Previous tests presented here showed that a Windows version of FFmpeg compiled by Zeranoe was about four times slower than a version compiled by a colleague who works in an OTT organization. Since then, Miguel Perez contacted the FFmpeg organization and Zeranoe, who researched the issue, recompiled, and created a new download that resolves the…
AV1 encoding on Windows is now only 2x slower than x265. With a properly compiled version of FFmpeg, encoding performance is slightly faster than the Alliance for Open Media’s encoder, though output quality is very slightly lower. Congrats to AOM for delivering on their promise to get encoding times down. Thanks for all the help…
AV1 encoding is now only 2x slower than x265. See the latest results here. Though FFmpeg took 50 minutes to produce a test file that both x264 and x265 encoded in about two minutes, the Alliance for Open Media’s aomenc encoder, running the same version of AV1 (version 2) produced the file in about 15…
TL/DR: Netflix updates VMAF to include a new model that reverses out the effects of techniques like sharpening, contrasting, and histogram equalization. As I reported in VMAF is Hackable: What Now?, you can increase VMAF scores via simple image enhancement techniques like sharpening, contrasting, and histogram equalization, which, when applied inappropriately, may not actually improve…
Happy to report a five-star review for my course, Computing and Using Video Quality Metrics: A Course for Encoding Professionals. As far as I know, it’s the only course available that teaches how to compute and use metrics like VMAF, PSNR, SSIMPLUS, and SSIM, including how to create rate-distortion curves and BD-Rate comparisons. The review…
My wife was watching a webinar for CME and there were two physicians with such picture perfect presentation that I just had to snap the image and comment. The list of what these two did right is lengthy and instructive. Both practiced perfect rule-of-thirds positioning, with their eyes about 1/3 down from the top of the…
AV1 encoding is now only 2x slower than x265. See the latest results here. I began testing AV1 early this week. Briefly, my tests involve 16 ten-second clips in four genres (movies, sports, animations, gaming) and an “other” category (music video, nature video). I’ve completed the first set of tests with FFmpeg 4.3, benchmarking x264,…
I’m reviewing AV1 encoders for Streaming Media Magazine and was performing some QC on the AV1 files that I produced with the latest version of FFmpeg. Two file details I always check are GOP size and whether the GOPs are closed or not. I check these for multiple reasons. First, FFmpeg doesn’t have the most…
This article details how Brazilian OTT operator Telecine deployed MediaMelon SmartPlay and decreased bandwidth costs by about 42% while improving the MOS quality of the video delivered. SmartPlay also helped Telecine manage the 4X increase in demand due to COVID-19. This is the third and final story about MediaMelon SmartPlay. The first article describes how…
In the previous post, I described what MediaMelon SmartPlay is and identified some of the benefits. In this post, I’ll discuss pricing and how to integrate SmartPlay into your encoding, delivery, and playback infrastructure. Pricing Overview Let’s briefly discuss the SmartPlay pricing model here and look at ROI at the end of this document. There…
