H.264 codec comparison

They are the reason billions of people can enjoy buffer-free content on video-sharing websites like YouTube and streaming services like Netflix nowadays. Thanks to codecs, encoders can compress and prepare video files before delivering them to our devices.

Still, choosing the right video codec plays a critical role in it. Unfortunately, that is not an easy task. There are dozens of video codecs to pick from , and each offers different image quality and bitrate. However, one of them stands out as the most widely-used video codec in the industry — H. This codec is why users worldwide can enjoy high-quality video at low bitrates in a single standardized format. This codec is a block-oriented, compensation-based standard that encompasses several max bitrates and resolutions it even supports 4K and 8K video.

It most commonly uses MPEG-4, but it frequently appears in some other ones too. Here are some of the most common H. The paper presents the results of the statutory research carried out at the Telecommunications and Teleinformatics Department of Wroclaw University of Science and Technology, Poland. The author would like to thank the Wroclaw Centre for Networking and Supercomputing for providing the computing resources used for the video encoding and the preparation of the test samples.

The data presented in this study are available on request from the corresponding author. National Center for Biotechnology Information , U. Journal List Sensors Basel v. Sensors Basel. Published online Jul 4.

Janusz Klink. Petr Koudelka, Academic Editor. Author information Article notes Copyright and License information Disclaimer. Received May 10; Accepted Jun Associated Data Data Availability Statement The data presented in this study are available on request from the corresponding author. Abstract Finding a proper balance between video quality and the required bandwidth is an important issue, especially in networks of limited capacity. Introduction A huge growth in Internet traffic has been observed in recent years.

Open in a separate window. Figure 1. Materials and Methods One issue that complicates the comparison process of two video codecs is that the relation between the curves, which present video quality as a function of the coding bitrate, is not a constant value for the two specific codecs.

Figure 2. Table 1 The video test samples. Figure 3. Calculation issue of the delta rate based on the real video samples. Figure 4. Figure 5. Table 2 Differences between the measured and interpolated coding bitrates for the H. Results As already mentioned, the video quality assessment was conducted based on a limited number of prepared video footages, i.

Figure 6. Figure 7. Figure 8. Figure 9. Figure Acknowledgments The paper presents the results of the statutory research carried out at the Telecommunications and Teleinformatics Department of Wroclaw University of Science and Technology, Poland. Funding This research received no external funding. Institutional Review Board Statement Not applicable.

Informed Consent Statement Not applicable. Data Availability Statement The data presented in this study are available on request from the corresponding author. Conflicts of Interest The author declares no conflict of interest. References 1. International C. Emear A. Bhanu B. Distributed Video Sensor Networks.

Springer; London, UK: Microsoft Smooth Streaming. Michalos M. Dynamic adaptive streaming over HTTP. Stockhammer T. Sodagar I. The MPEG-dash standard for multimedia streaming over the internet. IEEE Multimed. Bentaleb A. IEEE Commun. Thang T. IEEE Trans. Pozueco L. Tools Appl. Vranjes M. Cika P. Objective video quality assessment methods: Video encoders comparison. Ultra Mod. Control Syst.

Tanchenko A. Visual-PSNR measure of image quality. Image Represent. Wang Z. A universal image quality index. Luo Z. Duanmu Z. IEEE J. Signal Process. Janowski L. Content driven QoE assessment for video frame rate and frame resolution reduction. This was using peak signal-to-noise PSNR as an objective metric. It is also used on almost all cameras that shoot 4K video or higher resolution. They are also used on security cameras. Samsung Electronics holds the most active patents, with But if you are outputting for a social media site should use H.

The social platform will optimize and compress your video once you upload it. So you might as well save the rendering time on your end. Keep reading to know more or directly skip to the step-by-step tutorial on H. For video services, the ultimate goal of compressing a movie is to reduce the size of the movie file , so that it can take up less storage space, reduce the network bandwidth consumption in transmission and increase streaming speed. Compared with H.

In other words, at the same quality of coding, H. For example, in H. It is H. The size of a video is defined as duration and bit rate. On the basis of the experiment on H. From this H. Without doubt, H. Moreover, the increasing growth of video streaming on YouTube and other popular websites and 4K high definition devices arrive all the time, which urges you to find a more efficient way to stream, store and play videos.

This video coding format helps you to store your large amount of videos with smaller size, to stream your favorite movies with less network consumption.