Comparison of video codecs
Encyclopedia
A video codec
is software or a device that provides encoding and decoding
which may or may not include the use of video compression and/or decompression for digital video
.
The compression may employ lossy data compression
, so quality measurement issues become important. Shortly after the compact disc
became widely available as a digital-format replacement for analog audio, it became feasible to also store and use video in digital form. A variety of technologies soon emerged to do so. The primary goal for most methods of compressing video is to produce video that most closely approximates the fidelity of the original source and simultaneously deliver the smallest file size possible. However, there are also several other factors that can be used as a basis for comparison.
Prior to comparing codec video quality, it is important to understand that every codec can give a varying degree of quality for a given set of frames within a video sequence. Numerous factors play a role in this variability. First, all codecs have a bitrate control mechanism which is responsible for determining the bitrate and quality on a per-frame basis. A difference between variable bit rate (VBR) and constant bit rate (CBR) creates a trade-off between a consistent quality over all frames, and a more constant bitrate, which is required for some applications. Second, some codecs differentiate between different types of frames such as key frame
s and non-key frames, differing in their importance to overall visual quality and the extent to which they can be compressed. Third, quality depends on prefiltrations, that is included on all present-day codecs. Other factors can also come into play.
For a sufficiently long clip, it is possible to select sequences which have suffered little from the compression and sequences which have suffered heavily, especially if CBR
was used, in which the quality between frames can vary highly due to different amounts of compression needed to achieve a constant bitrate. So, in any one long clip such as a full length movie, any two codecs may perform quite differently on a particular sequence from the clip, while the codecs may be approximately equal (or the situation reversed) in quality over a wider sequence of frames. Press-releases and amateur forums sometimes select sequences known to favor a particular codec or style of rate control in reviews .
The main FR metrics are:
Peak signal-to-noise ratio
(PSNR): The most widely used video quality metric during the last 20 years (used approximately in 99% of scientific papers and in 20% of marketing materials). However, the validity of this metric is limited. It is only conclusive when the same codec (or codec type) and content is being compared.
Structural similarity (SSim.): A new metric (suggested in 2004) which shows better results than PSNR at the cost of a reasonable increase in computational complexity.
VQuad-HD an ITU-T
J.341 standard: The new standard was recently (Jan 2011) approved by ITU-T as J.341. The new VQuad-HD™ algorithm was developed by Swissqual
in 2008-2010. It was the best performing model in the HDTV competition to find the new standard that was organized by the independent and non-commercial Video Quality Expert Group (VQEG).More information on VQuad-HD can be found in the technical white paper "Video Quality Measurement for High Definition Video Signals" available for download from: white paper
Some other metrics have been suggested by Video Quality Experts Group (VQEG), private companies, and universities, but are not widespread.
The main comparison method is the so-called RD-curve (rate/distortion chart), where a metric value is plotted against the Y-axis and the bitrate against the X-axis.
Some example NR metrics are:
There is an enormous number of ways of showing video sequences to experts and of recording their opinions. A few of them have been standardized. They are thoroughly described in ITU-R recommendation BT.500.
Following subjective video quality comparison methods are used:
The reason for measuring subjective video quality is the same as for measuring the Mean Opinion Score
for audio. Opinions of experts can be averaged; average mark is usually given with confidence interval. Additional procedures can be used for averaging, for example experts who give unstable results can be rejected (for instance, if their correlation with average opinion is small).
In case of video codecs, this is a very common situation. When codecs with similar objective results show results with different subjective results, the main reasons can be:
It is difficult to use long sequences for subjective testing. Commonly, three or four ten-second sequences are used, compared with full movies used for objective metrics. Sequence selection is important — those sequences that are similar to the ones used by developers to tune their codecs are more competitive.
The following issues should be considered when estimating probable codec performance differences:
So, for example, codec A (being optimized for memory usage, i.e. uses less memory) may give slower performance on modern computers (which are typically not memory limited) than codec B. The same pair of codecs may give opposite results if running on an older computer with reduced memory (or cache) resources.
The H.264 standard includes the following seven sets of capabilities, which are referred to as profiles, targeting specific classes of applications:
The standard also contains four additional all-Intra profiles, which are defined as simple subsets of other corresponding profiles. These are mostly for professional (e.g., camera and editing system) applications:
Moreover, the standard now also contains three Scalable Video Coding
profiles.
An accurate comparison of codecs must take the profile variations within each codec into account.
See also MPEG-2 Profiles and Levels.
Variable bit rate (VBR) is a strategy to maximize the visual video quality and minimize the bit rate. On fast motion scenes, a variable bit rate uses more bits than it does on slow motion scenes of similar duration yet achieves a consistent visual quality. For real-time and non-buffered video streaming when the available bandwidth is fixed, e.g. in videoconferencing delivered on channels of fixed bandwidth, a constant bit rate (CBR) must be used.
CBR is commonly used for videoconferences, satellite and cable broadcasting. VBR is commonly used for video CD/DVD creation and video in programs.
The Xiph.Org Foundation
has negotiated an irrevocable free license to Theora and other VP3-derived codecs for everyone, for any purpose.
DivX Plus is also known as DivX 8. The latest stable version for Mac is DivX 7 for Mac.
|-
! Codec
! Compression type
! Basic algorithm
! Highest supported bitrate
! Highest supported resolution
! Variable frame rate
|-
| Blackbird
| Lossy compression
|
|
| 384×288 (PAL), 320×240 (NTSC)
|
|-
| Cinepak
| Lossy compression
| Vector quantization
|
|
|
|-
| Dirac
| Lossy/Lossless compression
| Wavelet compression
| Unlimited
| Unlimited
|
|-
| Sorenson 3
| Lossy compression
|
|
|
|
|-
| Theora
| Lossy compression
| Discrete cosine transform
| 2 Gibit/s
| 1,048,560×1,048,560
|
|-
| RealVideo
| Lossy compression
| Discrete cosine transform
|
|
|
|-
| Elecard
| Lossy compression
| Unknown
| Unlimited
| 16k
|
|}
Theora streams with different frame rates can be chained in the same file, but each stream has a fixed frame rate.
{| class="wikitable" style="width: auto; font-size: smaller;"
|-
! Name of comparison
! Type of comparison
! Date(s) of publication
! List of compared codecs
! Comments
|-
| Series of Doom9 codec comparisons
| Series of subjective comparison of popular codecs
|
|
| Subjective comparison with convenient visualization
|-
| Series of MSU annual H.264 codecs comparisons
| Series of objective H.264 codecs comparisons with MPEG-4 ASP reference
|
|
| Detailed objective comparisons
|-
| Series of Lossless Video Codecs Comparison
| Two size and time comparisons of lossless codecs (with lossless checking)
|
|
| in 2007 — more detailed report with new codecs including first standard H.264 (x264)
|-
| MSU MPEG-4 codecs comparison
| Objective comparison of MPEG-4 codecs
|
| DivX 5.2.1, DivX 4.12, DivX 3.22, MS MPEG-4 3688 v3, XviD 1.0.3, 3ivx D4 4.5.1, OpenDivX 0.3
| Different versions of DivX was also compared. The Xvid results may be erroneous, as deblocking was disabled for it while used for DivX.
|-
| Subjective Comparison of Modern Video Codecs
| Scientifically accurate subjective comparison using 50 experts and SAMVIQ methodology
|
| DivX 6.0, Xvid 1.1.0, x264, WMV 9.0 (2 bitrates for every codec)
| PSNR via VQM via SSIM comparison was also done
|-
| MPEG-2 Video Decoders Comparison
| Objective MPEG-2 Decoders comparison
|
| bitcontrol MPEG-2 Video Decoder, DScaler MPEG2 Video Decoder, Elecard MPEG-2 Video Decoder, ffdshow MPEG-4 Video Decoder (libavcodec), InterVideo Video Decoder, Ligos MPEG Video Decoder, MainConcept MPEG Video Decoder, Pinnacle MPEG-2 Decoder
| Objectly tested (100 times per stream) decoders "crash test" (test on damaged stream — like scratched DVD or satellite samples)
|-
| Codecs comparison
| Personal subjective opinion
|
| 3ivx, Avid AVI 2.02, Cinepak, DivX 3.11, DivX 4.12, DivX 5.0.2, DV, Huffyuv, Indeo 3.2, Indeo 4.4, Indeo 5.10, Microsoft MPEG-4 v1, Microsoft MPEG-4 v2, Microsoft RLE, Microsoft Video 1, XviD, 3ivx, Animation, Blackmagic 10-bit, Blackmagic 8-bit, Cinepak, DV, H.261, H.263, Motion-JPEG, MPEG-4 Video, PNG, Sorenson Video, Sorenson Video 3
| Sometimes comparison is short (up to one text line per codec)
|-
| Evaluation of Dirac and Theora
| Scientific paper
|
| Dirac, Dirac Pro, Theora I, H.264, Motion JPEG2000 (the tested codecs are from Q2-2008)
| Quite detailed comparison of software available in Q2-2008; However, a buggy version of ffmpeg2Theora was used
|-
| VP8 versus x264
| Objective and subjective quality comparison of VP8 and x264
|
| VP8, x264
| VQM, SSIM and PSNR for 19 CIF video clips with bit-rates of 100, 200, 500 and 1000 kbit/s
|}
Video codec
A video codec is a device or software that enables video compression and/or decompression for digital video. The compression usually employs lossy data compression. Historically, video was stored as an analog signal on magnetic tape...
is software or a device that provides encoding and decoding
Decoding
Decoding is the reverse of encoding, which is the process of transforming information from one format into another. Information about decoding can be found in the following:* Digital-to-analog converter, the use of analog circuit for decoding operations...
which may or may not include the use of video compression and/or decompression for digital video
Digital video
Digital video is a type of digital recording system that works by using a digital rather than an analog video signal.The terms camera, video camera, and camcorder are used interchangeably in this article.- History :...
.
The compression may employ lossy data compression
Lossy data compression
In information technology, "lossy" compression is a data encoding method that compresses data by discarding some of it. The procedure aims to minimize the amount of data that need to be held, handled, and/or transmitted by a computer...
, so quality measurement issues become important. Shortly after the compact disc
Compact Disc
The Compact Disc is an optical disc used to store digital data. It was originally developed to store and playback sound recordings exclusively, but later expanded to encompass data storage , write-once audio and data storage , rewritable media , Video Compact Discs , Super Video Compact Discs ,...
became widely available as a digital-format replacement for analog audio, it became feasible to also store and use video in digital form. A variety of technologies soon emerged to do so. The primary goal for most methods of compressing video is to produce video that most closely approximates the fidelity of the original source and simultaneously deliver the smallest file size possible. However, there are also several other factors that can be used as a basis for comparison.
Introduction to comparison
The following characteristics are compared in video codecs comparisons:- Video quality per bitrate (or range of bitrateBitrateIn telecommunications and computing, bit rate is the number of bits that are conveyed or processed per unit of time....
s). Commonly video qualityVideo qualityVideo quality is a characteristic of a video passed through a video transmission/processing system, a formal or informal measure of perceived video degradation...
is considered the main characteristic of codec comparisons. Video quality comparisons can be subjective or objective. - Performance characteristics like compression/decompression speed, supported profiles/options, supported resolutions, supported rate control strategies etc.
- General software characteristics, for example:
- Manufacturer
- Supported OS (LinuxLinuxLinux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...
, Mac OSMac OSMac OS is a series of graphical user interface-based operating systems developed by Apple Inc. for their Macintosh line of computer systems. The Macintosh user experience is credited with popularizing the graphical user interface...
, WindowsMicrosoft WindowsMicrosoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
) - Version number
- Date of release
- Type of license (commercial, free, open sourceOpen sourceThe term open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials. Some consider open source a philosophy, others consider it a pragmatic methodology...
) - Supported interfaces (VfW, DirectShowDirectShowDirectShow , codename Quartz, is a multimedia framework and API produced by Microsoft for software developers to perform various operations with media files or streams. It is the replacement for Microsoft's earlier Video for Windows technology...
, etc.) - Price for codec (volume discounts, etc.)
Video quality
The quality the codec can achieve is heavily based on the compression format the codec uses. A codec is not a format, and there can be multiple codecs that implement the same compression specification – for example, MPEG-1 codecs typically do not achieve quality/size ratio comparable to codecs that implement the more modern H.264 specification. But quality/size ratio of output produced by different implementations of the same specification can vary, too.Prior to comparing codec video quality, it is important to understand that every codec can give a varying degree of quality for a given set of frames within a video sequence. Numerous factors play a role in this variability. First, all codecs have a bitrate control mechanism which is responsible for determining the bitrate and quality on a per-frame basis. A difference between variable bit rate (VBR) and constant bit rate (CBR) creates a trade-off between a consistent quality over all frames, and a more constant bitrate, which is required for some applications. Second, some codecs differentiate between different types of frames such as key frame
Key frame
A key frame in animation and filmmaking is a drawing that defines the starting and ending points of any smooth transition. They are called "frames" because their position in time is measured in frames on a strip of film...
s and non-key frames, differing in their importance to overall visual quality and the extent to which they can be compressed. Third, quality depends on prefiltrations, that is included on all present-day codecs. Other factors can also come into play.
For a sufficiently long clip, it is possible to select sequences which have suffered little from the compression and sequences which have suffered heavily, especially if CBR
Constant bitrate
Constant bitrate is a term used in telecommunications, relating to the quality of service. Compare with variable bitrate.When referring to codecs, constant bit rate encoding means that the rate at which a codec's output data should be consumed is constant...
was used, in which the quality between frames can vary highly due to different amounts of compression needed to achieve a constant bitrate. So, in any one long clip such as a full length movie, any two codecs may perform quite differently on a particular sequence from the clip, while the codecs may be approximately equal (or the situation reversed) in quality over a wider sequence of frames. Press-releases and amateur forums sometimes select sequences known to favor a particular codec or style of rate control in reviews .
Objective video quality
Objective video evaluation techniques are mathematical models that approximate results of subjective quality assessment, but are based on criteria and metrics that can be measured objectively and automatically evaluated by a computer program. Objective methods are classified based on the availability of the original video signal, which is considered to be of high quality (generally not compressed). Therefore, they can be classified as:- Full reference methods (FR), where the whole original video signal is available
- Reduced reference methods (RR), where only partial information of the original video is available, and
- No-reference methods (NR), where the original video is not available at all.
The main FR metrics are:
Peak signal-to-noise ratio
Peak signal-to-noise ratio
The phrase peak signal-to-noise ratio, often abbreviated PSNR, is an engineering term for the ratio between the maximum possible power of a signal and the power of corrupting noise that affects the fidelity of its representation...
(PSNR): The most widely used video quality metric during the last 20 years (used approximately in 99% of scientific papers and in 20% of marketing materials). However, the validity of this metric is limited. It is only conclusive when the same codec (or codec type) and content is being compared.
Structural similarity (SSim.): A new metric (suggested in 2004) which shows better results than PSNR at the cost of a reasonable increase in computational complexity.
VQuad-HD an ITU-T
ITU-T
The ITU Telecommunication Standardization Sector is one of the three sectors of the International Telecommunication Union ; it coordinates standards for telecommunications....
J.341 standard: The new standard was recently (Jan 2011) approved by ITU-T as J.341. The new VQuad-HD™ algorithm was developed by Swissqual
Swissqual
SwissQual AG is a Telecommunications company specializing in wireless network service quality benchmarking and network optimization. The company is a contributor to ITU-T standards for speech and video quality assessment.-Company history:...
in 2008-2010. It was the best performing model in the HDTV competition to find the new standard that was organized by the independent and non-commercial Video Quality Expert Group (VQEG).More information on VQuad-HD can be found in the technical white paper "Video Quality Measurement for High Definition Video Signals" available for download from: white paper
Some other metrics have been suggested by Video Quality Experts Group (VQEG), private companies, and universities, but are not widespread.
The main comparison method is the so-called RD-curve (rate/distortion chart), where a metric value is plotted against the Y-axis and the bitrate against the X-axis.
Some example NR metrics are:
- Blocking measure — measurement power of so called blocking artefacts (extremely noticeable without deblocking filter usage on low bitrates)
- Blurring measure — measurement of common video blurring (washout)
Subjective video quality
It is concerned with how video is perceived by a viewer and designates his or her opinion on a particular video sequence. Subjective video quality tests are quite expensive in terms of time (preparation and running) and human resources.There is an enormous number of ways of showing video sequences to experts and of recording their opinions. A few of them have been standardized. They are thoroughly described in ITU-R recommendation BT.500.
Following subjective video quality comparison methods are used:
- Double Stimulus Impairment Scale (DSIS) — suggested in ITU-RITU-RThe ITU Radiocommunication Sector is one of the three sectors of the International Telecommunication Union and is responsible for radio communication....
BT.500-11. - Double Stimulus Continuous Quality Scale (DSCQS) type I and type II — suggested in ITU-R BT.500-11
- Stimulus Comparison Adjectival Categorical Judgement (SCACJ) — suggested in ITU-R BT.500-11
- Subjective Assessment Method for Video Quality evaluation (SAMVIQ)
- MSU Continuous Quality Evaluation (MSUCQE)
The reason for measuring subjective video quality is the same as for measuring the Mean Opinion Score
Mean Opinion Score
The Mean Opinion Score test has been used for decades in telephony networks to obtain the human user's view of the quality of the network. In multimedia especially when codecs are used to compress the bandwidth requirement , the mean opinion score ...
for audio. Opinions of experts can be averaged; average mark is usually given with confidence interval. Additional procedures can be used for averaging, for example experts who give unstable results can be rejected (for instance, if their correlation with average opinion is small).
In case of video codecs, this is a very common situation. When codecs with similar objective results show results with different subjective results, the main reasons can be:
- Pre- and postfilters are widely used in codecs. Commonly codecs use prefilters like video denoisingVideo denoisingVideo denoising is the process of removing noise from a video signal. Video denoising methods can be divided into:* Spatial video denoising methods, where image noise reduction is applied to each frame individually....
, deflicking, deshacking, etc. Denoising and deflicking commonly maintain PSNR value, but increase visual quality (the best slow denoising filters also increase PSNR on middle and high bitrates). Deshacking seriously decreases PSNR, but increases visual quality. The same situation with postfilters — deblocking and deringing maintain PSNR, but increase quality. Graining (suggested in H.264) essentially increases video quality especially on big plasma screens, but decrease PSNR.
- Note: All filters worsen compression/decompression time, so they increase visual quality, but decrease speed.
- Motion estimation (ME) search strategy can also cause different visual quality for the same PSNR. So called true motion search commonly will not reach minimum sum of absolute differencesSum of absolute differencesSum of absolute differences is a widely used, extremely simple algorithm for measuring the similarity between image blocks. It works by taking the absolute difference between each pixel in the original block and the corresponding pixel in the block being used for comparison...
(SAD) values in codec ME, but may result in better visual quality. Also such methods require more compression time. - Rate control strategy. VBR commonly cause better visual quality marks than CBR for the same average PSNR values for sequences.
- Motion estimation (ME) search strategy can also cause different visual quality for the same PSNR. So called true motion search commonly will not reach minimum sum of absolute differences
It is difficult to use long sequences for subjective testing. Commonly, three or four ten-second sequences are used, compared with full movies used for objective metrics. Sequence selection is important — those sequences that are similar to the ones used by developers to tune their codecs are more competitive.
Speed comparison
Number of frames per second (FPS) commonly used for compression/decompression speed measurement.The following issues should be considered when estimating probable codec performance differences:
- Decompression (sometimes compression) frame time uniformity. Big differences in this value can cause annoying jerkily playback.
- SIMDSIMDSingle instruction, multiple data , is a class of parallel computers in Flynn's taxonomy. It describes computers with multiple processing elements that perform the same operation on multiple data simultaneously...
support by processor and codec — e.g., MMX, SSEStreaming SIMD ExtensionsIn computing, Streaming SIMD Extensions is a SIMD instruction set extension to the x86 architecture, designed by Intel and introduced in 1999 in their Pentium III series processors as a reply to AMD's 3DNow! . SSE contains 70 new instructions, most of which work on single precision floating point...
, SSE2SSE2SSE2, Streaming SIMD Extensions 2, is one of the Intel SIMD processor supplementary instruction sets first introduced by Intel with the initial version of the Pentium 4 in 2001. It extends the earlier SSE instruction set, and is intended to fully supplant MMX. Intel extended SSE2 to create SSE3...
, each of which change CPU performance on some kinds of tasks (often including those with which codecs are concerned). - Multi-threading support by processor and codec (sometimes turning on Hyper-threadingHyper-threadingHyper-threading is Intel's term for its simultaneous multithreading implementation in its Atom, Intel Core i3/i5/i7, Itanium, Pentium 4 and Xeon CPUs....
support (if available on a particular CPU) causes codec speed to decrease) - RAMRam-Animals:*Ram, an uncastrated male sheep*Ram cichlid, a species of freshwater fish endemic to Colombia and Venezuela-Military:*Battering ram*Ramming, a military tactic in which one vehicle runs into another...
speed (generally important for most codec implemenations) - Processor cache size (low values sometimes cause serious speed degradation, e.g. for CPUs with low cache such as several of the Intel CeleronCeleronCeleron is a brand name given by Intel Corp. to a number of different x86 computer microprocessor models targeted at budget personal computers....
series.) - GPUGPGPUGeneral-purpose computing on graphics processing units is the technique of using a GPU, which typically handles computation only for computer graphics, to perform computation in applications traditionally handled by the CPU...
usage by codec — some codecs can drastically increase their performance by taking advantage of GPU resources.
So, for example, codec A (being optimized for memory usage, i.e. uses less memory) may give slower performance on modern computers (which are typically not memory limited) than codec B. The same pair of codecs may give opposite results if running on an older computer with reduced memory (or cache) resources.
Profiles support
Modern standards define a wide range of features and require very substantial software or hardware efforts and resources for their implementation. Only selected profiles of a standard are typically supported in any particular product. (This very common situation for H.264 implementations for example.)The H.264 standard includes the following seven sets of capabilities, which are referred to as profiles, targeting specific classes of applications:
- Baseline Profile (BP): Primarily for lower-cost applications with limited computing resources, this profile is used widely in videoconferencing and mobile applications.
- Main Profile (MP): Originally intended as the mainstream consumer profile for broadcast and storage applications, the importance of this profile faded when the High profile was developed for those applications.
- Extended Profile (XP): Intended as the streaming video profile, this profile has relatively high compression capability and some extra tricks for robustness to data losses and server stream switching.
- High Profile (HiP): The primary profile for broadcast and disc storage applications, particularly for high-definition television applications (this is the profile adopted into HD DVDHD DVDHD DVD is a discontinued high-density optical disc format for storing data and high-definition video.Supported principally by Toshiba, HD DVD was envisioned to be the successor to the standard DVD format...
and Blu-ray Disc, for example). - High 10 Profile (Hi10P): Going beyond today's mainstream consumer product capabilities, this profile builds on top of the High Profile — adding support for up to 10 bits per sample of decoded picture precision.
- High 4:2:2 Profile (Hi422P): Primarily targeting professional applications that use interlaced video, this profile builds on top of the High 10 Profile — adding support for the 4:2:2 chroma sampling format while using up to 10 bits per sample of decoded picture precision.
- High 4:4:4 Predictive Profile (Hi444PP): This profile builds on top of the High 4:2:2 Profile — supporting up to 4:4:4 chroma sampling, up to 14 bits per sample, and additionally supporting efficient lossless region coding and the coding of each picture as three separate color planes.
- Multiview High Profile: This profile supports two or more views using both inter-picture (temporal) and MVC inter-view prediction, but does not support field pictures and macroblock-adaptive frame-field coding.
The standard also contains four additional all-Intra profiles, which are defined as simple subsets of other corresponding profiles. These are mostly for professional (e.g., camera and editing system) applications:
- High 10 Intra Profile: The High 10 Profile constrained to all-Intra use.
- High 4:2:2 Intra Profile: The High 4:2:2 Profile constrained to all-Intra use.
- High 4:4:4 Intra Profile: The High 4:4:4 Profile constrained to all-Intra use.
- CAVLC 4:4:4 Intra Profile: The High 4:4:4 Profile constrained to all-Intra use and to CAVLC entropy coding (i.e., not supporting CABAC).
Moreover, the standard now also contains three Scalable Video Coding
Scalable Video Coding
Scalable Video Coding is the name for the Annex G extension of the H.264/MPEG-4 AVC video compression standard. SVC standardizes the encoding of a high-quality video bitstream that also contains one or more subset bitstreams. A subset video bitstream is derived by dropping packets from the...
profiles.
- Scalable Baseline Profile: A scalable extension of the Baseline profile.
- Scalable High Profile: A scalable extension of the High profile.
- Scalable High Intra Profile: The Scalable High Profile constrained to all-Intra use.
An accurate comparison of codecs must take the profile variations within each codec into account.
See also MPEG-2 Profiles and Levels.
Supported rate control strategies
Videocodecs rate control strategies can be classified as:- Variable bit rate (VBR) and
- Constant bit rate (CBR).
Variable bit rate (VBR) is a strategy to maximize the visual video quality and minimize the bit rate. On fast motion scenes, a variable bit rate uses more bits than it does on slow motion scenes of similar duration yet achieves a consistent visual quality. For real-time and non-buffered video streaming when the available bandwidth is fixed, e.g. in videoconferencing delivered on channels of fixed bandwidth, a constant bit rate (CBR) must be used.
CBR is commonly used for videoconferences, satellite and cable broadcasting. VBR is commonly used for video CD/DVD creation and video in programs.
Codecs list
| Codec Video codec A video codec is a device or software that enables video compression and/or decompression for digital video. The compression usually employs lossy data compression. Historically, video was stored as an analog signal on magnetic tape... |
Creator/Maintainer | First public release date | Latest stable version | License | Patent Patent A patent is a form of intellectual property. It consists of a set of exclusive rights granted by a sovereign state to an inventor or their assignee for a limited period of time in exchange for the public disclosure of an invention.... ed compression formats |
Compression method | OpenCL OpenCL OpenCL is a framework for writing programs that execute across heterogeneous platforms consisting of CPUs, GPUs, and other processors. OpenCL includes a language for writing kernels , plus APIs that are used to define and then control the platforms... support |
nVidia NVIDIA Nvidia is an American global technology company based in Santa Clara, California. Nvidia is best known for its graphics processors . Nvidia and chief rival AMD Graphics Techonologies have dominated the high performance GPU market, pushing other manufacturers to smaller, niche roles... CUDA CUDA CUDA or Compute Unified Device Architecture is a parallel computing architecture developed by Nvidia. CUDA is the computing engine in Nvidia graphics processing units that is accessible to software developers through variants of industry standard programming languages... support |
ATI Ati As a word, Ati may refer to:* Ati, a town in Chad* Ati, a Negrito ethnic group in the Philippines* Ati-Atihan Festival, an annual celebration held in the Philippines* Ati, a queen of the fabled Land of Punt in Africa... Stream/AMD APP support |
Intel AVX Advanced Vector Extensions Advanced Vector Extensions is an extension to the x86 instruction set architecture for microprocessors from Intel and AMD proposed by Intel in March 2008 and first supported by Intel with the Westmere processor shipping in Q1 2011 and now by AMD with the Bulldozer processor shipping in Q3 2011.AVX... support |
Intel Quick Sync Video support |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| libtheora (Theora) | Xiph.org Xiph.Org Foundation Xiph.Org Foundation is a non-profit organizationthat produces free multimedia formats and software tools. It focuses on the Ogg family of formats, the most successful of which has been Vorbis, an open and freely licensed audio format and codec designed to compete with the patented MP3 and AAC... |
2002-09-25 | 1.1.1 (2009) | Lossy | |||||||
| dirac-research (Dirac Dirac (codec) Dirac is an open and royalty-free video compression format, specification and system developed by BBC Research at the BBC. Schrödinger and dirac-research are open and royalty-free software implementations of Dirac... ) |
BBC Research Department | 2008-09-17 | 1.0.2 (2009) | Lossy/lossless | |||||||
| Schrödinger (Dirac Dirac (codec) Dirac is an open and royalty-free video compression format, specification and system developed by BBC Research at the BBC. Schrödinger and dirac-research are open and royalty-free software implementations of Dirac... ) |
David Schleef | 2008-02-22 | 1.0.9 (2010) | Lossy/lossless | |||||||
| x264 X264 x264 is a free software library for encoding video streams into the H.264/MPEG-4 AVC format. It is released under the terms of the GNU General Public License.-History:... |
x264 team | 2003 | r2019 (2011) | Lossy/lossless | |||||||
| Xvid XviD Xvid is a video codec library following the MPEG-4 standard, specifically MPEG-4 Part 2 Advanced Simple Profile . It uses ASP features such as b-frames, global and quarter pixel motion compensation, lumi masking, trellis quantization, and H.263, MPEG and custom quantization matrices.Xvid is a... |
Xvid team | 2001 | 1.3.2 (2011) | Lossy | |||||||
| FFmpeg FFmpeg FFmpeg is a free software project that produces libraries and programs for handling multimedia data. The most notable parts of FFmpeg are libavcodec, an audio/video codec library used by several other projects, libavformat, an audio/video container mux and demux library, and the ffmpeg command line... (libavcodec Libavcodec libavcodec is a free software/open source LGPL-licensed library of codecs for encoding and decoding video and audio data. Same name but incompatible libraries are provided from both FFmpeg project and Libav project.... ) |
FFmpeg team | 2000 | 0.8.5 (2011) | Lossy/lossless | |||||||
| FFavs (libavcodec Libavcodec libavcodec is a free software/open source LGPL-licensed library of codecs for encoding and decoding video and audio data. Same name but incompatible libraries are provided from both FFmpeg project and Libav project.... ) |
FFavs team | 2009 | 0.0.3 | Lossy/lossless | |||||||
| Blackbird | Forbidden Technologies plc | 2006-01 | 2 | Lossy | |||||||
| DivX DivX DivX is a brand name of products created by DivX, Inc. , including the DivX Codec which has become popular due to its ability to compress lengthy video segments into small sizes while maintaining relatively high visual quality.There are two DivX codecs; the regular MPEG-4 Part 2 DivX codec and the... |
DivX, Inc. DivX, Inc. DivX, Inc. , based in San Diego, California, now part of Sonic Solutions, a division of Rovi, was the corporation behind the MPEG-4 Part 2-based codec, DivX. The company's codec has been downloaded over 240 million times since January 2003... |
2001 | DivX Plus (2010) | Lossy | |||||||
| DivX DivX DivX is a brand name of products created by DivX, Inc. , including the DivX Codec which has become popular due to its ability to compress lengthy video segments into small sizes while maintaining relatively high visual quality.There are two DivX codecs; the regular MPEG-4 Part 2 DivX codec and the... |
a hack of Microsoft's MPEG-4v3 codec | 1998 | 3.20 alpha (2000) | Lossy | |||||||
| 3ivx 3ivx 3ivx is a video codec suite, created by 3ivx Technologies, based in Sydney, Australia, that allows the creation of MPEG-4 compliant data streams. It has been designed around a need for decreased processing power for use mainly in embedded systems. First versions were published in 2001... |
3ivx Technologies Pty. Ltd. | 2001 | 5.0.2 (2007) | Lossy | |||||||
| Nero Digital Nero Digital Nero Digital is a brand name applied to a suite of MPEG-4-compatible video and audio compression codecs developed by Nero AG of Germany and Ateme of France... |
Nero AG Nero AG Nero is a global computer software company headquartered in Karlsbad, Germany. It is perhaps most well-known for its burning software, Nero Burning ROM.-History:The company was founded as Ahead Software GmbH in 1995 by Richard Lesser.... |
2003 | Lossy | ||||||||
| ProRes 422 ProRes 422 ProRes 422 is a standard-definition and high-definition lossy video compression format developed by Apple Inc. for use in post production. It was introduced in 2007 with Final Cut Studio 2 and is comparable to Avid's DNxHD codec which has the same purpose and uses similar bit rates... / ProRes 4444 ProRes 4444 ProRes 4444 is a lossy video compression format developed by Apple Inc. for use in post production that can handle standard definition, high definition, and 2K material. It was introduced with Final Cut Studio as another in the company's line of intermediate codecs for editing material but not... |
Apple Inc. | 2007 | Lossy | ||||||||
| Sorenson Video Sorenson codec Sorenson codec may refer to either of three proprietary video codecs: Sorenson Video, Sorenson Video 3 or Sorenson Spark. Sorenson Video is also known as Sorenson Video Codec, Sorenson Video Quantizer or SVQ... |
Sorenson Media | 1998 | Lossy | ||||||||
| Sorenson Spark Sorenson codec Sorenson codec may refer to either of three proprietary video codecs: Sorenson Video, Sorenson Video 3 or Sorenson Spark. Sorenson Video is also known as Sorenson Video Codec, Sorenson Video Quantizer or SVQ... |
Sorenson Media | 2002 | Lossy | ||||||||
| VP3 VP3 On2 TrueMotion VP3 is a lossy video compression format and video codec. It is an incarnation of the TrueMotion video codec, a series of video codecs developed by On2 Technologies.... |
On2 Technologies On2 Technologies On2 Technologies , formerly known as The Duck Corporation, was a small publicly-traded company , headquartered in Clifton Park, New York, that designs video codec technology. They created a series of video codecs called TrueMotion... |
2000 | Lossy | ||||||||
| VP4 | On2 Technologies On2 Technologies On2 Technologies , formerly known as The Duck Corporation, was a small publicly-traded company , headquartered in Clifton Park, New York, that designs video codec technology. They created a series of video codecs called TrueMotion... |
2001 | Lossy | ||||||||
| VP5 VP5 On2 TrueMotion VP5 is a proprietary lossy video compression format and video codec. It is an incarnation of the TrueMotion video codec, a series of video codecs developed by On2 Technologies.It was announced by On2 Technologies in February 2002... |
On2 Technologies On2 Technologies On2 Technologies , formerly known as The Duck Corporation, was a small publicly-traded company , headquartered in Clifton Park, New York, that designs video codec technology. They created a series of video codecs called TrueMotion... |
2002 | Lossy | ||||||||
| VP6 VP6 On2 TrueMotion VP6 is a proprietary lossy video compression format and video codec. It is an incarnation of the TrueMotion video codec, a series of video codecs developed by On2 Technologies. This codec is commonly used by Adobe Flash, Flash Video, and JavaFX media files.- Overview :The VP6 codec... |
On2 Technologies On2 Technologies On2 Technologies , formerly known as The Duck Corporation, was a small publicly-traded company , headquartered in Clifton Park, New York, that designs video codec technology. They created a series of video codecs called TrueMotion... |
2003 | Lossy | ||||||||
| VP7 VP7 TrueMotion VP7 is a video codec developed by On2 Technologies as a successor to earlier efforts such as VP3, VP5 and TrueMotion VP6. It is a codec with both VFW and DirectShow support that On2 Technologies claims has better compression than leading competitive codecs such as MPEG-4 AVC and VC-1.-... |
On2 Technologies On2 Technologies On2 Technologies , formerly known as The Duck Corporation, was a small publicly-traded company , headquartered in Clifton Park, New York, that designs video codec technology. They created a series of video codecs called TrueMotion... |
2005 | Lossy | ||||||||
| VP8 VP8 VP8 is an open video compression format released by Google, originally created by On2 Technologies.After purchasing On2 Technologies in early 2010, Google has provided an irrevocable patent promise for underlying patents for the VP8 format, and released a bitstream format specification under a... |
On2 Technologies On2 Technologies On2 Technologies , formerly known as The Duck Corporation, was a small publicly-traded company , headquartered in Clifton Park, New York, that designs video codec technology. They created a series of video codecs called TrueMotion... (now owned by Google Google Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program... ) |
2008 | Lossy | ||||||||
| DNxHD DNxHD codec Avid DNxHD, which stands for "Digital Nonlinear Extensible High Definition", is a lossy high-definition video post-production codec engineered for multi-generation compositing with reduced storage and bandwidth requirements. It is an implementation of SMPTE VC-3 standard... |
Avid Technology Avid Technology Avid Technology, Inc. is an American company specializing in video and audio production technology; specifically, digital non-linear editing systems, management and distribution services. It was created in 1987 and became a publicly traded company in 1993... |
2008 | Lossy | ||||||||
| Cinema Craft Encoder Cinema Craft Encoder Cinema Craft Encoder or CCE is a video encoder for MPEG-1 and MPEG-2. It is written in assembly and optimized with SIMD multimedia instructions of compatible x86 processors.... SP2 |
Custom Technology Corporation | 2000 | 1.00.01.09 (2009) | Lossy | |||||||
| TMPGEnc TMPGEnc TMPGEnc or TSUNAMI MPEG Encoder is a video transcoder software application primarily for encoding video files to VCD and SVCD-compliant MPEG video formats and was developed by Hiroyuki Hori and Pegasys Inc.. TMPGEnc can also refer to the family of software video encoders created after the success... Free Version |
Pegasys Inc. | 2001 | 2.525.64.184 (2008) | Lossy | |||||||
| Windows Media Encoder Windows Media Encoder Windows Media Encoder is a freely downloadable trial version media encoder developed by Microsoft which enables content developers to convert or capture both live and prerecorded audio, video, and computer screen images to Windows Media formats for live and on-demand delivery. It is the successor... |
Microsoft | 1999 | 9 (2003) (WMV3 in FourCC FourCC A FourCC is a sequence of four bytes used to uniquely identify data formats.The concept originated in the OSType scheme used in the Macintosh system software and was adopted for the Amiga/Electronic Arts Interchange File Format and derivatives... ) |
Lossy | |||||||
| Cinepak Cinepak Cinepak is a video codec developed by Peter Barrett at SuperMac Technologies, and released in 1991 with the Video Spigot, and then in 1992 as part of Apple Computer's QuickTime video suite. It was designed to encode 320x240 resolution video at 1x CD-ROM transfer rates. The codec was ported to the... |
Created by SuperMac, Inc. Currently maintained by Compression Technologies, Inc. |
1991 | 1.10.0.26 (1999) | Lossy | |||||||
| Indeo Video | Intel Corporation Intel Corporation Intel Corporation is an American multinational semiconductor chip maker corporation headquartered in Santa Clara, California, United States and the world's largest semiconductor chip maker, based on revenue. It is the inventor of the x86 series of microprocessors, the processors found in most... , currently offered by Ligos Corporation |
1992 | 5.2 | Lossy | |||||||
| TrueMotion S TrueMotion S TrueMotion S is a proprietary lossy video compression format and video codec developed by The Duck Company, now known by the name On2 Technologies.... |
The Duck Corporation | 1995 | Lossy | ||||||||
| RealVideo RealVideo RealVideo is a suite of proprietary video compression formats developed by RealNetworks – the specific format changes with the version. It was first released in 1997 and is at version 10. RealVideo is supported on many platforms, including Windows, Mac, Linux, Solaris, and several mobile... |
RealNetworks RealNetworks RealNetworks, Inc. is a provider of Internet media delivery software and services based in Downtown Seattle, Washington, United States. The company is the creator of RealAudio, a compressed audio format; RealVideo, a compressed video format; RealPlayer, a media player; RealDownloader, a download... |
1997 | RealVideo 10 | Lossy | |||||||
| ACT-L3 | Streambox | 2003-02-21 | 3.4 (2009) | Lossy | |||||||
| Huffyuv Huffyuv Huffyuv is a lossless video codec created by Ben Rudiak-Gould which is meant to replace uncompressed YCbCr as a video capture format.Despite the "YUV" in the name, it does not compress the YUV color space, but YCbCr... |
Ben Rudiak-Gould | 2000 | 2.1.1 (2003) | Lossless | |||||||
| Lagarith Lagarith Lagarith is an open source lossless video codec written by Ben Greenwood. It was designed and written with a few aims in mind:Speed: while not as fast as Huffyuv, it still outperforms most other lossless video codecs when it comes to encoding times, although decoding speed may be slower... |
Ben Greenwood | 2004-10-04 | 1.3.26 (2011-09-25) | Lossless | |||||||
| MainConcept MainConcept MainConcept GmbH is a software company developing video/audio codecs and also applications and plug-ins related to video/audio encoding.-History:... |
MainConcept GmbH | 1993 | 8.8.0 (2011) | Lossy | |||||||
| Elecard | Elecard | 2008 | G4 (2010) | MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, AVC | Lossy |
The Xiph.Org Foundation
Xiph.Org Foundation
Xiph.Org Foundation is a non-profit organizationthat produces free multimedia formats and software tools. It focuses on the Ogg family of formats, the most successful of which has been Vorbis, an open and freely licensed audio format and codec designed to compete with the patented MP3 and AAC...
has negotiated an irrevocable free license to Theora and other VP3-derived codecs for everyone, for any purpose.
DivX Plus is also known as DivX 8. The latest stable version for Mac is DivX 7 for Mac.
Native operating system support
Note that operating system support does not mean whether video encoded with the codec can be played back on the particular operating system – for example, video encoded with the DivX codec is playable on Unix-like systems using free MPEG-4 ASP decoders (FFmpeg MPEG-4 or Xvid), but the DivX codec (which is a software product) is only available for Windows and Mac OS X.| Codec Video codec A video codec is a device or software that enables video compression and/or decompression for digital video. The compression usually employs lossy data compression. Historically, video was stored as an analog signal on magnetic tape... |
Mac OS X Mac OS X Mac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems... |
other Unix Unix Unix is a multitasking, multi-user computer operating system originally developed in 1969 by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs, including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Brian Kernighan, Douglas McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna... & Unix-like Unix-like A Unix-like operating system is one that behaves in a manner similar to a Unix system, while not necessarily conforming to or being certified to any version of the Single UNIX Specification.... |
Windows Microsoft Windows Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal... |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3ivx 3ivx 3ivx is a video codec suite, created by 3ivx Technologies, based in Sydney, Australia, that allows the creation of MPEG-4 compliant data streams. It has been designed around a need for decreased processing power for use mainly in embedded systems. First versions were published in 2001... |
|||
| Blackbird | |||
| Cinepak Cinepak Cinepak is a video codec developed by Peter Barrett at SuperMac Technologies, and released in 1991 with the Video Spigot, and then in 1992 as part of Apple Computer's QuickTime video suite. It was designed to encode 320x240 resolution video at 1x CD-ROM transfer rates. The codec was ported to the... |
|||
| DivX DivX DivX is a brand name of products created by DivX, Inc. , including the DivX Codec which has become popular due to its ability to compress lengthy video segments into small sizes while maintaining relatively high visual quality.There are two DivX codecs; the regular MPEG-4 Part 2 DivX codec and the... |
|||
| FFmpeg FFmpeg FFmpeg is a free software project that produces libraries and programs for handling multimedia data. The most notable parts of FFmpeg are libavcodec, an audio/video codec library used by several other projects, libavformat, an audio/video container mux and demux library, and the ffmpeg command line... |
|||
| RealVideo RealVideo RealVideo is a suite of proprietary video compression formats developed by RealNetworks – the specific format changes with the version. It was first released in 1997 and is at version 10. RealVideo is supported on many platforms, including Windows, Mac, Linux, Solaris, and several mobile... |
|||
| Schrödinger (Dirac) | |||
| Sorenson Video 3 Sorenson codec Sorenson codec may refer to either of three proprietary video codecs: Sorenson Video, Sorenson Video 3 or Sorenson Spark. Sorenson Video is also known as Sorenson Video Codec, Sorenson Video Quantizer or SVQ... |
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| Theora Theora Theora is a free lossy video compression format. It is developed by the Xiph.Org Foundation and distributed without licensing fees alongside their other free and open media projects, including the Vorbis audio format and the Ogg container.... |
|||
| x264 X264 x264 is a free software library for encoding video streams into the H.264/MPEG-4 AVC format. It is released under the terms of the GNU General Public License.-History:... |
|||
| Xvid XviD Xvid is a video codec library following the MPEG-4 standard, specifically MPEG-4 Part 2 Advanced Simple Profile . It uses ASP features such as b-frames, global and quarter pixel motion compensation, lumi masking, trellis quantization, and H.263, MPEG and custom quantization matrices.Xvid is a... |
|||
| Elecard |
Technical details
{|{| class="wikitable" style="text-align: center; width: auto; font-size: smaller;"|-
! Codec
Video codec
A video codec is a device or software that enables video compression and/or decompression for digital video. The compression usually employs lossy data compression. Historically, video was stored as an analog signal on magnetic tape...
! Compression type
! Basic algorithm
Algorithm
In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm is an effective method expressed as a finite list of well-defined instructions for calculating a function. Algorithms are used for calculation, data processing, and automated reasoning...
! Highest supported bitrate
Bitrate
In telecommunications and computing, bit rate is the number of bits that are conveyed or processed per unit of time....
! Highest supported resolution
Image resolution
Image resolution is an umbrella term that describes the detail an image holds. The term applies to raster digital images, film images, and other types of images. Higher resolution means more image detail....
! Variable frame rate
Variable frame rate
Variable frame rate is a term in video compression for a feature supported by some container formats which allows for the frame rate to change actively during video playback, or to drop the idea of frame rate completely and set individual timecode for each frame...
|-
| Blackbird
| Lossy compression
|
|
| 384×288 (PAL), 320×240 (NTSC)
|
|-
| Cinepak
Cinepak
Cinepak is a video codec developed by Peter Barrett at SuperMac Technologies, and released in 1991 with the Video Spigot, and then in 1992 as part of Apple Computer's QuickTime video suite. It was designed to encode 320x240 resolution video at 1x CD-ROM transfer rates. The codec was ported to the...
| Lossy compression
| Vector quantization
Vector quantization
Vector quantization is a classical quantization technique from signal processing which allows the modeling of probability density functions by the distribution of prototype vectors. It was originally used for data compression. It works by dividing a large set of points into groups having...
|
|
|
|-
| Dirac
Dirac (codec)
Dirac is an open and royalty-free video compression format, specification and system developed by BBC Research at the BBC. Schrödinger and dirac-research are open and royalty-free software implementations of Dirac...
| Lossy/Lossless compression
| Wavelet compression
| Unlimited
| Unlimited
|
|-
| Sorenson 3
Sorenson codec
Sorenson codec may refer to either of three proprietary video codecs: Sorenson Video, Sorenson Video 3 or Sorenson Spark. Sorenson Video is also known as Sorenson Video Codec, Sorenson Video Quantizer or SVQ...
| Lossy compression
|
|
|
|
|-
| Theora
Theora
Theora is a free lossy video compression format. It is developed by the Xiph.Org Foundation and distributed without licensing fees alongside their other free and open media projects, including the Vorbis audio format and the Ogg container....
| Lossy compression
| Discrete cosine transform
Discrete cosine transform
A discrete cosine transform expresses a sequence of finitely many data points in terms of a sum of cosine functions oscillating at different frequencies. DCTs are important to numerous applications in science and engineering, from lossy compression of audio and images A discrete cosine transform...
| 2 Gibit/s
| 1,048,560×1,048,560
|
|-
| RealVideo
RealVideo
RealVideo is a suite of proprietary video compression formats developed by RealNetworks – the specific format changes with the version. It was first released in 1997 and is at version 10. RealVideo is supported on many platforms, including Windows, Mac, Linux, Solaris, and several mobile...
| Lossy compression
| Discrete cosine transform
|
|
|
|-
| Elecard
| Lossy compression
| Unknown
| Unlimited
| 16k
|
|}
Theora streams with different frame rates can be chained in the same file, but each stream has a fixed frame rate.
Freely available codecs comparisons
List of freely available comparisons and their content description:{| class="wikitable" style="width: auto; font-size: smaller;"
|-
! Name of comparison
! Type of comparison
! Date(s) of publication
! List of compared codecs
! Comments
|-
| Series of Doom9 codec comparisons
| Series of subjective comparison of popular codecs
|
- 2002
- 2003
- 2005
|
- DivX4.12, On2 VP3, XviD 1/25 and WMV8 and DivX5.01, XviD 3/27 and ON2 VP4 — at first version
- Dirac, Elecard AVC HP, libavcodec MPEG-4, NeroDigital ASP, QuickTime 7, Snow, Theora, VideoSoft H.264 HP, XviD 1.1 beta 2 — in last one
| Subjective comparison with convenient visualization
|-
| Series of MSU annual H.264 codecs comparisons
| Series of objective H.264 codecs comparisons with MPEG-4 ASP reference
|
- 2004
- 2005 Jan.
- 2005 Dec.
- 2006 Dec.
- 2007 Dec.
- 2009 May
- 2010 Apr.
|
- 2005 (Jan.): Mpegable AVC, Moonlight H.264, MainConcept H.264, Fraunhofer IIS, Ateme MPEG-4 AVC/H.264, Videosoft H.264, DivX Pro 5.1.1 (Not 264! Used for comparison with H.264 codecs as well tuned codec from previous generation MPEG-4 ASP)
- 2005 (Dec.): DivX 6.0 (MPEG-4 ASP reference), ArcSoft H.264, Ateme H.264, ATI H.264, Elecard H.264, Fraunhofer IIS H.264, VSS H.264, x264
- 2006: DivX 6.2.5 (MPEG-4 ASP reference), MainConcept H.264, Intel H.264, VSS H.264, x264, Apple H.264, (partially), Sorenson H.264 (partially)
- 2007: XviD (MPEG-4 ASP codec), MainConcept H.264, Intel H.264, x264, AMD H.264, Artemis H.264
- 2009: XviD (MPEG-4 ASP codec), Dicas H.264, Elecard H.264, Intel IPP H.264, MainConcept H.264, x264
- 2010: XviD (MPEG-4 ASP codec), DivX H.264, Elecard H.264, Intel MediaSDK AVC/H.264, MainConcept H.264, Microsoft Expression, Encoder, Theora, x264
| Detailed objective comparisons
|-
| Series of Lossless Video Codecs Comparison
| Two size and time comparisons of lossless codecs (with lossless checking)
|
- 2004 Oct.
- 2007 Mar.
|
- 2004 (14 codecs): Alpary v2.0, AVIzlib v2.2.3, CamStudio GZIP v1.0, CorePNG v0.8.2, FFV1 ffdshow 08/08/04, GLZW v1.01, HuffYUV v2.1.1, Lagarith v1.0.0.1, LEAD JPEG v1.0.0.1, LOCO v0.2, MindVid v1.0 beta 1, MSUlab beta v0.2.4, MSUlab v0.5.2, PicVideo JPEG v.2.10.0.29, VBLE beta
- 2007 (16 codecs): Alpary, ArithYuv, AVIzlib, CamStudio GZIP, CorePNG, FastCodec, FFV1, Huffyuv, Lagarith, LOCO, LZO, MSU Lab, PICVideo, Snow, x264, YULS
| in 2007 — more detailed report with new codecs including first standard H.264 (x264)
|-
| MSU MPEG-4 codecs comparison
| Objective comparison of MPEG-4 codecs
|
- 2005 Mar.
| DivX 5.2.1, DivX 4.12, DivX 3.22, MS MPEG-4 3688 v3, XviD 1.0.3, 3ivx D4 4.5.1, OpenDivX 0.3
| Different versions of DivX was also compared. The Xvid results may be erroneous, as deblocking was disabled for it while used for DivX.
|-
| Subjective Comparison of Modern Video Codecs
| Scientifically accurate subjective comparison using 50 experts and SAMVIQ methodology
|
- 2006 Feb.
| DivX 6.0, Xvid 1.1.0, x264, WMV 9.0 (2 bitrates for every codec)
| PSNR via VQM via SSIM comparison was also done
|-
| MPEG-2 Video Decoders Comparison
| Objective MPEG-2 Decoders comparison
|
- 2006 May.
| bitcontrol MPEG-2 Video Decoder, DScaler MPEG2 Video Decoder, Elecard MPEG-2 Video Decoder, ffdshow MPEG-4 Video Decoder (libavcodec), InterVideo Video Decoder, Ligos MPEG Video Decoder, MainConcept MPEG Video Decoder, Pinnacle MPEG-2 Decoder
| Objectly tested (100 times per stream) decoders "crash test" (test on damaged stream — like scratched DVD or satellite samples)
|-
| Codecs comparison
| Personal subjective opinion
|
- 2003 Nov.
| 3ivx, Avid AVI 2.02, Cinepak, DivX 3.11, DivX 4.12, DivX 5.0.2, DV, Huffyuv, Indeo 3.2, Indeo 4.4, Indeo 5.10, Microsoft MPEG-4 v1, Microsoft MPEG-4 v2, Microsoft RLE, Microsoft Video 1, XviD, 3ivx, Animation, Blackmagic 10-bit, Blackmagic 8-bit, Cinepak, DV, H.261, H.263, Motion-JPEG, MPEG-4 Video, PNG, Sorenson Video, Sorenson Video 3
| Sometimes comparison is short (up to one text line per codec)
|-
| Evaluation of Dirac and Theora
| Scientific paper
|
- 2009 Mar.
| Dirac, Dirac Pro, Theora I, H.264, Motion JPEG2000 (the tested codecs are from Q2-2008)
| Quite detailed comparison of software available in Q2-2008; However, a buggy version of ffmpeg2Theora was used
|-
| VP8 versus x264
| Objective and subjective quality comparison of VP8 and x264
|
- 2010 Jun.
| VP8, x264
| VQM, SSIM and PSNR for 19 CIF video clips with bit-rates of 100, 200, 500 and 1000 kbit/s
|}
See also
- Comparison of media playersComparison of media playersThe following comparison of video players compares general and technical information for notable software media player programs.For the purpose of this comparison, "video players" are defined as any media player which can play video, even if it can also play audio files.-General:-Operating system...
- List of video players (software)
- List of codecs
- Open source codecs and containersOpen source codecs and containersThis is a listing of open-source implementations of media formats—usually called codecs. Many of the codecs listed implement media formats that are restricted by patents and are henceforth not open formats. For example, x264 is a widely used open source implementation of the heavily patent...
- Open source codecs and containers
- Comparison of audio codecsComparison of audio codecsThe following tables compare general and technical information for a variety of audio formats and audio compression formats. For listening tests comparing the perceived audio quality of audio formats and codecs, see the article Codec listening test....
- Comparison of container formatsComparison of container formatsThis table compares features of container formats. To see which multimedia players support which container format, look at comparison of media players.-Information:-Audio formats supported:-Video formats supported:-Caption formats supported:...
- Comparison of video encodersComparison of video encoders-General information:-Features:-Supported Import Codecs:-Supported Export Codecs:-Related lists on other projects:* :m:Open Source Toolset - short sections on Audio editing and Video editing* Software - short lists of Ogg audio and video editors...
- Comparison of video editing softwareComparison of video editing softwareThis is a comparison of non-linear video editing software applications. See also a more complete list of video editing software.-General information:This table gives basic general information about the different editors:- System requirements :...