Me at the Zoo is the first video uploaded to YouTube
One year after YouTube launches, videos play in the FLV container with the H.263 codec at a maximum resolution of 240p. We scale videos up to 640x360, but you can still click a button to play at original size.
YouTube is one of the original applications on the iPhone. Because it doesn't support Flash, we re-encode every single YouTube video into H.264 with the MP4 container. YouTube videos get a resolution notch to 360p.
With upload sizes and download speeds growing, videos jump in size up to 720p HD. Lower resolution files get higher quality by squeezing Main Profile H.264 into FLVs.
YouTube supports 3D videos, 1080p and live streaming.
The biggest screen in your house now gets YouTube courtesy of Flash Lite and ActionScript 2. 2010 also sees the first playbacks with HTML5 <video> thanks to VP8, an open source video codec. We bump up the maximum resolution to 4K, known as "Original" at the time.
We launch Sliced Bread, codename for a project that enables adaptive bitrate in the Flash player by requesting videos a little piece at a time. Users see higher quality videos more often and buffering less often.
We scale up our live streaming infrastructure to support the 2012 Summer Olympics, with over 1,200 events. In October, over 8 million people watch live as Felix Baumgartner jumps from the stratosphere.
We start our first experiments with VP9 in Chrome, which brings higher quality video at less bandwidth. Adaptive bitrate streaming in the HTML5 and Flash players moves to the DASH standard using both FMP4 and MKV video containers.
High frame rate isn't just for games anymore: YouTube now supports videos that play in up to 60fps. Gangnam Style becomes the first YouTube video to break the MAX_INT barrier with more than 232 / 2 - 1 views.
You can now upload videos that wrap 360 degrees around the viewer. Even 4K videos can play up to 60fps. HTML5 becomes the default YouTube web player.
Richard Leider, Engineering Manager, recently watched David Bowie - Oh You Pretty ThingsJonathan Levine, Product Manager, recently watched Candide Thovex - One of those days 2
As more people watch more high-quality videos across more screens, we need video formats that provide better resolution without increasing bandwidth usage. That’s why we started encoding YouTube videos in VP9, the open-source codec that brings HD and even 4K (2160p) quality at half the bandwidth used by other known codecs.
VP9 is the most efficient video compression codec in widespread use today. In the last year alone, YouTube users have already watched more than 25 billion hours of VP9 video, billions of which would not have been played in HD without VP9's bandwidth benefits. And with more of our device partners adopting VP9, we wanted to give you a primer on the technology.
Videos hold a lot of information. If video were stored in the same format that a camera sensor uses when shooting a scene, the resulting files would be enormous — raw 4K is up to 18,000 Mbps! Instead, modern video compression looks at a video more like a person might, by encoding a description of the features in a scene, and tracking how those features move and change. This compression is hundreds of times more efficient than a camera sensor's recording and is what makes video streaming possible.
While VP9 uses the same basic blueprint as previous codecs, the WebM team has packed improvements into VP9 to get more quality out of each byte of video. For instance, the encoder prioritizes the sharpest image features, and the codec now uses asymmetric transforms to help keep even the most challenging scenes looking crisp and block-free.
Here's a comparison between the image quality you'd get watching Janelle Monaé with VP9 or legacy H.264 transcodes on a 600Kbps connection:
This new format bumps everybody one notch closer to our goal of instant, high-quality, buffer-free videos. That means that if your Internet connection used to only play up to 480p without buffering on YouTube, it can now play silky smooth 720p with VP9.
VP9 also has benefits for people with limited bandwidth or expensive data plans. By cutting bitrates in as much as half, it dramatically increases the set of users that can watch 360p quality video without increased rebuffering or cost.
And for those who can never get enough pixels (including your humble author!), VP9 unlocks the burgeoning world of 4K videos. At larger video sizes, VP9 actually gets even more efficient than its predecessors, so uninterrupted 4K content can now be streamed by a significant and growing part of the YouTube audience. The amount of 4K video uploaded to YouTube has more than tripled in the past year, and VP9 helps us plan for improved streaming into the future. You can find 4K videos by using the search filter, or see some of our favorites in this playlist.
Thanks to our device partners, VP9 decoding support is available today in the Chrome web browser, in Android devices like the Samsung Galaxy S6, and in TVs and game consoles from Sony, LG, Sharp, and more. More than 20 device partners across the industry are launching products in 2015 and beyond using VP9.
To learn more about producing your own VP9 content, see our FFMpeg encoding guide or check out the Adobe Premier WebM plugin.
Steven Robertson, Software Engineer, recently watched “St. Lucia - Before The Dive.”
