Below is the handout from my presentation at the Streaming Forum entitled, HEVC: Rating the Contenders
Operators adding HEVC to their delivery pipeline will have plenty of codec options, but who has the time to evaluate their features, output quality, and performance? No worries – codec specialist Jan Ozer has done the work for you, evaluating leading contenders like x265 and MainConcept, and sharing his results. You’ll walk away from this session with a much clearer picture of the strengths and weaknesses of your HEVC encoding options.
As I explained at the session, my preparation was hampered by a late request from the x265 camp that we compare files encoded with PSNR tuning, which I had left out of my initial encodes. I had sent my contacts the command lines that I planned to use about two weeks ago, but they didn’t review them until after I completed my test encodes and was already in London.
After reviewing some of the writings on the topic (see here, and here), comparing some of the results provided, I felt it was best to update the PSNR results for x265 using the new files. This necessitated a complete rewrite of the presentation at the last minute, which is never good for accuracy or quality. So, please consider the attached PDF preliminary, and I’ve promised to provide updated findings by March 15.
Special thanks to the MainConcept folks for their assistance while preparing for this session, and for taking the late changes in stride.
Attachments
HEVC_Rating_Contenders.pdf (5.20 MB)