The growth in computational resources needed to keep up with global demand for IP video processing is "unsustainable," according to David Ronca, Netflix's former top video processing engineer, who is now with Facebook 

In a message to the broader video business sent via LinkedIn this morning, Ronca called on the industry to "solve the pollution problem" by developing better codecs. 

Also read: Former Netflix Encoding Chief Ronca Moves to Facebook

As it just so happens, Ronca and Facebook have been part of a FAANG-led consortium that has developed AV1, a codec that significantly cuts down on the data processing requirements needed to send 4K video over the internet. (In this '80s-music-scored YouTube video presentation from January, Ronca explains how AV1 is used for Facebook Live video.)

The challenge with getting AV1 adopted: Makers of devices ranging from smart TVs to smartphones have to build AV1 support into their hardware. 

In case they need incentive, Ronca delivered the call to action Wednesday morning. 

By 2025, he said, data centers around the world will consume more than 20% of electrical power, up from around 3% today. And video processing and processes tied to things like inserting ads into video (broadly grouped into something called "video understanding) will be the key driver in this relentless increase in servers. 

"In video encoding, we care about bitrate and distortion," Ronca said. "Those of us who have large-scale services also care about computational complexity. Within a given video processing system, we can only reduce two of these three metrics, while the third will move inversely. This means that if we want to reduce bits and distortion, compute must increase."

If only there was a codec that could solve this conundrum ...

Netflix senior software engineer Sekwon Choi announced he's leaving the company to join the newly coined Meta and reunite with his former boss, former Netflix chief encoding engineer David Ronca.

Also read: Former Netflix Encoding Chief Ronca Moves to Facebook

Ronca left Netflix in August after a 14-year tenure in which he led the development of the streaming company's pioneering video encoding technology. He now serves as director of video processing for the erstwhile Facebook.

As for Choi, the 11-year Netflix veteran and former Yahoo and Sony engineer announced his career transition on LinkedIn.

"I am joining Meta platforms’ Reality Lab, where I will be working on the Metaverse," Choi said. "Just as Netflix transformed how people consume media, I believe Meta can and will transform how people connect to each other, how people experience the multi-way media and how people use the internet."

So how instrumental was Ronca in spiriting his old charge away from Netflix? And is he coming for more of Netflix's engineering talent? Tough to say, but Choi responded to Ronca's congratulatory note on LinkedIn by thanking him for his support. 

Former Netflix video encoding chief David Ronca announced today that he’s joined Facebook as director of video encoding.

Ronca served as Netflix’s chief encoding technology engineer from 2007 until May of this year, spending many of those years working alongside fellow technologist Anne Aaron—a 2019 MCN “Wonder Women in Streaming” selection—to practically invent how modern streaming services deliver digital video content on a global basis.

“Ten years ago, there was very little in the way of tools and infrastructure for high-quality video encoding at scale, and everything we did was a first,” Ronca said on a LinkedIn blog posting announcing his career move today.

Related: Living By Her Own Code

For its part, despite a push into original series last year, the platform that supports those shows, Facebook Watch, has yet to break out with a certifiable hit.

In June, Facebook said that Facebook Watch now had more than 720 million users monthly and 140 million users daily who spend at least one minute on the platform — an assertion that was disputed by advertisers.

But even anecdotally, anyone using Facebook on a regular basis can see that user-generated video is an increasingly relevant part of the social media network. With that increase in usage comes exponential need increases for computational horsepower and storage, and the electrical power to drive it all. Ronca said his mission is to manage that relationship.

“I believe that one of the biggest challenges of the next decade is reducing the compute and storage requirements for video encoding; bending the compute growth curve down, while still maximizing quality and codec efficiency,” Ronca said in his posting. “Reducing the cost of encoding is good business. However, we also have a responsibility to minimize the environmental costs of our work, and thus we must put priority on reducing wasteful use of compute capacity, and finding low-power solutions to many video processing tasks.”