[x264-devel] MSU HEVC Video Codec Comparison 2015

[Dmitriy Vatolin]

Dear Codec Developers,

Moscow State University Graphics & Multimedia Laboratory
starts next tenth annual modern video codecs comparison for
HEVC/H.264 codecs.

The main task of this comparison is to perform comparative unbiased
analysis of the current software and hardware (GPU-based)
implementations of HEVC video coding standard and compare it to the
best implementations of other video coding standards (H.264/MPEG-4
AVC, VP9, VP8 and MPEG-4) using objective metrics.

Three main usage areas for this comparison
* Ripping - transcoding with best quality
* Fast transcoding - transcoding for other system, devices with high
  speed
* Universal - trade-off between speed and quality of encoding


New this year features:
----------------------------
* Two different hardware for testing for two type of users:
  Home User and Professional user - with desktop and server
  configuration respectively

* New HD video sequences including professional video sequences for
  video codec analysis.

* GPU codecs will be analyzed: Nvidia, AMD, and Haswell based
  encoders.

* Overall result for all encoders will be integrated value of
  quality, encoding speed and bitrate keeping.

* Three different report editions:
  ** Consumer edition - all the results for “Home user” desktop
     hardware and main results for “Professional user” server hardware
  ** Enterprise edition - all the results for “Home user” desktop
     hardware and or “Professional user” server hardware, including e.g.
     Scalability analysis,
  ** Premium edition - the same as Consumer edition plus detailed
     expert comments on all results


Important Dates
---------------
February, 26  - Deadline for participation submission
March, 10     - Deadline for receipt of a codec with required presets
March, 31     - Deadline for settling technical problems with codec’s functioning
June, 10      - Draft version of report that will be sent to all participants
June, 20      - Deadline for reception of comments to the draft
June, 30      - Comparison report release

The full text of Call for Codecs is available at
http://compression.ru/video/codec_comparison/call_for_codecs_15.html

Variants of Participation
-------------------------

There are two variants for companies to participate in our  comparison:

1. Participation for free. All results of codec will be
   published, except special cases of measurements 
   problems due to codec instability.

2. Private participation. A special report will be prepared only
   for private participant. This report contains:
   * Codec results and all material from the free version
   * Special additional analysis of codec

   If you are interested in the private participation, 
   please contact us  for details.


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

* Call for codecs-2015
  http://compression.ru/video/codec_comparison/call_for_codecs_15.html

* Eighth Annual MSU MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 Video Codec Comparison
  http://www.compression.ru/video/codec_comparison/h264_2012

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

-- 
Best regards,
 Dmitriy Vatolin  
  Ph.D, Head of Video Group                        
   mailto:dmitriy at graphics.cs.msu.ru