The way we stream videos online may soon be positively revolutionized if a new partnership entered into by seven of the world’s biggest software technology makers works out.
The Alliance for Open Media, comprising Amazon, Cisco, Google, Intel Corporation, Microsoft, Mozilla and Netflix, is coming together to create a next-generation standard for encoding and decoding video streams.
“The Alliance for Open Media brings together the leading experts in the entire video stack to work together in pursuit of open, royalty-free and interoperable solutions for the next generation of video delivery.
“The new Alliance is committing its collective technology and expertise to meet growing internet demand for top-quality video, audio, imagery and streaming across devices of all kinds and for users worldwide,” said AOMedia Executive Director Gabe Frost in a press release.
Observers say the alliance was likely driven in part by demands for royalties from the industry group HEVC Advance, which is making patent claims on a successor to the popular H.264 codec that is capable of transmitting 4K video at half the current bandwidth.
Companies like Netflix and Amazon pay millions of dollars a year to license codecs, which allow streaming media files to be transmitted and displayed on our devices. But competing formats, a lack of standards, and battles over patents have created headaches for companies that would rather organize — and optimize — around a single codec.
The alliance expects to add more members starting next year to bolster its position against competing codecs in the marketplace.