On 23rd and 24th September 2023, The Sigmedia Group at Trinity College Dublin School of Engineering, Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering, were proud to play host to VideoLAN Developer Days (VDD) 2023. This is the 16th edition of the conference organised by the VideoLAN Non-Profit organisation and the first time the community met in person since the edition in 2019 in Tokyo before the pandemic. Dublin played host to the conference before in 2014 when it was hosted by Google, Dublin.
This is the most important conference in video broadcasting that you’ve probably never heard of. The VideoLAN Open-Source community develops the software infrastructure which underpins every major streaming platform we all use today, from Netflix, YouTube, Amazon and Disney all the way to every broadcasters’ online player e.g. the iPlayer from the BBC, and RTEPlayer from RTÉ. The conference serves as a hub for collaboration and discussions aimed at shaping the future of open-source multimedia (aka streaming). Open-Source Multimedia sustainability was the main theme this year. As evidence of the global industry importance of this event, many of the major streaming media and video infrastructure providers were represented over the two days : Netflix, Google/YouTube, Meta, Vimeo, AMD, Cisco, Samsung, and many more.
Sigmedia@25: Leading the Way in Multimedia Research
The Signal Processing for Media Applications Group (Sigmedia), founded in 1998, turned 25 this year. It is a prominent research group in the area of audio and video technology within the Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering at Trinity College Dublin. We have been working with organisations in the VideoLAN industry community e.g. YouTube, for many years.
VideoLAN: A Global Open-Source Powerhouse
The VideoLAN project, which served as the focal point of VDD 2023, is a testament to the power of open source in the realm of multimedia. Its origins can be traced back to 1996 as a student project at the French École Centrale Paris to build a video player in software. After undergoing a complete rewrite in 1998, it transitioned into an open-source initiative in 2001. Over the years, it has evolved into a global project with contributors from 40 countries, promoting the principles of open source in the multimedia world. The VideoLAN project includes the development of the renowned VLC media player and other multimedia projects. The infrastructure developed by this wide-ranging group of contributors underpins all of the world’s video streaming platforms from the large-scale YouTube, Netflix and Meta to every broadcaster’s player in your browser.
VDD 2023: Shaping the Future of Open-Source Multimedia
VideoLAN Developer Days 2023 is not for the feint hearted. Presenters dived right into the gnarly technical details of low-level multimedia elements like FFmpeg (multimedia underbelly used by millions of developers), VLC Media player implementation, video encoders/decoders and the playback chain.
On Day 1, Anton Khirnov introduced Multi-threading in FFmpeg to improve the speed/power tradeoff especially on mobile devices. Later, Christophe Guisqet showed how Cisco uses AV1 for Screen Sharing in the WebEx Video Conferencing software. Remi Denis-Courmont then delivered a talk on advancements in RISC-V architecture development. Nicolas Pomepuy presented the VLC Android technical stack. The last talk of the day was from Ronald Bultje (CTO and Founder of TwoOrioles) highlighting updates for dav1d, the software AV1 video decoder which contains more than 200,000 lines of handwritten assembly and enables playback on all mobile devices. Later in the Day, attendees split into different interest groups and kicked off various un-conference developer meetings and hacking sessions.
On Day 2, Martin Storsjö opened the second day with updates on LLVM-mingw software compilers used for improving the maintainability and efficiency of the codebase. Mark Shwartzman from Meta, presented the live-streaming architecture inside Meta for Instagram and Facebook. Later in the morning session, there was a series of lighting talks about everything from fast file-reading for video processing, to reverse engineering of video codecs. The Big Demo showed off VLC MediaPlayer in Apple’s latest VIsionOS.
The backbone of the multimedia industry is built on top of the video infrastructure and tools created by the VideoLAN and other open-source multimedia projects. However, these open-source projects currently face sustainability challenges, not just in terms of efficiency of the emerging video codecs but also in terms of codebase maintenance and reliability i.e. how do we ensure that all aspects of the software video infrastructure is actually being continuously tested and adapted as people enter and leave the community? One of the attendees, Luc Trudeau from Two Orioles, called this out:
“Sustainable open source is not just an option; it’s an imperative. I’m reminded of the incredible potential of open-source initiatives and the responsibility we share in ensuring their sustainability. The journey ahead may be challenging, but it's a journey worth embarking on.”
To find out more about Sigmedia, please vist https://sigmedia.github.io/. To learn more about VideoLAN projects, visit: https://www.videolan.org/projects/