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H.264 Encoder Comparisons
I’m testing out different H.264 encoders with settings meant to target the iPhone for playback over a cellular network. I guess this post is more of a “here are my results” kind of post rather than a question. Please do raise any questions that may come from this post.
I’ll specify the video encoding parameters as they are what I’m interested in for this post.
Main Concept H.264 – Sorenson Squeeze
- 1,228Kbps
- Multi Pass (I think Squeeze does 5-pass)
- 480×272
- Baseline@L2.1
- 4 Ref Frames
- Keyframe Every 300 and Auto on Scene Change On (Frequency 50)
Sorenson H.264 – Sorenson Squeeze
- 1,228Kbps
- 1 Pass CBR
- 480×272
- Baseline@L2.1
- 1 Ref Frame
- Keyframe Every 300 and Auto on Scene Change On (Frequency 50)
Apple H.264 – Sorenson Squeeze
- 1,228Kbps
- 1-Pass
- Auto Key Frame On
- 480×272
- Main@L2.1
- 2 Ref Frames
x.264 – DV Kitchen
I used the iPhone preset in this app, but settings according to MediaInfo are as follows.- 715Kbps
- 480×270
- Baseline@L3.0
- 1 Ref Frame
NOTES:
- Apples encoder ditched frames. Frame count jumps from 881 to 892 and does not complete the encode, as the video’s last frame is 902!
- Apple’s encoder changed the 29.97 fps video to 29.63.
- Main Concept’s encoder handles the fade to black at the end horribly. Horribly! (Daniel Low, we’ve talked about this before, I still have not found a solution. Everyone seems to say the MainConcept H.264 or Dicas H.264 are the best, but I don’t see it in the MC encoder. I’ll run some more test and adjust key frame settings, although I’d think the 5-pass encode would solve this.
Here is a screen shot of my results. The image is dark because it’s 5 frmaes into the fade to black, just where the Main Concept encoder started to have issues. Left to Right, Top to Bottom…
- Main Concept
- Sorenson
- Apple
- x.264
-Andrew Saliga
Steelehouse Productions
http://www.steelehouse.com (undergoing a much-needed redesign)
http://www.vimeo.com/steelehouse -
17 Replies
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Hummmmmm.
Interesting.
Can you do the same screen shots with the files opened in VLC rather than the QT player?
And just so I’ve got the layout of the screen grabs correct, are you saying that bottom left is Apple and bottom right is x.264?
__________________________________________________________________
“There’s no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance.”
Steve Ballmer To USA Today: 30 April 2007 -
Yes, you are correct on the order.
Here are the same files in the same order, but opened in VLC player. Whoa! Quite different.
-Andrew Saliga
Steelehouse Productions
http://www.steelehouse.com (undergoing a much-needed redesign)
http://www.vimeo.com/steelehouse -
Oh, sorry. I didn’t see a way to switch to frames. I did my best to get the screen grab as soon as the counter went to 29 seconds. This is right before the fade begins.
-Andrew Saliga
Steelehouse Productions
http://www.steelehouse.com (undergoing a much-needed redesign)
http://www.vimeo.com/steelehouse -
I’m not sure what it is, but when I scrub through a clip in VLC it gets that extreme artifacting. It’s not nearly as bad when it’s played back.
-Andrew Saliga
Steelehouse Productions
http://www.steelehouse.com (undergoing a much-needed redesign)
http://www.vimeo.com/steelehouse -
Maybe I should wait until I’m done testing to post, haha.
So Sorenson encoded version will let me scrub and skip back and forth without any issues as will the x.264 encode.
The Apple and Main Concept encodes to not, and the extreme artifacting is introduced.
-Andrew Saliga
Steelehouse Productions
http://www.steelehouse.com (undergoing a much-needed redesign)
http://www.vimeo.com/steelehouse -
Done correctly, x264 will be way ahead of all of the others.
So my scoring would be:
1st: x264
2nd: Dicas
3rd: Mainconcept/Sorenson.
4th: Apple__________________________________________________________________
“There’s no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance.”
Steve Ballmer To USA Today: 30 April 2007 -
Here is a redo of the above screen shot without any scrubbing involved in playback. Main Concept on top, Apple on bottom.
-Andrew Saliga
Steelehouse Productions
http://www.steelehouse.com (undergoing a much-needed redesign)
http://www.vimeo.com/steelehouse -
Are you sure?
Every other test I’ve seen would have Apple as the top picture and MC below.
__________________________________________________________________
“There’s no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance.”
Steve Ballmer To USA Today: 30 April 2007 -
Sorry, maybe I wasn’t clear. If you look at the last two posts, you’ll see the encode setting in the file name at the top of the player window.
MC has been on the top and Apple on the bottom.
-Andrew Saliga
Steelehouse Productions
http://www.steelehouse.com (undergoing a much-needed redesign)
http://www.vimeo.com/steelehouse -
I know. All I’m saying is, is that there is no way the Apple codec is better than the Mainconcept one. It’s a fact. Your settings MUST be different or the way Squeeze is addressing them must be different or something else
Please see the below.
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/streamingmedia/0808/#/58
__________________________________________________________________
“There’s no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance.”
Steve Ballmer To USA Today: 30 April 2007
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