Most of the x264 commands that I use in FFmeg are simple and well documented. Today, I had to duplicate a Handbrake preset that included some obscure x264-specific configuration options like the following: cabac=0:aq-mode=3:slices=24:direct=auto:subme=8:trellis=1:deblock=-2,-1:me=umh Cabac, I got, but most of the rest I use the default setting for the selected preset. Since Handbrake was displaying x264 commands which are different …

A recent report published by Unisphere Research and Streaming Media magazine, and sponsored by Beamr, reveals some interesting data on HEVC adoption. Entitled Real-World HEVC Insights: Adoption, Implications, and Workflows, the report is available for free download on StreamingMedia.com (registration required) and is authored by my colleague Tim Siglin, a Streaming Media contributing editor and founding executive director of the …

A recent article in IPWatchdog analyzed HEVC-related patent ownership and found that “only one-third of relevant patents have been declared in patent pools.” So, even companies that license from all three pools are at substantial risk of challenges from other IP owners. With a new standard coming, MPEG needs to update its licensing policies, not its technology. The article was …

One visual quality metric that’s getting a bit more love lately is the Structured Similarity Index (SSIM). For example, when Facebook launched their first VR Metric, SSIM360, they based it on SSIM. I’ve generally avoided using SSIM because the scoring range is too small for my liking (0 – 1) and I wasn’t aware of any way to map SSIM scores …

The internet is full of free FFmpeg documentation. Why should you pay $34.95 for my book (or $29.95 for the PDF)? Because it will help you get your work done fast and get it right the first time. This book eliminates the time you’d spend hunting for answers on Superuser or Stack Overflow and teaches you to make informed encoding decisions …

For all talk about the new AV1 codec or HEVC in HLS, the simplest and fastest way to save bandwidth costs and improve your viewer’s QoE is to deploy video optimization or per-title encoding. I explore why in a column now up on StreamingMedia.com. You can implement a simple form of per-title encoding with FFmpeg using Capped CRF (for Constant …

At NAB 2018 I gave a talk on applying quality metrics to 2D and VR video, and the video has just become available. So here’s the session description, and the video and a link to the handout is below. Choosing the number of streams in an adaptive group and configuring them is usually a subjective, touchy-feely exercise, with no way …

Though I spend most of my time focusing on video production and encoding, I’m also fascinated by how organizations are actually using video in their day-to-day operations. So when Vidyard released their second annual Video in Business Benchmark Report (freely downloadable here) I had to give it a quick scan. Briefly, Vidyard is a video platform for business, and the …

Figure 1. BD-rate savings from AV1 as published by Facebook. When Facebook compared the AV1 codec to VP9 and two flavors of H264, their researcher precisely stated, “In terms of PSNR, the average BD-rate savings of AV1 relative to x264 main, x264 high and libvpx-vp9 were 51.0%, 47.0% and 29.9%, respectively.” This means that AV1 delivered the same quality as …

Much has been made about Google’s support for HEVC in Android, including I hate to say, by me. A recent look at the Android spec while preparing for a Streaming Media Workshop, however, seems to indicate that this support is practically irrelevant. Here’s why. If you click over to the Android Supported Media Formats page, you’ll see details regarding the supported codecs. …