VP9 Pricing: When Does Adding VP9 Lead to Bandwidth Cost Savings?

我刚从流媒体论坛在伦敦, 在哪里, 在我的一次编解码器会议上, a central question came up: When does it make economic sense to add a VP9 transcode to save bandwidth costs on the delivery of these streams to platforms that can play them? 这是经典的盈亏平衡分析, in which you identify the fixed cost and divide it by the variable cost savings to determine the quantity necessary to recoup the fixed cost. In this column, I’ll explore this analysis regarding VP9. (注意，我已经创建并共享电子表格T包含了这个分析.)

这种情况下的固定成本是编码, which will vary according to your encoding tool and situation. 例如, 如果你有无限的过剩产能, 代价可能为零, while if you’re paying a cloud encoder for the encoding, 你将按分钟付费, 或按GB, 或者按小时编码. 假设你属于后者, the cost for encoding to VP9 format is dropping and is likely less than you’d think. 例如, the Amazon Elastic Transcoder and Zencoder cloud encoders both support VP9 output and don’t appear to charge a premium.

An example on the Amazon CloudFront site calculates that a 10-minute source with 3 SD and 2 HD outputs, 加上一个单一的音频输出, 价格是1美元.24 .编码. Let’s multiply this by six to get to an hour, and a total encoding cost of about $7.50. 这是固定成本. 很明显, 固定成本越高, 需要更多的流量来实现收支平衡, 如果你在做这个分析, now might be a good time to see if you’re paying the lowest possible price for encoding.

The variable cost saving has two elements— the percentage bandwidth savings attributable to VP9 and the cost per GB for delivery. For the purposes of this analysis, I’m going to assume an average 37.带宽减少5%，原来是3%.在我的分析中是2mbps到2mbps.

带宽成本到处都是, 而且你付的钱越少, the more streams you need to deliver to offset the fixed cost. 看着 Dan Rayburn’s most recent CDN pricing analysis from May 2016, those spending more than $1M per year were paying between $0.005美元和0美元.008/GB, while those spending between $500K and $1M were paying from $0.007 to $0.012/GB. On the other hand, if you’re paying retail on CloudFront, you could be paying any在哪里 from $0.02 to $0.在美国为085/GB.S., with prices often double or triple this for other regions.

编码成本为7美元.50, these delivery costs make a huge difference. 如果你付0美元.6/GB，你在231流上收支平衡. 如果你付0美元.2006年，盈亏平衡跳到2315条流. All these figures are available on the spreadsheet referred to above, including computations for encoding costs ranging from $3 to $20/unit.

最后几点:首先, this analysis is not all about cost; it can be about capacity within a fixed pipe or quality of service. 例如, JW Player started offering VP9 streams in mid-2016. According to SVP of product strategy John Luther, “65.29 percent of VP9 was viewed at 1080p, while only 28.21 percent of HLS video hit the optimum 1080p.” So, 除了节省成本, VP9 improved the quality of the experience of those viewing these streams. For the record, Luther also reported that at 1080p, H.264 streams would have consumed 40 percent more bandwidth.

Also note that just because Amazon supports VP9 output doesn’t mean that it supports VP9 output in DASH format, 这是ABR交付所需的材料吗. So whichever encoder you use, make sure it can output DASH streams. And if you use DASH, you may need to add the new $0.05/DASH royalty into the breakeven analysis, adding a whole new level of cost and complexity.

This article appears in the April/May 2017 issue of 流媒体杂志 作为“VP9:盈亏平衡分析”."

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