V-Nova英仙座:进展报告

我们都快一年了 看看V-Nova的技术 商业进步. 因为我在伦敦参加流媒体论坛, it was convenient to drop in to see what's happened since then and what's in the product hopper.

By way of background, V-Nova launched the Perseus codec in April 2015. There are two versions of the codec, pure and hybrid. Pure Perseus uses only the Perseus algorithm throughout, and it is used in V-Nova's contribution encoders. 混合的珀尔修斯, 这是为了分配, combines Perseus with other compression technologies, 如H.264. 这支持与H的向后兼容.264 players, and easy integration into existing H.264编码解码产品.

Pure Perseus has been used by Sky Italia for contribution since May 2015. 2016年6月和7月, European satellite provider Eutelsat Communications used pure Perseus to deliver live 4K lossless contribution during the UEFA Euro 2016 Championship, 在九月, 获得了V-Nova的少数股权. 2017年3月, V-Nova announced an updated contribution technology, 内置HDR支持, and which the company claims lowers the cost per channel by up to 70%.

For distribution, V-Nova's most prominent early success came with a design-in from Sky Italia. 作为这次推出的一部分, Sky Italia integrated Perseus encoding into its Harmonic ViBE VS7000 encoders, and software decode into its existing set top boxes. This enabled Sky Italia to cut the data rate of its 1080p streams from 8Mbps to 4Mbps without buying additional hardware or software.

在上一篇文章中, we also reported that Perseus hybrid was being deployed in India by FastFilmz in a low-bandwidth service targeted primarily at mobile viewers. 2017年2月, V-Nova demonstrated the ability to deliver UHDp50 sports videos over satellite to existing set-top boxes with Asian satellite operator Thaicom, with a view towards Thaicom offering this service both within Thailand and in neighboring countries. 

编解码器的增强

The original Perseus codec is now on version 1.4. In our original tests published in June 2016, hybrid Perseus using H.264 as the base layer showed higher quality than H.264通过约2Mbps，之后H.264提供更高的质量. HEVC was superior at all tested data rates, though this isn't surprising given that H.264被用于英仙座的基础层.

One of the advancements that I saw during my visit was hybrid Perseus using HEVC as the base layer. 除了, note that the original version of Perseus was intra-frame (spatial) only, and V-Nova is working on adding inter-frame (temporal) compression to the codec as well. The last major additions include commonly used techniques like luminance and contrast masking, which adjust the algorithm to correspond to how humans see noise and detail in a video.

在开发方面也是如此, V-Nova acquired the video processing patents from Faroudja Enterprises in February 2017, which include technologies for bandwidth restoration, 解封/ debanding, 升级, 还有降噪. Since V-Nova also plans to integrate these into Perseus at some point, it's not surprising that V-Nova didn't disclose the roadmap for the rollout of these new features.

除了编解码器本身的改进之外, V-Nova is also working to make encoding more accessible, and showed a working FFmpeg-based Perseus encoder. V-Nova is also expanding the range of decode options, with new modules for decoding on Windows devices, and as well as via ExoPlayer on Android devices.

的角度来看

It's tough to gauge the health and vitality of any company based upon a five-hour visit, but the company's London-based offices were bustling, and there are seven job openings listed on the V-Nova website. As during my last visit, all the people I met with were top notch and fully committed.

At the same time, the codec world itself is in kind of a lull. 根据编码，只有3%的渗透率.com的最新 全球媒体格式报告. HEVC hasn't achieved much of an uptake, most likely because of its well-publicized pricing issues. VP9(编码11%.com report) has earned some integration success, but many companies appear to be waiting for the Alliance for Open Media's AV1 codec, 目前已按计划于2017年底交付. 当MPEG开始在 下一代视频编解码器, any results are years off and largely irrelevant to streaming unless MPEG can address the pricing issues that hindered HEVC.

简言之，H.264仍然是编解码器 今日特色的 (79% according to the report), with no anointed successor in site. This leaves plenty of room for new technologies, particularly those like Perseus that can be integrated into existing systems without additional CAPEX.

Review: V-Nova Perseus: Does its Compression Live Up to the Hype?

London-based V-Nova has made some impressive claims about Perseus, its compression technology. 流媒体's preliminary testing shows that it lives up to some of them.

2016年6月17日