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The Evolution of H.264 from Codec to System Architecture December 7, 2010 the Evolution of H.264 – from Codec to System Architecture | WHITE PAPER

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The Evolution of H.264 from Codec to System Architecture December 7, 2010 the Evolution of H.264 – from Codec to System Architecture | WHITE PAPER WHITE PAPER The Evolution of H.264 From Codec to System Architecture December 7, 2010 The Evolution of H.264 – From Codec to System Architecture | WHITE PAPER Table of Contents Executive Summary 3 The Origin of a Standard 4 H.264 4 Streaming System Landscape 6 Encoders 7 Capture Stations 8 Recording and Storage 8 Transport and Distribution 8 HTML5 and Trends 9 VOD 10 Players 10 H.264’s Real World Benefits 10 Deployment in the Enterprise 11 System Scalability and Reliability 11 Efficient Network Distribution 11 Streaming and Videoconferencing Integration 12 Turnkey Systems and Horizontal Integration 12 Applications 12 Value, ROI, and Longevity 13 Conclusion 13 VBrick Systems Inc. / 12 Beaumont Road / Wallingford, CT 06492 / P 203.265.0044 / www.VBrick.com 2 The Evolution of H.264 – From Codec to System Architecture | WHITE PAPER Executive Summary The past decade has seen dramatic growth in the use of streaming video by enterprises, government agencies, and educational institutions. Over this period, video quality improved greatly, content creation and distribution became simpler, and video systems became integrated with business applications like unified communications. Today’s companies derive significant productivity gains and high economic value from video applications such as corporate communications, training, TV distribution, executive broadcasts, and collaboration. Although numerous technical factors have combined to produce these benefits, the key enabling technology behind the success of streaming is encoding and compression. The H.264 video compression standard represents the culmination of this effort. It delivers reliable, high quality video that can run over virtually any type of network and on virtually any type of device when implemented in conjunction with other player technologies. The benefits of H.264 have driven many technology providers such as Adobe (with Flash), Microsoft (with Smooth Streaming), and Apple (with iPhone video) to adopt H.264 as their codec of choice going forward. As this paper describes, the choice of codec also has a large ripple effect across the entire streaming ecosystem. For example, while previous generation streaming systems worked well for LAN-attached desktop clients, most cannot accommodate new types of client devices such as smartphones, tablets, mobile devices, and large screen displays. As video has become a mainstream tool in business, companies are looking for more from their system vendors. To maximize investments in both technology and video content and reduce costly “forklift” upgrades, a smooth transition from older tech- nologies like Windows Media to newer ones like H.264 is mandatory. Customers are looking toward Unified Communications systems and improved IT system integration to derive even more value from video. The need to seamlessly extend live and stored video from one single platform to both intranet and Internet clients is of growing importance. To improve usability, simplify workflows, and reduce interoperability issues, companies are also looking for vendors to deliver all the needed pieces of a complete enterprise media solution. As related to enterprise-class video, this paper addresses the needs of CIOs, IT managers, system architects, and communications and media specialists. The choice of video standard has a major impact on the business applications, system components, and versatility of enterprise streaming systems. This paper focuses on understanding the key technical and business concerns when selecting a new streaming video system. VBrick Systems Inc. / 12 Beaumont Road / Wallingford, CT 06492 / P 203.265.0044 / www.VBrick.com 3 The Evolution of H.264 – From Codec to System Architecture | WHITE PAPER The Origin of a Standard Over the long First released in 1992, MPEG-1 was the first widely adopted digital audio/video compression standard. term the collective Since that time, manufacturers have made steady progress in improving digital audio/video compression industry and and encoding in a number of key areas, including higher resolutions and better motion handling, compression ratios, metadata, and more. While many encoder and equipment manufacturers have taken a standards- user force behind based approach and have followed the MPEG and ITU standards, others like Microsoft, Sorenson, and standards helps Google have gone the proprietary route to better suit their ends. them to catch and surpass proprietary H.264 solutions. The most popular and fastest growing video compression standard today is H.264, an international ITU standard first released in 2003. Other standards bodies such as MPEG collaborated with the ITU on this standard. MPEG’s identical version of the standard is called MPEG-4 AVC (Advanced Video Coding) or MPEG-4 Part 10. Prior video compression standards each had their drawbacks. Still in widespread use, MPEG-2 works well at medium to high bitrates, but compression is only fair. The MPEG-2 codec has poor video quality at low bitrates and is inappropriate for low powered devices like smartphones. MPEG-4 is good for low bandwidth applications like Internet streaming, but video quality is only fair and the codec does not scale to high definition. Microsoft’s Windows Media encoder is a good general-purpose encoder in the enterprise, but use of a proprietary player makes this format unsuitable for many Internet viewers and mobile devices. The technical strength of a video codec is measured by its ability to efficiently compress video content at a wide range of resolutions. The relationship between video resolution and compression efficiency for a number of popular video codecs is shown in below in Figure 1. Figure 1. Codec Resolution vs. Efficiency Real Windows Media MPEG-2 H.264 Video Resolution Video MPEG-4 MPEG-1 Compression Efficiency VBrick Systems Inc. / 12 Beaumont Road / Wallingford, CT 06492 / P 203.265.0044 / www.VBrick.com 4 The Evolution of H.264 – From Codec to System Architecture | WHITE PAPER These earlier aging codecs have spurred customer demand for a more sophisticated and scalable codec that can meet a diverse number of needs. Pressure from more users and playback platforms adds to this need. These key codec requirements include: • Codec scalability – one codec that works at a wide range of bit rates and resolutions • Universal client support – playback on virtually any device, from small handheld displays to desktops to large screen HD displays • Improved compression, resulting in lower bit rate streams and smaller file sizes • Improved motion handling – fewer video artifacts and dropouts • A wide range of profiles to match different types of applications • Choice of transport protocols The H.264 codec meets all of these requirements and delivers an efficient, high quality video experience to the user regardless of their network infrastructure or playback device. Due to its technical advantages and standardization, H.264 has become the dominant streaming video codec over the past two years. H.264’s strong industry backing and modern codec architecture result in regular feature enhancements. Once compressed and encoded, digital video is packetized for transmission across an IP network. Given the wide variety of IP networks (optical, LAN, WAN, wireless, satellite, Internet, cable TV, etc.) and playback devices (HD displays, wireless 3G and 4G mobile devices, and low bandwidth Internet clients), different transport protocols are needed to ensure the smooth and reliable delivery of video. Building upon lessons learned in the past, H.264 offers a wide range of transport protocols to address this need. Some examples include RTP/RTSP, Transport Stream, Flash RTMP, HTTP, Smooth Streaming and TCP/RTSP Interleave. This rich set of transport options gives system architects the ability to precisely match the streaming protocol to their application and network. The following table illustrates some common appli- cations and their corresponding protocols. Table 1. Application Streaming Protocol Streaming Applications and Broadcast Backhaul Transport Stream (TS) Transport Internet via CDN RTMP Protocols Enterprise Flash RTMP for Unicast, RTMFP for Multicast WAN RTSP Interleaved for TCP Transmission WAN through Firewall HTTP Tunneled Enterprise LAN RTP or TS Multicast STB Display TS VBrick Systems Inc. / 12 Beaumont Road / Wallingford, CT 06492 / P 203.265.0044 / www.VBrick.com 5 The Evolution of H.264 – From Codec to System Architecture | WHITE PAPER Streaming System Landscape The construction of a business-class enterprise video system begins with encoder and codec selection but does not end there. Due to the multitude of applications for video as well as the diversity of corporate network topologies, customers can choose from a wide range of streaming video peripheral and playback devices. These components are depicted in Figure 2 below and include: • Capture stations • Video on Demand or streaming servers • Mobile capture devices • Network distribution products, including • Video portal and management systems streaming reflectors and remote VOD servers • Video editing and post-processing systems • Playback software and hardware • Video recording systems • Internetworking devices such as video conference systems • Storage devices and systems Figure 2. H.264 System DISPLAY Elements PC or Mac Laptop DISTRIBUTE CREATE & MANAGE iPhone Encode Portal and Management System Reflector Large Display Capture VOD Digital Signage Network Video Remote Mobile Broadcaster Recorder VOD Blackberry Videoconferencing Set Top Box Tablet VBrick
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