Codec Complexity is a 'Nuclear Bomb,' Says Bitmovin Report

低延迟正在成为2020年的首要关注领域，以补充对直播和交互式流媒体体验日益增长的需求. 但是设备的复杂性和编解码器的惰性阻碍了实现 Bitmovin的 third annual Developer Report.

新闻1 “OTT编解码器市场的复杂性就像一颗核弹爆炸了," says Kieran Farr, VP of marketing at Bitmovin. "I think that will settle down as some [vendors] go out of business, and the rest will have to make money out of it. We are all going to have to deal with a multi-codec world."

Survey participants include representatives of OVPs, 奥特提供者, 社交媒体, 出版商, cable and telcos, and broadcasters.

近一半的企业计划在未来两年内实施低延迟解决方案, 随着越来越多的新兴形式，如交互式内容，越来越需要“逼真”的体验.

近三分之一的受访者希望延迟少于一秒. A more "realistic and achievable goal," according to Bitmovin, 当涉及到可扩展事件时，至少在短期内延迟小于5秒(一半的受访者预期)吗.

“服务提供商正在寻找类似广播的5到10秒的延迟, in contrast to the de-facto online latency which is north of 30s," says Sean McCarthy, senior technical product marketing manager. "Thankfully, few people are looking for sub-second latency. For most sports events it's not realistic or necessary."

尽管对低延迟的需求在上升，但该行业仍在努力实现这一目标.

Low latency requires encoders, 外包商, 发布商, and video players to be updated to deliver end-to-end latency targets. 以一致的方式跨多个设备和平台实现这一点，将复杂性提升到了一个全新的水平, increasing time-to-market.

"The video streaming ecosystem is quite fragmented, 复杂的, and hence slow to change," suggests McCarthy. “将低延迟标准(如CMAF)更新到PC上很简单，但在不同设备上却很难做到, particularly to smartphones, which have different or long cycles for updates. That mean this new technology is not available. 跨设备的复杂性是视频流提供商面临的主要挑战."

例如，Bitmovin不支持iOS原生的CMAF，因为苹果对其使用的限制.

"It's possible to do a lot of software decoding to get around, that but it's laborious," McCarthy says.

果然，H.264/AVC仍然是目前最常用的编解码器(91%)，但设备制造商, browser vendors, and content distributers like Cisco, Mozilla, and YouTube have started implementing AV1 on larger scales. Bitmovin认为，AV1有能力与HEVC竞争，并在2020年在开源用例方面取代VP9.

"Almost everyone is reliant on H.264 as the practical encoder of choice," says Farr. “作为供应商，我们自然希望编码向前发展，但这应该与整个行业有关. 关于 90% of devices can support a codec other than H.264，但他们不会转移到VP9或HEVC，这使得AV1的讨论变得多余，更不用说MPEG5和VVC了."

Bitmovin表示，如果广播公司采用多编解码器方法，利用设备的能力并优化比特率阶梯，那么广播公司可以节省高达30%或更多的CDN成本, but almost none are doing so.

“围绕HEVC成本的问题阻碍了市场……但广播公司也有做出改变的惯性，以及(市场复杂性造成的)对正确方法的一些困惑。”."

调查还发现，随着云编码实现的稳步增长，软件本地编码仍然是首选, 如果慢慢, at 2% year-over-year growth.

根据该报告，2019年硬件编码实现增长了5%. 作者将此归因于依赖SDI连接的直播工作流的增加, "especially those demanding low latency applications."

另外, 硬件编码器仍然是简化设置和流管理的首选, 特别是那些可能倾向于最大化其投资价值的广播公司，同时更谨慎地转向云计算.

免费的谷歌分析工具是受访者的首选. This is usually implemented at the website level, 开发者发现，扩展收集一些额外的视频相关参数很容易.

视频缓冲率是最常用的性能指标，为36.5%.

令人惊讶的是, 五分之一的调查参与者回答说，他们没有使用任何视频分析产品——可能会错过了解他们的视频内容的真正投资回报率. 他们的想法是，整合有洞察力的分析是复杂的，而且可能代价高昂, with not many affordable solutions available. 此外，决策者很难理解分析提供了ROI.

“增加另一层复杂性的是，开发者经常需要解决所有这些挑战，满足内容保护和盈利方面的业务需求," asserts Bitmovin CEO Stefan Lederer. “简而言之, 每个人都在试图弄清楚如何以最高质量传输视频, the most cost-effective way, 在规模上."

该调查于今年7月对来自108个国家的542名行业高管进行了调查.