Global Media Format Report 2016

2015 was another year of explosive growth in the world of cloud media processing. This year’s data set
reflects the usage of over 3000 leading broadcasters and content publishers. Our aim is to provide the critical
data, trends, and insights that will help shape your media processing strategy.

Cloud Storage Video Codecs & Containers

S3, Akamai, Cloud Files, Azure, Aspera, OpenStack, H.264, WEBM, FLV, HEVC, ProRes, DNXFHD
Google Cloud

Adaptive Bitrate Standards Screen Resolutions

HLS, MSS, DASH 4K, 1080p, 720p, 480p

Closed Caption Formats Digital Rights Management

SRT, DXFP, WEBVTT, SCC Google Widevine, Adobe Flash Access,
Microsoft PlayReady

Audio Formats Static Image Formats

MP3, AAC, HE-AAC, AC3, EAC3 JPEG, GIF, TIFF, PNG

2015 by the Numbers

Encoding.com’s total encoding volume grew 52% from 2014, providing an even broader snapshot of the
state of online video.

10 Global Processing Centers

We’ve expanded our global footprint with the addition of
cloud resources in Frankfurt Germany, giving us 9 points
of presence, in addition to our private cloud in Oakland, CA. All of these
resources now fully support Reserved Cloud Instances, Hybrid Cloud, and
1.45 PETABYTES
Source Content Ingested
our Public Beta Live Transcoding.

Average Formats per Source 395

401
Average number of target output continues to steadily 400
grow year over year. During our first full year of operation
in 2008 the average output formats per source video was 2.

Peak Processing Cores

15,900

350 340
Our proprietary Encoding Intelligence™ is at the heart
of the software providing automated and dynamic scale of
compute resources based on real-time workflow volume. Our
infrastructure continues to easily meet customer demands, even 315 TB INGESTED
at peak capacity. We maxed out on 11/12/2015 at 4:37 PM PST
running 15,900 simultaneous processing cores or 994 16-core 300
instances, representing a 16 percent increase over 2014’s peak. Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4

One of the biggest trends driving growth is the adoption of cloud resources by the world’s largest media and entertainment companies. A few critical
elements have made these companies more comfortable in the cloud. First, transit speeds in and out of the cloud are faster than ever because of UDP
technologies, making the processing of massive files a reality. Second, the stringent security requirements placed on cloud providers by industry and
government agencies often exceed the requirements for in-house data centers. Third, cloud storage has been an entry point for large companies
adopting the cloud. Once content is stored in the cloud, processing the content is much more attractive option.

Cloud Storage
Amazon Maintains Dominance

It’s no surprise that Amazon’s grip on the world of Cloud Storage was unwavering in 2015. Representing 63%
of the source and destination of the content we processed this year. Akamai remained a favorite of larger
media and entertainment companies. Their NetStorage solutions accounted for 19% of the input and output
storage we saw. OpenStack’s object based storage known as SWIFT made a strong debut at about 6%. Google
Cloud storage saw meager growth from 0% to 1% this year. Perhaps with Amazon’s acquisition of Elemental,
Google will start to take this space more seriously.

Amazon S3’s Dominance

Amazons dominance continues as almost 2/3 of all Encoding.com source
locations processed from commercial cloud storage providers comes from
an Amazon S3 location. 63% 19%

OpenStack
OpenStack's object based storage protocol, SWIFT made a strong S3 Akamai NetStorage
appearance in 2015's job statistics. The SWIFT source locations are most
commonly seen with OpenStack private deployments although the Oracle
Cloud adopted the SWIFT storage system within it's commercial offering.

9% 6%
Big Media Loves Akamai
Akamai's dominance of the media and entertainment sector is no secret and
their penetration of this market was demonstrated by a large percentage of
our M&E customers using Akamai NetStorage as a destination for cloud Azure OpenStack
media processing.

Google Cloud Struggles

Despite 100% growth from 2014 to 2015 (0 to 1%) the Google Cloud does 2% 1%
not represent a significant source or destination location for media
companies doing cloud media processing. We wonder if Google Cloud read
the press release that Amazon invested heavily in media processing and
acquired a company for 300M in 2014. Maybe they will take the space more
seriously in 2016? Cloud Files Google Cloud

Transit
How content is delivered to the cloud

New this year, we evaluated how people are getting content to and from the cloud. Despite being less
efficient and less secure, FTP/SFTP accounted for over half the transit in 2015 because of its legacy ubiquity.
However, UDP, particularly Aspera, makes up a significant portion of the transit and continues to grow
because it’s speed and security make it perfect for delivering high volume broadcast content.

FTP | 23%
FTP Remains
Despite the speed and security flaws inherent in the TCP/IP protocol,
SFTP | 29%
HTTP | 10% FTP remains a popular transit protocol for getting files to the cloud
primarily due to its ubiquity on on premise media servers.

UDP Takes Off

Customers utilizing UDP technologies like Aspera showed huge growth
in 2015 over 2014. The inherent speed and security design make UDP a
perfect protocol for delivering high value mezzanine assets from on
premise locations to cloud processing centers and back.

UDP (Aspera) | 38%

Video Codecs & Containers

While we support virtually unlimited codec and container combinations processed by over 20 commercial
and open source encoding engines, very few of those formats make up a significant percentage of usage.
We saw the leading formats (not including the ‘other’ category) drop from 7 to 5 as WMV and 3GP both fell
below a percentage point.

H.264 Holds Steady OGG | 2%

Other | 2%
H.264 grew slightly this year, reflecting dominance as the go to format
for every device imaginable, fueled by the continued adoption of adaptive FLV | 6%
packaging formats. Apple continues its use of this technology, and Google
solidified their execution as we saw Android 5.0 Lollipop go mainstream, HEVC | 6% H.264 | 72%
and the debut of Android 6.0 Marshmallow.

WebM Secures Foothold

Fueled by the demand for securing HTML5 video content in the browser,
WebM grew by roughly a third this year and is emerging as a leading
method for delivering HTML5 video to Chrome, Firefox, and Opera.
WebM | 12%

HEVC Almost Mainstream

As more and more devices are released that support 4k content, video
publishers are starting to publish these dimensions using HEVC to ensure
delivery with decreased bandwidth. However, the codec will continue to
see limited growth until a major tech player gets behind the technology.
Apple already uses HEVC for FaceTime on newer iOS devices, so we
expect to see more use of the technology in the near future.
Flash Video On Life Support
While Flash is still being used for specific uses and edge cases such as
banner ads and legacy browsers, it’s days are numbered. Flash outputs
decreased from 21% to 6% in 2015. We expect to see the Flash video
codec disappear completely from our report with 24 months.

Broadcasters Expand in the Cloud

Betting on the cloud in 2014 seems to have paid off for the world’s largest media and entertainment companies as we saw over 50% growth of broadcast
and edit codecs in 2015. Enterprise platforms ensure rapid delivery and storage of massive broadcast files. Storage has become an entry point for
enterprise media & entertainment companies getting into the cloud. Once content is stored online, cloud processing solutions become far more attractive.

Adaptive Bitrate Standards

As companies try to do more with less, adaptive packaging formats continue to lead the way when it
comes to delivering optimized content to the broadest range of devices. While the device landscape
remains increasingly scattered, leading video publishers are targeting HLS on all major devices (iOS,
Android), Browsers, and OTT players (Apple TV, Roku, Fire TV, Chromecast).

Devices Streaming Format DRM HLS the Industry Standard

2015 saw Apple strengthen their lead position utilizing HLS as THE
iOS HLS FairPlay delivery format for mobile. In addition, Android 5.0 Lollipop and 6.0
Marshmallow finally delivered mature support for HLS. Big moves by
Android HLS Access major broadcasters offering OTT subscriptions has ushered in the a la
carte content era. In turn, this has increased demand to deliver HLS
Desktop HLS Access
streams to the TV, whether connected TV or OTT device. These factors
Apple TV combined to make HLS the de facto standard for video delivery in an
increasingly chaotic device and content landscape.
Native App HLS FairPlay
Airplay “Cast” HLS FairPlay
TVOS HLS FairPlay
MPEG-Dash Strengthens in the Browser
Both HLS and MPEG-DASH are supported in nearly every major browser
Roku HLS Access with a JavaScript extension. However, MPEG-DASH is a part of the
HTML5 architecture, because of that we are starting to see delivery of
Android/FireTV HLS Access
MPEG-DASH to the browser as well as limited reach with mobile browsers.
Chromecast HLS Widevine

Smooth Streaming Holding in Second

Again this year Microsoft Smooth Streaming is the second most
popular adaptive format along with PlayReady DRM. This is in support
of the XBOX One which has evolved beyond a game console to become DASH 10%
a leading means of delivering content, including OTT subscriptions to Smooth Streaming 19%
the Television. HLS 71%

Screen Resolutions
Despite the bigger is better mantra in the realm of screen sizes, we are just now seeing 1080p make up about
half the resolutions. 4k saw nearly 50% growth, but it remains far from the pole position. 720p remains a
leading format for most mobile devices.

480p | 6% Mobile Devices

4K | 8% While most current smartphones support 1080p, 720p remains the
leading format, because it's easier to ensure optimized playback over
1080p | 48% varied connection speeds.

4K
1080p
720p 480p
720p | 38%

Closed Caption Formats

While the FCC did make some updates to their
requirements in 2015, none of these impacted
output formats. We continued to see an even
distribution amongst leading formats with a slight
increase in WebVTT and a slight decrease in DXFP DXFP 16%
WebVTT 18%
and SCC. However we did see 15% more outputs SCC 23%
containing caption tracks in 2015. SRT 43%

Digital Rights Management

As the biggest studios and broadcasters start to deliver their content to every device, secure encryption has
become a vital component of the online video ecosystem.

Flash Access | 8%
Google WideVine
We launched support for Widevine Modular in 2015. This is an update to
Widevine Modular | 11% Google’s DRM standards offering improved support for the encryption of
MPEG-DASH streams.

Apple FairPlay
Widevine Classic | 63% We will be offering support for Apple’s FairPlay encryption in Q2 2016
which will have a significant impact on the DRM schemes being used.
PlayReady | 18%

Audio Formats
New this year, we’ve introduced the audio formats category. Audio compression plays a critical role in the
delivery of optimized video. Tech innovators like Dolby & Apple continue to lead the charge by creating high
quality low bitrate audio codecs that ensure that the highest quality content is delivered to every device.

AAC and HE-AAC Offer Broad

EAC3 | 2%
Device Compatibility
The AAC and Dolby HE-AAC codecs remain popular audio codecs with
MP3 | 5% HE-AAC | 41%
broad compatibility across desktop and mobile devices. The HE-AAC
codec is especially popular within the HLS adaptive bitrate standard as it
performs exceptionally well at the low 64k audio only bitrate required in
Apple's HLS spec.

AAC | 23%
Dolby Surround Sound Grows
The Dolby Digital (AC3) and Dolby Digital Plus (EAC3) grew significantly
over 2014 aggregate data. The 5.1 and 7.1 codecs are gaining mobile
device compatibility in the market, and the codecs are often used within
the premium audio channel of the HLS spec which allows 192kbps 5.1
streams to be paired with 1080p high bitrate video streams. This audio
video combination offers a premium experience for connected televisions
like the Apple TV and Roku that are connected to home theatre receivers. AC3 | 29%

Static Image Formats

While video may have killed the radio star, it has not killed the demand for static image processing. Our
image2image feature remains popular for image processing at scale and creating poster images for VTT to
generate thumbnail previews is on the rise. Overall, the data remained virtually the same.

78% 11% 6% 5%

JPEG PNG TIFF GIF

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sales@encoding.com
+1 800 513 1740

546 Bryant Street

San Francisco, CA 94107