V-NOVA

Last updated
V-NOVA
Company type Private limited company
Industry Data compression, video codec
Founded2011
Founders Guido Meardi, Pierdavide Marcolongo and Others
Headquarters,
UK
Area served
Worldwide
Key people
David Benello (Chairman)
Guido Meardi (CEO)
Pierdavide Marcolongo (COO)

V-NOVA is a multinational IP and Technology company headquartered in London, UK. It is best known for innovation in data compression technology for video and images. [1] [2] V-Nova has partnered with large organizations including Sky, Xilinx, Nvidia, Eutelsat, and Amazon Web Services to provide its video compression technology. [1] [3]

Contents

History

V-NOVA was founded in 2011 by Guido Meardi, Pierdavide Marcolongo and others. [4] In 2012, Mr Federico Faggin [5] was among V-NOVA’s investors and founding members.

In 2016, Sky acquired a minority stake in V-NOVA for £4.5 million [8], and Eutelsat subsequently acquired a minority stake for an undisclosed amount. [6] In the same year, Eutelsat deployed V-NOVA's technology for the 4K contribution feeds of the UEFA Euro Championship 2016 and, subsequently, acquired a minority stake for an undisclosed amount. [7] Also in 2016, V-NOVA became a member of the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers. [8]

In 2017, V-NOVA acquired the entire Faroudja patent portfolio to improve its Perseus codec. [9]

In April 2019, V-NOVA technology was selected by MPEG for the working draft of the MPEG-5 codec enhancement standard. [10] In the same year V-Nova became a member of the Advanced Television Systems Committee. [11]

In 2020, V-NOVA and Amazon Web Services collaborated. [12]

In May 2021, V-NOVA announced its partnership with SOUTHWORKS for LCEVC Integration Services. [13] [14]

In June 2021, V-NOVA partnerred with D-Orbit and Unibap to demonstrate VC-6 for on-orbit satellite imagery acceleration. The satellite was launched in Summer 2021. [15] In July, multiple professional investors, including Intesa's Venture Capital arm Neva SGR, invested €33m into V-NOVA. [16] [17]

In November 2021, V-NOVA and PresenZ released a Six Degrees of Freedom (6DoF) movie on the Steam Store. The movie uses V-NOVA’s point-cloud compression technology combined with 6DoF volumetric movie format from PresenZ. [18]

In January 2022, SBTVD Forum approved a selection of technologies for SBTVD 3.0 which include MPEG-5 LCEVC, V-NOVA & Harmonic Inc.’s submission. [19] [20]

Technology

In 2015, the company announced a new digital data-encoding technology based on multi-layer coding, parallel processing and deep learning called Perseus for efficient video streaming with a focus on enabling UHD/4K services at lower bandwidths. It was claimed that it could be streamed to TVs and other devices using only around 50% of the bandwidth required by existing streaming technologies. [21] [22]

V-NOVA’s technology was later selected to provide the essential IP for the ISO/IEC 23094-2 standard MPEG-5 Part 2 Low Complexity Enhancement Video Coding (LCEVC), a codec-agnostic enhancement codec that can be combined with other video codecs to improve their coding and processing efficiency. It also maintains compatibility with the device ecosystem of the enhanced codec. [23]

V-NOVA also developed another international standard codec, SMPTE VC-6 ST 2117, aimed at professional video and Artificial Intelligence applications. [24]

In April 2021, MPEG Video validated the Verification Test of LCEVC (Low Complexity Enhancement Video Coding) standard ((ISO/IEC 23094-2). Test results tended to indicate an overall benefit also when using LCEVC to enhance AVC, HEVC, EVC and VVC. [25] [26]

Awards

The CSI Awards recognized V-NOVA as Best Digital Video Processing Technology in 2015 and 2017. [27] [28] V-NOVA was named Best of Show by the TV Technology Awards for four consecutive years in 2015, 2016, 2017, & 2018. [29] [30] [31] [32] It was also named Best of Show for its PERSEUS-powered Universal Media Player by TVB Europe in 2015, 2016, and 2017. [33] [34]

In 2016, the Diplomatic Council Awards named V-NOVA as Global Media Innovator. [35] [36] V-NOVA was recognized for its point cloud compression scheme by the Advanced Image Society at the 12th annual Entertainment Technology Lumiere Awards in 2022. [37]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Moving Picture Experts Group</span> Alliance of working groups to set standards for multimedia coding

The Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) is an alliance of working groups established jointly by ISO and IEC that sets standards for media coding, including compression coding of audio, video, graphics, and genomic data; and transmission and file formats for various applications. Together with JPEG, MPEG is organized under ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 29 – Coding of audio, picture, multimedia and hypermedia information.

Dirac is an open and royalty-free video compression format, specification and software video codec developed by BBC Research & Development. Dirac aimed to provide high-quality video compression for Ultra HDTV and competed with existing formats such as H.264.

Windows Media Video (WMV) is a series of video codecs and their corresponding video coding formats developed by Microsoft. It is part of the Windows Media framework. WMV consists of three distinct codecs: The original video compression technology known as WMV, was originally designed for Internet streaming applications, as a competitor to RealVideo. The other compression technologies, WMV Screen and WMV Image, cater for specialized content. After standardization by the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE), WMV version 9 was adapted for physical-delivery formats such as HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc and became known as VC-1. Microsoft also developed a digital container format called Advanced Systems Format to store video encoded by Windows Media Video.

SMPTE 421, informally known as VC-1, is a video coding format. Most of it was initially developed as Microsoft's proprietary video format Windows Media Video 9 in 2003. With some enhancements including the development of a new Advanced Profile, it was officially approved as a SMPTE standard on April 3, 2006. It was primarily marketed as a lower-complexity competitor to the H.264/MPEG-4 AVC standard. After its development, several companies other than Microsoft asserted that they held patents that applied to the technology, including Panasonic, LG Electronics and Samsung Electronics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ateme</span>

Ateme S.A. is a multinational company that specializes in video compression, CDN/streaming, cloud recording and advertising. hey develop software for video compression based on the main standards: MPEG2,H.264/AVC, H.265/HEVC, AV1 and H.266/VVC. Ateme solutions features also packaging capabilities with MPEG2-TS, HLS and DASH output. Their solutions are used by Content Providers, Broadcasters, MPVDs and Streaming Providers for delivery and monetization over Contribution, Distribution and Cable/Satellite/IPTV/Terrestrial/OTT networks.

These tables compare features of multimedia container formats, most often used for storing or streaming digital video or digital audio content. To see which multimedia players support which container format, look at comparison of media players.

Avid DNxHD is a lossy high-definition video post-production codec developed by Avid for multi-generation compositing with reduced storage and bandwidth requirements. It is an implementation of SMPTE VC-3 standard.

The first attempt at producing pre-recorded HDTV media was a scarce Japanese analog MUSE-encoded laser disc which is no longer produced.

H.264 and VC-1 are popular video compression standards gaining use in the industry as of 2007.

AVC-Intra is a type of video coding developed by Panasonic, and then supported in products made by other companies. AVC-Intra is available in Panasonic's high definition broadcast products, such as, for example, their P2 card equipped broadcast cameras.

High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC), also known as H.265 and MPEG-H Part 2, is a video compression standard designed as part of the MPEG-H project as a successor to the widely used Advanced Video Coding. In comparison to AVC, HEVC offers from 25% to 50% better data compression at the same level of video quality, or substantially improved video quality at the same bit rate. It supports resolutions up to 8192×4320, including 8K UHD, and unlike the primarily 8-bit AVC, HEVC's higher fidelity Main 10 profile has been incorporated into nearly all supporting hardware.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">VP9</span> Open and royalty-free video coding format released by Google in 2013

VP9 is an open and royalty-free video coding format developed by Google.

Apple ProRes is a high quality, "visually lossless" lossy video compression format developed by Apple Inc. for use in post-production that supports video resolution up to 8K. It is the successor of the Apple Intermediate Codec and was introduced in 2007 with Final Cut Studio 2. Much like the H.26x and MPEG standards, the ProRes family of codecs use compression algorithms based on the discrete cosine transform (DCT). ProRes is widely used as a final format delivery method for HD broadcast files in commercials, features, Blu-ray and streaming.

Harmonic Inc. is an American technology company that develops and markets video routing, server, and storage products for companies that produce, process, and distribute video content for television and the Internet.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ultra-high-definition television</span> Television formats beyond HDTV

Ultra-high-definition television today includes 4K UHD and 8K UHD, which are two digital video formats with an aspect ratio of 16:9. These were first proposed by NHK Science & Technology Research Laboratories and later defined and approved by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU).

Versatile Video Coding (VVC), also known as H.266, ISO/IEC 23090-3, and MPEG-I Part 3, is a video compression standard finalized on 6 July 2020, by the Joint Video Experts Team (JVET) of the VCEG working group of ITU-T Study Group 16 and the MPEG working group of ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 29. It is the successor to High Efficiency Video Coding. It was developed with two primary goals – improved compression performance and support for a very broad range of applications.

MPEG-5 Essential Video Coding (EVC), standardized as ISO/IEC 23094-1, is a video compression standard that has been completed in April 2020 by decision of MPEG Working Group 11 at its 130th meeting.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">VC-6</span> A video coding format

SMPTE ST 2117-1, informally known as VC-6, is a video coding format.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">LCEVC</span> Video coding standard

Low Complexity Enhancement Video Coding (LCEVC) is a ISO/IEC video coding standard developed by the Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) under the project name MPEG-5 Part 2 LCEVC.

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