“ We know exactly how hard it can be to manage an inflexible hardware stack at scale in an ever-changing market — and that is why we built a flexible encoding stack with performance in mind ,” says David Godfrey , Bitmovin ’ s Hong Kong-based vice-president and general manager , Asia Pacific .

“ Bitmovin has been working with companies in over a hundred countries to build innovative video products . We believe that future video infrastructures in today ’ s ever-changing video market need to be software defined , and decoupled from dedicated hardware , to allow companies to stay agile and adapt quickly .”

The company ’ s API-based products are designed for cloud native workflows that can run anywhere , on any hardware and can be adapted to fit a customer ’ s workflow .

Bitmovin is of the firm belief that bad quality video experiences are rooted in implementation , and not in bandwidth problems .

“ We believe that video encoding should be decoupled from the underlying hardware to enable agile media teams to deploy anywhere based on their needs ,” says Godfrey . “ We developed Bitmovin Video Encoding to be the most flexible encoding in the market that does not lock you into a specific hardware or cloud .”

Godfrey readily admits that the concept of per-title encoding , which the company is showcasing at BroadcastAsia2018 ( booth 4B3-10 ), is neither new nor unique ; and that it has been used by industry-leading content providers like Netflix for a number of years .

“ The ultimate goal is to select a bitrate that provides enough room for the codec to encapsulate just enough information to present a perfect viewing experience , but no more ,” he says .

“ Another way of thinking about it is that the optimised adaptive package has been reduced down to just the information that viewers can actually enjoy . Anything beyond the human eye ’ s ability to perceive is stripped out .”

Action scenes or sports scenes require a higher bitrate to store the information , as they contain a lot of motion and fewer redundancies , making each scene more complex .

Cory Zachman , Bitmovin ’ s solutions architect , explains further : “ On the other hand , documentaries typically have far less motion during any given scene , which leaves a codec more possibilities to compress the given information more effectively without losing perceptual quality .

“ If you take these characteristics and adjust the encoding profile accordingly , you are able to lower the bitrate , but still maintain an optimum perceived quality for your content . By encoding video at bitrates appropriate to the content of the video file , content providers can make significant quality improvements as well as bandwidth savings .”

Zachman points out that setting up a custom bitrate ladder for every title in a client ’ s library would create an enormous overhead for the video team . Per-title encoding offers a viable solution for this problem by automating the process .

“ After we run a complexity analysis on each incoming video asset , a variety of measurements go to the AI ( artificial intelligence ) engine , which uses a machine learning model to adjust the encoding profile to match

Bitmovin ’ s Cory Zachman ( left ) and David Godfrey at their booth .

the content ,” he says . “ The result is that every video that runs through the encoding service is encoded with a bitrate ladder specific to the content of the video .”

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