TECHNICAL
to maintain longevity during video applications.
TV-based ecosystems
Apple has supported HEVC video in their Safari browser from 2017 within macOS High Sierra onward. Google introduced HEVC decode support in v105 of its Chrome Browser, released in 2022. These two browsers together account for 83% of users combined.
Smart TVs and most mainstream Media Streamers have integrated HEVC decoders for several years, although set-top boxes lag slightly since a large proportion of these are Pay TV devices maintained by operators. When combined, these products alone are forecast to account for 417 million HEVC- enabled devices sold this year, contributing towards a 2.3 billion unit installed base in living rooms worldwide. Although most possess the hardware capability and raw performance, Games Consoles are one of the few entertainment products that have yet to fully embrace support for HEVC. Instead, these tend to require the download of additional software components to access HEVC video decoder hardware. For instance, Microsoft offers this feature for Xbox games consoles, yet Sony PlayStation is not natively enabled for HEVC. Despite this, just under 40% of Games Consoles are addressable today, equating to around 130 million units. In 2023, there will be 4.1 billion Smartphones in the field with HEVC
Third-party analysis from ScientiaMobile discovered that 93% of Smartphones advertised HEVC video playback capability in Q2 2023, up from 87% six months earlier. This contrasts markedly with AV1, which featured on only 3% to 4% of Smartphones in the same timeframe; nevertheless, this will accelerate in line with the introduction of newer devices, such as iPhone 15 Pro, which now include hardware AV1 video decoding. Apart from a boost in sales during the COVID-19 pandemic, where devices were purchased for education and home schooling, Tablet shipments have exhibited steady declines over the last six years. Replacement cycles have lengthened with typical lifespans now over five years: essentially, innovation has stalled somewhat whilst Tablet use-cases remain broadly similar year over year. Presently there are over half a billion Tablets in regular usage worldwide, the majority of which have HEVC video decoding, given their secondary application as video entertainment devices. But the continued downward trend in sales means that the number of Tablets addressable for HEVC video is likely to peak in 2024, at 522 million units globally. Browser based implementations Tablets and smartphones must fundamentally have hardware decode support for video, since the complexity in modern codecs means that energy usage is higher, directly affecting battery life. This contrasts markedly with PCs that support software decoding of all popular codecs today. Recent changes to enable browsers to play HEVC encoded content natively mean that OTT video providers can now exploit HEVC more widely for web-based video applications.
Support on PC platforms further opens up potential to exploit the efficiency gains in video conferencing and real-time applications that demand low latency alongside high quality, although hardware support is favoured to offload encoding workloads from the CPU. HEVC acceptance was given a major boost in 2022, when Google integrated the HEVC video decoding capability directly into the Chrome web browser; around 64% of users globally use Chrome as their primary browser. Based upon the same engine, Microsoft Edge also offers support on PCs that also have the paid HEVC video codec extension installed. Opera also offers HEVC playback on the same platforms as Chrome. Meanwhile, Apple’s Safari browser has maintained HEVC support since September 2017. Implementation in browsers has widened the opportunity for usage across online video and streaming service providers. Browser-based HEVC support is presently missing the associated copy protection mechanisms, notably DRM (digital rights management), that would permit paid video-on-demand services. Google is likely to go further by including their Widevine DRM. The solution requires existing HEVC decoder support on the underlying hardware, but this is no barrier, available across most premium consumer devices manufactured in the last few years. Therefore, it is now feasible for websites to present free-to-view video assets using HEVC, meaning that support for the standard now looks likely to proliferate a decade after it was released. The upshot of browser integration is that over 1.1 billion PCs and laptops become capable of participating in the HEVC ecosystem.
Personal electronics products
Across personal electronics, Smartphones contribute significantly towards the addressable population of HEVC- capable devices. By the end of 2023, Futuresource predict there will be 4.1 billion Smartphones globally in the field with the capacity to decode HEVC video. Hardware video decoders are a prerequisite for Smartphones given the necessity to minimise power usage
Smartphone adoption of hardware-supported decode: HEVC and AV1 Source: ScientiaMobile
SEPTEMBER 2024 Volume 46 No.3
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