Constant Video Quality presets
February 2024
What’s changing
MK.IO is announcing new encoding profiles that take advantage of MediaKind’s innovative Constant Video Quality (CVQ) algorithms. CVQ is a technology that uses trained AI models to hold the video quality at a constant rate, while varying the video bitrate and encoding parameters to achieve the maximum possible bitrate savings.
Who is impacted
API Users — To use the new CVQ profiles, you will need to create a new transform.
Playback clients — Not all clients are compatible with CVQ. Certain older WinCE and Roku devices may experience playback issues.
Why you would use this / Why it matters
CVQ decreases your storage footprint without sacrificing video quality. In addition, CVQ reduces the amount of bandwidth necessary to play back content at a given quality level. CVQ lets you reach customers on slower connections, reduces playback startup times, and saves you money on storage and CDN.
CVQ adds a small upfront cost that returns value quickly with usage. If your content is played back by a lot of users, and stored for a long time, CVQ is for you. On the other hand, if your content is short-lived and doesn’t get much play, you should consider using non-CVQ profiles.
Additional details
When deciding whether to use CVQ, consider the duration of your asset. CVQ doesn’t yield too much of a benefit for short-duration content. Below 30 seconds, continue to use the standard set of profiles. Above 60 seconds, and you’ll see a 15-30% reduction in video bitrate with no perceptible change in video quality.
Getting started
The following new profiles are available:
- H264MultipleBitrateSDWithCVQ
- H264MultipleBitrate720pWithCVQ
- H264MultipleBitrate1080pWithCVQ
To use the new CVQ profiles, create a new transform selecting one of the three new profiles. When you start a job, select your new transform.
Availability & rollout plan
CVQ is available everywhere, today!
Resources
Read our blog article on CVQ (opens in a new tab)
Meters & pricing
CVQ profiles are available under our Advanced and Premium encoding tiers.
Pricing is described in detail in the Content Processing & Transcoding Table (opens in a new tab)