Video Codec Analysis and Testing

MSU Graphics & Media Lab (Video Group)

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Moscow State University (MSU) Graphics & Media Laboratory has more than 10 years of experience in video and image processing, including compression algorithms and methods. One of our research directions is video codec analysis &ndash we have prepared more than 25 video codec analysis reports, including public and private reports.

We can provide several types of collaboration in area of codec comparison for codec developers companies, and for encoding solutions users and professionals. Typical use-case for that work is &ndash codec development company or codec user want to analyse encoding quality of its encoder and to compare it with the competitive solutions.

Private Codec Comparison

You send us codec with chosen presets and we will perform codecs comparison for you. The result will be similar for our public comparison, like MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 Video Codecs Comparison but much more analysis, pages and graphs as in Enterprise Edition of the comparison.

There are many pre-defined variants of this analysis type. Deatiled information could be found at Private Codec comparison page.

This is a most cheap and easy way for collaboration. Price for such work depends on number of codecs/presets, sequences and etc.

Periodical Codec Testing

We can provide on-line web-based testing service for you. You upload your codec (new codec or new version of codec) to our server, and receive speed/quality graphs for this codec and previously uploaded codecs in 1-3 days.

This is very useful solution if you plan to test codecs frequently (for example 2-5 times at year) for finding better encoding quality. An example of such analysis is VP8, x264 and XviD comparison.

The price for such type of service could be with half-year and year licenses.

Software Solutions for Internal Codec Testing

There is a common task to analyze a video codec to assess its quality, quality of its functions. For example such a task appears when developing a new codec or tuning an already developed one. Such tasks commonly are solved by manual or semiautomatic testing systems and often these systems have not a sufficient number of functions for complete analysis.

We propose two software systems to help you test and analyze codecs and algorithms

MSU VQMT - Video Quality Metric Tool

Main use-case of MSU VQMT is to compare video sequences using objective quality metrics. Main features of proposed system are:

  • Support of most popular file formats: AVI, YUV, MOV, MP4,...
  • Support of many popular video quality metrics: PSNR, MSE, SSIM, VQM, ...
  • Graphic user and command-line interfaces
  • Plug-ins support
See VQMT page for more information.

YUVsoft ViCoS - Video Codecs Scoring System

Main tasks of ViCoS is video codecs performance analysis based on objective video quality metrics, special quality analyzers.

  • client-server architecture
  • DB usage (MySQL, MSSQL, Oracle, etc.)
  • Results visualization (including MATLAB scripts)
  • Robust codec launches &ndash if a codec fails the system continues to work, marking the error for this codec.
  • Specific Analysis Types &ndash ViCoS uses specific types of analysis: well-known and specially developed

This is most powerful solution. It is intended for codec comparison performing. Fully automatic quality evaluation of video processing systems using objective quality metrics and special sequences. The soultiuon can include trainings of system usage and more general trainings of codec comparisons.

VQMT and ViCoS Functionality Comparison

Here is a short comaprison for VQMT and ViCoS.

MSU VQMT YUVsoft ViCoS
Main use-case Compare video sequences Analyze and compare video codecs
Objective Metrics 20 5
Source video sequences formats Over 20 formats Only raw YUV
Video Analyzers, including ME, RC, Mode Decision, Luminance shift, ME efficiency and other analysis) NO YES
Encoding speed analysis NO YES
Results in .csv files YES YES
Binary result file NO YES
DB usage (MySQL, MSSQL, Oracle, etc.) for integration with existing QA systems NO YES
Client-server architecture for parallelization using multiple clients NO YES
Presets normalization: finding best preset with fixed complexity/encoding speed NO YES
Best presets selection for all speed/quality trade-offs NO YES
Results visualization Simple internal graph builder MATLAB toolbox for complex garph generation
GUI YES YES
Command-line interface YES YES
Home page MSU VQMT YUVsoft ViCoS

Another Codec Analysis and Tuning Tasks

We perform independent codec estimation comparing to other codecs for different use-cases, as described above, but also could make next tasks:

Strong and Weak Points of Your Codec

  • Deep encoder parts analysis (ME, RC on GOP, mode decision, etc).
  • Weak and strong points for your encoder and complete information about encoding quality on different content types.
  • Encoding Quality improvement by the pre and post filtering (including technologies licensing).

    • Encoder Features Implementation Optimality Analysis

    We perform encoder features effectiveness (speed/quality trade-off) analysis that could lead up to 30% increase for speed/quality characteristics of your codec. We can help you to tune your codec and find best encoding parameters. One example of this analysis type is x264 Codec Strong and Weak Points analysis.

    Contact Information

    If you have any questions or want to perform codec analysis as described here or any other please feel free to contact us:

    See all MSU Video Codecs Comparisons

    MSU video codecs comparisons resources:

    Other Materials

    Video resources:

    3D and stereo video
    Projects on 3D and stereo video processing and analysis
    MSU Video Quality Measurement tools
    Programs with different objective and subjective video quality metrics implementation     		Codecs comparisons
    Objective and subjective quality evaluation
    tests for video and image codecs
    Ext. link: x264 parameters efficiency comparison
    Public MSU video filters
    Here are available VirtualDub and AviSynth filters. For a given type of digital video filtration we typically develop a family of different algorithms and implementations. Generally there are also versions optimized for PC and hardware implementations (ASIC/FPGA/DSP). These optimized versions can be licensed to companies. Please contact us for details via video(at)graphics.cs.msu_ru.     		Filters for companies
    We are working with Intel, Samsung, RealNetworks and other companies on adapting our filters other video processing algorithms for specific video streams, applications and hardware like TV-sets, graphics cards, etc. Some of such projects are non-exclusive. Also we have internal researches. Please let us know via video(at)graphics.cs.msu_ru if you are interested in acquiring a license for such filters or making a custom R&D project on video processing, compression, computer vision.
    Video codecs projects
    Different research and development
    projects on video codecs     		Other
    Other information
    Last updated: 12-May-2022

    Server size: 8069 files, 1215Mb (Server statistics)

    Project updated by
    Server Team and MSU Video Group

    Project sponsored by YUVsoft Corp.

    Project supported by MSU Graphics & Media Lab