This blog includes the video and handout from my talk on “How to Produce x264 and x265 Video at Maximum Quality and Maximum Efficiency” at NAB 2023 (thanks to Dan Rayburn). Here’s the description. This research-based session explores configuration options like presets, threads, color depth, and others that impact output quality and encoding efficiency. Balancing encoding cost and streaming bandwidth, …

The last time I looked at VVC playback in software was for this article in Streaming Media Magazine. Fraunhofer’s VVDec decoder delivered an uninspiring 39 frames per second when converting the input file to YUV. This was on a (then) nine year old i7-based HP desktop. I just retested with a version of FFmpeg that Fraunhofer supplied, and this number …

A woman walks into a bar and asks, “I’ll have two video transcoders, please.” Bartender says, “We don’t carry transcoders; we have VPUs. Will they do?” The woman scratches her head and says, “hmm, I don’t know.” Do you? If not, you’re in the right place. This short article will briefly define transcoder, VPU, and VCU, and get you in …