Live sport is especially vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, from extreme weather disrupting events to rising costs and logistical challenges. As the pressure mounts to reduce the carbon footprint of sports media production, encoding and compression technologies are emerging as powerful tools in the industry’s broader sustainability efforts. Companies across the media tech ecosystem are refining their codec strategies to reduce energy consumption without compromising quality or performance.

For Paul Evans, solution area expert in Net Insight’s CTO Group, sustainable media transport begins with smarter decisions around codecs and compute. “Video compression is ultimately a balance between bitrate and quality, with several important considerations,” he says.

Evans notes that H.264 (AVC) remains the go-to in many broadcast environments thanks to its interoperability and relatively low compute demands. H.265 (HEVC) offers stronger bandwidth savings, but with a catch. “It comes with much higher processing complexity,” says Evans. “It often requires hardware accelerators and consumes more power due to its computational demands.

JPEG XS, on the other hand, prioritises ultra-low latency and simplicity. It consumes less power overall but is seen as less efficient in terms of compression, resulting in higher bitrates. “Network connectivity often drives the decision; limited bandwidth may favour HEVC, while low-latency environments may benefit from JPEG XS,” says Evans. “Alternatively, the total cost, including both connectivity and codec processing, can influence the choice, with power consumption often considered only as a secondary factor.”

Efficiency through hardware-based encoding is a priority for several vendors. “Wherever possible, we use hardware implementations of our video codecs,” says Eric Deniau, SVP of R&D at Vitec. “They’re five to ten times more power-efficient than software-based solutions and still deliver high-quality output.”

When off-the-shelf hardware isn’t suitable, Vitec develops custom designs to maximise energy efficiency. “Our internal development focuses on minimising algorithmic complexity while preserving video quality, allowing us to create highly efficient encoding solutions,” Deniau says. “Our next-generation hardware encoder will support VVC (H.266), which offers improved compression efficiency and reduced bitrate requirements compared to previous standards, all with sustainability at the forefront of the design.”

Combining “cutting-edge codec support with power-conscious design”, Appear directly helps content producers meet sustainability targets, according to Matthew Williams-Neale, vice president, marketing & communications at Appear.

The company’s hardware-based X Platform encodes up to 96 HD channels of AVC/HEVC or JPEG XS in a 2RU chassis. “That compact design means less hardware, less cooling, and lower energy draw across the board,” says Williams-Neale. “When encoding a UHD channel, the X Platform was shown to produce 38 times less CO₂ emissions than a leading competitor’s encoder.”

“By offering JPEG XS encoding/decoding natively in the X Platform, Appear allows production teams to transport high-bitrate video over IP networks with negligible delay,” Williams-Neale continues. “An ultra-low latency mode for HEVC achieves end-to-end glass-to-glass delays under 150ms for contribution feeds.

“Every incremental improvement in compression, whether through HEVC’s 50% bitrate reduction or JPEG XS’s latency advantages, means fewer resources consumed for the same output. This approach not only reduces operational costs but also aligns with the industry’s push for greener production practices.”

Sustainability is baked into Ateme’s approach to video delivery. Its Titan and Kyrion solutions integrate the latest compression standards – HEVC, AV1 and VVC – for real-time or on-demand encoding. The company has been improving compression density and eliminating unnecessary packaging or multiplexing to reduce both hardware requirements and processing loads. Ateme has demonstrated that its encoding on AMD EPYC-powered servers can reduce power consumption by approximately 50% without compromising performance, obviously a substantial CO₂ saving.

The company’s wider sustainability drive also includes enabling just-in-time packaging and shared live/time-shifted workflows to reduce storage and processing waste as well as applying analytics and AI to dynamically tailor encoding profiles based on device capabilities and viewer demand. These combined techniques reduce bitrates and lower energy use across the entire delivery chain, from networks and CDNs to data centres and user devices.

Remote compression

Remote production is another area where codecs can deliver real-world energy savings. “Although compressing audio and video as we do with our equipment saves resources when transmitting audiovisual content, it is in remote production where our equipment can make a significant sustainable impact,” says Rafael Pérez López, application & sales engineer at Prodys.

Prodys’ Quantum range supports remote commentary and control, enabling operators to manage commentary positions installed in homes from the MCR. “It not only improves efficiency but also significantly reduces costs and the carbon footprint associated with personnel travel and transportation of equipment.”

Appear’s encoding tools are also enabling broadcasters to redesign workflows around remote production. Williams-Neale highlights a global esports company which moved to the X Platform, replacing legacy SDI hardware with ST 2110-native HEVC encoders for a leaner footprint and lower power consumption. “By sending contribution feeds over IP using efficient codecs instead of deploying large crews and OB vans at each venue, they significantly curbed travel and energy use, lowering the carbon footprint of each event,” he adds.

A North American sports streaming platform recently deployed Appear’s X20 media processors to handle more live feeds without increasing power usage. “With 18 HD/UHD channels encoded and 35 return feeds decoded in one compact system, the solution delivered real-time content without a spike in power demand,” says Williams-Neale.

Right-sizing

Vendors are also helping customers scale compute to match demand and avoid waste. “Using hardware that is appropriately sized for a customer’s needs can significantly reduce power usage,” advises Net Insight’s Evans.

He sees reconfigurable FPGA platforms as a way to balance energy efficiency and flexibility. “For many use cases, a fixed-function ASIC is not viable, and our flexible FPGA approach helps minimise hardware costs while maintaining performance.”

Tech vendors can reduce stream power consumption by combining hardware accelerators with intelligent encoding. “Using GPU, VPU or FPGA options can greatly reduce the power consumption for each stream you need to process,” says Barry Owen, VP of solutions engineering at Wowza.

Owen highlights smarter creation of ABR ladders, video streams encoded at different bitrates and resolutions to optimise the experience for different viewers. “If you use the data you can collect from the CDN and the Player you can be much more intelligent about ABR ladder creation and not waste power on creating renditions that are never viewed.”

In 2023, Wowza announced a collaboration with AMD involving Wowza Streaming Engine and AMD’s Xilinx Alveo U30 accelerator card, resulting in highly efficient transcoding for low-latency and large-scale video streams. Latterly it announced Streaming Engine’s compatibility with EC2 VT1 AWS instances to support low-latency, energy-efficient streaming at scale.

“The collaboration with AMD has allowed customers to greatly increase their stream density per server, which can dramatically lower the overall power consumption to transcode that stream,” says Owen. “By allowing customers the choice of deployment options – on-prem, public cloud or SaaS – we also give them the flexibility to create the most efficient infrastructure possible without having to over-provision, which often wastes energy with idle machines.”

Choice is also offered by Net Insight’s software platform Nimbra Edge. It supports on-prem and cloud-based deployment and is fully cloud-vendor agnostic, which means broadcasters can align infrastructure choices with their own environmental policies. “For example, Google Cloud has been powered by 100% renewable energy since 2017, while Microsoft Azure and AWS are on track to achieve the same by 2025,” notes Evans.

Sustainability as standard

A growing number of companies are formalising their codec strategies through long-term sustainability programmes. Ateme’s Green Delivery initiative, launched in 2021, offers an end-to-end framework for low-energy video delivery. It has helped OTT and DTH operators reduce energy consumption by up to 66% versus 2018 baselines. Ateme is also a founding member of the Greening of Streaming consortium.

Vitec established its GreenPEG initiative to formalise and expand its environmental efforts. Internally, the initiative encourages energy-saving behaviours among employees and raises awareness about the importance of sustainable practices in daily operations. “From a product development perspective, we have already implemented many energy-efficient features across our range, including hardware-based encoding, power monitoring, and optimised component selection,” says Deniau. “In addition, our design process places a strong emphasis on long-term product sustainability, incorporating rules for selecting recyclable raw materials and designing products that are easy to repair and disassemble for recycling.”

“As part of our sustainability efforts, we recently contributed to the requirements of the next MPEG standard, advocating for the integration of energy-efficiency criteria into the next generation of MPEG codec requirements,” Deniau adds. “Until now, this standardisation activity has been driven more by performance rather than efficiency. This contribution aims to shift the industry focus towards more sustainable design principles and ensure that environmental impact is a central consideration in future video compression standards.”