YouTube clocks 25 billion hours of VP9 video views

YouTube comparing the image quality of a Janelle Monaé video in VP9 or legacy H.264 transcodes.

YouTube has revealed that in the past year viewers have watched more than 25 billion hours of video encoded using its VP9 compression standard.

Announcing the milestone, the video site said that it supports the open-source codec as it brings HD and 4K video quality at “half the bandwidth used by other known codecs.”

“VP9 unlocks the burgeoning world of 4K videos. At larger video sizes, VP9 actually gets even more efficient than its predecessors, so uninterrupted 4K content can now be streamed by a significant and growing part of the YouTube audience,” said YouTube software engineer Steven Robertson in a company blog post.

“The amount of 4K video uploaded to YouTube has more than tripled in the past year, and VP9 helps us plan for improved streaming into the future.”

Google’s VP9 video compression codec is the internet giant’s alternative to the H.265 next-generation video compression standard.

Speaking at the TV Connect conference in London last year, Francisco Varela, global director of mobile and platform partnerships, YouTube, said that VP9 can help YouTube deliver a more TV-like experience and provide a better way to overcome bandwidth limitations than financial payment to operators for privileged access to networks.