Skype has embraced the Google’s open video codec VP8 for all its video calls, one-t0-one or group calls. According to a blog post from Google product manager John Luther, he says:-
“Our friends at Skype have added support for one-to-one VP8 video calling in Skype 5.5 for Windows. If both users in a Skype video call are using Skype 5.5, the call will use VP8 to encode the video streams for optimum transmission across the Internet. Skype also uses VP8 for group video calling.”
VP8 is a open video codec and is a part of WebM video format which is a video format designed for web interaction and browsers. And the file system is based on Matroska container which is also a open standards project. WebM is currently supported by latest Chrome, Firefox and Opera.
Skype has been using VP8 as its video codec for group video calling for about a year but with the new version of Skype, VP8 will be included in both one-to-one calls and group calls too. And the use of VP8 would make Skype perform exceptionally well in its real time video conferencing.
While Google is also trying to switch to VP8 codec as its default codec for Google Talk and Google+ hangouts. It would seem Skype will be ahead of Google on this one. Either way its all good for the users who will be getting better and faster quality videos.
