Bitmovin launches Smart Chunking
March 2, 2023
Bitmovin, a provider of video streaming infrastructure, has optimised its Next-Generation VOD Encoder with Smart Chunking to further increase the quality and turnaround times with split and stitch. The new functionality optimises chunk lengths and bitrate distribution, delivering an improved visual quality throughout the whole asset that’s visible to audiences and achieving this at an even faster pace than before.
Bitmovin’s Smart Chunking is the next evolution of the split and stitch algorithm, which is when a video file is split into multiple parallel encoding jobs. The split and stitch algorithm accelerates encoding but can cause the quality to drop between segments due to bitrate ‘jumps’, which can be visible to the viewer. Smart Chunking intelligently optimises chunk lengths and bitrate distribution, ensuring smooth visual quality throughout the whole asset, achieving it at an even faster pace. To achieve this, Bitmovin decoupled the chunk duration, which allows for variable chunk size depending on the type of codec and the complexity of encoding, providing the user with immediate and visible improvements.
“Smart Chunking is a new innovation that ensures our customers can encode video files even more efficiently at speed and scale in the highest quality, with absolutely no tradeoffs,” said Stefan Lederer, CEO and Co-Founder of Bitmovin. “It doesn’t matter if you are a broadcaster with millions of viewers or a more nimble streaming service; our Smart Chunking will benefit all users with optimised split and stitch encoding that maximises the viewing experience for audiences while helping our customers achieve their business goals.”
Smart Chunking enhances low-quality frames in assets by up to 60 VMAF points based on early customer testing. This difference is visible to viewers, resulting in a noticeably higher quality of experience for audiences and giving customers a competitive advantage. The availability of Smart Chunking also marks Bitmovin’s first stage in making Per-Shot Encoding available to its customers. With Per-Shot Encoding, which can divide a video file into shots and encode each shot, further optimizing bitrate efficiencies.
“We’re incredibly excited and proud of this announcement because of the quality of the technology and because it’s an important milestone for us as we continue on our quest to make Per-Shot Encoding available to our customers,” concluded Lederer.