VP7

VP7 is a proprietary video compression format in the VPx family developed by On2 Technologies. Released in the mid-2000s, it was positioned as an evolution of the VP6 codec, with the aim of delivering higher compression efficiency and better visual quality at comparable bitrates for applications such as streaming video and other multimedia workflows. VP7 was designed to be used across a range of platforms, with encoders and decoders provided by On2 and licensed to developers and hardware vendors for both software-based and hardware-accelerated implementations.

As part of the VPx lineup, VP7 complemented other On2 codecs and served in various multimedia pipelines, including some Flash Video workflows that relied on On2 technology. The codec was intended to be practical for real-time or near real-time processing in consumer and professional environments, supporting typical video production and distribution scenarios of its era.

In 2010, On2 Technologies was acquired by Google, and Google subsequently released VP8 as an open, royalty-free video codec as part of the WebM project. VP8 and the broader WebM initiative helped accelerate the transition to newer codecs and formats, and VP7 gradually declined in use as newer technologies became dominant. Today, VP7 is primarily of historical interest, noted as part of the lineage of On2 codecs that influenced later developments in web video.