Jan Ozer returned to the Streaming Media East conference in New York this May and provided his annual update on the latest streaming video technologies and techniques.
Ozer has kindly once again made his presentations available for download -- They're posted on the SME site, as well as on his Streaming Learning Center site -- a wonderful archive of much more information.
These presentations are a goldmine of technical details on new technologies, along with hands-on comparisons of codec performance and video quality. Ozer also steps up to provide his informed opinions on how these technologies will succeed or languish in the marketplace, augmented with votes from a variety of industry figures.
The result lays out the foundations and next steps in today's streaming world:
Replacing Flash: Adaptive Streaming in HTML5
If you're interested in moving from Flash to HTML5, then the Media Source Extensions (MSE) and Encrypted Media Extensions (EME) promise adaptive streaming and digital rights management without plug-ins.
Encoding for HEVC
The High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) successor to H.264/MPEG-4 AVC seems to deliver the promised same quality as H.264 at half the data rate. However, the royalty situation is messy (as usual), adoption of players is inconsistent, but at least encoders from x265 and MainConcept are coming along nicely.
UHD Codecs: Challengers to HEVC
Beyond HEVC are several interesting new Ultra-High Definition (UHD) codec efforts, in addition to the open VP9 format being developed by Google. From his codec comparisons, Ozer concludes that "quality won't determine which codec succeeds or fails" -- the choice will come as we see how these are adopted in the market.
Encoding for Multiscreen Delivery: H.264, Protocols and Devices
Beyond these sessions, the real jewel was Ozer's half-day workshop on how to prepare video for playback across today's crazy variety of platforms. This is a detailed review of H.264 compression and delivery using DASH / adaptive streaming, with specifics on producing and deploying streaming across portable devices, desktops, and set-top boxes.
To keep up with Ozer's ongoing coverage of products and technologies, follow his Streaming Learning Center Blogs page.