MC-IF brings VVC demos to IBC 2026 in Amsterdam

The Media Coding Industry Forum is using IBC 2026 in Amsterdam to showcase new Versatile Video Coding features as the standard moves toward broader commercial deployment, including national-scale rollout in Brazil. The demos aim to show how VVC could improve mobile playback, live streaming resilience, personalization and quality scalability across the video ecosystem.

Why it matters: - Versatile Video Coding is moving from early testing toward commercial deployment, with Brazil cited as a national-scale example of adoption. - MC-IF’s IBC demos are meant to show where VVC can create value across devices, streaming, broadcasting and networks. - The forum says broader adoption could open new revenue models across the video value chain.

What happened: - The Media Coding Industry Forum returned to Amsterdam for IBC 2026 to demonstrate VVC features and ecosystem capabilities. - MC-IF member organizations are presenting demonstrations at Hall 2–2.B13 throughout IBC 2026. - Justin Ridge, MC-IF president and principal engineer in Nokia’s Multimedia Research and Standardization unit, said first-half 2026 progress has been positive and gradual for VVC adoption. - Ridge said system-on-chip manufacturers are adding more VVC capabilities and content providers are showing more interest in the codec.

The details: - ARM is previewing a NEON-optimized VVC software decoder for mobile devices. - The decoder targets real-time 8-bit and 10-bit playback on ARM64 Android devices using NEON acceleration. - MC-IF says the implementation is designed to deliver decoding performance up to 150% faster than existing software decoder baselines. - The decoder is designed to reduce power use and memory requirements for sustained playback on mobile and lower-memory devices. - The mobile decoder targets up to 12 hours of sustained HD playback. - An open-source roadmap includes planned access through C/C++, FFmpeg and Android JNI. - Dolby is presenting Efficient Multi-CDN Live Streaming with CMMF and VVC. - The Dolby demo combines VVC/H.266 with the ETSI/3GPP Coded Multi-Source Media Format, or CMMF. - The demo sends the same live VVC stream to two Android devices, one using conventional single-source delivery and the other using CMMF across multiple CDN and network paths. - The comparison is intended to show improved reliability and service continuity when network conditions change or CDNs are impaired. - InterDigital and NHK are presenting Leveraging Multilayer VVC for Content Overlay and Spatial/Quality Scalability. - Their demo covers content overlay and spatial or quality scalability in the Multilayer VVC profile. - The content-layering element shows reframing of the base layer and overlaying captions or sign language translations in an enhancement layer. - The scalability element shows how a VVC enhancement layer can improve quality more efficiently than independent encoding. - The demo platform uses a VVC multilayer software decoder. - The two dual-layer configurations compare against single-layer coding and an upscaled base layer. - The comparisons include HDR UHD with an HD base layer using a 2x scaling ratio, and SDR HD with a 720p base layer using a 1.5x scaling ratio. - In both cases, about 25% of the total bitrate is allocated to the enhancement layer. - The InterDigital and NHK demo aligns with the VVC multilayer coding verification test published in April 2026 as JVET-AP2033-v2. - Qualcomm and Alibaba are presenting a real-time VVC live streaming demo for mobile devices. - Their end-to-end workflow covers live VVC encoding, transmission and playback on mobile platforms. - The demo is intended to show lower bitrate delivery with maintained visual quality and better viewing under bandwidth-constrained conditions.

Between the lines: - MC-IF is trying to move VVC discussion away from abstract standard-setting and toward practical deployments that device makers, content providers and network operators can evaluate. - The focus on mobile playback, multi-CDN resilience and layered personalization suggests the industry is looking for use cases that justify switching costs versus established codecs. - The emphasis on interoperability and coexistence with existing codecs signals that adoption is still incomplete, even as technical readiness improves.

What's next: - MC-IF members will use IBC 2026 to keep promoting VVC adoption and industry participation. - The forum says wider ecosystem involvement from chipsets, devices, software, streaming, broadcasting and networks is part of the next phase. - Commercial deployment efforts are expected to continue as more chips, devices and content services add VVC support.

The bottom line: - MC-IF is using IBC 2026 to argue that VVC is no longer just a future standard, but a codec approaching real-world scale.