Aronus Posted October 24, 2024 Posted October 24, 2024 VP9 is an open-source and royalty-free video codec developed by Google, designed to address the growing demand for high-quality video delivery across web and mobile platforms. In this blog, we'll delve into the intricacies of VP9, its features, history, and how it stacks up against other po[CENSORED]r codecs. A few key points about VP9: VP9 is the successor to VP8, another video codec, and it competes primarily with MPEG’s High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC/H.265). VP9 emerged from technology acquired when Google purchased On2 Technologies in February 2010. Initially, VP9 found its home on YouTube, where it was widely used for video playback. Another early adopter was Wikipedia for its multimedia content. The emergence of the Alliance for Open Media (of which Google is a part) and their support for the successor codec AV1 sparked growing interest in VP9. Unlike HEVC, VP9 enjoys common support among modern web browsers, making it a po[CENSORED]r choice for online video content. Android has supported VP9 since version 4.4 KitKat, and iOS/iPadOS added VP9 support in iOS/iPadOS 14. Virtually all browsers support VP9, trailing slightly behind H.264. Key features of VP9: Compression efficiency: VP9 is highly efficient in compressing video, offering a significant improvement over VP8 and competing well with H.265/HEVC. It can reduce the bitrate by up to 50% compared to VP8, making it ideal for streaming high-resolution video. Quality: Despite the high compression ratio, VP9 maintains impressive video quality. It supports higher resolutions, including 4K and beyond, with additional support for 10/12-bit encoding and HDR, making it future-proof for emerging video technologies. Open and Royalty-Free: VP9 is an open format, meaning it doesn’t come with licensing fees or restrictions. Compatibility: As a web-centric codec, VP9 has strong support in modern web browsers like Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, and others. It is also supported on various hardware platforms, including many smartphones and streaming devices. Hardware integration: Google has collaborated with hardware vendors to ensure VP9 support in silicon. However, it is limited to hardware accelerated decoding only, hardware encoding has never really taken off. Everything you need to know about VP9 codec
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