Tag Archives: encoding review

The top rung of your encoding ladder is the most expensive to deliver, and in many regions, it’s also the most frequently viewed. Encode at too high a bit rate and you’re wasting money; encode too low, and you’re potentially reducing viewer quality of experience. This makes choosing the top rung bitrate a key task for all streaming producers. This …

My article, Buyers’ Guide to Per-Title Encoding is up on Streaming Media. Per-title encoding is one of the simplest and least expensive ways to reduce streaming bandwidth, increase viewer QoE, or accomplish both. It’s becoming a standard feature in cloud-encoding services. The article begins with an overview of what per-title encoding is and why it’s important. Then it compares per-title …

My State of Video Codecs 2022 article is up on Streaming Media Magazine. The article identifies the most significant announcements from the last year relating to H.264, VP9, HEVC, AV1, Versatile Video Coding (VVC), Low Complexity Enhancement Video Coding (LCEVC), and Essential Video Coding (EVC). If you’re looking for a good way to catch up with these codecs, you’ll find …

A consulting client sent the following command string for a 1080p file they were encoding for upload to Vimeo, their online video platform. crf=20:vbv-maxrate=10000:vbv-bufsize=9500 What’s wrong with these parameters? First, some theory. One distinction to understand when encoding files is the difference between producing a mezzanine file to use for subsequent transcoding and encoding for distribution. When producing a mezzanine …

It’s a well-known and oft-repeated truism that codecs operate more efficiently at higher resolutions. The question is, is the truism really true? It turns out that it is, and we prove it below. To lend numbers to our truism and focus the issue, the basic question is this. 8K video has 16 times the pixels of 1080p videos. So, if …

I’ve been wondering if publishers still care about constraining their maximum bitrates (see here for more background), so I grabbed my copy of youtube-dl and performed a little study. The TL/DR version seems to be that new media sites like YouTube, Facebook, and Vimeo don’t strictly adhere to the typical 200% constrained VBR limit while traditional publishers seem to, though …

I’m comparing cloud-based per-title VOD encoding technologies for a report I hope to publish in the near term. In an attempt to create a level playing field I set the following specifications. 2-second GOP 200% constrained VBR 2-second VBV buffer Kind of like you were encoding with FFmpeg and using these parameters -b:v 2600k -maxrate 5200k -bufsize 5200k All cloud services …

VVC reached First Draft International Specification in July 2020. We’re about 18 months past that date and it’s useful to check in on VVC progress to date, including licensing, performance, chipset development, and trials. VVC Patent Owners Video quality is nice, but money makes the world go-’round, so let’s start here. Understand that video compression standards like VVC will have …

Given that VVC is top of mind right now, I just wanted to report that IAM has announced that it appears that Apple has purchased 14 VVC-related patents from a Korean inventor. IAM is connecting a lot of dots to (I think) make this claim, which goes something like this. A Korean inventor set up a company that performs video-related …

This article compares VVC, EVC, and LCEVC with H.264, HEVC, and AV1. Its’ useful if you’re attempting to understand the goals and capabilities of these codecs. In 2020, MPEG announced three new codecs, Versatile Video Coding (VVC), Essential Video Coding (EVC), and Low Complexity Enhancement Video Coding (LCEVC). As of January 2022, all are released and available for testing which I …