Rovi引入了MainConcept HEVC SDK

With today's announcement that it is releasing version 1.0 of the MainConcept software development kit (SDK) for H.265, Rovi Corporation hopes to jumpstart usage of High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) in existing digital media workflows.

“新的MainConcept HEVC SDK 1.0 not only enables developers to increase the ease with which high-quality video content is delivered through existing cable, 互联网和无线频道,该公司在一份新闻稿中表示, "but it also features innovative new technology to significantly reduce content conversion times."

The new SDK offers an Application Programming Interface (API) and is based on the MainConcept library of codecs. The intent of the SDK and integrated API, 据罗维说, is to "ease the process of adding HEVC support to new or in-market solutions." The SDK also includes an HEVC encoder and decoder. 它适用于Windows, Mac OS, 和Linux, in both 32- and 64-bit version with a low-level C++ API and DirectShow filters.

Rovi says that more than 50 companies participated in its HEVC beta program. 今年早些时候推出, the beta program "included representatives from some of the leading companies in digital media creation, 代码转换, 和交付”，比如卡斯提斯, 马雷克斯广播系统公司, MTI的电影, 和维勒科技公司.

"The release of the MainConcept HEVC SDK 1.0 marks the opportunity to transition from evaluating and testing the new compression standard,新闻稿中写道, "to driving toward the release of compatible products and services."

Lowering 代码转换 conversion times has been a key feature of hardware-based 代码转换 appliances, which take advantage of file-based decodes into native color space to leverage multiple re-encodes from a single decode.

Rovi's approach to solving this issue in software, which it's calling Smart Adaptive Bitrate Encoding Technology (SABET), also takes advantage of a single decoded stream, offering up to 10 simultaneous re-encodes for any given stream.

"One of the major challenges service providers and content owners face in switching to a new codec is converting their vast entertainment catalogs,Avni Rambhia说, 弗罗斯特高级行业分析师 & 沙利文的数字媒体实践.

“挑战变得更大了,她补充道, "given the requirement to support streaming and adaptive bitrate formats that involve 代码转换 each piece of content into as many as 10 different profiles or individual streams."

Rambhia的数据有点低, since many of today's streams are converted into 15-20 different profiles—and some upwards of 30 different profiles if all adaptive bitrate (ABR) technologies are deployed—but she brings up the very valid point: Today's 代码转换 solutions must smartly use processing resources to leverage decoding for like-type encoding.

The press release claims that SABET will allow the delivery of a variety of adaptive formats using the HEVC codec, mentioning Rovi's own DivX Plus Streaming as one path for the HEVC SDK but also calling out examples of industry standards such as Apple's HTTP 在线直播 (HLS) and MPEG-DASH.

Neither of these two latter ABR technologies yet support H.265 video decoding, though, and DASH-IF's announcement of DASH-AVC / 264 at last month's 流媒体 East was seen as the industry clamping down on the number of codec and transport options.

H.265 certainly holds promise, but as pointed out in recent StreamingMedia.com关于H的文章.265, the bandwidth gains are less than one-third compared to H.264/AVC and the computational cost of decoding is significantly higher. Rovi says it expects to see additional gains for the HEVC SDK, doubling efficiencies from the current 20 percent gains, as it further optimizes its HEVC codec.