ATEME Launches EAVC4

Video compression technology provider ATEME has launched the EAVC4, a new video codec that will be available in upcoming weeks as part of the company's Titan family of transcoders.

The new codec is designed for significant improvements in video quality while speeding up processing. It is also designed to make it easier for companies to deliver more content to different screens and devices, noted Benoit Fouchard, chief strategy officer at ATEME, which provides encoding based solutions to such companies as DirecTV, ESPN, Turner, AT&T, and Canal+.

The company reports that the new codec produces as much 20 percent gains in bandwidth usage, which produces significant improvements in video quality based on objective standards and even higher gains based on visual perception.

It also produces significant improvements in video send to iPads and smartphones and offers a wider range of available use cases, including 4K and 8K video, 4:2:2 and 4:4:4 chroma files, 14-bit coding and AVC-I intra only coding.

The company also argues that the new codec offers as much as three times more processing speed for file transcoding workflows, such as VOD processing, to enable the completion of jobs within one third of the previous time.

Using a patented technique called "Multi-Screen by Design," EAVC4 also delivers speed improvements and while improve quality for multiple outputs from a single content stream, Fouchard notes.

Looking forward, Fouchard says that this is likely their last codec for the MPEG-4 format and that the company is already well underway with plans for HEVC product releases.

In the meantime, the EAV4 codec offers "gains in quality and speed while specifically designed to be more efficient for multiscreen delivery," he says.