VP9
| Filename extension |
webm, mkv |
|---|---|
| Developed by | |
| Initial release | June 17, 2013 |
| Type of format | Compressed video |
| Contained by |
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| Extended from | VP8 |
| Extended to | AV1 |
| Standard | (Bitstream Specification) |
| Open format? | Yes |
| Website | webmproject.org/vp9 |
VP9 is a advanced free video coding format developed mainly by Google. The format is well supported on Linux and most other operating systems and devices. All the major web browsers except those made by Apple support VP9 playback.
Newer Intel iGPUs support hardware encoding and decoding on Linux using VAAPI. The latest AMD graphics cards can do hardware decoding but they can not do hardware encoding.
Patents[edit]
VP9 is royalty-free but it not patent-free. Google holds several patents on aspects of the format. Google has guaranteed that it will not take action against anyone using the VP9-related patents it holds.
Web Browser Support[edit]
VP9 is supported by all the major web browsers except those made by American computer giant Apple.
| Browser | H.264/MPEG-4 AVC (MP4) | HEVC (MP4) | VP8 (WebM) | VP9 (WebM) | AV1 (WebM) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Android browsers | 
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| Chromium |  Depends on the build
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| Google Chrome |
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| Microsoft Edge (Modern Chromium based versions) |
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Only if hardware decoding is available
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| Falkon |
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| Mozilla Firefox |
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if ffmpeg supports it
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| Safari (macOS/iOS) |
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 only for WebRTC
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| GNOME Web |
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if gstreamer codecs are present
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if gstreamer codecs are present
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Hardware Encoding / Decoding[edit]
Intel graphics chips have had support for basic VP9 hardware decoding since Apollo Lake. Kaby Lake and newer are capable of basic hardware encoding. Intel chips did not get support for hardware encoding 10-bit video until Ice Lake. Neither Ice Lake, Tiger Lake or any other Intel chips is capable of 12-bit VP9 hardware encoding.
AMD APUs and graphics cards did not get any VP hardware decoding capabilities until "Video Core Next" was introduced with Navi, Raven and Renoir chips. No existing AMD graphics hardware is capable of VP9 hardware encoding and the upcoming AMD "Sienna Cichlid" and "Navy Flounder" graphics chips will not change that. AMD simply isn't there when it comes to VP9 hardware encoding.
VP9 Video Encoding Using ffmpeg[edit]
ffmpeg is the best tool for encoding/transcoding video to VP9. The amount of options you need to software encode VP9 efficiently on a modern CPU is, sadly, staggering. Creating a simple script with all the options required and/or desired is therefore likely preferable to remembering all of them.
#!/bin/bash
inputf="$*"
inputnoext="${inputf%.*}"
outputf="${inputnoext}.webm"
nice -n 19 ffmpeg -i "$*" \
-c:v libvpx-vp9 -crf 30 \
-b:v 9000k \
-c:s webvtt \
-metadata major_brand="" \
-metadata minor_version="" \
-metadata compatible_brands="" \
-metadata:s:a handler_name="ISO media created using ffmpeg" \
-metadata:s:v handler_name="ISO media created using ffmpeg" \
-threads 4 -row-mt 1 \
-tile-columns 6 -frame-parallel 1 \
-auto-alt-ref 1 -lag-in-frames 25 \
-ac 2 -c:a libopus -b:a 192k \
-strict experimental \
-f webm "${outputf}"
The more important options you likely want to keep in the above example are:
| Option | What | Why |
|---|---|---|
-c:v libvpx-vp9
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Selects VP9 codec | |
-crf 30
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Sets the quality | Lower number results in better quality, higher number results in worse |
-b:v 9000k
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Constrains bitrate to below 9000k | A bitrate constraint can be combined with -crf to ensure that the video bitrate never goes above this threshold.
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-threads 4
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Number of theads | You may want to increase it to 8 or 12 if you have more cores. This option is useless without other options, see below. |
-row-mt 1
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Required for multiple threads | You want it |
-frame-parallel 1
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Encode frames in parallel | Utilizes more threads |
-tile-columns 6
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Encode 6 columns in parallel | Utilizes more threads |
-c:a libopus
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You want to pair VP9 with Opus audio | Specially true if you want to make a .webm for the web |
-ac 2
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Limit audio to two channels | This is a requirement if you use a WebM container. It is not if you use a MKV container. |
-b:a 192k
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Audio bitrate | 192k is actually quite high for Opus audio. You could lower it but 192k is not much compared to the video so there is little reason to potentially hamper audio quality. |
Web Content Management Software[edit]
VP9 is supported by all web browsers except those made by some American fruit company who sells small square grossly overpriced locked-down computing devices. It is therefore safe to use only VP9 for all video purposes on the Internet (even if the free software foundation disagrees).
Many content management systems support VP9 but some do not unless you install extensions. MediaWiki supports transcoding video files uploaded by users to VP9 video files in different configured resolutions if you install the TimedMediaHandler extension.
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