New codec comparison of c't magazine online, only, comparison, magazine, detailed

andy

There's a new codec comparison of the german c't magazine (No. 10 2005).
It compares MPEG4 h.264/AVC codecs, Real Video 10, VP7 and VC-1.
Part of the article can be found online:
ct/05/10/146/
The print version has a nice article about how the codecs work as well.

English: here

[edit]

No results?  

The detailed results can only be found in the magazine.
In short Nero Digital AVC was the best codec in the comparison regrading quality.
For all who speak german and can get the print magazine (library or buy) it's worth reading the article in the magazine - really good comparison.

OMG, I'm cited is c't. I need to get it even if I have no clue about german!  

[EDIT]They DID test x264, i overlooked it in the online article..[/EDIT]
I think it's a bit unfortunate they seem not to have tested x264.
I mean they explain how the AVC implementations make a large part of their tested encoders, then they even talk about how they did _not_ include snow and dirac, only to not spend a single word on x264.

IMO an AVC test is not of much interest without x264. It's quot;pretty clearquot; (excuse my ignorance) that Nero AVC wins at least among the AVC implementations this way. With x264 in, it could have been interesting.

I don't have the Nero encoder, but from what i hear and see it is pretty good - maybe quot;betterquot; than x264 ..and maybe not, but definitly those two are _by_far_ the most mature AVC implementations i saw so far (and i saw more than those two  - even if most did not appeal to me enough to put the through a real test).

A quick overlook seems to look promising (used tools, PSNR problems and approaches for quality measurement). As for the missing x264:
MainConcept, Sorenson, Videosoft (ehemals Vanguard Software) und das VideoLAN-Team schicken ihre Implementierungen ins Rennen.

They have a h.264 implementation? Or is it x264?

About Theora / Dirac , Snow and QT7, they say that they will test them in a later issue.

X264 is under VideoLAN's umbrella.

Just reading through the codec review  (got the magazine)

they did test x264

OT:

I wish I could read German - the Google translation is making my head spin for all the wrong reasons. Eg:

quot;Afterwards the candidates had to master NT sports club test sequences the videos quality Experts Group (VQEG).quot;

I could give it a shot if you gave me the german sentences you don't get in the translation

x264 was tested and titled as being from the videolan team.

Also, mpeg4 asp codecs got tested, this is missing in the initial post. I hope you like the overview about how the codecs work

Cheers
Koepi

Thanx for the offer, Razorblade2000. Here's what I'm gonna do:

Sit a German collegue of mine down over lunch tomorrow and have him repay a favour he owes me

Unfortunately he can't tell a P-frame from a door-frame so I'll pass anything I still don't understand after that your way.

Anyone know if the CT is available in the US?
I speak German but live in MD...

As far as I know it should be available in the US as well - but you have to search really well to find a shop which sells the c't.

Another option is to buy the article online, they have a quot;Kioskquot; for that on their site.

Cheers
Koepi

the tests being done where intensive
but as in the last one i don't like the way that they
mostly compare the quality with psnr-like functions

the reliability with ssim results are better than a straight
psnr compare but i only trust my eyes!

perhaps the average c't-reader likes fancy graphs
and imo c't isn't as good as 5years ago

just my 2ct

They also did visual quality tests at that comparison - and if a visual result (in comparison to the other codecs) wasn't suitable to the results you would expect by the PSNR/.../lt;insert any quality metric heregt; values it's mentioned in the article.

To the OT about the c't quality: I thought about it and came to the conclusion that I can't learn as much as 5 years ago anymore. So the quality level didn't degrade necessarily, but my experience grew.

Cheers
Koepi

Wie schon beim vergangenen Test stellen wir alle komprimierten Sequenzen mit Erlaubnis der Rechteinhaber in einer Tabelle zusammengefasst unter dem Soft-Link zum Download bereit, damit sich Interessenten selbst von der resultierenden Videoqualität überzeugen können

All clips are online (except the vc-1 ones, because they can't be played back by any player yet according to their site), so have fun downloading all 128 clips and compare them by yourself:

ct/05/10/146/testsequenzen.shtml

CU,
lamer_de

Bah, they used some outdated codec versions...

They´ve tested a final version of Divx6. Strange, it has a rotated image.

@sharktooth:
They ask the developers about the setting and version they should use for best quality. When they say use version xyz, they was used. Some version(Nero) was spezial version so they can work with raw yuv files or avisynth as input.