Streaming Learning Center

Video: Hardware Transcoding Solutions For The Cloud

Posted on by Russell Trafford-Jones

Hardware encoding is more pervasive with Intel’s Quick Sync embedding CUDA GPUs inside GPUs plus NVIDIA GPUs have MPEG NVENC encoding support so how does it compare with software encoding? For HEVC, can Xilinx’s FPGA solution be a boost in terms of quality or cost compared to software encoding?

Jan Ozer has stepped up to the plate to put this all to the test analysing how many real-time encodes are possible on various cloud computing instances, the cost implications and the quality of the output. Jan’s analytical and systematic approach brings us data rather than anecdotes giving confidence in the outcomes and the ability to test it for yourself.

Over and above these elements, Jan also looks at the bit rate stability of the encodes which can be important for systems which are sensitive to variations such services running at scale. We see that the hardware AVC solutions perform better than x264.

Jan takes us through the way he set up these tests whilst sharing the relevant ffmpeg commands. Finally he shares BD plots and example images which exemplify the differences between the codecs.

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Speaker

Jan Ozer Jan Ozer
Principal, Streaming Learning Center
Contributing Editor, Streaming Media

Video: 2019 What did I miss? Comparing AV1, VP9, HEVC, & H.264

Posted on by Russell Trafford-Jones

The ever popular, always analytical Jan Ozers spends time here evaluating the quality of these codecs against the ever-present h.264. As the team here at The Broadcast Knowledge takes a short break, we’re recapping the most popular posts of the year. Interestingly, this post is from over a year ago but is still seeing top-10 traffic. This is no surprise since, as I said in my interview with SMPTE on the subject of codecs, everyone touches codecs in some way even if only at home. So it’s no surprise there is such an interest.

Jan takes a careful approach to explaining the penetration adn abilities of h.264 in order to see at what point we can break even and start to ebenefit from using alternative codecs. He then takes each codec in turn looking at it its pros and cons to paint a picture of the options available for those willing and able to go beyond h.264.

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Speakers

Jan Ozer Jan Ozer
Industry Analyst
Streaming Learning Center

Webinar: Assessing Video Quality: Methods, Measurements, and Best Practices

Posted on by Russell Trafford-Jones

Wednesday, November 13th, 8am PST / 16:00 GMT

Bitmovin have brought together Jan Ozer from the Streaming Learning Center, their very own Sean McCarthy and Carlos Bacquet from SSIM Wave to discuss how best to assess video quality.

Fundamental to assessing video quality, of course, is what we mean by quality, which artefacts are most problematic and what drives the importance of video quality.

Quality of streaming, of course, is interdependent on the quality of the experience in general. Thinking of an online streaming system as a whole, speed of playback, smooth playback on the player itself and rebuffing are all factors of perceived quality as much as the actual codec encoding quality itself which is what is more traditionally measured.

The webinar brings together experience in measuring quality, monitoring systems and ways in which you can derive your own testing to lock on to the factors which matter to you and your business.

See the related posts below for more from Jan Ozer

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Speakers

Jan Ozer Jan Ozer
Industry Analyst
Jan Ozer
Sean McCarthy Sean McCarthy
Technical Product Marketing Manager,
Bitmovin
Carlos Bacquet Carlos Bacquet
Solutions Architect
SSIM Wave

Video: A Survey Of Per-Title Encoding Technologies

Posted on by Russell Trafford-Jones

Optimising encoding by per-title encoding is very common nowadays, though per-scene is slowly pushing it aside. But with so many companies offering per-title encoding, how do we determine which way to turn?

Jan Ozer experimented with them, so we didn’t have to. Jan starts by explaining the principles of per-title encoding and giving an overview of the market. He then explains some of the ways in which it works including the importance of changing resolution as much as changing

As well as discussing the results, with Bitmovin being the winner, Jan explains ‘Capped CRF’ – how it works, how it differs from CBR & VBR and why it’s good.

Finally, we are left with some questions to ask when searching for our own per-title technology to solve the problem we have such as “can it adjust rung resolutions?”, “Can you apply traditional data rate controls?” amongst others.

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Speaker

Jan Ozer Jan Ozer
Principal,
Streaming Learning Center