VP8

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VP8 is an open and royalty-free video compression format created by On2 Technologies as a successor to VP7. It was released by Google under a BSD license in 2010 after the acquisition of On2 Technologies. VP8 is a key component of the WebM multimedia format, which is designed for use with HTML5 video.

History

VP8 was developed by On2 Technologies and was first announced in September 2008. In February 2010, Google acquired On2 Technologies and subsequently released VP8 as an open and royalty-free format in May 2010. This move was part of Google's strategy to promote open web standards and reduce the dependency on proprietary formats like H.264.

Technical Details

VP8 is designed to provide high-quality video compression with low computational complexity. It uses a block-based hybrid video coding approach, similar to other modern video codecs. Key features of VP8 include:

• Intra-frame prediction
• Inter-frame prediction
• Transform coding
• Quantization
• Entropy coding

VP8 supports various resolutions and bitrates, making it suitable for a wide range of applications, from low-bitrate video conferencing to high-definition video streaming.

Adoption and Usage

VP8 is widely used in web applications, particularly in conjunction with the WebM container format. It is supported by major web browsers such as Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, and Opera. VP8 is also used in video conferencing applications like Google Meet and Jitsi.

Successor

The successor to VP8 is VP9, which offers improved compression efficiency and quality. VP9 is also open and royalty-free and is part of the WebM project.

See Also

• VP7
• VP9
• WebM
• HTML5 video
• Video compression format