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Good video analysis tools?
I am currently reading Ben Waggoner’s new video compression book. It’s awesome. In an effort to learn more about video compression I would like to use some analysis tools to reveal what decisions the encoder is making and how the decoder is interpreting the stream. I would love to know which frames are referenced by other frames, the vectors used by motion compensation, whether the frame is an I, P, or B frame. And bitrate graphs over time, I love bitrate graphs and I would like to generate my own.
I haven’t been able to find any tool which will show me which pixels are changing frame to frame, like on this website: https://www.animemusicvideos.org/guides/avtech/video3.htm. How are those images of motion delta created? The ones that show the chair is moving but the background is not (black)?
Ben Waggoner’s book mentions WMsnoop which is a great free WMV analyzer. It shows a bitrate graph, which frames are I frames and P frames, the size of each frame in bits, lots of useful information. Does anyone know of any tool like WMsnoop for other video formats such as mpeg variants?
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6 Replies
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and the name of the book might be….?
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No wonder you didn’t mention the title. The title itself is book length.
Compression for Great Video and Audio, Second Edition: Master Tips and Common Sense (DV Expert) (Paperback)
https://www.amazon.com/Compression-Great-Video-Audio-Second/dp/0240812131/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_1
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I’ve searched around as well for an analysis tool.
Here is one that is Windows only. Very technical Russian site about all things compression. Some of the site has English translation available. I’d love to find a similar product for Mac.
Below is a link to the software they offer.
I’ve read Ben Waggoner’s first edition of that book. Looks like I need to get the second now. I’d also recommend Real World Video Compression by Andy Beach.
-Andrew Saliga
Steelehouse Productions
http://www.steelehouse.com (undergoing a much-needed redesign)
http://www.vimeo.com/steelehouse -
There’s a MUST BOOKMARK site for the budding compressionist as well as those who do this professionally and want assessments for someone who often does deep analysis.
It’s a site Jan Ozer set up.
https://www.streaminglearningcenter.com/ -
Anyone have any experience with SceneScope? Pricey but seems like it is could be pretty useful.
https://www.sceneware.nl/product/show?class=SceneScope
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I’ve heard about it, but never used it or known anyone who has.
I think the bottom line is that as long as the video looks good and meets the requirements for the target output it’s good. I tend to get too technical and would love to geek out over software based compression analysis, but I think that at a certain point you are analyzing details that the human eye (and even more so the end viewer) will not perceive. Anything more than that and you’re splitting hairs.
-Andrew Saliga
Steelehouse Productions
http://www.steelehouse.com (undergoing a much-needed redesign)
http://www.vimeo.com/steelehouse
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