In order to maintain the popularity of YouTube, Google has developed a custom chip called Argos, designed to provide the best video quality and prevent excessive use of users’ broadband or mobile monthly data limit.
Google revealed to CNET in an exclusive interview that thousands of chips are now running in Google’s data center. If you upload a video today, it is almost certain that the Argos chip will process it so that it can be circulated around the world. A specific benefit is that when it processes high-resolution 4K video, it can be watched in a few hours instead of days as before.
Google introduced its Argos chip in detail for the first time at the ASPLOS conference on Wednesday. Starting in 2015, a team of about 100 Google engineers designed the first generation of chips. In recent months, Google has gradually adopted the second-generation Argos chip, taking video compression a step forward.
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On YouTube, processing video is a daunting task. Every minute users upload 500 hours of video to YouTube. This means that Google must do a lot of transcoding work to convert these originally uploaded videos into different compression formats and adjust them for different screen sizes. This is what Argos does. Argos is 20 to 33 times more efficient in processing video than traditional servers.
When you upload a video, YouTube immediately needs a new version based on your original version. For example, from a 1080p video, it creates lower-resolution 720p and 360p versions. This is because the person watching on the phone may not have the screen resolution or network capacity to watch the full-resolution version. In some areas with slow mobile networks, YouTube has also established lower resolution versions and slower frame rates.
All these processes are the work of the Argos chip, so it is called a video coding unit. Each Argos chip has 10 modules to process video, and Google has installed two Argos chips on each circuit board. Google provided VP8 and later VP9 codecs, free of copyright fees, and as an open-source code. Compared with H.264, under the same video image quality, VP9 requires about 30% less data.
For the successor to VP9, Google and allies such as Mozilla, Cisco, Microsoft, Amazon and Netflix formed the Open Video Alliance. They created a new codec called AV1, which won Apple’s approval. AV1 improves video quality by another 30%, reducing network usage, or allowing YouTube to send 4K streams, which previously only supported 1080p streams.
AV1 can now be used in some web browsers, such as Chrome, Firefox, Brave, Edge and Samsung Internet, and online video giants such as Netflix and Facebook now also provide AV1 video. But it will take several years for the codec to become popular. Currently, Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 chip lacks support for AV1. The second-generation Argos chip adds support for AV1, which is the main motivation for mobile phone manufacturers to increase support.
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