May, 2019

• 7 May

  A Survey Of Per-Title Encoding Technologies – Download Handout

  

  Here’s the description; download handout here. T103. A Survey Of Per-Title Encoding Technologies Tuesday, May 7: 1:45 p.m. – 2:30 p.m. Per-title encoding techniques customize the encoding ladder to match the encoding complexity of the source, saving bandwidth on easy-to-compress videos and ensuring the quality of more complex footage. Codec specialist Jan Ozer compares the efficiency, implementation issues, and costs of …

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• 7 May

  Benchmarking FFmpeg’s Hardware Codecs – Download Handout

  

  Here’s the description; download handout here. SME-2019 – FFmpeg Hardware VES101. Benchmarking FFmpeg’s Hardware Codecs Tuesday, May 7: 10:30 a.m. – 11:30 a.m. Hardware codecs in FFmpeg like those from Intel and NVIDIA deliver significant performance gains over x264/x265, but have a reputation for lower quality and use a completely different command set. This session benchmarks the performance and quality of …

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• 6 May

  Download Slides: Introduction to ABR Production and Delivery

  

  Here’s the description; link to the PDF is below: W1. Introduction To ABR Production & Delivery Monday, May 6: 9:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. This course helps those new to streaming media get familiar with the relevant terms, concepts, and technologies. The session begins with a definition of terms like codecs, container formats, and adaptive bitrate streaming, as well as encoding …

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April, 2019

• 30 April

  CanIUse Pegs AV1 Availability at 32.46%; Twice that of HEVC (16.71%)

  

  I was preparing for the codec discussion of my preconference sessions next week at Streaming Media East and visited www.caniuse.com to report codec availability. While I expected H.264 (96.96%) and VP9 (80.78%) to easily win, and they did, I was surprised to find AV1 availability at 32.46%, well ahead of HEVC at 16.71%. Digging into the numbers, I noticed that …

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• 29 April

  YouTube Quality at Lower Resolutions was Awful in my Tests

  

  I’m preparing for my per-title presentation at Streaming Media East next Tuesday (presentation description below) and found some anomalous results for lower-resolution files produced by YouTube. I’m including YouTube in the analysis because I’ve always respected their work and for perspective vis a vis other per-title technologies that I’ll analyze (including Elemental MediaConvert QVBR, Capella Systems SABL, Epic Labs Lightflow, …

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• 22 April

  You Are Almost Certainly Wasting Bandwidth Streaming to Mobile Phones

  

  A few weeks ago, I wrote about the VMAF Phone Model which measures VMAF score for viewers watching on a mobile phone. Since then, I gave a presentation at NAB on VMAF and ran some calculations comparing the phone and default models. I share those below. First, have a quick look at the three VMAF models shown on the slide …

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• 19 April

  Sisvel Update

  

  I’ve been asked for an update on the Sisvel AV1/VP9 pool situation; here’s what we know. Before beginning, as I wrote about here, I am working as a consultant with Sisvel during the launch. To recap, Sisvel announced their pool late March: Before signing on as a consultant, I wrote two articles for Streaming Media and produced one video interview …

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• 18 April

  We Serve Hard Drinks to Men Who Want to Get Drunk Fast

  

   I just waded through another NAB’s worth of press releases. With depressing frequency, the first few graphs are filled with so much ancillary gobblygook that I often have no idea what the new product or service does after reading them. This invariably brings to mind the classic line from a bar scene in the movie, It’s a Wonderful Life, …

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• 4 April

  Transparency Alert: I Will Be Working With Sisvel

  

  Just a brief note to let you know that I’ve signed on as a consultant for Sisvel regarding their launch of the AV1 and VP9 patent pools. What? Sisvel just announced patent pools on VP9 and AV1 and was aware that HEVC-related pools were controversial and were concerned about properly communicating its vision and goals. I’ll help them work with …

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• 3 April

  Talking on VMAF at the NAB Streaming Summit

  

  Just a quick note to let you know that I’ll be speaking at the NAB Streaming Summit on Using VMAF, Netflix’s Video Encoding Metric to Measure QoE. Description: Netflix uses video quality metric VMAF that combines human vision modeling with machine learning, to make automated encoding decisions in their per-title/per-scene encoding workflow. This presentation will cover what VMAF is, how …

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