HEVC Video Codecs Comparison 2017 (Twelfth MSU Video Codecs Comparison)

Part 1: FullHD content, objective comparison.
Free Version
Part 2: 4K content,
objective comparison.
Free Version
Part 3: FullHD content, subjective comparison.
Free Version
Part 4: High-speed encoders (GPU and software), objective comparison.
Free Version
Part 5: High-quality encoders (inc. VP9, AV1), objective comparison.
Free Version
Pro Version (Enterprise).
Part1, Part2, Part3, Part4 and Part5
Objective Metrics and color-planes Only integral YUV-SSIM None Only integral YUV-SSIM SSIM and PSNR, 3 color planes (Y,U,V) and intgegral YUV
Subjective comparison None YES YES YES
Different types of analysis
Encoding quality, encoding speed, bitrate handling, speed/quality analysis etc. (some graphs) Encoding quality and speed/quality analysis for subjective comparison Encoding quality, encoding speed, bitrate handling, speed/quality analysis etc. (some graphs) Encoding quality, encoding speed, bitrate handling, speed/quality analysis, subjective comparison etc.
Graphs Some graphs All the graphs for all the sequences, codecs and presets
Test video sequences 31 HD video (only description) 10 4K video (only description) 4 video (only description) 31 HD video (only description) 31 HD video + 10 4K video (available for download)
Tested uses-cases 3 different use cases:
Fast Transcoding, Universal and Ripping (some graphs)
1 use case:
4K preset(some graphs)
1 use case:
Ripping
1 use case:
Fast Transcoding
1 use case:
Ripping
4 different use cases:
Fast Transcoding, Universal, Ripping and 4K
Number of figures 33 37 5000+
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Video Codecs that Were Tested

Codec name Use cases HEVC Hardware/GA
1 AV1
Alliance for Open Media
Ripping (in Part 5: High-quality encoders)
(AV1)
2 Kingsoft HEVC Encoder
Kingsoft
Fast, Universal, Ripping
3 nj264
Nanjing Yunyan
Fast, Universal, Ripping
(H.264)
4 nj265
Nanjing Yunyan
Fast, Universal, Ripping
5 NVIDIA NVENC SDK
NVIDIA Corporation
Fast (in Part 4: High-speed encoders)
6 SIF encoder
SIF Encoder Team
Universal, Ripping
(SIF)
7 Telecast
Telecast Technology Corporation
Fast (in Part 4: High-speed encoders)
8 uAVS2
Digital Media R&D Center, Peking University, Shenzhen Graduate School
Fast, Universal, Ripping
(AVS2)
9 VP9
The WebM Project (Google)
Ripping (in Part 5: High-quality encoders)
(VP9)
10 x264
x264 Developer Team
Fast, Universal, Ripping
(H.264)
11 x265
MulticoreWare, Inc.
Fast, Universal, Ripping

Overview

Objectives and Testing Tools

HEVC Codec Testing Objectives

The main goal of this report is the presentation of a comparative evaluation of the quality of new HEVC codecs and codecs of other standards using objective measures of assessment. The comparison was done using settings provided by the developers of each codec. Nevertheless, we required all presets to satisfy minimum speed requirement on the particular use case. The main task of the comparison is to analyze different encoders for the task of transcoding video — e.g., compressing video for personal use.

HEVC Codec Testing Rules

The comparison was performed on Corei7 6700K (Skylake) @4Ghz, RAM 8GB, Windows8.1. For this platform we considered three key use cases with different speed requirements.

Video sequences selection

In “MSU Video Codecs Comparison 2016” we introduced a new technique for test dataset sequences’ selection. This technique was designed to create dataset containing representative set of sequences that encoders are facing in everyday life. In this report we use the same methodology for video sequences selection, but we have dramatically updated video database from which we sample videos for encoders’ comparison. We analyzed over 512,000 videos hosted at Vimeo looking for 4K and FullHD videos with high bitrates (50 Mbps was selected as a lower bitrate boundary). This enabled us to find and download, 662 new 4K videos and 1993 new FullHD videos.

Video sequecnes selection

Overall Conclusions

Overall, the leaders in this comparison are Kingsoft HEVC encoder and x265! Here are some graphs from report:

Speed/Quality trade-off for Fast use-case (YUV-SSIM metric)

Average bitrate for Universal use-case (YUV-SSIM metric)

Average bitrate for all use-cases (YUV-SSIM metric)

Professional Versions of Comparison Report

HEVC Comparison Report Pro 2017 version contains:

Acknowledgments

The Graphics & Media Lab Video Group would like to express its gratitude to the following companies for providing the codecs and settings used in this report:

The Video Group would also like to thank these companies for their help and technical support during the tests.

Thanks

Special thanks to the following contributors of our previous comparisons

Google Intel AMD NVidia
ATI Adobe ISPhone dicas
KDDI R&D labs Dolby Tata Elxsi Octasic
Qualcomm Voceweb Elgato

Codec Analysis and Tuning for Codec Developers and Codec Users

Computer Graphics and Multimedia Laboratory of Moscow State University:

We could perform next task for codec developers and codec users.

Strong and Weak Points of Your Codec

Independent Codec Estimation Comparing to Other Codecs for Different Use-cases

Encoder Features Implementation Optimality Analysis

We perform encoder features effectiveness (speed/quality trade-off) analysis that could lead up to 30% increase in the speed/quality characteristics of your codec. We can help you to tune your codec and find best encoding parameters.

Contacts

E-mail: videocodec-testing@graphics.cs.msu.ru

05 Oct 2018
See Also
Video Colorization Benchmark
Explore the best video colorization algorithms
Call for HEVC codecs 2019
Fourteen modern video codec comparison
HEVC Video Codecs Comparison 2018 (Thirteen MSU Video Codec Comparison)
13th MSU video codecs comparison
MSU Video Codec Comparisons (6 test of lossless, MPEG-4 and MPEG-4 AVC)
Call for HEVC codecs 2018
Effective Video Transcoding
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