Bitmovin Enables Innovation With New VVC Codec Feature

Bitmovin Collaborates with Fraunhofer Group to Integrate the Most Advanced and Efficient Codec on the Market to its Encoding Solution

San Francisco, CA /PRNewswire/ - Bitmovin, a world leader in online streaming video technology, announced today that it has incorporated H.266/Versatile Video Coding (VVC), the most efficient video compression standard, into its encoding solution. The new codec is the result of a collaboration between several organizations, including the Fraunhofer Heinrich Hertz Institute (Fraunhofer HHI), a leading research institute in the development of mobile and fixed broadband communication networks. Bitmovin (www.bitmovin.com) has been one of the few organizations testing H.266/VVC for real use application and verifying its performance quality during Fraunhofer's verification process. Now that H.266/VVC is finalized, Bitmovin is among the first to integrate the new codec and does not require device updates nor additional licenses.

Bitmovin is well-suited to implement H.266/VVC because its cloud encoder uses a distributed architecture that enables the company to provide fast turnaround times and use commodity infrastructure like spot instances on AWS. Furthermore, the unique architecture of Bitmovin’s encoder will allow the company to quickly offer other features such as 3-Pass and Per-Title encoding.

Next Gen Codec More Efficient
The streaming-video-on-demand (SVOD) industry has exploded in recent years, forcing online content providers, VoD and OTT platforms to prioritize quality of experience and bandwidth savings to remain competitive. H.266/VVC can produce bitrate savings up to 50% compared to its predecessor H.265/HEVC, also co-developed by Fraunhofer, without losing perceived quality.

Benjamin Bross, head of video coding systems group at Fraunhofer HHI said, "With VVenC, we made a fast, high-quality VVC encoder for the new H.266/VVC standard publicly available that is a perfect fit for cloud encoding. We're excited to see Bitmovin among the first to launch a cloud-based implementation of this groundbreaking new standard."

The ultimate goal is to create a new state of the art compression standard that is able to deliver very high quality video at a lower bitrate than was possible with prior standards. While all lossy video compression standards like H.266/VVC remove information, the idea is to remove only the information that is least important for the human visual system. Testing during Fraunhofer's standardization process showed H.266/VVC has an advantage on 4K HDR video and is quite competitive compared to other codecs used in broadcasting and entertainment.

Video Innovation On its Way
The standardization of H.266/VVC was finalized in July 2020, and we expect mobile devices to support the new codec as early as 2021. In the meantime, streaming developers can experiment with different video formats such as 4K and 8K HDR, 360 degree panoramic video, screen sharing and more using Bitmovin’s new H.266/VVC feature.

"We are honored Fraunhofer has chosen to work closely with Bitmovin to integrate the new VVC codec into our Bitmovin Encoding solution," said Stefan Lederer, CEO Bitmovin. "Our customers and the developer community are always eager to experiment with the latest video streaming technology. Bitmovin's collaboration and integration with Fraunhofer means they now can test and innovate using the most advanced and efficient codec on the market."

About Bitmovin
Bitmovin is a leading provider of video infrastructure for global digital media companies. The company has been at the forefront of all major developments in digital video - from building the world's first commercial adaptive streaming player to deploying the first software-defined encoding service that runs on any cloud provider. Bitmovin works with media companies to build innovative video products.