BEIJING, Dec. 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- iQIYI Inc. (Nasdaq:
IQ) ("iQIYI" or the "Company"), an innovative market-leading online
entertainment service in China, is
pleased to announce that its proprietary QAV1 encoder has debuted
at the MSU Video Codecs Comparison 2020 event and won the third
prize for structural similarity index measurement (SSIM).
The event, sponsored by Moscow State University and attended by
dozens of teams from leading tech companies such as Alibaba, Baidu,
Google, Intel, and Tencent, was held
in May this year with the list of winning teams announced on
December 9.
The MSU Video Codecs Comparison, now in its fifteenth year, is
one of the world's leading tech events. With significant influence
in the field of video encoding, the MSU Video Codecs Comparison
event also acts as a guide for the development of video codec
industry. The 2020 contest saw the participation of 21 encoders of
6 video encoding standards from 17 companies or organizations
including 10 H265 encoders, 6 AV1 (Alliance for Open Media Video 1)
encoders, and 5 other encoders. Among them, iQIYI's QAV1 encoder
demonstrated an excellent balance between compression speed and
image quality. Although the QAV1 encoder ranked third place for
SSIM, it beat the first and second places for average FPS by 1.63
times and 2.52 times respectively, outperforming most H265 encoders
in both compression speed and compression ratio.
Due to the rising popularity of short videos, UHD VOD, live
streaming, and VR in recent years, subscribers' demand for a
seamless UHD video experience is surging. A burning issue for
enhancing subscriber' viewing experience has been the question of
how to reduce bandwidth consumption without sacrificing video
quality. As one of the most critical steps in this process,
increasing attention is being paid to video compression encoding.
AV1, a new generation video encoding standard released by the
Alliance for Open Media (AOM) in June
2018, aims to transmit HD video content while using less
bandwidth. At present, the AOM has 45 members, including Google,
Facebook, Amazon, Intel, Netflix, Apple, and others.
iQIYI officially joined the AOM in 2018, becoming the first
Chinese member of the alliance. Following that in April of this
year, iQIYI launched the AV1 video encoding format for subscribers
on PC web browsers and Android devices, becoming the first Chinese
video streaming site to support AV1 video codec.
In addition to providing excellent compression speed and image
quality, iQIYI's proprietary QAV1 encoder also features low
complexity and low computational costs for large-scale
applications. At present, iQIYI already has the ability to produce
HD AV1 video content on a large scale while enriching the online
video content in AV1 format. iQIYI has not rested on its laurels
and ceased upgrading and optimizing the encoder after participating
in the MSU Video Codecs Comparison event.
For example, iQIYI has since completed the upgrading of the
encoder's rate-distortion optimization (RDO) algorithm,
significantly improving the compression efficiency while still
maintaining the advantage of fast encoding. In addition, the QAV1
encoder also successively supports many encoding functions such as
8K, HFR, and HDR encoding, achieving
a better balance between bandwidth consumption and HD experience
through a more intelligent bit-rate allocation. With the support of
iQIYI's world-leading QAV1 encoder, subscribers can experience
high-quality video with higher definition, better color fidelity,
and smoother picture movement.
As the 5G network accelerates the popularization of applications
such as UHD video, cloud games, VR, and live streaming, video
encoding has become a key technology that determines streaming
platforms' operating costs and user experience. As China's leading online video streaming
platform, iQIYI has long been committed to technological research
in the field of video compression standards, constantly refining
algorithms in order to eventually realize the QAV1 encoder's fast
trans-coding and efficient compression. In doing so, iQIYI has made
it possible to deliver users a higher-definition experience at low
bit-rates while also saving bandwidth costs. iQIYI has also teamed
up with the world's top chipmaker MediaTek to take the lead in
launching AV1 format videos for subscribers on mobile devices.
In the future, iQIYI will continue to work with other AOM
members to create open-ended and high-quality technical standards.
By strengthening its partnerships with companies, chipmakers,
mobile phone vendors, and other parties, iQIYI will further promote
the commercialization of the AV1 standard and enhance the
high-quality audiovisual experience for its subscribers in the 5G
era.
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SOURCE iQIYI