Versatile Video Coding (VVC) / H.266: HEVC successor

[benwaggoner]

Originally Posted by kurkosdr

Nothing surprising here, very few people outside Doom9 have even heard of VVC, except perhaps 8K enthusiasts (all 3 of them) who may have heard it's the format intended for 8K broadcasts over sat or terrestrial (in the oft-chance such broadcasts ever happen). Hardware support for VVC is pretty slim (I am not gonna pretend 8K "Ultra-Ultra-HD" TVs are anything other than a niche, since they are basically an uncut motherglass of four UHD TVs posing as "innovation" that nobody cares about) and so is available VVC content. Everyone out there checks for HEVC and AV1 hardware support for 4K UHD resolutions, so that's what the industry is providing (for now, at least).

VVC is getting momentum in living room devices already, and it is a big improvement over HEVC and AV1.

It doesn't enable any big high value content enabling features like HEVC did with HDR and 4K. HEVC was a particularly quickly adopted codec for those reasons.

[kurkosdr]

Originally Posted by benwaggoner

VVC is getting momentum in living room devices already, and it is a big improvement over HEVC and AV1.

It doesn't enable any big high value content enabling features like HEVC did with HDR and 4K. HEVC was a particularly quickly adopted codec for those reasons.

Out of curiosity, do you have an example of those living room devices? The only devices I've seen it in are 8K "Ultra-Ultra-HD" TVs (which is a gimmick less well-received by the public than stereoscopic 3D with none of the cool factor).

I want to see VVC becoming a thing in the broadcast world (terrestrial and satellite) where content fees/royalties don't matter and the 16Mbps minimum that HEVC requires for a UHD stream is just too much considering how crowded most multiplexes are. For example, the few countries here in Europe that have terrestrial UHD broadcasts (France and Spain) have 2 UHD channels max.

But again, I don't see VVC going anywhere because it seems broadcasters have settled on HEVC for UHD.

[hajj_3]

Originally Posted by kurkosdr

But again, I don't see VVC going anywhere because it seems broadcasters have settled on HEVC for UHD.

broadcasters are using hevc because there aren't many/any vvc set-top boxes available. Once companies can buy set-top boxes at a low cost with vvc then countries upgrading from older codecs will choose vvc.

[benwaggoner]

Originally Posted by hajj_3

broadcasters are using hevc because there aren't many/any vvc set-top boxes available. Once companies can buy set-top boxes at a low cost with vvc then countries upgrading from older codecs will choose vvc.

Brazil used VVC + LC-EVC for the 2022 World Cup, using a very fashion-forward STB.

Adding a VVC decoder isn't going to impact the cost of a STB by more than a couple of dollars.

[hajj_3]

Originally Posted by benwaggoner

Brazil used VVC + LC-EVC for the 2022 World Cup, using a very fashion-forward STB.

Adding a VVC decoder isn't going to impact the cost of a STB by more than a couple of dollars.

few chipsets have vvc. You can't buy a cheap hisilicon or mediatek soc with vvc for example.

[kurkosdr]

Originally Posted by benwaggoner

Brazil used VVC + LC-EVC for the 2022 World Cup, using a very fashion-forward STB.

VVC + LC-EVC? Do we happen to know resolution, bit-depth, fps, and the bitrate used for those?

Originally Posted by benwaggoner

Adding a VVC decoder isn't going to impact the cost of a STB by more than a couple of dollars.

Amen. There is no reason UHD TVs that cost at least several hundred dollars shouldn't have an SoC capable of decoding VVC. it's the same short-sighted thinking that has kept terrestrial broadcasts in countries like the UK and Australia largely on MPEG2 SD: Too many TVs were sold without MPEG4 HD decoding support even after MPEG4 HD decoding became viable with an SoC, and now there is political resistance to discontinuing those MPEG2 SD services. Something similar is playing out today, with non-8K UHD TVs supporting only HEVC (which as said previously above cannot fit that many UHD channels in a mux). Imagine if HD had settled on MPEG2 or MPEG4 ASP, how few HD services we'd have. That's what's happening at the moment with UHD and HEVC.

[birdie]

SoCs supporting VVC decoding have existed for quite some time now (for more than a year):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Versat...oding#Hardware

[hajj_3]

Originally Posted by birdie

SoCs supporting VVC decoding have existed for quite some time now (for more than a year):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Versat...oding#Hardware

the allegro and verisilicon are only ip blocks not chips. The mediatek chips are tv chips not set-top box chips. Only the realtek is a set top box soc. realtek charges much more than the competition for their socs which is why few devices use them.

[ksec]

Originally Posted by benwaggoner

That is somewhat surprising, and disappointing.

Especially Qualcomm has already show case VVC Hardware decoding in their Smartphone prototype this year. So I was expecting that to be announced with Snapdragon Gen 3.

There is a possibility that VVC decoding is there but disabled for various sort of reason.

Ateme has just announced their H.266 encoder.

[benwaggoner]

Originally Posted by kurkosdr

VVC + LC-EVC? Do we happen to know resolution, bit-depth, fps, and the bitrate used for those?

It was covered in a session at the SMPTE Media Technology Summit last month. I can't find a downloadable link to it somehow. Maybe it wasn't posted?

This is a pretty detailed link about it: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles...22.884254/full

[Jamaika]

LCEVC Decoder SDK
https://github.com/v-novaltd/LCEVCdec

[hajj_3]

[Yups]

Intels next gen low power mobile chip Lunar Lake supports HW VVC decoding.


https://forums.anandtech.com/threads...#post-41110064

[birdie]

That's really great, hopefully AMD will follow with either RDNA 3.5 (thought I don't have any hope for it, it sounds like a minor upgrade) or RDNA 4.0.

And it now sounds unlikely that NVIDIA will add a decoder in Blackwell, aka the GeForce 50 series but I won't be surprised if they do.

What I find befuddling is that there's been no news about x266 which was promised to be released in H2 2023. We are less than six weeks before the year end.

[kurkosdr]

Originally Posted by birdie

What I find befuddling is that there's been no news about x266 which was promised to be released in H2 2023. We are less than six weeks before the year end.

They can always pull a Morotola and release right before H2 2023 expires.

For those not in the know, Motorola promised a "summer launch of Android 2.2 for Droid X" and they kept to the letter of their word by releasing Android 2.2 for the Droid X literally on the last day of summer:
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/2010-...-tomorrow.html

Just don't ask how many unresolved issues were swept under the rug to achieve that.

[Emulgator]

Intels next gen low power mobile chip Lunar Lake supports HW VVC decoding.

Unfanned 8W power consumption, fanned 17-30W, thanks TSMC.
This is a big power saving achievement for any desktop and notebook segment.

So one may call that mobile, but no-go for a phone.
We are talking about 1..2W max for decoding, so such CPU may not be suitable for a phone.
Other SoC makers will try to get a share of the production capacity of hopefully 60000 wafers/month,
and these may have to wait..Besides, I am not against VVC, only my hope is measured against reality.

[ksec]

Originally Posted by Emulgator

Unfanned 8W power consumption, fanned 17-30W, thanks TSMC.
This is a big power saving achievement for any desktop and notebook segment.

So one may call that mobile, but no-go for a phone.
We are talking about 1..2W max for decoding, so such CPU may not be suitable for a phone.
Other SoC makers will try to get a share of the production capacity of hopefully 60000 wafers/month,
and these may have to wait..Besides, I am not against VVC, only my hope is measured against reality.

Where did the 1-2W VVC Decoding came from?

[Emulgator]

Requirement for recent mobile phone energy plans, not concerning VVC in particular, just any decoding consumption has to pass through that needle's eye.
The rest of the phone wants to eat too. Any CPU/GPU load, display brightness, wifi 5G, audio processing & amplification, vibration, AI...

An iPhone 15 is reported to consume 4,5W in total while gaming:
https://www.notebookcheck.net/Severe....753143.0.html
BTW, I am not with the pseudo-critical tone, 4,5W for gaming is an achievement, given the processing complexity of the task.
and +48°C are to be expected to be fair, I only linked to show the wattage.
Lets keep those 4W as a ballpark figure of a mobile phone's max. total consumption

A Huawei P30Pro (Kirin980) may eat 3,5W while shooting AVC, a P40Pro+ (Kirin990) 4,0W while shooting HEVC
the 4200mAh, 3,7V accu yields 15Wh, 18hrs playback tell: maybe 1,2W on playback.
If any new codec wants to spend just double watts, then let's imagine the bashing reports:
"Ouch, The new uphone only lasts 50% the time. What went wrong ?"

The larger available mobile phone batteries are around 4000..4200mAh, with 3,7V you can calculate 14,8Wh,
and they can not be made any bigger.

[hajj_3]

November 21, 2023 – MainConcept, the leading provider of video and audio codecs, has announced the latest version of its real-time encoding application for OTT and TV broadcasting workflows, Live Encoder 3.4. It comes with two powerful additions, support for VVC/H.266 and MPEG-5 LCEVC and aims to transform the way in which broadcasters and OTT content providers distribute live video, streamline workflows, and elevate the overall viewing experience.

https://www.mainconcept.com/mainconc...-vvc-and-lcevc

[benwaggoner]

Originally Posted by Emulgator

Requirement for recent mobile phone energy plans, not concerning VVC in particular, just any decoding consumption has to pass through that needle's eye.
The rest of the phone wants to eat too. Any CPU/GPU load, display brightness, wifi 5G, audio processing & amplification, vibration, AI..

Sure. But from folks I've talked to, the VVC decoder requires less mm^2 of a SoC than AV1, and draws a little less power as well.