download, in terms of there not being per-organization caps, like with H.264) and complex (there are two patent pools you need to negotiate with separately).

    3. Re:what about h.265? by Tx · · Score: 4, Informative

      Most modern mid-to-high end phones and tablets have hardware h.265 already. See the SnapDragon video specs.

      --
      Oh no... it's the future.
    4. Re:what about h.265? by pavon · · Score: 5, Informative

      It's not just about money, either. The licensing situation for H.265 a cluster-fuck, with patent holders having split into 2 licensing pools and several other patent holders that aren't participating in either pool. So even if companies were content with paying the licensing fees (which are significantly higher than H.264), they don't have any easy way of doing so that will cover all the patent holders. Most big players would prefer to pay and use H.265, but the patent holders have gotten too greedy and too splintered.

      Most of the major players have gotten fed up with this shit, and committed to pool their patents and expertise create a royalty free format AV1, in place of H.265. Alliance for Open Media includes: Microsoft, Google, Mozilla, Netfix, Amazon, BBC, ARM, Intel, AMD, nVidia, Broadcom, Cisco, Polycom, and more. The only companies that haven't signed on yet and are big enough to prevent wide adoption are Apple and Qualcomm, and Qualcomm has previously supported VP9, so I don't know why they wouldn't support AV1 once it is ready.

  2. Re:What compression efficiency means by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    I'll also add that I've seen no good data that shows that VP9 encoders perform better over a wide range of content than H.264.

    Don't worry. Netflix has and YouTube has