YouTube has announced that it will unveil a new 4K video streaming service at CES 2014. The 4K streaming content will use a new royalty-free codec developed by Google, which is called VP9.
Google has a list of 19 hardware partners that will support its VP9 codec take off for 4K streaming including some chipset vendors like ARM, Intel, Broadcom, and Marvell.
Sharp, Samsung, and Toshiba are also among the supporters. “This certainly isn’t a war of the video codecs," said Francisco Varela, global platform partnership director at YouTube.
If you don’t plan on adopting a 4K TV to enjoy the higher resolution streaming any time soon, VP9 still has some benefit for you. According to Varela, the VP9 codec will allow YouTube to reduce the amount of data needed to stream normal HD content by half. That means you can stream YouTube videos without as large an impact on your monthly data allotment.
VP9 hardware decoding will hit PCs and mobile devices first according to Varela, with TVs supporting the format hitting the market by 2015.
