Advantages of AVC leading to market dominance
MPEG-4 AVC, also known as MPEG-4 Part 10 or H.264, was produced by the Joint Video Team (JVT), a joint project between the ITU-T Video Coding Experts Group and the ISO/IEC Moving Picture Experts Group. The first specification of this standard was published in 2003. AVC is now one of the most popular video codecs used for streaming and recording. It has diverse applications, including DVB/ATSC digital broadcasting, сable TV services, video conferencing, video surveillance, Blu-Ray disc recording, and other areas in the digital video field.
What advantages does AVC have?
- High quality at low bitrates. This is the most crucial factor for all providers. With AVC, it is possible to carry two channels where MPEG-2 only allowed one. This lowers the cost of broadcasting considerably and allows acceptable broadcasting quality with limited bandwidth.
- Fault tolerance, making it possible to reproduce the picture despite errors in data transmission through various networks.
- “One-stop” licensing model.
- Low implementation cost and wide choice of supporting devices. This advantage is a consequence of the previous one: thanks to simple licensing, many device manufacturers implemented support for the standard. This improved compatibility between AVC-based solutions and appeared commercially attractive.
Today, more advanced coding standards are available on the market such as HEVC, AV1, VP9, VVC. They improve compression efficiency by up to 50% compared to AVC but are sometimes difficult to integrate and use. HEVC was considered a successor to AVC, but limited uptake of 4K video and complex licensing mechanism have held back its implementation considerably.
In the future, there will be several dominant players in this market niche. For example, AV1 and VP9 may consolidate their position as the “codecs of choice” for streaming media distribution while AVC/H.264 and HEVC may remain as the primary TV broadcasting codecs. That being said, each broadcaster or premium TV provider has its unique infrastructure, which means any single codec is unlikely to ever emerge as a clear winner here.
Broadcasters naturally want to use codecs based on more advanced standards. However, large numbers of people still consume SD and HD content, making it necessary to invest in updating the old codecs so that they meet the demand for quality of content required by most of the audience. AVC has enough parameters to cover all types of end-user devices.
It has been a good while since AVC emerged, but it is still relevant and considered a “gold standard” in TV broadcasting and OTT services.
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