The alliance, which includes Microsoft, Google, Amazon and Netflix,
pledges to build next-generation video technology and offer it for
free. Some of the tech industry's largest companies Cisco, Microsoft,
Google, Intel, Mozilla, Amazon and Netflix have banded together to
boost the quality of online video.
The new Alliance for Open Media
seeks to create new video compression technology by 2016 or 2017
designed to make better use of the networks that deliver video to
smartphones, computers, streaming-media devices, video game consoles and
TVs.
You may not care about abstruse matters like compression
efficiency, but you probably do care about what it can deliver: videos
that download faster and look better. Compression improvements pave the
way for higher-resolution video, which offers more detail, a better
range of colors and bright-to-dark contrast, and an improved ability to
capture sports or video game action by showing more video frames per
second.
Improving video compression is a ceaseless activity, but
what's different this time is the motive behind the alliance -- the
desire to sidestep a patent-licensing minefield that afflicted what for
years looked like the best next-generation video compression technology
-- and the range of players involved. The fact that this time Microsoft
is on the same side as Google and Mozilla, maker of the Firefox browser, means the technology has a greater chance of succeeding.
The
alliance's goal is to "make sure the pace of innovation in video
compression keeps pace with all video experiences that are being built,"
said Matt Frost, head of partnerships for Google's Chrome Media team.
To support today's streaming-media and videoconferencing services and
whatever comes tomorrow, like spherical video adapted to virtual-reality
headsets, video standards must adapt faster than the current 10-year
cycle, he said.
A few years ago, video was delivered mostly over
cable TV networks, broadcast antennas or with optical discs like DVDs
and Blu-rays. Now Internet-based streaming video services like Netflix,
YouTube, Hulu, Amazon Prime and HBO Now have become giants of video
distribution.
"Streaming video is where we're all headed," said Ian LeGrow, manager of the Windows partner group at Microsoft.
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