Have you noticed that day after day the internet becomes more about videos than images? From streaming video files to vlogging. Did you know that video streaming giants like Youtube, Hulu and Netflix take up almost half of internet traffic, alone?! It is a fact that videos have become an integral part of any internet users life, but also a tough challenge for Internet Service Providers (ISPs). In order to provide a buffer free video streaming ISPs need to increase the size of pipes, but also shrink the size of data transferred through those pipes. This is where video codecs come in.
Video codecs are algorithms that shrink original video data to smaller and more compact form of data to be rapidly and easily transferred through ISP pipes. However, the trick with video codecs is to maintain both small size and video quality, that’s why not all video codecs are equal nor do they all provide both compact and high quality video data.
Accordingly, Youtube, which is the world’s most popular video streaming company owned by Google, has developed a new type of video codec called VP9 to remarkably enhance video compression and speed.
What is VP9?
Due to the numerous complaints Google had received from Youtube viewers regarding the continuous buffering of Youtube videos and slow streaming speed, Google developed VP9 video codec, an open-source variant developed between Google and WebM which is an open-source project sponsored by Google for creating technology for use with media on the Internet. VP9 is the newest in its line that is designed to overcome continual video interruption and provide viewers with a high quality, buffer-free streaming experience by cutting the file size of a video in half to get more quality from each byte of the video.
“That means that if your Internet connection used to only play up to 480p without buffering on YouTube, it can now play silky smooth 720p with VP9,” explained Youtube in a blog post.
How would you benefit from VP9?
• With the introduction of 4K television sets which deliver four times the resolution of HD, a need for new codecs that can support this kind of elite HD video quality is equally rising to keep up and make everyone happy.
• VP9 also uses asymmetric transforms to make the most difficult scenes and images look sharp and highly defined without abusing your bandwidth.
• More importantly, VP9 is a gift to user with limited bandwidth or those who are subscribed to expensve data plans since it cuts bitrates to half, therefore, you can decrease your data traffic by at least a quarter.
• You can not only watch 4k videos without buffering or slowing down your internet connection, but with VP9 you can also upload 4k video content to Youtube just as fast and easy.
• VP9 is an open-source, unlike other codecs. This means that it is free to be used on PCs, smartphones or by video streaming websites, like: Netflix.
Conclusion
VP9 has enabled users to watch 25bn hours of faster, better, buffer-free videos in just 12 months. While it isn’t available on all devices, you can find it in Google’s Chrome, Android supported devices, such as: Samsung Galaxy S6, and in TVs as well as game consoles from Sony, LG and Sharp. Say goodbye to buffering interruptions and boring periods of loading. VP9 guarantees faster and high definition video streaming experience.
