APSIPA Transactions on Signal and Information Processing > Vol 8 > Issue 1

A Comprehensive Video Codec Comparison

Thorsten Laude, Leibniz University Hannover, Germany, laude@tnt.uni-hannover.de , Yeremia Gunawan Adhisantoso, Leibniz University Hannover, Germany, Jan Voges, Leibniz University Hannover, Germany, Marco Munderloh, Leibniz University Hannover, Germany, Jörn Ostermann, Leibniz University Hannover, Germany
 
Suggested Citation
Thorsten Laude, Yeremia Gunawan Adhisantoso, Jan Voges, Marco Munderloh and Jörn Ostermann (2019), "A Comprehensive Video Codec Comparison", APSIPA Transactions on Signal and Information Processing: Vol. 8: No. 1, e30. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/ATSIP.2019.23

Publication Date: 20 Nov 2019
© 2019 Thorsten Laude, Yeremia Gunawan Adhisantoso, Jan Voges, Marco Munderloh and Jörn Ostermann
 
Subjects
 
Keywords
AV1Codec comparisonHEVCVideo codingVVC
 

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This is published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence.

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In this article:
I. INTRODUCTION 
II. ON THE DIFFICULTY OF COMPARING VIDEO CODECS 
III. CODEC OVERVIEWS 
IV. ENCODER CONFIGURATIONS 
V. CODING EFFICIENCY 
VI. COMPLEXITY 
VII. CONCLUSION 

Abstract

In this paper, we compare the video codecs AV1 (version 1.0.0-2242 from August 2019), HEVC (HM and x265), AVC (x264), the exploration software JEM which is based on HEVC, and the VVC (successor of HEVC) test model VTM (version 4.0 from February 2019) under two fair and balanced configurations: All Intra for the assessment of intra coding and Maximum Coding Efficiency with all codecs being tuned for their best coding efficiency settings. VTM achieves the highest coding efficiency in both configurations, followed by JEM and AV1. The worst coding efficiency is achieved by x264 and x265, even in the placebo preset for highest coding efficiency. AV1 gained a lot in terms of coding efficiency compared to previous versions and now outperforms HM by 24% BD-Rate gains. VTM gains 5% over AV1 in terms of BD-Rates. By reporting separate numbers for JVET and AOM test sequences, it is ensured that no bias in the test sequences exists. When comparing only intra coding tools, it is observed that the complexity increases exponentially for linearly increasing coding efficiency.

DOI:10.1017/ATSIP.2019.23