Ittiam Systems: Accelerating AV1 Innovation and Adoption

Ittiam Systems, a pioneer in media processing and streaming technologies, has been instrumental in advancing the AV1 codec's capabilities and adoption. Ittiam Systems is a technology company that builds software to process audio and video. Their tools help compress, transmit, and play digital media smoothly across different devices and platforms. By collaborating with key partners and offering innovative solutions, Ittiam has significantly enhanced AV1's performance, making it more accessible and efficient for a wide range of applications.

Teaming up to Foster Innovation

Vikas Prasad, Director of Internet Media Technologies at Ittiam Systems, points out that Ittiam's partnerships with industry leaders such as Google, Meta, Intel, and YouTube have been central to its contributions to AV1.

"We have significantly enhanced the AV1 codec's quality, performance, and stability through close collaboration with industry leaders," he said. "This partnership has allowed us to directly support their roadmaps and accelerate the at-scale deployment of AV1 in their products."

Enhancing AV1 for Diverse Applications

Ittiam has focused on optimizing AV1 in three primary areas:

  • Offline/OTT encoding: By enhancing energy efficiency without compromising quality, Ittiam has made large-scale video delivery more cost-effective.

  • Low-delay real-time encoding: Improvements in multi-threading performance have reduced encoding latency, a critical factor for real-time applications.

  • Still-image encoding (AVIF): Ittiam has driven performance improvements in AVIF, showcasing its commitment to optimizing AV1's capabilities in various formats. (For more details, read Ittiam’s blog post on AVIF adoption.)

Said Vikas, "Beyond encoding, we actively support our ecosystem partners in decoder characterization on mobile devices. This is crucial for AV1's widespread adoption, particularly in environments where hardware acceleration isn't readily available. We believe in a holistic approach to ensuring AV1's success."

THINKode: Pushing the Boundaries of Video Encoding

At NAB, Ittiam showcased THINKode, its machine learning-based content-adaptive encoding solution.

"Our AV1-enabled intelligent content-adaptive encoding solution, THINKode, delivers approximately 30% bitrate savings while maintaining consistent perceptual quality," he explained. "This is a significant advancement that demonstrates the practical benefits of our AV1 research."

image 1

Advancing Research and Development

Ittiam continues to invest in AV1 and next-generation codec research, focusing on optimizing the open-source libaom AV1 encoder. Collaborations with Google teams have resulted in co-authored publications at SPIE and IEEE-MIPR, showcasing research in AV1 and AVIF.

"We are confident that our findings are valuable for the wider industry," he enthused.

Impacting Business and Customer Experiences

The adoption of AV1 has been transformative for Ittiam and its customers, providing faster insights as well as a powerful platform to amplify the impact of their codec expertise.

“Optimizations in AV1 offline encoding have led to reduced ingest times and significant cost savings for video service providers,” said Vikas. “Advancements in AV1 low-delay encoding have improved real-time streaming experiences, enhancing customer satisfaction.”

"As another example, our AV1-enabled Media Device Lab characterization setup has been instrumental in helping clients like Meta develop optimal deployment policies, as they acknowledged in their ‘Meta - Reels’ blog."

Strengthening the AV1 Ecosystem

As a member of the Alliance for Open Media (AOMedia), Ittiam contributes to the development of open standards for media compression and delivery. This involvement ensures that Ittiam's innovations align with industry-wide efforts to enhance video experiences across platforms.

"Being part of AOMedia is strategically important to us because our core capabilities directly align with their mission," said Vikas. "AOMedia provides a unique platform where cutting-edge video R&D meets the practical needs of our key customers."

Broadening AV1 Adoption Beyond Big Tech

While major platforms like YouTube and Netflix have led the way, Ittiam believes AV1's reach extends far beyond these big tech early adopters.

"It is a common misconception that AV1's reach is limited to only a few big players," Vikas said. "At Ittiam, we're actively involved in expanding that reach, particularly through our work on broad-base consumption platforms like Android."

Ittiam's research also supports the broader AV1 ecosystem. "Our research in our Media Labs, conducted for key customers, provides concrete evidence of AV1 support across a wide range of top applications."

Enabling AV1 on Low-End Devices

Vikas also noted that AV1’s viability on low-end mobile devices is another area of focus.

"While premium devices benefit from hardware decoding, software decoding is the only option for lower-end devices, posing performance challenges," he explained. "Our battery and performance characterization efforts help customers make informed decisions about encoding formats, and we're actively working with AOMedia members to optimize the encoder for better software decoding performance."

image 2

Through a unique blend of innovation, collaboration, and deep technical expertise, Ittiam Systems continues to accelerate the adoption and advancement of AV1 — delivering measurable impact across the video industry and laying the foundation for next-generation media experiences.