Encoding

• 28 July

  Zeranoe Resolves AV1 Issue; Now Faster Than aomenc.

  

  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 …
• 23 July

  AV1 Now Only 2X Slower Than x265

  

  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. …
• 16 July

  Netflix Addresses VMAF Hackability with New Model

  
• 10 July

  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 …
• 9 July

  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.
• 6 July

  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. …
• 5 July

  Choosing the Optimal Preset for AV1 Encoding (and Other Questions)

  

  AV1 encoding is now only 2x slower than x265. See the latest results here.  I’m comparing AV1 encoders for Streaming Media Magazine. I plan to include codecs from: The Alliance for Open Media (hopefully versions 1.0/2.0) Visionular Intel Mozilla (Mozilla is out – didn’t respond to my inquiry). If there …

June, 2020

• 23 June

  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 …
• 16 June

  How MediaMelon SmartPlay Saves Bandwidth Costs and Improves QoE

  

  MediaMelon’s SmartPlay is a streaming optimization solution that reduces bandwidth use by 35% or more and improves QoE while working with your existing ABR content without reencoding. As you’ll read in this post, SmartPlay works by analyzing the quality of every segment in an ABR package and producing a hintfile …
• 15 June

  Preliminary VMAF and PSNR Scores for New Xilinx Transcoding Appliances

  

  Live streaming at scale is the perfect application for hardware transcoders that deliver highly-affordable encoding density. Xilinx just announced a series of transcoding appliances targeting these live streaming use cases built around the new Xilinx Real-Time (RT) Server reference architecture. I’ve been benchmarking output quality with two card-based encoders deployed …