MainConcept Releases Performance-Enhancing Updates to its SDK Library

MainConcept SDKs rev up performance to meet the accelerating encoding and decoding demands of Digital Video

Aachen, Germany; San Diego, California – July 13, 2021 – MainConcept^®, the leading provider of codec and streaming technologies, today announced they have updated their expansive line of Software Development Kits (SDKs) to keep pace with the accelerating demands for encoding and decoding in the Digital Video, Pre-Processing, Post-Production, Streaming and Broadcast industries. With this update, the company unifies its codec portfolio not only across operating systems, but also processors, meaning the newest chipsets on ARM architecture will enjoy a similar feature set as those on x86.

For almost 30 years, MainConcept has been at the forefront of the digital video revolution. From MPEG to AVC and HEVC, MainConcept codecs help power many of the most intricate video workflows ever created. The latest release of the MainConcept SDKs, as always, were developed with industry professionals in mind and include performance enhancements and new features, guaranteeing that MainConcept codecs continue as the industry gold standard.

“This summer’s SDK release exemplifies why MainConcept is the codec of choice for professionals in Video Production, Streaming and Broadcast the world over,” said Deacon Johnson, Senior Vice President Technology Licensing and Strategy, MainConcept. “We continue to value quality, performance and reliability in our products, and while we maintain our existing portfolio, we are also developing new products and expanding our Professional Services offerings to enable our customers to bring products to market faster.”

MainConcept’s large and growing footprint in codec technology powers many of today’s leading products from companies like Adobe, Autodesk, Avid, Grass Valley and MAGIX. MainConcept continues to add more features to existing codec SDKs, garnering more depth and utility into the arsenal of tools relied on by hundreds of technology partners and customers.

Performance is a priority for the MainConcept engineering team, exemplified by the results demonstrated in the highly respected Moscow State University (MSU) Video Codecs Comparisons. In the most recent HEVC codec comparisons, MainConcept bested all companies tested, topping the 10-bit encoding efficiency of open source by 30%. In the 8-bit encoding tests, MainConcept led the list for best speed to quality trade-off. This metric is especially important for streaming and other use-cases that rely on fast and reliable content delivery. The MainConcept SDK updates include:

• Up to 20% overall speed improvement for AVC/H.264 encoding, plus a 20% speed increase on ARM-based devices
• Support for NVIDIA NVENC hardware encoding for our AVC/H.264 Encoder on x86 platforms
• 7% quality gain for AVC/H.264 video encoding using high-profile setting
• Optimized AVC/H.264 decoding with improved multi-instance behavior and up to 10% better performance
• Extended HDR format signaling support for DVB Video encoding when using the award-winning MainConcept HEVC/H.265 Encoder
• 2X improved performance for the MPEG-1/2 Encoder
• Extended HDR signaling capabilities in MP4 and MXF containers
• Improved handling of time-shift recordings (ingest while record) for MXF-based formats.

By unifying SDK releases on a single timeline, MainConcept has further committed to delivering meaningful and reliable upgrades across its complete codec portfolio. Merging the MainConcept ARM Desktop SDK into the same release cycle ensures that developers are all working from the same technology regardless of hardware.

For more information on MainConcept or to download free evaluation software, visit www.MainConcept.com. You can also follow MainConcept on LinkedIn and Twitter. To register for MainConcept's upcoming educational webinar titled "How to improve Digital Video Workflow Efficiency using MainConcept SDKs," click here.