castLabs Enables VP9 with MPEG-DASH

VP9 is a next-generation video codec from the open-source WebM project. It provides significant efficiency gains by reducing content bit rate up to 50% compared to H.264 and VP8 while maintaining the same video quality.

As a royalty free technology, VP9 offers an attractive option for 4K/UHD and HDR streaming for web, mobile, and connected devices.

The codec is already supported through popular playback mediums such as Chrome^™, Android^™, Firefox, and Opera with Microsoft^® announcing that their Edge browser will enable it as well.

“As web video moves to HTML5, VP9 allows publishers to deliver improved quality to over two billion end points” said Matt Frost, Head of Partnerships and Strategy at Google Chrome Media. “We are pleased with the addition of VP9 to castLabs workflow solutions.”

“castLabs is committed to adopting the latest developments in video delivery. We’re excited to now fully support next level VP9 encoding which we see as a prominent way forward for delivering 4K content quality and the cost savings that the impressive codec affords to a wide range of devices without licensing related risks”, said Michael Stattmann, Managing Director of castLabs.

Take advantage of VP9 today

Our range of solutions can help you utilize VP9 now for high-quality protected video playback.

Prepare content

Through our Video Toolkit service, you can encode video assets using VP9 into MPEG-DASH packaged file-sets. Encryption and key ingestion for use with DRM is also available to enable content security.

Protect content

Our DRMtoday service provides multi-DRM licensing for comprehensive protection. DRMtoday unlocks the full potential of Common Encryption (CENC) for use with MPEG-DASH by supplying licensing for compatible DRM systems including: Google Widevine^™, Microsoft PlayReady^®, Adobe^® Primetime, Marlin, and CMLA-OMA.

Play content

Our playback applications support VP9 including our Video Player SDK for Android.

We will be exhibiting at the 2016 NAB Show in Las Vegas from April 18-21. Stop by booth number SU11307CM to see a 4K demo of VP9 and MPEG-DASH in action through an Nvidia Shield using Android TV!

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