Last week’s Faultline article on DVB’s three-way codec candidate specifications, with a focus on VVC (Versatile Video Codec), triggered a discussion about the state of codecs in China, given the Chinese investment in VVC technology (including from Alibaba, Kuaishou and Hikvision). This snowballed into a broader investigation into the wealth of alternative video codec options used in the largest single market in the world – one which is seldom mentioned in Western codec discussions. Given that many Chinese web giants have already started down the path of leveraging their scale to create a single-minded technology strategy, we have pondered whether the likes of Netflix or Disney+ might go their own ways by developing in-house codecs. From our conversations with technology…