The Alliance for Open Media Welcomes New Members and Announces Availability of Open Source Video Codec Project

AMD, ARM and NVIDIA join as key contributors to enable next-generation media experiences in hardware using AOMedia Video

WAKEFIELD, Mass., USA – April 5, 2016 – The Alliance for Open Media is pleased to announce that AMD, ARM and NVIDIA have joined the consortium in pursuit of an open and royalty-free AOMedia Video codec. The Alliance is also announcing public availability of its AOMedia Video source code as an open source project, and is welcoming contribution from the broader developer community.

New members and new participation level

Market-leading IP provider ARM and semiconductor companies AMD and NVIDIA have joined the Alliance for Open Media, which also includes Amazon, Cisco, Google, Intel, Microsoft, Mozilla and Netflix. Strong hardware support of AOMedia Video is crucial for broad industry adoption, and the expertise of AMD, ARM and NVIDIA will be instrumental for delivering the best video experiences to consumers.

As the Alliance for Open Media continues to grow its membership, it has also created a new Promoter membership level to allow even greater involvement from the media ecosystem. Application for enrollment at the Promoter level is now open and benefits include voting participation in the development of AOMedia Video, among others.

Availability of a new, open source video project

The AOMedia Video project is the open source repository for active development of the new AOMedia Video codec. The repository contains a baseline for this new codec, which the Alliance for Open Media will build upon to deliver state-of-the-art compression efficiency that bests modern codecs. With a focus on next-generation media experiences, AOMedia Video is designed to meet growing Internet demand for top-quality video scenarios across devices of all kinds and for users worldwide.

The availability of AOMedia Video as an open source project is an important milestone in fulfilling the organization’s promise to deliver a next-generation video format that is:

• Interoperable and open;
• Optimized for Internet delivery;
• Scalable to any modern device at any bandwidth;
• Designed with a low computational footprint and optimized for hardware;
• Capable of consistent, highest-quality, real-time video delivery; and
• Flexible for both commercial and non-commercial content, including user-generated content.

“The open source availability of our AOMedia Video project with active contributions from industry leaders marks the beginning of a new era of openness and interoperability for Internet video,” said Gabe Frost, Executive Director, the Alliance for Open Media. “We’re delighted to welcome AMD, ARM, and NVIDIA to the Alliance for Open Media, reflecting the importance of hardware support to achieve broad industry adoption.”

The Alliance for Open Media is a project of the Joint Development Foundation, an independent non-profit organization that provides the corporate and legal infrastructure to enable groups to establish and operate standards and source code development collaborations.

About the Alliance for Open Media

Launched in 2015, the Alliance for Open Media is a Joint Development Foundation project formed to define and develop media technologies to address marketplace demand for an open standard for video compression and delivery over the web.

Supporting statements from the new Alliance members follow.

SUPPORTING STATEMENTS FROM NEW ALLIANCE MEMBERS

AMD

“AMD is excited to join the Alliance for Open Media,” said Joe Cox, corporate vice president, graphics engineering, AMD. “AMD delivers superior video and media solutions optimized for various platforms and is committed to working with other leading companies on the next generation world-class video codec technologies that enable the best media experiences for consumers.”

ARM

“As a Founder Member of the Alliance for Open Media, ARM has been actively involved in influencing and contributing to the new codec specifications,” said Mark Dickinson, general manager, media processing group, ARM. “We are working to ensure that the new codec can and will be implemented in hardware once the software specification is finalized. ARM’s focus on mobile multimedia will enable hardware implementations of the AOM Video codec to quickly become available to all OEMs operating in the mobile market.”

NVIDIA

“Developing future, open-source codecs is an important step on the road to next-generation media experiences,” said Jay White, Director, Strategic Marketing at NVIDIA. “By joining the Alliance for Open Media as a founding member, NVIDIA can directly participate in the development of these key technologies.”