Seventh MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 Video Codecs Comparison - Standard Version

• Video group head: Dr. Dmitriy Vatolin
• Project head: Dr. Dmitriy Kulikov
• Measurements, analysis: Alexander Parshin, Marat Arsaev

Different Versions of Report

There are two different versions of H.264 Comparison 2011 report:

• MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 Video Codecs Comparison - Standard Version (this report)
• MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 Video Codecs Comparison - Pro Version (Enterprise Edition)
  This is a pack of all the graphs with user-friendly systems for switching the graphs

Here is the comparison of the versions:

Pro version of comparison will be available immediately after report purchasing.

Report Overview

Video Codecs that Were Tested

• H.264
  • DivX H.264
  • Elecard H.264
  • Intel SandyBridge Transcoder (GPU encoder)
  • MainConcept H.264 (software)
  • MainConcept H.264 (CUDA based encoder)
  • Microsoft Expression Encoder
  • DiscretePhoton
  • x264
• Non H.264
  • VP8 (WebM project)
  • XviD (MPEG-4 ASP codec)

Overview

Sequences

Sequence	Number of frames	Frame rate	Resolution
VideoConference
Videoconference CIF	1374	30	352x288
VideoConference 4CIF	3600	30	640x480
VideoConference 720p	1500	30	1280x720
Movies (SD sequences)
Ice Age	2014	24	720x480
City	600	60	704x576
Crew	600	60	704x576
Indiana Jones	5000	30	704x288
Harbour	600	60	704x576
Ice Skating	480	60	704x576
Soccer	600	60	704x576
Race Horses	300	30	832x480
State Enemy	6500	24	720x304
Party Scene	500	50	832x480
HDTV sequences
Park Joy	500	50	1280x720
Riverbed	250	25	1920x1080
Rush Hour	500	25	1920x1080
Blue Sky	217	25	1920x1080
Station	313	25	1920x1080
	217	25	1920x1080
Stockholm	604	50	1280x720
Sunflower	500	25	1920x1080
Tractor	690	25	1920x1080
Bunny	600	24	1920x1080
Dream	600	24	1920x1080
Troy	300	24	1920x1072

Objectives and Testing Tools

H.264 Codec Testing Objectives

The main goal of this report is the presentation of a comparative evaluation of the quality of new H.264 codecs using objective measures of assessment. The comparison was done using settings provided by the developers of each codec. The main task of the comparison is to analyze different H.264 encoders for the task of transcoding video—e.g., compressing video for personal use. Speed requirements are given for a sufficiently fast PC; fast presets are analogous to real-time encoding for a typical home-use PC.

H.264 Codec Testing Tools

• The following computer configuration was used for the main tests:
  • 4-cores processor: Intel Core i7 920, 2.67GHz
  • OS Name: Microsoft Windows 7 Professional 64-bit
  • Total Physical Memory: 12 GB
  • GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580

Overall Conclusions

Overall, the leader in this comparison for software encoders is x264, followed by DivX H.264, Elecard and MainConcept.

The overall ranking of the software codecs tested in this comparison is as follows:

1. x264
2. DivX H.264
3. Elecard
4. MainConcept
5. XviD
6. DiscretePhoton

The next codecs do not fit speed requiremnts and not listed in overall quality ratings

• Micrsoft Expression Encoder
• WebM VP8 encoder

This rank is based only on the encoders’ quality results. Encoding speed is not considered here.

Professional Versions of Comparison Report

H.264 Comparison Report Pro 2011 version contains:

• Additional objective metrics (PSNR, 3-SSIM, MS-SSIM)
• All metrics results for all colorplanes (Y,U,V and overall)
• Results for all the sequences, codecs and presets used in comparison
• Much more figures
• etc.

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:

• DiscretePhoton team
• Elecard Ltd
• Intel Corporation
• MainConcept GmbH
• Microsoft
• WebM project team
• x264 Development Team

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

Codec Analysis and Tuning for Codec Developers and Codec Users

Computer Graphics and Multimedia Laboratory of Moscow State University:

• 10 years working in the area of video codec analysis and tuning using objective quality metrics and subjective comparisons.
• 20+ reports of video codec comparisons and analysis (H.264, MPEG-4 MPEG-2, decoders’ error recovery).
• Methods and algorithms for codec comparison and analysis development, separate codec’s features and codec’s options analysis.

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

Strong and Weak Points of Your Codec

• Deep encoder parts analysis (ME, RC on GOP, mode decision, etc).
• Weak and strong points for your encoder and complete information about encoding quality on different content types.
• Encoding Quality improvement by the pre and post filtering (including technologies licensing).

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

• Comparative analysis of your encoder and other encoders.
• We have direct contact with many codec developers.
• You will know place of your encoder between other newest well-known encoders (compare encoding quality, speed, bitrate handling, etc.).

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