The VideoVerse

  Episode Overview     In this episode of the VideoVerse Podcast, we’re joined by Sudeep Kumar, Product Lead at Airtel Digital, one of India’s largest telecom providers. Hosted by Zoe Liu (CEO, Visionular), the conversation dives deep into the evolving video experience in India, from live streaming trends and CDN selection to data usage behavior and the role of perceptual quality in retention. Sud...

In this kickoff episode of the revived Visionular Podcast, David Lea is joined by Zoe Liu and Krishna Rao to reflect on their experience at NAB 2025. From AI innovations to meaningful product conversations, the trio unpacks what made this year different—and why Visionular’s AI-driven compression and enhancement tools are gaining real traction. This isn’t just another recap. It’s a behind-the-scene...

In this episode, Romain Bouqueau, CEO and Founder of Motion Spell gives us a deep look into the contributions of the open-source community in the world of video streaming. Romain also shares his insights into how open-source works, how GPAC/Motion Spell has remained ahead of the curve with its focus on R&D, and how open-source and commercial entities can collaborate effectively to fuel innovat...

Tune in to hear Flavio Ribeiro, Sr. Engineering Manager of Netflix’s Live Streaming Technologies, discuss all things video streaming. Starting in the streets of Campina Grande, Flavio shares his journey from contributing to the recreation of Brazil’s digital television system and working on Globo’s live streaming platform for the 2014 FIFA World Cup, to helping pioneer video processing and deliver...

Back for a second time on TheVideoVerse, Debargha Mukherjee, Principal Engineer at Google, discusses the upcoming AV2 project, touted as the successor to the popular and powerful AV1 codec. In this podcast, Debargha talks about the advent of the AV2 project and its goals. He delves into the specialized tools newly introduced in AV2, the enhancements to existing AV1 tools, and the resultant perform...

Jill Boyce, Distinguished Scientist at Nokia, is one of the most significant and long-standing contributors to MPEG compression standards. In this episode, we speak with her about her work and experiences, from MPEG-2 through to VVC and beyond. She explains how focusing on what really matters to the users of standards is central to her work, and how having a background in real implementations has...

In this episode, we talk to Justin Ridge, President of the Media Coding Industry Forum (MC-IF). A veteran of video coding standards, he shares his perspective on the video codec landscape and the work of MC-IF in promoting MPEG standards. We discuss the adoption of VVC and how it compares with HEVC, the route map for future standards, the work being done for next-generation video coding, and the i...

In this episode, Eric Sun gives a deep dive into Meta's recent experiences with deploying AV1 for real-time communications across Meta's applications. He describes what proved to be the big advantages of AV1, where Meta saw most benefit in terms of user experience and how Meta demonstrated improved engagement from better video quality, and the practical challenges that he and his team su...

In this episode, Chas Mastin shared his insights about how YouTube ensures premium playback experience for its users. As one of the largest streaming platforms globally, YouTube faces the challenge of delivering supreme experiences to millions of concurrent users and playback sessions from around the world.  Chas discusses the technical challenges in CDN peering, obtaining QoE metrics from the pla...

Live Captions are Hard!  Wait, are they?  Browse on over to the latest episode of The Video Verse where we discuss accessibility via Live Captions and Dubbing with Chris Zhang, Senior Solutions Architect at AWS, and Gio Galvez, VP of Business Development at SyncWords.  We discuss a bit of history, then move onto the current state of things, followed by where accessibility is headed. Watch on YouTu...

The VMAF video quality metric is ubiquitous in the streaming world, and any discussion of video codec performance is seldom complete without poring over VMAFscores. But what is it? In this episode VMAF guru and leader of the Netflix Video Codecs and Quality team joins us to delve into the mysteries of the metric. How did it originate and why was it needed? How has VMAF been developed and what does...

In this episode we are joined by Benjamin Bross and Adam Wiekowski, who head the Video Coding Systems Group at the prestigious Fraunhofer HHI research institute. Adam and Benjamin have been central to the development of the latest MPEG video coding standard Versatile Video Coding. They explain VVC's guiding philosophy and what "Versatile" really means, and what it takes to go throug...

We are pleased to host Shashank Vaishnav, CTO and co-founder of Stage.in. In this episode we discuss Shashank's unique entrepreneurial journey, and how he and his team have built hyper-localized OTT products in India.  We discuss the challenges of product delivery and what he is focused on this year from a technology perspective.

In this episode, we are joined by Omkiran (Omki) Sharma, Head of Video Engineering at Rakuten Viki.  Omki discusses Viki's origin story and how their user-sourced subtitles led to explosive growth in the early years of their service.  He also discusses their video "diff" process to share subtitles between multiple pieces of content that are slightly different from one market to anot...

In this fascinating episode, we are joined by Balu Adsumilli, Head of Media Algorithms at YouTube. In a wide-ranging discussion, he reveals how YouTube balances optimizing video quality with preserving the creative intent of their millions of contributors, and how the media quality task is affected by the changing nature of UGC video with ever-more sophisticated contributors and the trend towards...

In this episode, we're joined by Thomas Edwards, Principal Architect of Media and Entertainment at AWS. Here Thomas presents the current situation with regards to sustainability, and the goals set by major M&E companies. Thomas then talks about how the cloud can help meet sustainability goals through higher efficiency and scalable, event-driven operations. Thomas also focuses on M&E a...

In this episode, Professor Maggie Zhu and her student Zhihao Duan describe the state of the art in AI codecs and their diverse applications. AI compression can be applied to video three ways: augmenting conventional video codecs, completely replacing a conventional codec and also to compress the AI models used for various video applications. They discuss how the proliferation of lightweight video-...

In this episode of the Video Verse, Casey Bateman shares his insights on the challenges of migrating from H264 to HEVC and optimizing live streaming experiences. He also talks about their recent acquisition of BlueFrame Technology and how it will help teams make money by streaming out games to fans. Tune in for an interesting conversation about the future of video! Watch the full video version. Le...

Welcome to our podcast! Today we have Steve Heffernan, Creator of JS and Co-Founder of Mux joining us. We'll be talking about the challenges that come with scaling video technology for websites, and how this technology has become an integral part of web design in recent years. Steve will share his experience on what it takes to make videos more affordable and efficient, as well as how busines...

In this episode of the Video Verse, CP (CTO of Mola) joins us to discuss how technology is impacting user engagement on platforms. From understanding metaverse and merging lean back and lean forward experiences together; to leveraging content for increased engagement - CP has a lot of wisdom to share with us! Tune in now for an insightful conversation about tech, users and everything in between. W...

Welcome to The Video Verse podcast, the show where we discuss everything related to video. On this episode we'll be talking about AI and machine learning and their effects on video compression with our special guest Ramzi Khsib, a Principal Software Engineer at AWS Elemental.  Watch the full video version Learn more about Visionular and get more information on AV1

Today on the Video Verse, we have Thomas Davies, tech lead for Visionular. He will be discussing the hybrid world of video conferencing: where it started and how its use has developed over time. In addition, he'll let us in on some of the amazing changes this technology has undergone in a mere fifteen years as well as businesses slowly adapting to take full advantage of what it can offer them...

In today's episode of the video verse, we have Jan De Cock, Director of Coding Development at Synamedia, joining us to discuss the new encoder HEVC and the complexity of delivering 8K 50 Hz video to today's limited networks and devices. While quality has always been a top priority for Synamedia, they continue to make significant steps forward in optimizing their encoders and improving qu...

On average a 30-second video costs around $2,000 to produce. Trying to create thousands of videos at that rate can get quite costly. Wu0Hsi of Firework asked the question, what if we treated a video more like a script, that could be easily edited, modified, and templatized? This approach led them to develop a scalable solution that lets you input your content and data and let AI spit out thousands...

What variables do you need to be aware of when deciding the level of latency you need for your stream? Low and ultra-low latency is a hot topic in sports, live, poker tournaments, or online betting. Video R&D lead engineer at Evolution Gaming Behnam Kakavand, joins us to discuss some things you might want to consider as you make these decisions. Watch the full video version. Learn more about V...