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 I got from multiple sources, …
Read More »AV1 Is At Least 70% Faster Than I Thought
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 minutes. So FFmpeg’s slow AV1 …
Read More »Netflix Addresses VMAF Hackability with New Model
Five Star Review for Video Quality Metrics Course
How to Shine in a Zoom Webinar
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 frame. For this reason, their …
Read More »Promising Initial Results with AV1 Testing
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, x265, and the latest version …
Read More »Compressionists: You’re Only as Good as Your Tools
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.
Read More »Telecine: MediaMelon SmartPlay Case Study
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 SmartPlay works and the benefits …
Read More »Integrating SmartPlay into Your Encoding and Distribution Ecosystem
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 are two pricing models. The …
Read More »Lesson of the Week: Producing Remote Interviews with vMix Call
I recently recorded about ten interviews for a webinar produced by a client. I could have used Zoom or Skype but thought that I could achieve better quality by producing the videos with vMix Call. Briefly, vMix is a live streaming software package and Call is the feature that lets you connect with others via RTC for recording conferences. Some …
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