LAUSR

The codec landscape has rapidly accelerated, especially with the recent announcement by Apple to fully support High-Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) and join the Alliance for Open Media (AOM) consortium. At the 2018 National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) Show, the AOM froze its specification of the AV1 codec. In addition, the Joint Video Exploration Team (JVET), a collaborative initiative between the Motion Picture Experts Group (MPEG) and International Telecommunication Union - Telecommunication (ITU-T), is making progress with the development of the next generation of MPEG compression, which will address future applications such as 8K and virtual reality (VR) six degrees of freedom (6DoF). This paper provides a thorough comparison of different codec technologies, including Advanced Video Coding (AVC), HEVC, AV1, and Versatile Video Coding (VVC). The total cost of ownership (TCO) and compression efficiency of each codec will be evaluated based on objective testing methods [i.e., peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR) and Video Multimethod Assessment Fusion (VMAF)] and subjective testing. Based on the factual data presented, readers will be able to make a better decision about which codec to use.