Blogs

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the VMAF Phone Model which measures VMAF score for viewers watching on a mobile phone. Since then, I gave a presentation at NAB on VMAF and ran some calculations comparing the phone and default models. I share those below. First, have a quick look at the three VMAF models shown on the slide …

I’ve been asked for an update on the Sisvel AV1/VP9 pool situation; here’s what we know. Before beginning, as I wrote about here, I am working as a consultant with Sisvel during the launch. To recap, Sisvel announced their pool late March: Before signing on as a consultant, I wrote two articles for Streaming Media and produced one video interview …

Embedded below is a free lesson from my course, Produce Videos with FFmpeg: The Beginner’s Course (http://bit.ly/learn_ffmpeg). The previous lesson in the course describes when you can use the -s command to set resolution; this lesson details your options when you can’t. This typically occurs when the display aspect ratio of your output is different from your input, which happens often …

I’m launching a new course entitled Encoding and Packaging for Multiple Screen Delivery. It’s an advanced course detailing how to create and configure encoding ladders using objective quality metrics like VMAF, packaging for DASH/HLS (both static and dynamic), CMAF, per-title encoding, and more. The course is designed for professionals who need to get up to speed on these topics and …

In this video, I interviewed Sisvel CEO Mattia Fogliacco about the new VP9 and AV1 patent pools. Our discussion covered: Background on Sisvel Due diligence performed before Sisvel formulated the pool to confirm the validity of their patents Details about the royalty structure and what’s covered by the license (and what’s not covered) The image atop this article comes from …

Luxembourg-based Sisvel International SA announced patent pools for VP9 and AV1 yesterday targeted at consumer display devices (smartphones, TVs, etc) and consumer non-display devices (set-top boxes and OTT devices). Here’s what we know from this article on Streaming Media) and this Q&A. The standard rate for VP9 is € 0.24 for display devices and € 0.08 for non-display devices, while …

When I first tested AV1 encoding back in August 2018 encoding times were glacial and seriously detracted from the potential usability of the codec. Table 1 from that story tells the tale. Unless otherwise indicated, all encoding times are on my HP ZBook notebook powered by a single 2.8 GHz Intel Xeon E3-1505M v5 CPU. In addition, LibVPx is the …

I frequently use the VMAF quality metric to analyze encoding parameters and compare codecs. In my experience, VMAF scores tend to match my own subjective quality observations and the fact that Netflix uses it gives the metric great credibility. Originally, there was only one VMAF version, but Netflix has added both a 4K model and a phone model, increasing the …