VP9 Guide

The WebM project, backed by Google, released the VP9 codec in 2013. VP9 is an open source, royalty-free codec and is the successor to VP8.

VP9 Overview

VP9 is available to all customers. Like HEVC, VP9 is able to achieve significantly higher compression at a given level of quality than H.264. Browser support includes Chrome, Firefox and Opera. Device support is currently limited to Android though many of the major connected TV manufactures are beginning to add VP9 support as part of the YouTube logo certification program.

 

video_codec_profile

video_codec_profile: Sets the encoding profile. All four VP9 profiles are supported with the exception of 4:4:0 sampling in profiles 1 and 3.

Supported Profiles:

  • 0: 8-bit color, 4:2:0 sampling only.
  • 1: 8-bit color, 4:4:4, 4:2:2, and 4:4:0 sampling.
  • 2: 10-bit and 12-bit color only, with 4:2:0 sampling.
  • 3: 10-bit and 12-bit color only, with 4:2:2/4:4:4/4:4:0 sampling.