
The world’s best VP9 encoder: Eve - ux
https://blogs.gnome.org/rbultje/2016/05/02/the-worlds-best-vp9-encoder-eve-2/
======
Osiris
> Compared to x264, it offers 15-20% better compression rates, but is ~5x
> slower.

This is interesting. H.265 and VP9 claim to use nearly 50% lower bitrate at
the same quality level as H.264. Is this just a case of x264 being really well
optimized that VP9 can only compress 20% better at the same quality?

~~~
rbultje
A few reasons: (1) x264 is better optimized for metrics, especially PSNR.
Example: removing --tune=psnr gives x264 a 12% decrease in its PSNR score in
this test set (!); (2) the resolution here is only 360p, and as resolution
goes down, so do gains versus codecs optimized for high-resolution content
(like HEVC/VP9); (3) this article uses inverse notation, so instead of "H264
uses 50% more bits than X for same quality" (which is the same as X using 33%
less bits than H264 for same quality), this article says "Eve uses 15-20% less
bits than x264 for same quality".

~~~
derf_
> (2) the resolution here is only 360p

This is really the biggest one. Google has been using low-resolution test
material for VP10, and back in September [1] were claiming only a 10%
reduction over VP9 on CIF resolution material (352x288). Neither VP9 nor HEVC
get anywhere close to their claimed 50% improvement over H.264 on this kind of
material (both save around 20%).

So seeing 7...8% reductions at similar resolutions just from a better encoder
is pretty significant. It would be great to see how it scales beyond 720p.

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkz1ZvejmEc&list=PLQLpBN3oI7...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkz1ZvejmEc&list=PLQLpBN3oI7E44HIdTOovThc1MNHLchgHE&index=4)
(sorry for the YouTube link, I couldn't find slides).

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tbirdz
The article leaves out what is my opinion the #1 reason to use H.264 -
hardware decoding support. When I watch VP9 videos, the decoder runs in
software on the cpu, draining the battery faster than H.264 which can be
decoded in hardware with a separate decoding chip.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
You slightly overstate the case, since VP9 can be decoded in hardware in
various devices, though they are much less numerous than those with h.264
support.

What I'd personally rank as the #1 issue would be the refusal of Apple to
support VP9 (Microsoft only recently having got on board) So a single file
can't be used by your whole audience.

Even if Apple says yes today there's a lot of their legacy hardware out there.

So this leaves mostly high volume sites that have multiple encodes anyway, and
can justify it on quality/bandwidth or those taking a moral stance on the
issue, like wikipedia.

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eilgin
too bad it's not open-sourced.

~~~
snuxoll
Which makes me rather irritated to see it advertised on blogs.gnome.org, of
all places.

~~~
satysin
I was looking for the source download then saw the comment about it not being
FOSS :(

Why is it on gnome.org?!

------
mixedCase
"We are hoping to test it with customers who are willing to pay for it, so we
can build a business around it that can sustain its development and pay the
rent etc."

Useless, moving on.

~~~
jallmann
Useless comment. Everyone needs to pay rent.

If you don't want to pay for this, then just use libvpx.

In any case, it's good to see another entry in the one-horse race of VP(9)
encoders.

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yaur
What settings are you using for x264?

~~~
rbultje
CRF: x264 --preset=veryslow --tune=psnr --quiet --demuxer=y4m --no-progress
--threads=1 --profile=high -o $output.264 $input.y4m --crf=X VBR: x264
--preset=veryslow --tune=psnr --quiet --demuxer=y4m --no-progress --threads=1
--profile=high -o $output.264 $input.y4m --bitrate=X --stats=stats.2pass_log
--pass=1/2 Visual: same as VBR but without --tune=psnr.

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hguant
I opened this article half expecting an essay about EVE Online doing something
wonky on their backend.

