[x264-devel] 6-th H.264 codecs comparison

[Dmitriy Vatolin]

Dear developers!

Moscow State University Graphics& Multimedia Laboratory has finished
6-th H.264 codecs comparison. It is intended for practical researchers
and developers in the field of high-end video compression. You can
find report here
http://compression.ru/video/codec_comparison/h264_2010

We have tested newest implementations of MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 video
codecs and compare with XviD (MPEG-4 ASP) and Theora encoders.

One of the main targets for this comparison was to test H.264
encoders for transcoding tasks for Movies and HDTV video content.

Codec that were tested:
---------------------------
 * DivX H.264
 * Elecard H.264
 * Intel MediaSDK AVC/H.264
 * MainConcept H.264
 * Microsoft Expression Encoder
 * Theora
 * x264
 * XviD (MPEG-4 ASP codec)

Summary report topics:
---------------------------
 * Objective measurements (SSIM, PSNR, Average Advantage and etc.)
 * Encoding speed
 * Analysis of averaged objective results
 * Leaders in different areas (Movies, HDTV)
 * Options analysis for codecs
 * Additional subjective analysis for video codes
   ** For psycho-visual enhancement in codecs analysis
   ** For fade processing analysis
   ** For animation movie compression analysis
 * Codecs encoding quality progress over years


Enhancements in comparison to previous H.264/AVC Comparison:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
 * Subjective comparison
 * New codecs
 * New sequences
 * New type of special analysis for codecs
 * Using natural sequences' special modifications
 * Using synthetic sequences
 * Not only H.264 Codecs (but also XviD, Theora) were tested

--------------------------------------------
Possible collaboration with codec developers
--------------------------------------------

We have helped many companies with private independent codec analysis
and we propose several ways for collaboration:

1. Independent Encoding Quality Estimation for Different Use-cases.
Comparative analysis of your encoder and other encoders. You will
know encoding quality, speed, bitrate handling and other results for
different use-cases (movies, HDTV, broadcasting, transcoding, etc.).

2. Strong and Weak Points of Your Codec.
Deep encoder parts analysis (ME, RC on GOP, mode decision, etc). Weak
and strong points for your encoder and complete information about
encoding quality on different content types. Encoding Quality
improvement by the pre and post filtering (including technologies
licensing).

3. Encoder Features Implementation Efficiency Analysis.
We perform encoder features efficiency (speed/quality trade-off)
analysis that could lead up to 30% speed/quality characteristics of
your codec increase. We can help you to tune your codec and find best
encoding parameters.

Useful Links
------------

* Sixth Annual MSU MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 Video Codec Comparison
  http://compression.ru/video/codec_comparison/h264_2010

* Fifth Annual MSU MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 Video Codec Comparison
  http://www.compression.ru/video/codec_comparison/mpeg-4_avc_h264_2009_en.html

* Options Analysis of MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 Codec x264
  http://compression.ru/video/codec_comparison/x264_options_analysis_08_en.html

Yours,
 Dr. Vatolin