In Broadcast - May 2020 - 50

50

www.inbroadcast.com | Vol: 10 - Issue 5 | May 2020

InMedia

Enhancement Codec Set
to Upgrade Streaming
By Guido Meardi, CEO and Cofounder, V-Nova...

I

n April, MPEG conducted its first
ever large-scale virtual meeting, and
full credit must go to the organisers
for coordinating a complex virtual
gathering of hundreds of key industry
experts.
We were delighted to see MPEG-5
Part 2 Low Complexity Enhancement
Video Coding (LCEVC) reach the status
of Draft International Standard (DIS)
which marks a major milestone for the
only emerging standard that "will have
an immediate impact on the streaming
landscape" as Jan Ozer of Streaming
Media recently stated.
This promotion to DIS status was
based on the successful conclusion of
peer review analysis of comprehensive
technical evaluations, representing the
culmination of months of collaborative

efforts from the LCEVC working group
in MPEG. This collaboration means
that LCEVC delivers significantly better
performance than our predecessor
technology that formed the foundation
of the standard. Specialists from
over ten companies, institutions and
universities were instrumental in
providing invaluable feedback to the
team.
From the outset, the goals of the
specification were clear: to provide
video delivery services with the
opportunity to significantly enhance
the compression efficiency of any
video codec, both existing and
emerging (h.264, HEVC, AV1, etc.)
whilst reducing the processing
requirements of encoding and
maintaining
compatibility
with
the ecosystem of decoders of the
enhanced codec. This breakthrough
will mean greater availability of
higher quality services for some, and

remarkable cost efficiencies for others,
while providing opportunities for an
immediate boost to the quality of
services like videoconferencing, video
streaming or social networks. LCEVC
will also enable operators to roll out
new base codecs like AV1, VVC and EVC
more rapidly due to the reduction in
processing complexity.
Furthermore, LCEVC inherently
maintains the device compatibility of
the base codec itself because the base
codec component can be decoded in
hardware and enhancement decoding
can be implemented via software
by leveraging standard processing
resources available on devices, with
overall battery consumption in line
with hardware decoding. As LCEVC is
a complementary technology, that by
design can be implemented in software
and even HTML5 scripts, we anticipate
LCEVC-enhanced services rolling out in
2020.

Magewell Adds SRT Streaming to
Free Capture Express Software
M

agewell has upgraded its free
Capture Express recording
application to expand the software's
streaming capabilities.
Version 3.2 adds new support for
multiple
streaming
technologies
including
the
Secure
Reliable
Transport (SRT) protocol developed
and open-sourced by Haivision.
While Magewell capture devices
feature
extensive
compatibility
with popular third-party software
for streaming, live production, web
conferencing, lecture capture and
more, the Capture Express software
offers Magewell users a lightweight,
dedicated
tool
for
recording,
previewing or streaming input sources.
Originally designed to help users easily
verify their input signals and capture
devices, Capture Express has evolved
into a simple yet full-fledged capture
application supporting video up to 4K
at 60 frames per second.
Version 3.0 of Capture Express
initially offered easy recording and
previewing functionality, and the

Capture Express 3.2

subsequent version 3.1 added the
ability to stream H.264-encoded video
using the RTMP protocol. Now, version
3.2 further expands the software's
streaming flexibility with support for
the SRT protocol as well as MPEG-TS
over UDP or RTP. Enabling secure,
reliable, low-latency video delivery
over unpredictable networks, SRT
ensures
high-quality
streaming
experiences even over the public
internet. Magewell is a member of the
SRT Alliance.

"The importance of streaming as
a communication medium has been
accentuated in recent weeks by the
health crisis the world is facing,"
said James Liu, VP of Engineering at
Magewell. "While we had planned
all along to expand the streaming
capabilities of Capture Express, the
beta release of version 3.2 has become
particularly timely given the increased
demand
for
streaming
today.
Customers who previously used our
capture devices primarily for internal

V-Nova has been tracking the
standard's development very closely
and our LCEVC SDK is fully aligned
with the DIS specification. It provides
an easy integration route of LCEVC
both in encoding and decoding on
a range of custom workflows, third
party solutions and devices. There
are a number of ways to try LCEVC,
from running some streams through
FFmpeg, setting up a proof-of-concept
with your content via the V-Nova
platform and demo applications,
or leveraging LCEVC-enabled thirdparty solutions. Currently, we are
conducting a variety of beta trials
with key partners and welcome those
interested in joining the program to
contact us at www.v-nova.com. For
more information about LCEVC visit
www.lcevc.com.

production workflows may want to
begin streaming to stay in touch with
their followers, and Capture Express
offers an efficient option for users who
don't need the full functionality of a
third-party encoding and streaming
application."
Capture Express 3.2 automatically
detects compatible graphics hardware
in the host system and leverages GPUaccelerated H.264 encoding when
possible, using the CPU for encoding
only as necessary. The software
can automatically match recording
parameters to the input source signal,
and leverages the FPGA-based video
processing features of the Magewell
capture devices to perform functions
such as cropping, scaling and image
controls with zero impact on the host
CPU.
Capture Express runs on the
Windows operating system and is
compatible with all current Magewell
capture product lines - including USB
Capture Gen 2 and USB Capture Plus
external devices; Pro Capture PCIe
cards; and Eco Capture M.2 hardware
- as well as Magewell's first-generation
capture cards and boxes.
The beta version of Capture Express
3.2 is available immediately on
Magewell's website.
http://www.inbroadcast.com http://www.v-nova.com http://www.v-nova.com http://www.lcevc.com http://www.magewell.com
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