[jk]

Minor correction: H.265 is HEVC - High Efficiency Video Coding.

H.265 and VP9 will (most likely) have a lot of difference when we consider hardware encoders/decoders. I guess H.265 hardware decoders will be present on all platforms in the next couple of years. There are mobile processors that have hardware H.265 decoder. H.265 encoder seems to be a bit far. I am not sure whether someone has a production ready hardware encoder. On the other hand, VP9 is not a priority for most of the companies.

[indolering]

YouTube is only going to offer UHD over VP9, meaning that 4K smart TVs and set-top-boxes will have to support VP9. Google can also use their leverage over Android to influence mobile device makers. At $0.40 a pop, it makes sense for most SoCs to support it.

Netflix has said they are going to use H.265, but they could adopt the same strategy as Google. They could even force their desktop customers to install the VP9 codec, just as they did for Silverlight.

The primary problem is Apple, they simply won't support it. Thankfully, AppleTV hasn't caught fire, relegating their control of the market to the iPhone.

Daala will be more amenable to acceleration via generic GPUs. It probably won't match dedicated hardware but if a mobile device can decode it and the bandwidth savings are significant, the lack of licensing fees will make it a very attractive option.

Hopefully Daala will be significantly better than H.265 and win over Apple and others based on the merit of their codec alone.

[anon1385]

>YouTube is only going to offer UHD over VP9, meaning that 4K smart TVs and set-top-boxes will have to support VP9.

Google told us VP8 was the future, and that widespread hardware support was imminent. Then in less than a couple of years they abandoned VP8.

Next week millions of fairly new TVs are going to stop working with YouTube because Google decided to shut down the API: https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6098135?hl=en

I'm not sure the TV industry is about to invest in supporting a technology that will probably be long deprecated by the time most of their customers will even be able to use it. Fool me once etc

[Dylan16807]

That's baffling. Do they have any reason at all to force people onto the new API?

[balls187]

> Do they have any reason at all to force people onto the new API?

Youtube Ad Support.

[Dylan16807]

The new API has the ability to enforce ads just by moving to it? TOS changes?

[ZeroGravitas]

By "TV industry" I assume you mean the manufacturers of TVs. Since most of them support Android TV (which requires VP9), or want 4k Youtube as a ready source of content for their 4k TVs, and are often brands that already make Android phones, or re-use chips intended for those that do, I'd guess they'd have to do more work to avoid VP9 then to use it.

[tormeh]

Daala is way more exciting technically as well. Of course, being more exciting is not equivalent to being better, but with such a novel approach (lapped transform), Daala may just shake up the state of the art, while the rest merely refine it.

[semi-extrinsic]

Why would anyone want more than 1080p on a phone?

[criley2]

>Why would anyone want more than 1080p on a phone?

Because 1080p on a 5 - 6 inch device creates visible pixels to the naked eye, and can be improved upon with a higher quality screen.

I have a 1440p 5.5" smartphone and the difference next to 720p is staggering and the difference next to 1080p is still noticeable to the untrained eye. The tests I use to demonstrate to people include well formed text display, comic-book display, and Unreal4 demo. People pick out the 1440p screen as best without much issue in every test.

[semi-extrinsic]

I get that > 1080p makes sense for text and vector graphics. But really, what are you realistically going to watch on your phone that's been filmed with a 4K camera and optics that match that resolution? The fact that phones are shipping with 4k video capability does not mean the quality is better than the same camera shooting 1080p, especially when you take into account the limit on bandwidth in the encoder chip, so 1080p can be recorded at a higher bitrate.

[ZeroGravitas]

I remember with previous size jumps, it gets to a certain point when you want to be able to decode 4k video, even if your display (or eyeballs) can't handle it, just because that's easier than transcoding the original file.

[joshuapants]

I'm not entirely convinced that the minor benefits from increasing resolution so much offset the cost in terms of battery life, especially on devices where screens are already the most power-hungry parts.

[criley2]

>But really, what are you realistically going to watch on your phone that's been filmed with a 4K camera and optics that match that resolution?

You seem to be avoiding the fact that the primary use case of smartphones includes images and text, not video.

You're right that video of sufficiently high enough quality to notice isn't readily available -- but who cares?

1440p makes the text under an app icon easier to read.

It makes webpages easier to read.

It makes "online magazines" crisper. It takes better advantage of a plethora of high resolution iconography and imagery designed to take advantage of "retina" this and "4k" that.

Sure, it maybe a decade before we're streaming >1440p video on our devices, but higher resolution screens making better text was a need ten years ago, not just today.

[semi-extrinsic]

Did you miss the fact that we are discussing a video codec?

[criley2]

>>Why would anyone want more than 1080p on a phone?

>Did you miss the fact that we are discussing a video codec?

I apologize that you cannot follow basic thread context. I have provided the question that I answered for you so you can understand that the context of this thread wasn't artificially limited as you suggest -- (the question wasn't "with regards to video content only, why would anyone want >1080p"...)

Furthermore, I broadened the context explicitly by listing my 3 different tests (including video) that I based my answer off of. If you didn't want to use this context, you should not have replied to me, because I found these tests relevant to the larger question of why >1080p is useful and will become standard.

Thanks!

[tacotime]

I've only held a galaxy note (2560x1440) once but it was pretty nice. Resolution is one specs race that I've always been fond of. When somebody finally finds a sasquatch you'll be glad for your 4k display

[beambot]

For the same reason that we want more than 640k RAM [1]? More seriously: Economics of cellphone screens are driving prices and specs of heads-up VR displays. Higher resolution and faster rendering help both -- plus benefits of mass-production.

[1] http://www.computerworld.com/article/2534312/operating-syste...

[Xorlev]

Screens are >1080p in resolution. Do you really want all your videos upsampled?

[dragonwriter]

> Why would anyone want more than 1080p on a phone?

The same reason that flagship phones now tend to have screens with resolution greater than 1920x1080. 1920x1080 isn't the highest useful resolution at the size of many of today's phones.

[threeseed]

Merits of their codec ? Seems a bit naive.

This has nothing to do with merits and everything to do with big business politics. That said in the case the best quality codec ie. H.265 is likely to win out pretty comfortably.

[TD-Linux]

I think many thought this a year ago, but it's not the case any more. All of the major SoC vendors are shipping VP9 in their newest system-on-chips. In addition, a new licensing pool for HEVC just formed, and has yet to announce their licensing model or cost [1]. This is all the more reason for companies to look for alternatives.

[1] http://hevcadvance.com/

[pdknsk]

> I am not sure whether someone has a production ready hardware encoder.

The first was announced few days ago.

http://socionext.com/en/pr/sn_pr20150403_01e.pdf