Thomas Davies is a Principal Codec Engineer at Visionular working on all aspects of video codec development and optimization with a special focus on RTC (real-time communications) use cases. Thomas developed the first real-time AV1 HD software video codec, for Cisco Webex, writing video enhancement algorithms, video analysis, real-time pre-filtering, and post-filtering for Webex clients and infrastructure. Thomas is a key contributor to the AV1 video codec standards development and his contributions include key codec technologies, such as entropy coding design, quantization, error resilience, and bitstream syntax.
In this interview, we dive into a discussion about how RTC encoding is different from file-based streaming or live broadcast streaming. Thomas provides key insights into the main challenges around how to deal with lossy networks, low latency, low bitrates, and difficult rate control issues. We touched on methods for maintaining AV sync in software-based clients, how to optimize for minimal CPU usage, what to do with intra frames, SVC, and more. This is an episode packed with knowledge. You will want to stay to the end.
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Learn more about the Visionular AV1 RTC encoder.