MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 ES GOP Structure Visualizer and Analyzer

[Avenger007]

GSpot has a VGS (Visual GOP Struct) button for viewing the Group Of Pictures structure (ie. detailed I,P,B frames info) for MPEG-1, MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 ASP but not for MPEG-4 AVC/H264.
Is there a program for viewing (ie. similar to VGS) the frame structure of h264 elementary streams? In particular, is there a way to view reference frame info, such as which reference frames or macroblocks were used in decoding a particular frame or a particular macroblock? Analyzing directly from an mp4 file would be a plus.

I know of a program called MTS4EA Elementary Stream Analyzer which is a Compressed Video and Audio Analysis Software from Tektronix. However, I am hoping for a freeware or open source alternative because I don't have money to burn :D

[Sergey A. Sablin]

GSpot has a VGS (Visual GOP Struct) button for viewing the Group Of Pictures structure (ie. detailed I,P,B frames info) for MPEG-1, MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 ASP but not for MPEG-4 AVC/H264.
Is there a program for viewing (ie. similar to VGS) the frame structure of h264 elementary streams? In particular, is there a way to view reference frame info, such as which reference frames or macroblocks were used in decoding a particular frame or a particular macroblock? Analyzing directly from an mp4 file would be a plus.

I know of a program called MTS4EA Elementary Stream Analyzer which is a Compressed Video and Audio Analysis Software from Tektronix. However, I am hoping for a freeware or open source alternative because I don't have money to burn :D

free - http://h264visa.daydayup.info/ (have no idea about features, read on the site)
not free - http://elecard.com/products/products-pc/professional/streameye-tools/ (but much cheaper that tektronix. supports MPEG-1/2/4, H.264, partially H.263, PS/TS/MP4 ...)

[Avenger007]

H264Visa appears unstable and the info it gives isn't intuitive. Other than that, it seems O.K. for the price (free :) ).
I'll checkout Elecard StreamEye Tools a little later.
Thanks for the links.

[Dark Shikari]

Streameye is quite useful (I use it all the time), but unfortunately one of the things its missing is the ability to see which reference frame a block references.

[Sergey A. Sablin]

Streameye is quite useful (I use it all the time), but unfortunately one of the things its missing is the ability to see which reference frame a block references.

Info->MB->mvL0/mvL1 shows motion vectors and reference picture indexes.

(btw try to press Control-T, I'm not sure if this works in public release versions though)

[CruNcher]

@Sergey
got a question in Converter Studio their is a Profile for HD-DVD AVC and it shows 15mbit buffer size is this the maximum for HD-DVD ? or is this information still confidential and you adapted this to the stuff that was released here in public ;)

[Dark Shikari]

Info->MB->mvL0/mvL1 shows motion vectors and reference picture indexes.

(btw try to press Control-T, I'm not sure if this works in public release versions though)Quite cool! Thanks for information on the hidden shortcut, that will help loads.

[Avenger007]

I just checked out Elecard StreamEye Tools and it gives me all the info I want (plus a lot more info I don't really need :)).
Thanks again Sergey for the link.
:thanks:

[Avenger007]

A convenient feature for an AVC/H.264 visualizer and analyzer would be to display all referenced frames simultaneously for the current frame and to highlight referenced macroblocks (or sub-partitions) for a selected macroblock (or sub-partition) in the current frame.

[h264visa]

H264Visa appears unstable and the info it gives isn't intuitive. Other than that, it seems O.K. for the price (free ).
Thanks for trial h264visa, by "intuitive", what kind of "intuitive" do feature you need? I will add it into h264visa.
H264Visa is originally designed for h264/avc codec developers, so it is more powerful on analyzing macroblock structures.

[pandy]

Thanks for trial h264visa...

Thank You for a great piece of software!!!

[grizz]

Thanks for trial h264visa, by "intuitive", what kind of "intuitive" do feature you need? I will add it into h264visa.
H264Visa is originally designed for h264/avc codec developers, so it is more powerful on analyzing macroblock structures.

One thing useful would be to list all features that the video stream contains. (see the picture png I attached to this post).

[h264visa]

The availability of those features can be retrieved in two ways:
1, from header info(SPS/PPS/Slice Hdr) for current stream(but that does not mean all those features will exist in each picture).
2, the features in each picture.

Which one do you prefer?

[Sharktooth]

2, obviously... however reporting both will help for debugging purpouses...

[h264visa]

I see.
I will include both in next release.