Four of the five biggest companies in tech now are backing an effort to make video easier and
cheaper online.
On Monday, Facebook joined the Alliance for Open Media, a consortium building new video compression technology that doesn't require any patent licensing payments. The effort unified next-gen video compression work already under way at Google, Mozilla and Cisco, and includes major online video partners Netflix and Amazon. Microsoft is also part of the alliance.
Video compression may sound like an obscure technology, but it's critical to our life online. Good compression lets us stream video and upload our own in a world where networks often are maxed out even before we all start downloading 4K movies and playing with augmented reality headsets.
For years, the H.264 video compression technology, also called AVC, has dominated the market. Its successor, called HEVC or H.265, could do the same. Apple likes HEVC a lot, pointing out that it cuts video file size 40 percent and, when adapted to photos with a format called HEIC, cuts image sizes 50 percent. But patent licensing issues have held back HEVC adoption, imposing new costs on those who want to use it. https://www.cnet.com/news/facebook-joins-effort-to-improve-online-video/
