HVEC and VP9, when will it be implemented

[ubuntuaddicted]

I wanted to have a discussion about HVEC and VP9 because of their awesome compression ratios. I see a huge advantage of using x265 (HVEC) or vp9 (webM) due to the low low bitrate that can be used. and I am not specifically talking about livestreaming because i've read that the vp9 encoders are dog slow and aren't feasible for real time encoding, only for VOD content where it doesn't matter how long it takes to encode the video, the end results is a great vp9 (webM) file which can be uploaded to youtube or the like if that site allows that format and of course the viewers browser would need to support vp9 playback as well but most do now days. VP9 works in the Chrome, Firefox and Opera browsers, but it's still in testing for Android. The latest version of the mobile operating system, 4.4 aka KitKat, can decode VP9 video -- 1080p for a Google Nexus 5 phone and 720p video for the older Nexus 4.

Media Source Extensions (MSE), HTML5 playback has become sufficiently robust for most producers of non-DRM content to stop using Flash. Specifically, MSE delivers both adaptive streaming and live, both with H.264 and VP9.

VP9 starts 15 percent faster than H.264. It moves to HD 15 percent faster. VP9 works in the Chrome, Firefox and Opera browsers, but it's still in testing for Android. The obvious problem is lack of support in Internet Explorer and Safari, which YouTube addresses by supplying H.264 to those browsers, with Flash fallback to legacy browsers. The latest version of the mobile operating system, 4.4 aka KitKat, can decode VP9 video -- 1080p for a Google Nexus 5 phone and 720p video for the older Nexus 4.

Sooooo, I have a goal to create the highest quality content i can while trying for the smallest possible size so that i can keep bandwidth costs down on my website, for a podcast that's not yet widely known about going with VP9 seems like the thing to do, if a viewer is using IE or Safari well then I guess they can't watch. :) I know that's silly to do but in my initial testing I've seen 50% size reduction with very similar quality.

What are you thoughts and do you have any inside info on some new open source html5 players being worked on? Do you know of any implementations of browser players that utilize hardware decoding of HVEC and webM?

 

[Osiris]

There are no GPU's yet with hardware decoding of H265, so that's out of the question. Browsers don't even support H265 yet either.
And what you call "html5 player" relies on the codecs supported by the browser.

 

[Krazy]

Both of these codecs are still a ways off from any sort of widespread adoption. The specs aren't even finalized, as far as I know.

 

[ubuntuaddicted]

hardware decoding isn't a requirement. Specs are finalized on VP9, Google is starting VP10. I can't speak for HVEC specification which is why I wanted to have a discussion about it.

 

[Sapiens]

When someone implements it, but you've been around enough to know the answer to "when will ___ be implemented" is usually accompanied by a frown. There are many other more important features to implement first, beating the h265 horse isn't going to accomplish anything especially at this point.

 

[ubuntuaddicted]

Maybe I wasn't specific, I'm not asking for OBS to use x265 or vp9. I merely wanted to discuss with other like minded people about these encoders and see what others thoughts are on why if there's a possible 50% reduction in bandwidth they aren't jumping all over this? I saw a gigantic reduction in bandwidth in my initial test of 720p@30. There's a blog out there showing 720p streaming can be achieved using just 250Kbps if I recall and that was with x265

 

[Sapiens]

Asking on the OBS "Questions and Help" forum when VP9 and HEVC will be implemented but not asking when it will be implemented in OBS? Yes that could probably have been worded more clearly. :)

My understanding is that HEVC at least isn't remotely viable for real time encoding at this point. 720p streaming can already be achieved at 250 Kbps, it will just look terrible. Linking the blog post you're referring to so we can see what kind of source content was used and output was produced would be informative.

 

[ubuntuaddicted]

i can't find the damn blog again but here's an article showing how 720p and up when using HVEC will result in similar quality with 50% reduction in bandwidth
http://www.streamingmedia.com/Artic...icles/How-to-Make-the-Move-to-HEVC-95973.aspx

 

[Videophile]

When someone implements it, but you've been around enough to know the answer to "when will ___ be implemented" is usually accompanied by a frown. There are many other more important features to implement first, beating the h265 horse isn't going to accomplish anything especially at this point.

 

[ubuntuaddicted]

I wanted to have a technical discussion about this but maybe that's mot possible? I don't fully understand why people are so opposed to discussing the technical availability of HVEC and webM

 

[dodgepong]

I'll put it simply.

OBS can do 2 things with the video that it renders: stream and record locally.

If you want to use OBS to stream, you're going to use h.264 video. That is not even a question. We are probably still at least a couple years away from using anything different, and it's just a reality of the state of the internet right now.

If you just want to record locally, FFmpeg output will be supported in OBS Multiplatform, so you will be able to output anything that your build of FFmpeg can output.

 

[ubuntuaddicted]

Youtube currently does H265 with their html5 player which is awesome in chrome as well as firefox (but I think firefox is limited to 720p for whatever reason) but of course that may be because I have a powerful enough machine to play 1080p OR or it's using hardware decoding.

 

[Osiris]

Huh? Youtube doesn't support H265/HEVC yet.
Also, currently there is no GPU available that does H265 encoding fully in hardware.

 

[Videophile]

Hey guys, for a 1.5X better compression ratio, you need about 2X+ the encoding power.(Notice the plus)

AKA: No realtime encoding with todays CPUs.

 

[ubuntuaddicted]

here's some of my initial testing.

i'm currently trying to get h265 playback working on a webpage but my lack of webserver design is hindering that effort. I'm just so impressed with the difference in filesize and bitrate. Below is the same video info (source video)

 

[ubuntuaddicted]

c3r1c3_linux from the IRC dev channel had this to say
+If I recall correctly FFMPEG supports x265, and it can be spliced into OBS (via the x265 project) whenever it is wanted. So it is available (same with VP6/7/8/9), but at this time there are outside issues that need to be resolved by other parties first.

+Including (but not limited to) Does RTMP support x265? If so, what changes did they make to support it? If not what changes will (if even) Adobe have to do to make it work?

+Who do we stream these formats to? What container will they be streamed in? Sure that MPEG-esque container (of which I've forgotten the name of) will be great thing, but who supports it (besides Akamai)?

+I do understand what you're going for, but I've got nothing to discuss. When someone out there announces x265/VP9 streaming support, then I'll add my 2 cents. Until then... it's time to code.

here's a very interesting read if you're interested
http://www.anandtech.com/show/8526/nvidia-geforce-gtx-980-review/5

 

[Lain]

I'll probably put them in just for fun at some point when I have some free time or something (though there's a lot of other things I want to do on my free time).

However, the fundamental problem with VP9/h265 is that the encoders are not really optimized for real time encoding.

Secondly, they cannot really be used for streaming due to lack of support for the codecs in flash, in the RTMP protocol, and thus for those reasons lack of support by providers such as twitch. In the future it's likely they'll probably eventually pick up, but don't expect h264 to go anywhere any time soon.

 

[ubuntuaddicted]

I appreciate your view on the matter Jim. This is more or less what I was after. I feel that HTML5 is slowly killing off flash but flash is a tough cookie to crumble since it's embedded every-fricken-where. So as much as YouTube is trying to push HTML5 on the internets it's still not really a thing......yet. I did however see an iOS and Android player called flowplayer.

PS i realize you could spending "free time" with family or enjoying your hobbies and I can completely relate to that so I see that it'll happen when it happens, no sooner no later. This is where I would love to be able to help out with the little bit of spare time i have between my projects, adding in vp8/webM support would be something I would love to do but alas I'm a coding noob. sadface sadface cry me a river Ubu..... Thank you