## Getting Started with VP9

### Introduction

To try encoding with VP9 video, you will need:

1. a sample video
2. a way of encoding the video to VP9 so you can experiment with settings
3. a way of playing the VP9 to see the quality impact of those settings

### Step 1: Get Sample Video

The [Tears of Steel](https://mango.blender.org/) short movie covers a range of test cases
including action sequences and animation.

To test low-bitrate encoding profiles (for web and mobile), we use the
[WebM 1080p version](http://media.xiph.org/mango/tears_of_steel_1080p.webm) of the clip. This file is encoded using VP8
video, compressed at about 6Mbps -- a suitable starting point for web and
mobile compression testing.

For higher bit-rate encoding, you may wish to download the
[4K version](http://ftp.nluug.nl/pub/graphics/blender/demo/movies/ToS/) of the same movie.

### Step 2: Encode VP9

A [variety](http://www.webmproject.org/tools/) of encoding products and cloud service providers
allow you to encode VP9 video.

These pages assume you are using [FFmpeg](https://ffmpeg.org/). You can [download](https://ffmpeg.org/download.html) a
pre-compiled version of FFmpeg, or [compile](https://trac.ffmpeg.org/wiki/CompilationGuide) FFmpeg with the
`--enable-libvpx` option on your system.

> [!NOTE]
> **Note:** FFmpeg must be compiled with the `--enable-libvpx` option for VP9 to work. Most pre-compiled versions include this option by default. If your version of FFmpeg does not create VP9, it may be missing this compilation option.

FFmpeg is a command-line program. Once you have it installed, you can perform
encodes from the command line.

An easy example to get started, using the Tears of Steel clip above, is:

    ffmpeg -i tears_of_steel_1080p.webm -c:v libvpx-vp9 -c:a libopus output.webm

This command tells FFmpeg to:

- Use *tears_of_steel_1080p.webm* as input (`-i tears_of_steel_1080p.webm`)
- Set the output video codec to VP9 (`-c:v libvpx-vp9`)
- Set the output audio codec to Opus (`-c:a libopus`)
- Create a WebM output file named `output.webm`

### Step 3: Play the video

You can play WebM/VP9 in [most major browsers](http://caniuse.com/#feat=webm), including Firefox,
Opera, Chrome and Microsoft Edge. In Chrome, you can drag the file into the
browser and it will play in that tab.

Other players also support VP9/WebM decoding, including:

| Player | Platform | Version |
|---|---|---|
| VLC | Most Platforms | [Version 2.1.3 or later](https://www.videolan.org/vlc/#download) |
| MPC-HC | Windows | [Version 1.7.1 or later](https://mpc-hc.org/downloads/) |