Youtube's VP9 4K streaming Codec + RED

[Maik Müller]

Super stoked to help get VP9 turned on for the ShotOnRed YouTube Channel. I developed the pipeline for www.youtube.com/YouTubeNation which is the first daily episodic 4K show in the world - happens to be shot on Red Scarlet

Thank you very much Peter!

Cheers to that Peter! This sort of digital delivery is certainly outperforming what people get in their homes via the common broadcast methods. It's a shame too, because some of those shows certainly deserve better. So do the viewers. So do the content creators.

I think we finally see the future, download and streaming has finally the potential to outperform broadcast and physical media. The Pros are countless, the Cons don't weight that much anymore. Do we really need Blu4k? Netflix and Youtube in 4k are just the beginning. The game is totally changing now. I hope Google Play Movies starts to use VP9 and 4k soon.

And on a side-note i'm really happy to look into a future where the so called "ratings" get more realistic. Firefly on Netflix would have never been canceled after Season 1.

Damn, i wish REDRAY would have been the game-changer.

 

[Phil Holland]

I think we finally see the future, download and streaming has finally the potential to outperform broadcast and physical media. The Pros are countless, the Cons don't weight that much anymore. Do we really need Blu4k? Netflix and Youtube in 4k are just the beginning. The game is totally changing now. I hope Google Play Movies starts to use VP9 and 4k soon.

I think 4K Blu-ray still has a place in this market. Especially when you look at the realistic hardware requirements and the potential to explore the possibilities they provide.

There will be a day that a 4K Blu-ray ships and has the film, very impressive menu graphics, a good amount of behind the scenes content, potentially the entire copy of the film's soundtrack, and perhaps even more impressive mini-games than we've seen before. Heck, you can have 3D models load up of your favorite monsters from a film. You can also have it serve as a launch portal to "other places".

That extra content and direct ownership of the media is still alluring to some. Also, handing somebody a disc is still pretty easy to do for a lot of other types of applications

 

[Will Keir]

Same here. Great to see some collaboration. Youtube.com is where we go to watch TV.

Awesome! Can't wait to see what comes of this.

 

[Matt Ryan]

Hey Matt, Peter's brother here. I just tested downloading the link successfully.

I'm using OSX 10.8.5 with Google Chrome browser.

Thanks Jonathan, finally got it to work in Firefox. I'm on 19.9.3 and was not working in Chrome or Safari but Firefox did the trick. Thanks!

 

[Jonathan Salvia]

Glad you got it working Matt!

 

[Blair S. Paulsen]

Congrats Peter. Don't know if you remember but we met at a class, ColorCamp IIRC, you had just left the DNC.

Might have to come check out your shop one of these days. Thanx for the pre-set.

Cheers - #19

 

[Peter Salvia]

Congrats Peter. Don't know if you remember but we met at a class

Of course Blair! It was a REDucation course for me - that was like 4 years ago!

I coined our Post department here at YouTube Nation the '4K Post Ninjas' out of respect and admiration for all the cutting edge work you and your company has represented for me over the years.

I remember being in the Red Studios 4K theater with you and being blown away by the resolution, color grading in real time on the big screen; that was awesome!

To think we're here just a short 4 years later and that same resolution is available in home streaming over wifi... cheers Blair

 

[Freya]

Thanks Jonathan, finally got it to work in Firefox. I'm on 19.9.3 and was not working in Chrome or Safari but Firefox did the trick. Thanks!

I strongly suspect you are watching in h.264 then or possibly VP8 but what the heck if you have the bandwidth!
Vp9 is still not playing good with youtube as of Firefox build 28.

Freya

 

[Elsie N]

Isn't there a Firefox 30 out now?

 

[Freya]

Isn't there a Firefox 30 out now?

There is indeed! However media source extensions (which is what are needed to get it working) are not scheduled to arrive till version 31:

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=881512

You can turn on MSE in the mean time by going into the special hack settings but it was quite badly broken last I tried.

Freya

 

[Blair S. Paulsen]

I wonder what the status of VP9 support is in Assimilate's 'Scratch Play"?

Lucas? Jeff? Stevie B?

Cheers - #19

 

[Elsie N]

There is indeed! However media source extensions (which is what are needed to get it working) are not scheduled to arrive till version 31:

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=881512

You can turn on MSE in the mean time by going into the special hack settings but it was quite badly broken last I tried.

Freya

Good to know. I'll wait for 31 and skip 30.

 

[Gabriele Turchi]

so , on the RED youtube channel , if i select 720P or 1080P the image is that incredible (compression wise i mean ) , for example second shot on this video (on the far right you can big macro blocking of compression )

what is the bi-rate used when selected on 4K playback (let's say 1080P) ?

thanks
g

t

 

[Matt Ryan]

I strongly suspect you are watching in h.264 then or possibly VP8 but what the heck if you have the bandwidth!
Vp9 is still not playing good with youtube as of Firefox build 28.

Freya

huh? I'm not talking about watching the video on youtube... It was about downloading the AME preset file from Mega...

The RED channlel videos played very well in Chrome for me. Didn't try it in anything else.

 

[Peter Salvia]

VP9 topline info

VP9 topline info

Here's a quick update with some general info about VP9, working on getting more specifics about bitrate, etc. If there's anything specific folks here would like to know post it and I'll work on getting answers.

• VP9 is making YouTube play faster, smoother and better in quality, as we ramp up deployment globally
• Smoother: VP9 has improved buffering by 25% in developed markets & 100% in emerging markets
• VP9 deployment: VP9 represents 60% of Chrome video playbacks on desktop
• Better quality: VP9 has increased YouTube HD delivery by over 25% in emerging markets
• Faster: VP9 has reduced HD playback latency by 15% everywhere
• VP9 is enabling YouTube reach the next billion people in emerging markets
• VP9 gains across the board more pronounced in emerging markets
• VP9 has broad industry adoption with now over 20 major TV, mobile & PC partners supporting it in their products starting 2014.

Here are few partners leading VP9 adoption:

• Ittiam VP9 OpenCL decoder is available now, link to press release here
• MediaTek & Sigma TV chipsets with VP9 support will be available in 2014
• LG & Samsung TVs with VP9 support will be available in 2015

 

[Blair S. Paulsen]

Win - Win

Win - Win

Thanks Peter.

Your notes obviously include a bit of marketing, but that's reasonable considering the hat you're wearing and the real world need to rally folks to the potential of IP delivery enabled by modern codecs.

I don't think you need my encouragement to do so, but I want to make a standing request on behalf of the RedUser community for you to stay engaged here. In particular, there are many of us who want to get our work seen at as close to it's best as current bandwidth permits, and UHD/4K is part of that (yes, color/character/etc matter too, relax). Maybe I'm the dense one, but it still makes no sense to me that in June 2014 we still don't have a "plain vanilla" spec for UHD deliverables that everyone can default to in the absence of a detailed deliverables spec spelled out by a particular contractual obligation. Don't get me wrong, I fully expect the UHD specs of 2014 to be superseded in due course, but for the impatient true believers of the Rebellion the time to storm the gates is now.

If you can give us templates for creating UHD VP9 deliverables in AME, Compressor, RCX-Pro, Scratch, etc that would be VERY helpful to many of us. As a bonus, if a bunch of folks start pushing out material in VP9 that fits neatly into what works best on YouTube it could make your job a bit easier. Moreover, if people manage to push better PQ through the process then YouTube, by extension, can offer a better viewing experience to those ever sought after eyeballs.

Cheers - #19

 

[Peter Salvia]

Your notes obviously include a bit of marketing, but that's reasonable considering the hat you're wearing

Totally Blair, I wanted to include some info to shed light on the bigger distribution picture as well for the reduser community to take in. Knowing that your content is getting opened up to ANOTHER BILLION PEOPLE by being offered in VP9 is huge. That's another billion eyeballs for monetizing world class content available in extremely low bit rates.

I don't think you need my encouragement to do so, but I want to make a standing request on behalf of the RedUser community for you to stay engaged here.

Making it a point to check in here as part of my daily routine. I'm cranking out anywhere from 2 - 10 4K deliverables a day so I may take a minute to respond, but as long as Brian or Brent can give me a heads up I'll be sure to hop on and add my 2 cents

If you can give us templates for creating UHD VP9 deliverables in AME, Compressor, RCX-Pro, Scratch, etc that would be VERY helpful to many of us.

Posted a link to download the H.264 AME preset we use on the show everyday here. This is encoded on the server side to VP9 so I don't have a VP9 AME preset (yet)...

 

[Phil Holland]

If you can give us templates for creating UHD VP9 deliverables in AME, Compressor, RCX-Pro, Scratch, etc that would be VERY helpful to many of us. As a bonus, if a bunch of folks start pushing out material in VP9 that fits neatly into what works best on YouTube it could make your job a bit easier. Moreover, if people manage to push better PQ through the process then YouTube, by extension, can offer a better viewing experience to those ever sought after eyeballs.

None of those applications truly "support" VP9 yet. Though it's coming.

Brendan Bolles did create this VP9 exporter for Adobe Media Encoder, which works:
http://fnordware.blogspot.com/2013/12/webm-and-theora-plug-ins-for-premiere.html

However, if you really want to unlock what VP9 has to offer at the moment you are limited to compiling your own tools or at a minimum getting familiar with FFMPEG.

 

[Blair S. Paulsen]

Thanks for the notes Phil. As quickly as things are moving in this space it's very helpful to get the front line scoop from someone who has to clear the same hurdles we all do.

Just for the record, if anyone reading this is part of the dev team at AVID/Adobe/Apple/Assimilate/BMD, etc, please make VP9 UHD deliverables templates a priority.

Thanx - #19

 

[Ketch Rossi]

Very happy to see one of our pieces showcased on the shotonRED Channel...

"The Last Snow in Valle D'Aosta" put us to the test during shooting, and I for the first time also got Heli seek ness, crazy ride on the Alps, but a great adventure with fellow Reduser Filmmaker Stefano Ceccon!

My buddy Stefano Ceccon working some matin for the BTS on the Epic... While I try to get the a shot before loosing filling of my fingers... NO matter how heavy you dress up, your fingers always seem to want to fall off frozen...