Google releases VP8 and WebM

Google has released the VP-8 codec and WebM format for use royalty-free. This has the potential to trigger a major change in the online video world. The VP-8 codec is significantly better than the best previous free codec Ogg Theora, and is competitive with, and in at least some cases better than h.264 for web content. If the encoders for VP-8 support the full option set that VP8 is capable of (which is a superset of the VP6 flash options available with Sorenson Squeeze and Rhozet Carbon Coder), VP8 has the potential of improving video quality on the web.

Here are some things that may help VP8 adoption:

h.264 has known patents that may in the future require royalties for playback.

VP8 can look better at current web video playback rates.

HTML5 video has just begun being used. It is relatively easy to add another supported codec now.

HTML5 video support is currently split between browsers that support h.264 for quality reasons, and browsers that only support Ogg Theora due to justified worries about known patents on h.264 - no guarantees have been given that playback software will not need to pay royalties in 6 years. Since VP8 is of similar quality as h.264 and similar royalty-free status as Ogg Theora, it might become the only codec supported by all browsers

Here are some things that may hinder VP8 adoption:

h.264 currently has hardware acceleration on a lot of mobile devices.

h.264 already looks pretty good on the web (the good is the enemy of the best).

Much of the video on the web just transitioned from Flash Video to h.264. The video providers may decide against another transition this soon.

Many of the compression tools out there, including high-end ones, never offered the full range of VP6 options, limiting the quality of Flash video produced by those tools. If they similarly limit the VP8 options, VP8 may be perceived as being of lower quality due to the low quality produced by those tools.

The average available bandwidth for video playback on the web keeps going up. At higher bandwidths, VP8 may not have the same quality advantages.

Google has released patches that add VP8 encoding into ffmpeg - this makes encoding VP8 possible at low cost.

We are living in interesting times in the online video world - in the past 5 years, online video has gone from postage-stamp size video to high-definition content, the costs of delivering the video have gone from exorbitant to affordable, the amount of content has skyrocketed, and in the past 2 years most content has moved from Flash to h.264.
Now we must ask ourselves, will online video stop at h.264 or move to VP8? If it stops at h.264 now, will the patent holders ask for playback royalties in 5-6 years (remember the GIF Patent)? If they ask for playback royalties in the future, will online video switch over to VP8 then or will browsers and users pay the royalties?

Compression software types

Compression software falls into roughly 4 groups based on the intended users.

Type 1 - This is the 'we do it all for you' software. This type usually costs between $20 and $100. With this type of software, all you usually set is bitrate, output size, path and filename. This type of software is sold (often for a very low price) to people who don't want to know anything about compression. There is little incentive for the authors to optimize quality, so quality generally suffers. This type of software generally uses cheaper, lower quality codecs. Since there are so few options, this type of software is generally very easy to use.

Type 2 - This type is a step up from Type 1. This type usually costs between $50 and $200. This type gives you some settings like 2 pass encoding, CBR/VBR encoding, and so forth, but doesn't give you a lot of settings. This type of software is aimed at people who have to deliver compressed output, but who don't compress as a primary task (video editors, producers, and so forth), but who care somewhat about quality and file size. The quality of this type of software is generally better than Type 1, but cannot be tweaked very much. Any presets provided are generally fairly good. This type of software generally uses moderately priced, good quality codecs. Ease of use is still an important selling point, so this type is generally fairly easy to use. Adobe Media Encoder and Compressor fall into this type.

Type 3 - This type is the software generally used by compression experts. This type usually costs between $200 and $1,000. This type gives you a lot of settings for every type of compression, comes with a lot of pretty good presets, and includes functions for related tasks like deinterlacing, reverse telecine, noise reduction, batch processing, etc. Since output quality is the primary selling point of this type of software, you can get very high quality. This type of software generally uses higher priced, very good quality codecs, and may offer a choice of codecs for the same output format. On the flip side, since there are so many options, and since ease of use is at best secondary, this type of software is generally hard to use, although there are exceptions. Telestream Episode and Sorenson Squeeze are this type.

Type 4 - This is the 'we give you enough rope to hang yourself' type. This type usually costs more than $1,000. This type is usually aimed towards high-volume production companies that need a render farm to output massive quantities of compressed video. You can change any imaginable setting of each supported type of compression, and there are features to support many types of workflow. Since you can adjust all parameters, you can get excellent results if (and only if) you know what to set. This type of software generally offers the best codecs. This type of software is generally designed to be set up by someone who knows a lot about compression, and generally is very hard to use outside of using already set up workflows. Some examples of this type are Rhozet Carbon Coder, Inlet Fathom, and Telestream Flip Factory.

Note that these are general categories, and not meant to be exclusive. Some software may fall between categories, or may fit into more than one category.

Of special note is ffmpeg and x264, which fall into type 4 in options, quality and difficulty to use, but is available for free. There are front ends for ffmpeg, which generally fall into types 1 or 2.

Compressing for streaming - Moderate speed broadband

Video compressed for moderate speed broadband (600 kbps) can look surprisingly good.
You can use 400kbps for video and 64-96kbps for audio. This permits 480x360 or 640x480 video that looks pretty good. Music sounds good.
Pauses and other streaming issues will be rare unless the line is shared among multiple users.

For download video, I recommend 700kbps for video and 96-160kbps for stereo audio. This will allow 640x480 looking excellent or 1280x720 looking OK. Music will sound very good to excellent.

Compressing for streaming - Slow broadband

Compressing for slow broadband (150 kbps or so) is much easier than compressing for dialup.
You can expect to get halfway decent video and acceptable audio.
Pauses and other streaming problems will be less common than on dialup.
I would recommend 100kbps for video and 22kbps for audio.
this will give you 320x240 video and decent mono audio.


For download video, I recommend 250 kbps for video and 56kbps for audio.
This permits 400x300 video and very good mono audio or decent stereo.
If the audio is speech recorded in stereo, I would recommend stereo. If the audio is primarily music, I would recommend mono audio.

compression for streaming - dialup users

Trying to compress video for dialup users is almost impossible. Whatever you do, the quality will be poor. You might even want to avoid trying and just target people with broadband.

You have almost no bandwidth to use (50 kbps max, and usually less than 40)

In order to provide even barely acceptable video, you have to encode for the best connections, and assume that the connection will stay above 40 kbps.

At 40 kbps, you only have 32 kbps for video and 8 kbps for audio.

In regards to video, this will allow you only 200x150 resolution or lower, and quality will be poor even at that small postage-stamp-like size.

In regards to audio, you will have to use mono audio, and speech will sound acceptable, but music will suffer.

With streaming video or progressive download, expect users to suffer from pauses and other streaming problems.

For download video, you can encode to a higher rate, as the video will not be watched until the download finishes.

I would recommend 100 kbps for video and 22 kbps for audio. This allows 320x240 resolution video and higher quality mono audio - speech will sound good, and music acceptable.