LiveU affirms growth in HEVC/H.265 adoption
The second edition of LiveU’s State of Live report reveals increment in live transmission, and highlights emergence of 4K/UHD resolution in sports broadcasting
Some 25% of LiveU-generated traffic is now HEVC/H.265-encoded, affirming the growing adoption of the protocol as the industry standard, LiveU revealed in its annual State of Live report. These figures, according to the report, reflect the increasing demand for “professional-grade” video quality, a trend evident at the recent 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia.
The report further pointed out that live transmission hours have increased generally over the past year with more than 2.2 million hours of live video delivered in 2018, representing a 55% surge in hours compared to 2017. The findings, collected for the second year, were derived from data gathered from LiveU’s global customer base of more than 3,000 users.
In addition, the adoption of HD resolution will continue to rise due to the decrease in the usage of SD, said LiveU, while 4K/Ultra HD (UHD) resolution will emerge with sports coverage taking the lead, particularly in the US, Japan and Western Europe. And in terms of geographic coverage, LiveU’s cellular technology has been used in two-thirds of the world with users across 132 countries.
Samuel Wasserman, CEO and co-founder of LiveU, commented: “HEVC/H.265 technology has undoubtedly transformed the market this year, enabling dynamic sports productions in the most challenging locations, as well as ongoing global news coverage. Looking ahead to 2019, we believe that live sports usage will continue to grow across multiple segments as HEVC/H.265 offers the quality and reliability of satellite and other traditional transmission methods at a fraction of the cost.
“In-station services based around the IP distribution of content are also playing a key role in the industry, replacing traditional fibre and satellite services, and this will likely continue next year.”
