YouTube is one of the biggest users of encoded VP9 content. However, it’s not the only big company to use the software; Netflix also uses VP9 for downloads.

Does my browser support VP9?

The following browsers support VP9:

How do I play VP9 files?

You can play VP9 in the most common browsers. If using Chrome, simply drag the file into the browser. It should then play in that tab.

VP9 files.

The successor to the VP8, VP9 files are a royalty-free, open-source coding standard for video, developed by Google. Its aim is to keep videos played at a high quality, all while reducing the bitrate of videos by 50%.

Find out more about VP9 files and how you can open and edit one easily.

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WHAT YOU’LL LEARN

History of the VP9 file

How to use VP9 files

Pros and cons of VP9 files

How to open a VP9 file

How to create and edit a VP9 file

FAQs

Learn more about similar file types to VP9

What is a VP9 file?

VP9 files are a type of video codec that can compress content streamed online. It’s a great option for streaming services, such as YouTube as it claims to half the bit rate of video transmissions while keeping the same high quality.

It does this by making the pixels that make up the video picture bigger. This sounds a little strange, given that many video file resolutions upscale picture quality by making pixels smaller.

VP9 codecs work the opposite way. The codecs encoding engine transforms these larger pixels into a higher resolution and compresses them to make a smaller video bitstream.

From there, each frame divides into portions of pixels and the areas in-between frames that can’t be amended are identified. This information is eventually compressed and the VP9 file can maintain a high quality, all without ballooning in file size.

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History of the VP9 file.

The VP9 video codec development started in 2011, with the aim of compressing Ultra HD content on YouTube. It eventually became a part of the open-source Chromium browser in 2012.

After a successful rollout, Google released it on its Chrome browser and released decoding in 2013. That same year it was also added to Firefox. From here, it has overtaken VP8 as the standard for video file compression when streaming online content.

How to use VP9 files.

VP9 compresses high-definition raw video, which is its primary goal when creating a video that is ready to stream online. An ultra-HD video holds a lot of information, making it hard to process and stream over the internet without taking up too much file space and bandwidth to play.

VP9 keeps storage space free when used on videos by making the pixels that make up a video larger. VP9 compresses them, according to where sequences in-between frames can be changed.

For this reason, VP9 is an efficient way to compress large files, while maintaining the quality standard now expected of online videos on streaming sites like YouTube.

Discover more codec files.

Pros and cons of VP9 files.

VP9 files have meant high-quality video streaming for billions of viewers and creators worldwide. But they might not be suitable for all video projects.

Pros.

Free to use for projects. Because VP9 is a licence-free and open-source codec, it’s completely free to use and doesn’t require a license to use in video production projects.
Supported on a range of browsers. VP9 files are compatible with Chrome, Edge, Firefox and Opera, broadening the number of potential users and viewers of the codec.

Cons.

Unsupported by some players. Unfortunately, VP9 files aren’t supported on players. For instance, it isn’t compatible with QuickTime on iOS.
Not as popular as other codecs. VP9 does fall behind in terms of popularity, when compared to other codecs, such as AVC and HEVC.

Find out which codec file types are supported by Adobe Premiere

How to open a VP9 file.

VP9 files are currently not supported in Adobe Premiere, so you will need to convert these to a supported filetype in order to edit them. They also aren’t designed to play using media players, such as Windows Media Player either.

As VP9 is a codec, you need to open them using video editing software. You can convert the file to a supported filetype in Premiere to do this.

Once edited, you can then upload the video to YouTube. Upload as normal to the video service, and it will automatically compress in a VP9 format.

How to create and edit a VP9 file.

VP9 files are currently not supported in Adobe Premiere, so you will need to convert these to a supported filetype in order to edit them. This could be to a similar codec, such as HEVC, that’s supported in Premiere.

To do this, you’ll need to use a reputable third-party conversion tool, which will allow you to open the file in Premiere. Once you’ve converted over to a supported filetype, you can simply create a new project, upload your file and start editing in the software once loaded.