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About MainConcept
What an interesting year 2024 has been. While our industry continues to move forward with advancements that shape the way the world consumes entertainment, we can’t ignore the fact that the financial fabric that holds the industry together remains a bit frayed. As we close out the year and look forward to 2025, some MainConcept team members wanted to share their reflections and what they are tracking into next year. There are bright spots for sure, especially on the side of technical innovation. Read on to learn their thoughts on the product, technology and business fronts.
Frank Schönberger - Senior Strategic Product Release Manager
I was closely following the evolution of hardware encoding, which took a major leap in 2024. GPUs from Intel, AMD and NVIDIA all support codecs like AVC/H.264, HEVC/H.265 and AV1, making them ideal for VOD and live use-cases . However, hardware encoders often fall short for professional workflows requiring formats like 4:2:2 10-bit, necessitating software encoders.
Addressing this shortfall, we launched MainConcept EVA (Easy Video API). MainConcept EVA integrates GPU hardware from Intel, AMD, and NVIDIA with MainConcept’s software encoders/decoders into a unified API, streamlining operations for users, saving time and budget.
Looking ahead to 2025, the trend continues with more hardware processing boards from NETINT and AMD's Xilinx-based Alveo, focusing on cost-effective hardware encoding and decoding.
On the hardware device-side, Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite and Plus compute platforms, based on Arm architecture, were introduced into more than 20 PCs at very attractive price points, gaining Qualcomm a serious foothold into the Windows PCs marketplace. In 2025, Windows on Arm systems will continue their push towards the mainstream, thus I expect to see a steady flow of media software natively running on these cost-effective chipsets.
With MainConcept SDKs already available for Windows on Arm, our customers can also create professional production and broadcast workflows that are not natively supported on the Snapdragon X platforms. In fact, as Arm architecture gains significant market share for laptops and server systems, MainConcept is ensuring that the industry is ready. As an early adopter of Apple Silicon, our Software Development Kits have been natively running on macOS for years. Today, our encoders and decoders are compliant with the AWS Graviton chipsets running Linux on AWS for compute intensive tasks. The best is still to come for Arm in 2025!
Tsviatko Jongov - Product Manager
As the media and entertainment industry evolves, there are several impactful trends that I see shaping the landscape. Here are two of the topics I am tracking:
The shift from SDI to IP-based workflows is reshaping the broadcast industry, with ST 2110 leading the charge. As broadcasters embrace IP, they unlock greater flexibility, scalability, and efficiency. A noteworthy player in this transformation is JPEG XS, one of the first low-compression video codecs used for live IP transmission. Its ability to deliver high-quality video with minimal latency makes it a critical tool in modern broadcast environments. This ongoing transition is setting the stage for a more interconnected and agile broadcast infrastructure, paving the way for innovation in live production and distribution.
Brazil’s rapidly evolving broadcast market is becoming a proving ground for emerging technologies and setting up Latin America as an innovation hub. Emerging standards such as VVC (Versatile Video Coding), LCEVC (Low Complexity Enhancement Video Coding), MPEG-H, and ROUTE-DASH are making their mark as the country transitions to TV 2.5 and TV 3.0/DTV+. The full potential of these technologies is expected to unfold in 2025, influencing not only Brazil but also other countries in Latin America as they adopt and adapt these innovations.
Beyond these, the coming year promises further advancements in key areas:
- AI: continued innovation in AI-driven tools for broadcast and production
- Video codecs: gradual increases in the adoption of HEVC, VVC and AV1
- Media delivery: breakthroughs in achieving lower latencies and high-quality live production workflows
Jens Schneider - Senior Video Coding R&D Engineer
With the rise of AI/ML-based enhancement in the field of video encoding, focusing on ML-based approaches was key for driving innovation within MainConcept’s video encoders in 2024. In particular, content-aware encoding and optimizing the visual quality were considered as reasonable approaches to improve the bitrate or compute efficiency of encoders, especially for broadcast delivery use-cases. Next to building a new on-prem compute-platform with cloud-native tooling enabling groundbreaking research activities, first promising results for improvements were obtained in 2024.
Looking forward to 2025, it is obvious that the top-notch compute-infrastructure built in 2024 will serve as an accelerator for further research activities in ML-based video encoding enhancement. Further, the compute-cluster extends our capabilities to perform continuous benchmarking with respect to the key performance indicators of bitrate, video quality (VMAF, PSNR, SSIM), and encoding time. The combination of continuous benchmarking and research is expected to have a major impact on our product portfolio in 2025 and the upcoming years.
Geoff Gordon - Vice President, Marketing
It is no secret that 2024 was a tough year for many companies and that way too many individuals in the industry have unexpectedly found themselves unemployed. The “golden age of streaming” ended quite some time ago, many are still trying to figure out how to adapt to the new normal amid ongoing budget shortfalls.
The advantage a company like MainConcept has is in our ability to support customers who are in this situation, by allowing our team members to fill in as a means to bridge the gap of technical knowledge that may no longer be available internally.
The start of 2025 is unclear. The new U.S. administration may introduce changes that could directly impact broadcast and streaming. Whether those changes are positive or negative will take time to sort out. In the meantime, innovation won’t stop, content will still be created that needs to be compressed and distributed across an array of formats. I expect AI will still be buzzy, extended reality will be tempered slightly, and the likes of Netflix and Amazon Prime will quickly improve their live sports capabilities.
What is your #1 takeaway from 2024?
What are you most looking forward to in the new year?
Let us know: marketing@mainconcept.com