[x264-devel] x264 Development Newsletter: Vol 6

[Jason Garrett-Glaser]

This is the sixth x264 development newsletter.  If you missed the
first five, this is a regular email containing updates on fixes and
improvements in the most recent x264 push, along with updates on
what's coming next.  Previous versions can be found in the mailing
list archives.

Note that we pushed a bugfix release this time around, so this
newsletter includes fixes from those commits as well, i.e. it covers
everything since the last newsletter.

Fixes:

Fix some crashes in high bit depth on some compilers due to
insufficient array alignment.

Fix a bug in chroma weightp which could cause corruption in rare cases.

Fix some weird issues in the resize filter's rounding code.

Fix the build on SPARC Solaris 10 machines.

Fix high bit depth mode on SPARC.

Fix an odd issue in VFR input + forced timebase.

Improvements:

QPmin default is now 0.

x264 --version now prints a lot more useful information.

x264_encoder_reconfig now copies field order flags.

There's a new API function to return the maximum number of delayed
frames with the current parameters (requested by Gstreamer).

Google Code-In is in full swing, with two sets of patches committed:
SSE versions of some high-bit-depth (i)DCT functions
x264 now has a totally sweet Python regression test tool.

--weightp 1 is now a better speed tradeoff.  It also doesn't do any
reference duplication, so it's suitable when encoding for broken
decoders that don't handle reference duplication correctly (while
still getting the benefits of fade detection).

Upcoming:

VBV Emergency Mode is finally completed, with just fine-tuning and
bugfixing left.  This makes x264 able to deal gracefully with extreme
input combined with VBV restrictions (e.g. noise, Doremi Labs test
boxes).  This is important for some broadcast applications.

Adaptive MBAFF development is coming along, with B-frames being
finished up currently.

x262 is under development: a best-in-class MPEG-2 encoder built using
the x264 framework.  Basic structure is done, with intra coding
finished and inter coding begun.

Work is planned to integrate x264 with the Sandy Bridge's encoding
ASIC for improved encoding performance.  Current status is: waiting on
Intel (these guys move at the speed of a three-toed sloth swimming
down a river of bricks).

Other news:

A commercial encoding application based on x264 is currently in the
works.  An announcement will come this week.

Jason Garrett-Glaser

The x264 Team