On2 Improves VP6 Video Quality For Flash By Up To 40%

On2 Technologies Inc, a leader in video compression solutions, has announced the introduction of significant improvements to the ON2 VP6 video technology used in Adobe Flash 8 and 9 and Flash Lite 3.
Achieving a substantial increase to the quality of encoded video, in some cases as much as 40%, content encoded with the new On2 VP6 technology is fully compatible with the existing decoder used in Flash player. The improvements will be introduced as a free upgrade to the On2 Flix suite of encoding and publishing tools for Flash video.
On2's VP6 compression scheme is one of the internet's most prolific video codecs. Used by many of the leading UGC sites, CDNs and content owners including: Facebook, Daum, Eurosport, Akamai and Brightcove; it is used to encode all genres of video targeted for web delivery in Flash format. Coupling high quality with low datarates and supporting cue points and alpha channel in Flash, VP6 is proprietary to On2 Technologies and as such does not incur content royalties like those levied by MPEG-LA. The On2 Flix product line are available as application software, plug-ins and software development kits for servers, desktops and browsers.
Jim Bankoski, CTO of On2 Technologies, said: "We have introduced some significant enhancements to VP6 through the encoder. We evolved our motions search strategy bringing notable improvements in fast movement sequences, sport for example. VP6 continues to be one of the most versatile codecs in the world delivering high quality over low datarates coupled with low complexity playback..."
Nikolas Klein, Internet Manager at Eurosport, one of Europe's leading sports multimedia platform, said: "These developments hit the sweet spot for Eurosport, our customers will save on bandwidth and enjoy even shorter buffering delays without any reduction of quality in our stremed sports video content."
Bill Joll, President and CEO at On2 Technologies, said: "In terms of internet bandwidth, video is undoubtedly one of the heaviest applications. By introducing these improvements to one of the primary codecs used to create Flash video, consumers will enjoy the benefits on a very wide scale."
The improvements follow the recent introduction for the new VP6-S profile in Flash Player 9. Targeted for HD, encoded video in this profile requires up to 30% less CPU power to playback. For content owners planning to deliver HD to desktops, this means a much larger addressable market as even a 1.7GHz Pentium 4 can playback 720p HD video stutter-free. With this announcement, all profiles of On2 VP6 will experience quality improvements.
A second On2 VP6 improvement release is planned for later this year and will focus on dramatic speed improvements in the VP6 encoder.
Headquartered in Tarrytown, NY, USA, On2 creates advanced video compression technologies for desktop and wireless. Further information is available at: www.on2.com.
(KMcA/JM)