Implementing HEVC-SMW 2016

HEVC AND OTHER UHD
CODECS
Jan Ozer
www.streaminglearningcenter.com
@janozer
jozer@mindspring.com/
276-238-9135
Copyright 2015 Jan Ozer, All Rights Reserved
Why is This Man Wearing Black?

Because its slimming?

Because hes going to wear the same outfit all three days
of the show?

Because hes going to wear the shirt three days in a row?
Because hes here to talk about the impending demise of
HEVC?
Dave Ronca, Director, Encoding

Technology at Netflix
The Alliance for Open Media is testing
the hypotheses: 1) Royalty free (RF)
codec will remove uncertainty, 2) RF
codec can advance the state of the art,
3) RF will remove IP/royalty politics and
4) Benefits of widely adopted RF codec
will drive collaboration and innovation.
If AOM is a technical success, and the

codec survives legal challenges, then
the era of royalty-based codecs will end
(as it should).
Dave Ronca, Director, Encoding

Technology at Netflix
If AOM is a technical success,
and
the codec survives legal
challenges, then the era of royaltybased codecs will end (as it should).
Dennis Perov, Media Solutions Architect,

QuickPlay Media
HEVC might be a first case of a
very promising codec going past its
shelf life without any serious
deployment to its name
In Short
Agenda
Point 1: Royalties are pricey and not fully known
Point 2: Competition available and more coming
Point 3: Quality a bit in question

Point 5: Examining the inherent value of the
standard
Royalties are Pricey

MPEG-LA
HEVC Advance
Technicolor
Third pool (reality or grassy knoll?)
MPEG LA
Whats known: MPEG
LA patent group
$0.20/encoder/decoder
Shipments in excess of
100,000
$25 million annual
maximum (first year only
will increase)
No HEVC content royalty
(even PPV/subscription)
HEVC Advance Hardware Royalty
HEVC Advance Content Royalty
Other IP Owners
Technicolor
Withdrew from HEVC Advance, February 2016
No terms on website
Third pool? companies with HEVC IP not in either
pool
Broadcom, Qualcomm, VIXS and Magnum
Annual Known HEVC Royalties

Company
Products
MPEG LA
HEVC Advance
Other?
iDevices, OSX,
Safari, iTunes
$25 million
$45 million
Chrome, Android
devices sold by
Google, OTT
devices
$25 million
$40 million
Microsoft
Edge, Windows 10,

Windows Phone
$25 million
$40 million
Samsung
Phones, tablets,
Smart TVs
$25 million
$40 million
Amazon
Content, tablets,
players
$25 million
$45 million
Content
$2.5 million
Apple
Google
Netflix, MLB,
other content
Why the Alliance for Open Media?

Google, MS, Amazon (device)
You can hire a lot of codec engineers for $65 million a
year ($250K/equals 260 engineers)
Netflix, Amazon (content)
Numbers are small, but you get a seat at the table
Competition is Firming Up
VP9 is finally getting traction
Alliance for Open Media gets hardware support
V-Nova PERSEUS shows that the joke was on us
VP9 is Finally Getting Traction

JW Player to use VP9 in OVP
Encoding support from Zencoder/Brightcove
Telestream to support in Vantage

First live encoder available
Wowza firms up support
Increasing hardware support on SoC and graphics cards
Benefits of VP9
Quality about the same as HEVC (more later)
Ubiquitous playback in all current browsers not named
Safari
Android playback
YouTube will only play UHD video in VP9 format starting
soon
Would you build a SmartTV or retail OTT box that doesnt play
VP9?
Alliance for Open Media

Launched 9/1/2015
Includes:
Technology Cisco
(Thor), Google (VPX),
Intel, Microsoft, Mozilla
(Daala)
Content Amazon,
Netflix
April 2016 added
NVIDIA, ARM, and AMD
Schema
Consolidate open source
development (VP10,
Daala, Thor)
All output royalty free
First codec AO Media
1 (AV1) scheduled for
release between
12/2017 and 3/2016
Impact of Alliance
Browser support
VP9 now in Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Safari
AV1 will quickly be integrated into all
Content support
Amazon, Netflix, YouTube
Will necessitate hardware support in mobile, OTT, STB and other
markets
Hardware support
Intel, AMD, NVIDIA, ARM
Will ensure GPU acceleration and hardware playback on SoC and
CPUs
Altogether a vast defense fund for any IP claims

New to the Mix

V-Nova PERSEUS
Most significant value proposition
Deliver HEVC/VP9-like performance without hardware upgrades to
encode or STB playback
Upgrade existing STBs for playback (piggyback on H.264 decode)
Software upgrade to existing encoders (Thompson, Harmonic)
(piggyback on H.264 encode)

First major customer: Sky in Italy
Claims 50% reduction in data rate over H.264 at same quality
Also: Contribution products used by Sky in Italy for over 2
years
Extension to browser? Unclear at this time
Quality a Bit in Question

My tests
Moscow University HEVC comparison
My Tests
Expectation: Same quality as H.264 @ 50% data rate
My tests
3 files, animation (Sintel), TOS movie trailer, real world
video
Two HEVC configurations
720p@ 2 mbps
1080p @ 4 mbps
Two H.264 configurations

720p@ 4 mbps (200%) and 3 mbps (150%)
1080p@ 8 mbps (200%) and 6 mbps (150%)
Assess quality with Moscow University VQMT

http://bit.ly/MSU_VQMT
Quality Comparisons
HEVC delivers
same quality as
H.264 at 50% data
rate (except
animation)
Most vendors
Claim same
quality at 30
50%
Moscow University HEVC Tests

20 HD video clips encoded to an exhaustive array of
configurations,
Eight HEVC codecs, including x265 and two codecs each
from Intel and Ittiam
Compared to Googles VP9 and x264
Im sure they are better at x264 encode than me
Used PSNR and SSIM (not VQM)
Moscow State University HEVC Comparison
VP9 only 6%
behind
X264 only
about 20%
My Conclusions About VP9
My conclusions about VP9 are very similar

Impact of MSU Report

Raises questions about comparative x.264 quality
(in particular)
Most encoder vendors claim 30 50% data rate
improvement as same quality as H.264
Assumptions going Forward

YouTube only serves UHD
By 2018, every SoC,
content with VP9/AV1 (as

stated)
Netflix, Amazon, and
YouTube all support AV1
as do MS, Google, and
Mozilla
Intel, AMD, ARM ensure
GPU/ hardware
acceleration for AV1
graphics chip, and mobile

device will accelerate AV1
Every Smart TV, retail OTT
and commercial STB will
decode AV1 (and probably
HEVC as well)
Android devices will
accelerate AV1
If All this Comes True

In what markets does a standard
retain significant value?
Concept
Inherent value of standard-based technology
Market dependent
Alternative dependent
Traditional Analog Broadcast
Playback environment: Hardware-only, non-upgradeable, long-
term usage cycle.

Disparate vendors on encode/decode side
Value of standard: Standard assures compatibility and is essential
Backhaul
Playback environment: Closed
system
Primary concerns: Latency,
bandwidth and quality
Value of standard:
interoperability a consideration
but its a closed system. Many
buy encode/ decode from same
provider.
Contribution
Playback environment: Closed system
Primary concerns: latency, bandwidth
and quality
Value of standard: minimal some
interoperability but many buy
encode/decode from same provider.
Sky in Italy has used Perseus-
based contribution systems from VNova for several years.

Saved significant bandwidth costs
Desktops and Notebooks in the Browser
Playback environment: Open
Key question: What value does
system but software upgradeable

Primary concern: availability of
playback (none for HEVC)
Value of standard: Minimal
Why was H.264 the playback
standard? Because Adobe chose it
HEVC bring that VP9/AV1 cant

deliver?
HEVC encoded content?
YouTube is VP9 and Netflix,
Amazon and YouTube all moving
to AV1
It was VP6 before then for the same
reason
IPTV (Vendor Supplied STB)
system; compatibility not an issue

Primary concern: cost, quality,
bandwidth?
Value of standard: Minimal: Sky in
Italy is upgrading their existing STBs
with V-Nova Perseus
Key question: What value does
HEVC bring that VP9/AV1/Perseus

cant deliver?
Retail OTT
Playback environment: Open system:
Key questions:
Primary concern: compatibility then
Why wouldnt Roku support AV1?
quality
Value of standard: Significant.
Multiple content publisher have to play
on device, but that swings both ways
Need HEVC for short term legacy
Need VP9/AV1 in the longer term
They support VP9 already (Roku4)

Necessary for 4K YouTube
playback
Necessary for Netflix and
Amazon AV1 content
Google/Amazon will almost
certainly support AV1 in their
devices
Mobile
Playback environment: Open system:
But:
Primary concern: Battery
Google only pays royalties on
consumption, compatibility, quality

Value of standard: Significant. Need
cheap hardware decode.
Apple-HEVC on iPhone 5
FaceTime only
Android HEVC on Android 5 in
software, hoods to hardware
devices it ships, and seems

committed to AV1
Microsoft is committed to AV1
Apple
Stands to pay far more in HEVC
royalties that it will ever earn

IMHO-their loyalty to HEVC is
overstated
Other Closed Systems
system
Primary concerns: Cost, latency,
bandwidth and quality
Value of standard: Can drive down
costs, and interoperability a

consideration but its a closed
system. Many buy encode/decode
from same provider.
Potential HEVC Licensee

You can pay up to $65 million/per year for HEVC
Or, Let Google, Microsoft, Cisco, Mozilla do the
development for free

Many will have to do both (for awhile)
Smart TVs, retail and commercial STBs
Mobi
Bottom Line
The inherent value of the standard has dropped
significantly since the analog days

Software upgrades
Viable, well supported alternatives
Inexpensive hardware
Shorter product life cycles

Closed systems
VP9/AV1 offer streaming producers access that
HEVC cant match today, and probably never will

Encoding HEVC
Most traditional vendors now encode HEVC
Hardware VOD and Live
Software VOD primarily, some live

New hardware architectures from Intel with software
support
First Wave of Smaller Encoders

Video Inputs 1 3G/HD-SDI,
HDMI, DVI-D Video

Output - HEVC
Bit Rate: 100 Kbps - 30Mbps
Frame Rate: 10-60 fps
Output Resolutions:
Configurable from CIF up to
1920x1080
Encoding Latency: 75
Milliseconds
$10,000
Overview
i265 + Intel VCA

State of the art hardware + programmable software solution for H.265
Significantly lower TCO for 4K60 real time encoding, dense HD transcoding
Latest addition to the i265 product family announced at IBC 2015
HARDWARE
SOFTWARE
Intel VCA
i265 for Intel VCA
Visual Compute Accelerator

PCIe Card with 3x Xeon E3v4 per card
Multiple cards per Xeon E5 server
Aggressively priced solution
Industry leading performance/power
Highly scalable architecture
Industry first Live 4K60 encoder for VCA

Highly optimized, GPU accelerated
Tiles based encoder for multiple CPU+GPU
4-5x faster than comparable software (x265)
Copyright 2015 Ittiam Systems | Ittiam Proprietary | www.ittiam.com
46
Where will HEVC Play?

Desktop/notebook
Mobile
OTT/SmartTV
Notebooks/PCs Will it Play
Limited sample
720p HEVC should play on most 2-core computers
1080p will only play on 4/8 core and above
(Im guessing that) by far, the bulk of video streamed today is
720p or smaller (at least non-OTT)
HEVC Software Players

DivX 10 with HEVC decode shipped 9/2013
Installed base over 10 million
VLC Player with HEVC 11/15/2013
Flash Adobe to include HEVC decode in
Primetime platform in 2015 but not Flash Player

So no general purpose HEVC player; must come
from the browser
Browser Market Share

HEVC
VP9
Chrome
No
Yes
IE 11
No
No
Edge
Yes
Coming
Firefox
Mozilla
No
Yes
Safari
No
No
With no cap, HEVC will cost
browser vendors billions yearly

No pressing need for UHD,
x.264 is good, VP9 is free
Content producers all things
being equal, why not use VP9?
Computers/Notebooks
CPU playback isnt the issue
The player side isnt there
If publisher, would have to install own player pay
royalty
If monetized pay royalty
Why would content publisher not use VP9?
What About Mobile

Installed Base
Battery life issues
New devices
Burgeoning HEVC support (a beachhead!)
Installed Base With no HEVC Hardware

Techspot: Mobile Playback
tests
H.264@1080p -- 8.6 hours
HEVC@1080p 4.36 hours
While HEVC delivers fantastic
quality for the file size, its

impractical for a batterypowered device when it lasts
half as long as an equivalentresolution H.264 file.
bit.ly/HEVC_batt
What About Apple and iOS

Apple:
Added HEVC encode/decoder for FaceTime
only in iPhone 6 (http://bit.ly/iphone_HEVC)
Not available for general purpose playback on
iPhone
No word on Safari/Mac
What About Android

Google:
Added software decoder and hooks to HEVC
hardware decode in Android 5

(http://bit.ly/iphone_HEVC)
Some HEVC capable devices announced (Sony
Experia Z3, http://bit.ly/sony_HEVC)

Announced before HEVC Advance
Google member of Open Media Alliance
Mobile Summary
HEVC looks good; as it stands today
Decisions made before HEVC Advance
No real technology advantage over VP9 (which is
free)
HEVC on OTT and Smart TVs

OTT
New Apple TV no
New 4K Roku yes
Amazon Fire TV yes
These platforms are very
standards sensitive
Presume they will continue to
support HEVC
Smart TVs
All 4K
Most relevant specs
HbbTV
Smart TV Alliance
Producing HEVC
General concepts
Elemental
X265
Preset
MainConcept
P/Q Value
Technical Comparison
From Elemental
White paper
MPEG-2/H.264/
HEVC
bit.ly/Elemental_HEVCWP
Elemental Quality vs Density (speed)
03
0 best quality
3 fastest speed
X265 - Choosing a Preset

Whats a Preset?
Controls a range of
parameters
Enables tradeoff
between quality and
encoding time
X265 Presets
Presets
Parameters
The big issues
are how much

quality, how much
encoding time?
http://bit.ly/x265_presets
Choosing an x265 Preset
Choosing an x265 Preset

Preset Quality and Encoding Time (normalized to 100%)
120.00%
100.00%
92%
80%
80.00%
67%
70%
97%
100% 100.00%
83%
71%
62.26%
Time
60.00%
Quality
42.81%
41%
40.00%
20.00%
12.76%
4.38%
1.23% 1.65% 2.23% 2.42% 3.38%
0.00%
Ultrafast
superface
veryfast
faster
fast
medium
slow
slower
veryslow
placebo
Main Concept P/Q Values

Same concept
Single switch that controls a number of
configs trading off quality and encoding time
Main Concept P/Q
Questions

Implementing HEVC-SMW 2016

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HEVC AND OTHER UHD

Copyright 2015 Jan Ozer, All Rights Reserved

Why is This Man Wearing Black?

Copyright 2015 Jan Ozer, All Rights Reserved

Why is This Man Wearing Black?

Copyright 2015 Jan Ozer, All Rights Reserved

Why is This Man Wearing Black?

Copyright 2015 Jan Ozer, All Rights Reserved

Why is This Man Wearing Black?

Because hes here to talk about the impending demise of

Copyright 2015 Jan Ozer, All Rights Reserved

Dave Ronca, Director, Encoding

If AOM is a technical success, and the

Copyright 2015 Jan Ozer, All Rights Reserved

Dave Ronca, Director, Encoding

Copyright 2015 Jan Ozer, All Rights Reserved

Dennis Perov, Media Solutions Architect,

Copyright 2015 Jan Ozer, All Rights Reserved

Copyright 2015 Jan Ozer, All Rights Reserved

Point 3: Quality a bit in question

Copyright 2015 Jan Ozer, All Rights Reserved

Royalties are Pricey

Copyright 2015 Jan Ozer, All Rights Reserved

Copyright 2015 Jan Ozer, All Rights Reserved

HEVC Advance Hardware Royalty

Copyright 2015 Jan Ozer, All Rights Reserved

HEVC Advance Content Royalty

Copyright 2015 Jan Ozer, All Rights Reserved

Copyright 2015 Jan Ozer, All Rights Reserved

Annual Known HEVC Royalties

Edge, Windows 10,

Copyright 2015 Jan Ozer, All Rights Reserved

Why the Alliance for Open Media?

Copyright 2015 Jan Ozer, All Rights Reserved

V-Nova PERSEUS shows that the joke was on us

Copyright 2015 Jan Ozer, All Rights Reserved

VP9 is Finally Getting Traction

Telestream to support in Vantage

Increasing hardware support on SoC and graphics cards

Copyright 2015 Jan Ozer, All Rights Reserved

Copyright 2015 Jan Ozer, All Rights Reserved

Alliance for Open Media

Copyright 2015 Jan Ozer, All Rights Reserved

Altogether a vast defense fund for any IP claims

New to the Mix

(piggyback on H.264 encode)

Also: Contribution products used by Sky in Italy for over 2

Quality a Bit in Question

Copyright 2015 Jan Ozer, All Rights Reserved

3 files, animation (Sintel), TOS movie trailer, real world

Two H.264 configurations

Assess quality with Moscow University VQMT

Copyright 2015 Jan Ozer, All Rights Reserved

Moscow University HEVC Tests

Used PSNR and SSIM (not VQM)

Copyright 2015 Jan Ozer, All Rights Reserved

Moscow State University HEVC Comparison

My Conclusions About VP9

My conclusions about VP9 are very similar

Impact of MSU Report

Copyright 2015 Jan Ozer, All Rights Reserved

Assumptions going Forward

By 2018, every SoC,

content with VP9/AV1 (as