x266 VVC Encoder

[kurkosdr]

Originally Posted by FranceBB

Only by Sony cameras like the Sony A7 III as it's technically not compliant.
TL;DR you cannot go on air in 8bit in UHD.

I had a second look at HLG3 footage, and indeed it looks as flat as S-log, so most SDR viewers probably won't be able to stomach it if you were to feed it to a broadcast H.264 stream. So even if you could software-upgrade HDR TVs to recognise HLG3 somehow, it's still out of the question due to how bad it looks on SDR displays.

I guess most H.264 HD channels will do tone-mapped content (from HDR) and call it a day. Which means the handling of tone-mapped content will be a big differentiator for consumer HDR TVs for the years to come, much like the quality of upscaling and denoising of mpeg2 SD channels was a big differentiator for early consumer HD TVs (and still is in some countries like the UK, which has 12 HD channels and several dozen Mpeg2 SD ones, all of them at crappy bitrates).

Originally Posted by FranceBB

There are already UHD channels in Europe.
For instance, at Sky we've been airing in UHD BT2020 SDR in H.265 4:2:0 25 Mbit/s 10bit planar since 2015 and in UHD BT2020 HDR HLG 4:2:0 25 Mbit/s 10bit planar since 2018. And not just Sports, but also Cinema (so movies).

The problem ain't UHD, the problem is the fact that Hotbird is overcrowded and bitrate is expensive as f...

Terrestrial is the big problem IMO. Many of us in the EU and UK live in rented apartments and cannot drill holes through walls and mount satellite dishes outside.

A terrestrial DVB-T2 mux can fit a grand total of 3 UHD channels. Indeed, any countries doing UHD trials are broadcasting just 2-3 UHD channels on one mux, and I doubt they will manage to free up more than one mux due to the 4G and 5G spectrum releases (and terminating H.264 is out of the question considering some countries are still facing resistance when trying to terminate mpeg2). So, I disagree, UHD bitrate requirements are very much a problem. The terrestrial broadcasting world should have waited for VVC so they can at least get 6 UHD channels per mux. If you though HD was a failure on terrestrial, wait and see how UHD will do.

[LigH]

Originally Posted by lvqcl

(Why did the forum software change all text to lowercase in my previous post?)

Because "everything in uppercase" is treated as yelling and rude. It doesn't care about acronyms. There is no "intelligent software"...

[FranceBB]

Originally Posted by kurkosdr

I guess most H.264 HD channels will do tone-mapped content (from HDR) and call it a day.

I wish, but no...
I mean "no" to a certain extent. As long as a broadcaster is also a producer, anything can be done (for instance for sports contents, tonemapping HLG to BT709 SDR can be done on the fly without any issues), but try to do that on a movie and it's gonna be a digital rights madness 'cause some Hollywood companies DO NOT want you to tonemap on the fly. For instance, when they send us HDR PQ stuff and we convert them to HLG according to the maxCll info they provide, they always want to test our conversion methods via agreed test patters etc, but most of them will never sign an agreement for on-the-fly HDR PQ or HDR HLG to BT709 SDR tonemapping.
(It would be cool, but it ain't gonna happen 'till the Hollywood guys will change their minds )

Originally Posted by kurkosdr

(and still is in some countries like the UK, which has 12 HD channels and several dozen Mpeg2 SD ones, all of them at crappy bitrates).

Eheheheh as long as you watch itv, channel 4 etc, but if you watch Sky, that's gonna be a UHD H.265 HDR HLG 10bit stream re-encoded and dithered down from an internal 12bit DNxHQX (so 800 Mbit/s) mezzanine file, so the quality is there

Originally Posted by kurkosdr

Terrestrial is the big problem IMO. Many of us in the EU and UK live in rented apartments and cannot drill holes through walls and mount satellite dishes outside.

Right! We're slowly but surely shifting towards internet tv, though, for anyone who can't mount a satellite dish and has a decent enough connection. Sky Glass is just an example, along with the new Sky Q Mini decoder.

OMG I sound like a salesman now xD

Originally Posted by kurkosdr

A terrestrial DVB-T2 mux can fit a grand total of 3 UHD channels. Indeed, any countries doing UHD trials are broadcasting just 2-3 UHD channels on one mux, and I doubt they will manage to free up more than one mux due to the 4G and 5G spectrum releases (and terminating H.264 is out of the question considering some countries are still facing resistance when trying to terminate mpeg2). So, I disagree, UHD bitrate requirements are very much a problem. The terrestrial broadcasting world should have waited for VVC so they can at least get 6 UHD channels per mux. If you though HD was a failure on terrestrial, wait and see how UHD will do.

Sorry, we've been talking past each other, I clearly meant satellite and... well... satellite-wise the UK has Astra 2E/2F/2G all dedicated to its channels, so it's easier to handle there. In Europe, every EU nation (and some non-eu ones) airs on Hotbird 13E. Can you imagine how overcrowded it is?


About terrestrial, I gotta be fair: I have no clue as I've never been interested...

[lvqcl]

Originally Posted by kurkosdr

YouTube is all VP9 and AV1 nowadays, with VP8 for backwards compatibility. You can probably get YouTube to serve a 720p H.264 stream as a "last resort" extreme backward compatibility stream, but I don't know if they even do that anymore.

Well, it's really not true. It's VP8 that doesn't exist anymore on YouTube, and every video has h.264 versions. Many live streams are h.264 only, like that -

format code  extension  resolution note
91           mp4        256x144     269k , avc1.4d400c, 30.0fps, mp4a.40.5
92           mp4        426x240     507k , avc1.4d4015, 30.0fps, mp4a.40.5
93           mp4        640x360     962k , avc1.4d401e, 30.0fps, mp4a.40.2
94           mp4        854x480    1282k , avc1.4d401f, 30.0fps, mp4a.40.2
300          mp4        1280x720   2922k , avc1.4d4020, 60.0fps, mp4a.40.2
301          mp4        1920x1080  5552k , avc1.4d402a, 60.0fps, mp4a.40.2 (best)

Originally Posted by benwaggoner

There would be no cost to Google or Mozilla to support passthrough to HEVC decode.

AFAIK HEVC decode in Edge Chromium is still broken --

https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/...es/m-p/2077247
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/...4-58ec09133984
https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/...ng/m-p/1959752

-- and Microsoft doesn't care much.

[birdie]

Originally Posted by kurkosdr

YouTube is all VP9 and AV1 nowadays, with VP8 for backwards compatibility. You can probably get YouTube to serve a 720p H.264 stream as a "last resort" extreme backward compatibility stream, but I don't know if they even do that anymore.

In the past, YouTube was all H.264 for 720p and 1080p.

This is not the case, 1080p H264 is still there for all new videos:

youtube-dl -F 'https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcI6SFiK_yk'
[youtube] zcI6SFiK_yk: Downloading webpage
[info] Available formats for zcI6SFiK_yk:
format code  extension  resolution note
249          webm       audio only tiny   41k , webm_dash container, opus @ 41k (48000Hz), 759.27KiB
250          webm       audio only tiny   54k , webm_dash container, opus @ 54k (48000Hz), 991.55KiB
251          webm       audio only tiny  107k , webm_dash container, opus @107k (48000Hz), 1.92MiB
140          m4a        audio only tiny  129k , m4a_dash container, mp4a.40.2@129k (44100Hz), 2.32MiB
160          mp4        256x144    144p   35k , mp4_dash container, avc1.4d400c@  35k, 24fps, video only, 650.61KiB
394          mp4        256x144    144p   57k , mp4_dash container, av01.0.00M.08@  57k, 24fps, video only, 1.02MiB
278          webm       256x144    144p   71k , webm_dash container, vp9@  71k, 24fps, video only, 1.28MiB
133          mp4        426x240    240p   57k , mp4_dash container, avc1.4d4015@  57k, 24fps, video only, 1.02MiB
395          mp4        426x240    240p   72k , mp4_dash container, av01.0.00M.08@  72k, 24fps, video only, 1.30MiB
242          webm       426x240    240p   78k , webm_dash container, vp9@  78k, 24fps, video only, 1.40MiB
134          mp4        640x360    360p   97k , mp4_dash container, avc1.4d401e@  97k, 24fps, video only, 1.75MiB
396          mp4        640x360    360p  132k , mp4_dash container, av01.0.01M.08@ 132k, 24fps, video only, 2.37MiB
243          webm       640x360    360p  135k , webm_dash container, vp9@ 135k, 24fps, video only, 2.43MiB
135          mp4        854x480    480p  150k , mp4_dash container, avc1.4d401e@ 150k, 24fps, video only, 2.70MiB
244          webm       854x480    480p  209k , webm_dash container, vp9@ 209k, 24fps, video only, 3.76MiB
397          mp4        854x480    480p  233k , mp4_dash container, av01.0.04M.08@ 233k, 24fps, video only, 4.18MiB
136          mp4        1280x720   720p  275k , mp4_dash container, avc1.4d401f@ 275k, 24fps, video only, 4.94MiB
247          webm       1280x720   720p  319k , webm_dash container, vp9@ 319k, 24fps, video only, 5.73MiB
398          mp4        1280x720   720p  464k , mp4_dash container, av01.0.05M.08@ 464k, 24fps, video only, 8.32MiB
399          mp4        1920x1080  1080p  947k , mp4_dash container, av01.0.08M.08@ 947k, 24fps, video only, 16.96MiB
248          webm       1920x1080  1080p 1065k , webm_dash container, vp9@1065k, 24fps, video only, 19.08MiB
137          mp4        1920x1080  1080p 1227k , mp4_dash container, avc1.640028@1227k, 24fps, video only, 21.98MiB
18           mp4        640x360    360p  383k , avc1.42001E, 24fps, mp4a.40.2 (44100Hz), 6.87MiB
22           mp4        1280x720   720p  404k , avc1.64001F, 24fps, mp4a.40.2 (44100Hz) (best)

This is a three days old clip.

[benwaggoner]

This thread is about x266, not VVC in general. Let's move discussion about VVC in general to that thread.

[MoSal]

Originally Posted by FranceBB

OMG I sound like a salesman now xD

Don't worry. No one here is going to fall for it before all HFR content
is properly encoded and an HFR option is provided (e.g. Football Highlights)

Nothing in life bugs me more than an official source giving a video/live stream more than enough bitrate, but dropping half the frames for no good reason whatsoever. Yet for some reason, that seems to be the norm online, and doing it right is the exception.

[benwaggoner]

Originally Posted by MoSal

Don't worry. No one here is going to fall for it before all HFR content
is properly encoded and an HFR option is provided (e.g. Football Highlights)

Nothing in life bugs me more than an official source giving a video/live stream more than enough bitrate, but dropping half the frames for no good reason whatsoever. Yet for some reason, that seems to be the norm online, and doing it right is the exception.

Please move discussion of VVC in general to the HEVC successor: Versatile Video Coding thread.

This thread is specifically for discussions of the (unreleased!) x266 VVC encoder.

[ksec]

I think kurkosdr replies generally summarise everything that is annoying with Alliance for Open Media and their supporters. ( to say the least )

AV1 is not patent free, it is royalty free. There is a big difference between the two. The FUD on content fees and myth of patent free is still here, 2022. Fascinating world of misinformation being spread.

I would love to see a truly patent free codec, or if they could just take out the 10ish patent on EVC baseline profile. But AV1 is not a patent free codec.

H264 is not dead. Not in anyway shape of form, doesn't matter how you slice it.

Video Codec is not only used on the Web. And the web does not equal to all YouTube.

Apple is not even the largest beneficial, or even 10% of HEVC or VVC patent fee structure.

Because of these ideology over actual technical and market reality, we end up having browser vendor supporting AVIF and refuse to support JPEGXL. Which is also royalty free and open standard. And a technically better image codec on the web.

Alliance for Open Media have its place and purpose. I just wish they work on AV2 asap and learn from all the experience they had with AV1. But at least AV1 hardware decoder is finally coming. Three years behind their original schedule.

Finally this is a x266 thread. I wish we have new forum features where I could give a thumbs up like those QFT replies above.

I am already looking at beyond VVC with ECM. ~50% bitrate reduction compared to VVC Reference Encoder.

[FranceBB]

Originally Posted by ksec

Finally this is a x266 thread.

I hope we're gonna have the new forum section soon-ish.
Like end of 2022 with all the H.266 VVC related topics moved there?

Originally Posted by ksec

I wish we have new forum features where I could give a thumbs up

Trust me, you don't wanna have "likes" and "reactions" in a forum. Doom9 has been nearly identical for years, basically since 2001 Link and I sort of like the way it is with its "retro" look.

Originally Posted by ksec

I am already looking at beyond VVC with ECM. ~50% bitrate reduction compared to VVC Reference Encoder.

Playing against the reference encoder is easy, try against VVEnc by Fraunhofer which is the closest thing we have to a real encoder. I might make more experiments with VVEnc (or indeed when x266 will come out), but I don't have time, I never have time to do the stuff I like...

[rwill]

Originally Posted by ksec

I would love to see a truly patent free codec, or if they could just take out the 10ish patent on EVC baseline profile.

Wasn't the goal of the EVC Baseline profile to use no patented tools and techniques at all ? I think it was designed this way. Source please that it uses technology where active patents still apply ?

[ksec]

Originally Posted by rwill

Wasn't the goal of the EVC Baseline profile to use no patented tools and techniques at all ? I think it was designed this way. Source please that it uses technology where active patents still apply ?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essential_Video_Coding

The base consist of tools that were made public more than 20 years ago or for which a Type 1 declaration is received. Type 1, or option 1, means "royalty-free", in the nomenclature used in ISO documents.

The baseline has a few tools with patent that has yet to be expired but are granted the usage for free. Basically EVC baseline is royalty free or soon to be patent free.

[benwaggoner]

EVC baseline is technically promising in offering royalty free that is quite a bit better than H.264 at much lower complexity/cost than AV1 (or even VP9). And the optional tool design should make higher profiles a lot more resilient against submarine patents and such. Haven't heard too much about practical implementations lately, although Covid obscures lots of things trade shows used to reveal.

[FranceBB]

Originally Posted by ksec

But at least AV1 hardware decoder is finally coming. Three years behind their original schedule.

I was looking into this this afternoon out of curiosity. Looks like NVIDIA introduced it only from the GeForce RTX 3050 Ti / RTX 3050 onwards, so:

- RTX 3050
- RTX 3050 Ti
- RTX 3060
- RTX 3060 Ti
- RTX 3070
- RTX 3070 Ti
- RTX 3080
- RTX 3090

and it's 4:2:0 only and 8bit/10bit but no 12bit.

On the bright side, H.265 is finally seeing some love for 4:4:4 as well, in fact 8bit, 10bit, 12bit 4:4:4 H.265 is hardware decoded.
This is indeed good and I'd love to see 4:2:2 and 4:4:4 be supported at high bit depth for other codecs as well (like H.264).

This might be slightly off topic, but one of the things I'm having hard time to decode is Motion JPEG2000 Intra Class 4:4:4 12bit XYZ BT2020 SDR in UHD and Motion JPEG2000 Intra Class RGB 12bit HDR PQ which movie studios seem to love. It's making my 20c/40th Xeon suffer and I can't still see it decoded in real time...
I'm sure the studios are using an hardware playback port to decode this (like we do with Omneon for MPEG-2 and Versio for H.264) but there must be another way, surely.
Also, I think that the reason why it's so hard to decode is that it's actually using the Wavelet Transform which is applied to the whole picture at once (so it can't be parallelized) instead of the DCT applied to blocks and macroblocks of different sizes like we have in MPEG codecs (but I might be wrong).

[ksec]

Originally Posted by FranceBB

This might be slightly off topic, but one of the things I'm having hard time to decode is Motion JPEG2000 Intra Class 4:4:4 12bit XYZ BT2020 SDR in UHD and Motion JPEG2000 Intra Class RGB 12bit HDR PQ which movie studios seem to love. It's making my 20c/40th Xeon suffer and I can't still see it decoded in real time...

I dont know of any decent open source solution to Motion JPEG 2000. All of them are commercial software. I do know Nvidia has a nvJPEP2000 library on CUDA, but I have never played around with it.

[Blue_MiSfit]

libopenjpeg is pretty good

But we're getting off topic!

[Emulgator]

....but one of the things I'm having hard time to decode is Motion JPEG2000 Intra Class 4:4:4 12bit XYZ BT2020 SDR in UHD and Motion JPEG2000 Intra Class RGB 12bit HDR PQ which movie studios seem to love. It's making my 20c/40th Xeon suffer and I can't still see it decoded in real time...
I'm sure the studios are using an hardware playback port to decode this (like we do with Omneon for MPEG-2 and Versio for H.264) but there must be another way, surely.

Software: Kakadu et al., Hardware: Barco Silex et al.

[rwill]

Kakadu is much faster than OpenJPEG for me.

[benwaggoner]

At the time (before I was involved in SMPTE) I figured that J2K was used for digital cinema in large part to make it that much harder for pirates to be able to play them on PCs .

[ksec]

Originally Posted by benwaggoner

at the time (before i was involved in smpte) i figured that j2k was used for digital cinema in large part to make it that much harder for pirates to be able to play them on pcs .

rofl.