Microsoft Open-Sources AI Video Codec with Major Bandwidth Savings

“Microsoft has open-sourced ML Video Codec (MLVC) under the MIT License, offering a neural-network-based alternative to H.264 and H.265 that uses modern NPUs to deliver comparable video quality at significantly lower bitrates. Microsoft reports savings of up to 88% versus H.264 and 76% versus H.265 at 360p, with real-time 540p performance demonstrated on Apple, Intel, and Qualcomm hardware. MLVC is already being tested in Microsoft Teams, and the release includes source code, trained models, training tools, and hardware-conversion scripts. Microsoft plans to improve reliability, expand hardware support, add 1080p capabilities, and develop MLVC into an open codec ecosystem for conferencing, streaming, cloud gaming, broadcasting, and other video applications.”

https://github.com/microsoft/VCD