Encoding

I recently finished a streaming consulting project with AMC Networks and was pleased to receive the following LinkedIn recommendation from their VP of Video Products. It was great working with Greg and his team with the gorgeous content from AMC. Beyond this work with AMC, I’ve helped media companies and video publishers fine-tune their encoding parameters, modernize their encoding ladders, …

Moscow State University’s Video Quality Measurement Tool (VQMT) has been my go-to file analysis tool dating back to 2014 (see my initial review, here, and an update, here). As you can see in this video, version 11 of the tool adds several new features, including support for the VMAF 4K model, data rate graphs, and a results table. I’ve also …

Demuxed is the annual conference for video engineers by video engineers. Held on October 17 and 18 in San Francisco, the conference included 31 speakers giving talks in rapid-fire fashion ranging in duration from 10 to 30 minutes. To use a well-worn but appropriate metaphor, the experience is like drinking from a fire hose: almost impossible to comprehend and digest in …

Here’s the description; download handout below. T101. HOW-TO: Fine-Tuning Your Adaptive Encoding Groups With Objective Quality Metrics Tuesday, November 13: 10:30 a.m. – 11:15 a.m. Choosing the number of streams in an adaptive group and configuring them is usually a subjective, touchy-feely exercise, with no way to really gauge the effectiveness and efficiency of the streams. However, by measuring stream …

W4. Encoding Live & VOD For HEVC/HLS Monday, November 12: 1:30 p.m. – 4:30 p.m. Apple’s support for HEVC in HLS is a groundbreaking event that opens up hundreds of millions of HEVC capable players. If supporting this spec is on your short-term development schedule, check out this workshop. The workshop starts by reviewing the new spec and sharing playback …

Zhi Li, senior software engineer at Netflix, recently co-wrote a paper entitled VMAF: The Journey Continues posted on the Netflix Technology Blog on Medium. After reviewing why VMAF was developed, how it’s been adopted in the industry, and some recent improvements, the paper discusses some best practices for using VMAF. In particular, this last section will be valuable to anyone who uses this …

I have a confession to make. Though I’ve attended dozens of Streaming Media conferences, I’ve never attended a kickoff session. Not, of course, because the content wasn’t information and insightful, but because I’m always scurrying about trying to finish my own presentations. This dubious accomplishment ends at Streaming Media West next month, when Roger Pantos, the inventor of HTTP Live …

As we transition from H.264 to VP9, HEVC, AV1, and soon VVC (Versatile Video Coding), it’s important to understand the fundamentals of codec comparisons and how to evaluate their effectiveness and utility. In this expanded column I’ll cover both. Evaluating the Evaluation Let’s begin with how to evaluate the evaluation. I start by identifying the evaluator and its affiliations, giving …

I’ve been pondering what drives codec adoption since I joined compression company Iterated Systems back in 1993. Tonight, I have the opportunity to explore the subject in detail at a meetup sponsored by Bitmovin as an adjunct to the Demuxed conference here in San Francisco. Entitled The Battle of the Codecs: AV1 vs VVC, the meetup will be held tonight …

Lots going on in the codec world, lots to analyze. But for the most part in this article, I’m going to let the pictures do the talking. New HEVC Codec Leaders Emerge I’m a big fan of Moscow State University tools and reports. Unlike many codec analysts, MSU asks the codec vendors to suggest the settings used for the encodes, …