Read the original LinkedIn article here: How Video Encoder Computing Efficiency Can Impact Streaming Service Quality
Written by:
Mark Donnigan is Vice President of Marketing at Beamr, a high-performance video encoding innovation company.
Computer software application is the bedrock of every function and department in the business; accordingly, software application video encoding is important to video streaming service operations. It's possible to enhance a video codec execution and video encoder for 2 but hardly ever three of the pillars. It does say that to provide the quality of video experience consumers anticipate, video suppliers will require to examine industrial options that have actually been efficiency enhanced for high core counts and multi-threaded processors such as those offered from AMD and Intel.
With so much upheaval in the circulation model and go-to-market organisation plans for streaming home entertainment video services, it may be appealing to press down the concern stack selection of new, more efficient software video encoders. With software consuming the video encoding function, calculate efficiency is now the oxygen required to grow and win versus a progressively competitive and congested direct-to-consumer (D2C) marketplace.
How Video Encoder Computing Efficiency Can Impact Streaming Service Quality
Till public clouds and ubiquitous computing turned software-based video operations mainstream, the procedure of video encoding was carried out with purpose-built hardware.
And after that, software application ate the hardware ...
Marc Andreessen, the co-founder of Netscape and a16z the famed venture capital company with financial investments in Foursquare, Skype, Twitter, box, Lyft, Airbnb, and other similarly disruptive business, penned a post for the Wall Street Journal in 2011 titled "Why Software application Is Eating The World." A variation of this post can be found on the a16z.com website here.
"6 decades into the computer transformation, 4 years given that the innovation of the microprocessor, and two decades into the rise of the contemporary Web, all of the innovation needed to transform industries through software application lastly works and can be commonly provided at global scale." Marc Andreessen
In following with Marc Andreessen's prophecy, today, software-based video encoders have almost totally subsumed video encoding hardware. With software application applications devoid of purpose-built hardware and able to work on ubiquitous computing platforms like Intel and AMD based x86 machines, in the data-center and virtual environments, it is completely accurate to state that "software application is eating (or more properly, has eaten) the world."
What does this mean for a technology or video operations executive?
Computer system software is the bedrock of every function and department in the business; accordingly, software video encoding is important to video streaming service operations. Software application video encoders can scale without requiring a direct boost in physical space and energies, unlike hardware.
When dealing with software-based video encoding, the 3 pillars that every video encoding engineer must attend to are bitrate effectiveness, quality preservation, and computing performance.
It's possible to enhance a video codec application and video encoder for two however hardly ever three of the pillars. Most video encoding operations hence concentrate on quality and bitrate performance, leaving the compute efficiency vector open as a sort of wild card. As you will see, this is no longer a competitive technique.
The next frontier is software computing performance.
Bitrate performance with high video quality needs resource-intensive tools, which will lead to slow functional speed or a considerable boost in CPU overhead. For a live encoding application where the encoder need to operate at high speed to reach 60 frames-per-second (FPS), a compromise in bitrate performance or absolute quality is typically required.
Codec intricacy, such as that required by HEVC, AV1, and the forthcoming VVC, is surpassing bitrate performance advancements and this has created the requirement for video encoder efficiency optimization. Put another way, speed matters. Generally, this is not a location that video encoding practitioners and Click Here to Learn More image scientists have needed to be worried about, however that is no longer the case.
Figure 1 shows the advantages of a software encoding implementation, which, when all qualities are stabilized, such as FPS and objective quality metrics, can do twice as much work on the specific very same AWS EC2 C5.18 xlarge circumstances.
In this example, the open-source encoders x264 and x265 are compared to Beamr's AVC and HEVC encoders, Beamr 4, and Beamr 5.
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For services needing to encode live 4Kp60, one can see that it is possible with Beamr 5 however not with x265. Beamr 5 set to the x264 comparable 'ultrafast' mode can encode four private streams on a single AWS EC2 C5.18 xlarge instance while x265 operating in 'ultrafast' can not reach 60 FPS at 4K. As you can see in this poignant example, codec performance is directly related to the quality of service as a result of fewer devices and less complicated encoding frameworks needed.
For those services who are mainly interested in VOD and H. 264, the ideal half of the Figure 1 graphic programs the performance benefit of an efficiency optimized codec application that is established to produce very high quality with a high bitrate effectiveness. Here one can see up to a 2x advantage with Beamr 4 compared to x264.
Video encoding calculate resources cost genuine money.
OPEX is considered carefully by every video supplier. But expect entertainment experiences like live 4K streaming can not be provided reliably as a result of a mismatch in between the video operations ability and the expectation of the customer. Keeping in mind that many mobile phones offered today are capable of 1440p if not 4K display screen. And consumers are wanting material that matches the resolution and quality of the gadgets they bring in their pockets.
Because of performance limitations with how the open-source encoder x265 utilizes calculate cores, it is not possible to encode a live 4Kp60 video stream on a single device. This does not imply that live 4K encoding in software isn't possible. But it does state that to provide the quality of video experience consumers anticipate, video suppliers will require to assess business options that have been performance enhanced for high core counts and multi-threaded processors such as those available from AMD and Intel.
The need for software to be enhanced for greater core counts was recently highlighted by AMD CTO Mark Papermaster in an interview with Tom's Hardware.
Video suppliers wanting to utilize software application for the flexibility and virtualization alternatives they provide will encounter excessively made complex engineering obstacles unless they choose encoding engines where multi-processor scaling is belonging to the architecture of the software application encoder.
Here is an article that reveals the speed benefit of Beamr 5 over x265.
Things to believe about concerning computing efficiency and performance:
It's tempting to think this is just a problem for video banners with 10s or hundreds of millions of subscribers, the same trade-off considerations need to be thought about regardless of the size of your operations. While a 30% savings at 1080p (H. 264), which is encoded at 3.5 Mbps, will offer more than triple the return, at a 1 Mbps cost savings. The point is, we must thoroughly and methodically consider where we are spending our compute resources to get the maximum ROI possible.
A business software application option will be developed by a dedicated codec engineering team that can stabilize the requirements of bitrate performance, quality, and calculate efficiency. Exactly why the architecture of x264 and x265 can not scale.
Firmly insist internal groups and consultants perform compute efficiency benchmarking on all software encoding services under factor to consider. The three vectors to determine are outright speed (FPS), private stream density when FPS is held continuous, and the overall number of channels that can be created on a single server utilizing a small ABR stack such as 4K, 1080p, 720p, 480p, and 360p. All encoders should produce equivalent video quality throughout all tests.
With so much upheaval in the distribution model and go-to-market business plans for streaming home entertainment video services, it may be tempting to push down the priority stack choice of new, more effective software video encoders. With software application eating the video encoding function, calculate performance is now the oxygen required to thrive and win against a progressively competitive and crowded direct-to-consumer (D2C) marketplace.
You can experiment with Beamr's software video encoders today and get up to 100 hours of free HEVC and H. 264 video transcoding every month. CLICK ON THIS LINK
