WebM Exciting New Video Standard with VP8, Vorbis, Matroska

[nurbs]

You should read your own link. They didn't remove any fees.

[zambelli]

In the meantime please stop spreading more FUD. Thanks.
It's not FUD. The statistical chance of implementing a DCT-based video codec without infringing any H.264, VC-1, MPEG-4, MPEG-2 and MPEG-1 patents is extremely slim, virtually impossible.

Go check out the following:
http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/AVC/Pages/PatentList.aspx
http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/VC1/Pages/PatentList.aspx
http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/M4V/Pages/PatentList.aspx
http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/M2/Pages/PatentList.aspx


The H.264 patent list alone is 70 pages long. Pick a dozen random patents from the list, go to http://www.google.com/patents and see what they're about.

Of course we don't know what's going to happen. But "not being sued for X years" is no proof of a technology being "patent free", just like the fact that nobody has ever broken into your home does not mean that your house is secure.

I also hope I don't have to explain to you the difference between Xiph and Google and why some cash-strapped patent holder might be more likely to sue Google than Xiph.

Bottom line: I'm not discouraging anyone from using WebM. It's merely my personal opinion that it's impossible to build a truly patent-free DCT-based video codec due to the extremely high number of patents in what's essentially a very small, niche area of computing technology. It's just the reality of the business.

[jakor]

MPEG-1 patents are already free to infringe. Patent holding time has expired. The same is going to be with MPEG-2 patents really soon.

[Selur]

any one got a link to a windows vpxenc version that does support input via pipe?

the one from vpx-vp8-debug-src-x86-win32mt-vs8-v0.9.5.zip always crashes for me with "Error reading Y4M frame data",...
mencoder "D:\Test\test - clips\test.avi" -ovc raw -noskip -vid 0 -vf scale,format=i420 -forcedsubsonly -noautosub -nosound -mc 0 -lavdopts threads=8 -really-quiet -fps 25 -aspect 1.81818:1 -of rawvideo -o - | ffmpeg -v -10 -threads 8 -r 25 -pix_fmt yuv420p -s 640x352 -f rawvideo -i - -an -r 25 -f yuv4mpegpipe - | vpxenc --codec=vp8 --passes=2 --pass=1 --target-bitrate=1499 --end-usage=0 --fpf="D:\Encoding Temp\test_.stats" --profile=0 --good --cpu-used=3 --bias-pct=70 --minsection-pct=1 --maxsection-pct=10000 --min-q=0 --max-q=63 --lag-in-frames=16 --undershoot-pct=0 --buf-sz=6 --buf-initial-sz=4 --buf-optimal-sz=5 --drop-frame=0 --resize-allowed=0 --kf-min-dist=0 --kf-max-dist=250 --auto-alt-ref=1 --noise-sensitivity=0 --sharpness=0 --static-thresh=0 --token-parts=1 --arnr-maxframes=5 --arnr-strength=3 --threads=16 --width=640 --height=352 --timebase=1/25 --yv12 -o NUL -
(changing --yv12 to --i420 doesn't help either, still crashing)

Cu Selur

Ps.: https://review.webmproject.org/#change,1071 seems to be a known and fixed (in git) problem,...

[Leeloo Minaï]

No news about an official support of avisynth scripts as input ?

[Selur]

http://www.multiupload.com/Z0B7QG8Z8A <- stdin should work with this one (git checkout compiled with gcc for windows)

[Brazil2]

http://www.multiupload.com/Z0B7QG8Z8A <- stdin should work with this one (git checkout compiled with gcc for windows)
Thanks a lot :)

[Emp3r0r]

WebM on Android just announced with Gingerbread 2.3 (http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2010/12/android-23-platform-and-updated-sdk.html) and exclusively on the Nexus S at Best Buy, Happy Holidays!

I can't wait to get this working on my Samsung Galaxy Tab. It has stellar video quality.

[PatchWorKs]

It's not FUD. The statistical chance of implementing a DCT-based video codec without infringing any H.264, VC-1, MPEG-4, MPEG-2 and MPEG-1 patents is extremely slim, virtually impossible.

Remember that On2 codecs has a very long (and patented) history too...
It's also possible that H.264 and others infinges WebM instead !!!

I believe that Google and its competitors stalled as USA vs URSS in "cold war" ages... none would start a fight where all may loose in a Mutually assured destruction (M.A.D.) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_assured_destruction).

As Joshua sayd: "A strange game. The only winning move is not to play."

[CruNcher]

Even if their was im not sure if any of the companies involved in MPEG research would ever attack Google, because many of those big players are dependent on some level of it and do business with it and attacking your partner seems not really a good task. Maybe that's also why we only here some harsh words and see strategy fallbacks like the H.264 web license announcements, but no real law usage reaction yet also because they don't lose a lot money yet but gain more on other sides from Google again.
Industries morality thoughts were always different than our average joes one "first comes the money then the rights and laws" Google is one of those companies that exactly is moving in that area and (knows exactly how to play that Game with their "Friends") even if others get angry they mostly do nothing they just let them do what they want, they brag and cry but they do nothing against it even if the rights and laws would be on their side maybe it will go as far that this dependence even will cause some of those "friends" cease to exist @ all or getting acquired in the future ;)

[oibaf]

To promote WebM and other free formats (Ogg/Theora/Vorbis) Google is removing H.264 support from Chrome (http://blog.chromium.org/2011/01/html-video-codec-support-in-chrome.html).
Specifically, we are supporting the WebM (VP8) and Theora video codecs, and will consider adding support for other high-quality open codecs in the future. Though H.264 plays an important role in video, as our goal is to enable open innovation, support for the codec will be removed and our resources directed towards completely open codec technologies.

[montython]

Back in 2007, it was very "exciting" to see the peculiar psnr/ssim distribution of videos encoded with the vp7 encoder. :) If this vp8 encoder of On2 is like vp7 and if Google relies on this, I am sure the future will be very "exciting".

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=131481


To be more concrete on the subject, this is a demonstration based on a short sample.

DESCRIPTION:
This is not meant to be a comprehensive codec test, but rather an experiment on psnr volatility. The reference is a 512x288, 20-seconds sample trimmed from a movie trailer. Includes scene cuts, fades.

rv40 encoder: Helix Producer 11 (VBR, 2-pass, high encoder complexity)
vp70 encoder: VP70 VFW Codec - Personal Edition (2-pass, best quality, default settings for the rest)
x264 encoder: x264-r650 cli (2-pass, custom settings)
pass-1 settings:
--subme 1 --partitions "none" --bframes 3
--progress --no-psnr --no-ssim
pass-2 settings:
--ref 5 --bframes 3 --b-pyramid --weightb
--partitions "all" --8x8dct --direct "auto"
--me "umh" --subme 6 --b-rdo --mixed-refs --bime
--progress --no-psnr --no-ssim

For testing purposes, a low bitrate (approximately 265kbps) was chosen. The size of video streams in avi, rmvb and mp4 containers are approximately the same.

Second-pass encoding speeds were exactly the same for x264 and rv40 codecs. Encoding speed of vp70 with the best quality settings was about 2.75 times slower compared to the other two. For the first pass: Encoding times of x264 and vp70 were about the same, rv40 was slightly slower.

RESULTS:
http://i231.photobucket.com/albums/ee166/img_f/psnr.png
http://i231.photobucket.com/albums/ee166/img_f/psnr_ma10.png

It should be evident from the first graph that vp70 and rv40 series exhibit periodic fluctuations, which is a kind of "seasonality" effect. For the vp70 series, the range of fluctuations is larger and the peaks occur at every 8th frame. For rv40, the range is narrower and a common interval for peaks seems to be 4.
In the second graph, 10-period moving average series are used to compensate for the "seasonal" effect. This one should give a better idea of the trends throughout the sample.

For a closer examination of the fluctuation behavior, the last part of the sample (last 100 frames) is a good example: Peaks at every 8th frame (vp70) and peaks at every 4th frame (rv40) should be more clear in this subsample. I have no idea why this is the case, but 4 and 8 seem to be sort of magic numbers for these two codecs.

http://i231.photobucket.com/albums/ee166/img_f/psnr_subsamp.png

For those who are familiar with statistics/econometrics, the following is a rather simple regression analysis.

http://i231.photobucket.com/albums/ee166/img_f/x264.png
http://i231.photobucket.com/albums/ee166/img_f/rv40.png
http://i231.photobucket.com/albums/ee166/img_f/vp70.png

A brief explanation for reading the tables:
"AR" notation is used for auto-regressive terms. In econometrics, AR terms are used to examine periodic effects in a sample. For example, AR(2) term is used to check a periodic effect at every 2 periods. High t-statistic values (hence smaller probability) indicate significant effect. A probability value close to zero (lower than 0.05 for example) is considered to be a signal for the presence of a periodic effect for that term. The coefficient columns in the tables show the magnitude and the direction of the effect.

x264:
There is no number clearly standing out. Up to 6 frames, there seems to be evidence for blended relation.

rv40:
4 (with a large t-statistic) seems to be the magic number here by far. 1, 5 (and also 6) seem to be significant, but not as strong as 8.

vp70:
The extreme case is observed here. Every 8th frame has an important (??) role here. Also there seems to be a weaker effect for AR(1). This is probably due to references between consecutive frames, which is the type of behavior expected from almost all codecs.

[PatchWorKs]

Well certainly WebM will be *the* choice for web video (as the name claims itself) and consumer applications.
For professionals (such as film HD shooting) there will be Dirac...

[LigH]

Are you sure? ... As long as VP8 doesn't really compete with AVC Main Profile, and AVC playback stays free-of-charge, I doubt AVC will disappear out of the web.

[ckmox]

i heard xvp8 will start in march, from this source -> http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2093897

[Nintendo Maniac 64]

I swear, the more I see Dark Shikari participating in WebM stuff, the more I think he really IS tsundere for VP8. XD

[smok3]

ok, hopefully apple/MS and the rest of the little guys will hear Mr. Shikari (this time as well) and bundle their browsers with VP8 support, also can i have fullscreen button? thank you :)

p.s. is there a work at google for an old videoperson as well? geting really sick of this job..

[LigH]

So I will once again repeat my request for a vpxenc.exe which is able to use AviSynth scripts as video source. Or an ffmpeg.exe which contains fixed multiplexers.

[sneaker_ger]

MPEG LA Announces Call for Patents Essential to VP8 Video Codec (http://www.mpegla.com/main/pid/vp8/default.aspx)

[iwod]

Well if x264 dev are working on it then i am pretty confident that VP8 will rule the world.

[sneaker_ger]

Web Video Rivalry Sparks U.S. Probe (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703752404576178833590548792.html)

[rernst]

There are literally billions of dollars at stake. They will pull out all the plugs to combat VP8.

"All video codecs are covered by patents".

What is much more an issue here are software patents altogether. Remember when 'Multimedia' was patented?

It's ridiculous and really U.S. centric. Every piece of software is based on another piece of software. To even go there and state anything based on DCT is patented is nonsense.

I hope they will make this a landmark lawsuit that will severely curtail software patents altogether.

[dapperdan]

New version out today.

blog post announcement:

http://blog.webmproject.org/2011/03/vp8-codec-sdk-bali-released.html

codec-devel mailing list announcement post:

https://groups.google.com/a/webmproject.org/group/codec-devel/browse_thread/thread/059f95a8567f1693#

edit: they also had the first proper release of the WebP image format last month:

https://groups.google.com/a/webmproject.org/group/webp-discuss/browse_thread/thread/3a2784f36680f740#

[iwod]

Anyone going to run some test on new build?

[LigH]

Anyone going to try to make a vpxenc.exe with AviSynth support?

[dragsidious]

There are literally billions of dollars at stake. They will pull out all the plugs to combat VP8.

They will certainly try.


It's ridiculous


Yes.


and really U.S. centric.


No.

If you live in some places in Africa or Asia this may be true. But most places not only have binding treaties with the USA on patents, their governments are working directly with the USA to get even stronger ones that are more easily enforced internationally.


Every piece of software is based on another piece of software. To even go there and state anything based on DCT is patented is nonsense.


To violate a patent requires neither a existing product, existing software, or copying. You can come up with a idea 100% on your own, turn it into a product, and then get sued by a lawyer who never programmed a single line of code in his life and has no products that he sells. He just has to control a patent and you lose.


I hope they will make this a landmark lawsuit that will severely curtail software patents altogether.

Don't hold your breath. The current administration is very pro-'intellectual property'. They think that they can use patents to curtail the activities of companies that are competitive with established USA firms.

Which is one of the major things that patents are used for... to stop the small guy from competing. That is why Microsoft, IBM, et al. support patents even though they are the ones that get sued the most. They just past the cost onto their customers and do not have to worry about smaller upstarts competing against them.


Hopefully the Vp8 will succeed and turn video into just another common format. Just a common and easy to use as jpeg, png, gifs, mp3s, and whatever else. That way we can progress and work on more impressive things.

[Astrophizz]

Just a common and easy to use as jpeg, png, gifs, mp3s, and whatever else.

.gifs had licensing issues and .mp3 playback still has to be licensed (why Firefox and Opera don't support it). The .mp3s you see online are in a flash wrapper just like most of the h.264 content.

[IgorC]

It looks like psychovisual optimizations are next thing for VP8.

http://blog.webmproject.org/
In the next release, we plan to further improve the compression rate at the low bitrate range, as well as focus on new features such as two-pass encoding and visual optimization using segmentation maps.


Also new version of Vorbis Aotuv was realesed with improved audio quality.
http://www.geocities.jp/aoyoume/aotuv/

[GoWebM]

"Blueberry," the second release of the H1 VP8 hardware encoder. (http://blog.webmproject.org/2011/05/blueberry-vp8-hardware-encoder-ip.html)

Technical Details of the Blueberry Release:

We reached the aforementioned +0.82 dB PSNR gains by adding the following features to the encoder:

Improved encoding decisions and added more coding options at macroblock level

Enabled multiple motion vectors per macroblock (Split MV mode)

Added preference of “nearest”, “near” and “zero” type macroblocks that are less expensive to code than others

Added support for up to two reference frames in motion search (immediately previous and Golden frame)

Added deblocking filter macroblock mode adaptivity support

Added ¼ pixel precision motion estimation at 1080p resolution (previously supported only up to 720p)

Increased the amount of token probability tracking counters (enables more efficient entropy coding)

In addition, we added support for a programmable segment map, which enables psychovisual quality optimizations and defining region-of-interests. This means we can for example code the foreground objects (i.e. people) with a better quality (smaller quantizer) than the static background. We also added new hooks to the hardware that allows us to improve the quality of the encoder by later firmware upgrades that optmize our cost function algorithms - even after the chip has been manufactured.

:)

[IgorC]

Why is PSNR still the main metrics?
It is well know that it has bad correlation with real visual quality.
Almost no improvement for SSIM.

[GoWebM]

Any Video Converter (http://www.filehippo.com/es/download_any_video_converter/changelog/) Version 3.23 (released on May 11, 2011 ), add WebM as supported input and output video format.

Then:

* Non-commercial WebM Tools (Windows): Miro Video Converter, XMedia Recode, Firefogg, MediaCoder.

* Commercial WebM Tools (No cloud soft.): Bigasoft Total Video Converter, Any Video Converter.

Do you know of others?




Sorry my english:p

[nurbs]

This is also interesting.
In addition, we added support for a programmable segment map, which enables psychovisual quality optimizations and defining region-of-interests. This means we can for example code the foreground objects (i.e. people) with a better quality (smaller quantizer) than the static background.
From that description they do exactly the opposite of what adaptive quantization in x264 and other encoders does. I hope that's just a result of dumbing it down for the general audience and not something they actually want to do.

[IgorC]

Yes, looks like a future VP8 segmentation + bitrate distribution is totally opposite to x264´s mbtree. Although mbtree does good job there are other approachs.
It is a possibility that more optimal way will be smart algorithm in the middle of both.

About optimality of mbtree (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=159389)

[ricardo.santos]

Any Video Converter Version 3.23 (released on May 11, 2011 ), add WebM as supported input and output video format.

only 1 pass mode

[GoWebM]

Happy Birthday, WebM!!!

First Anniversary. (http://blog.webmproject.org/2010/05/introducing-webm-open-web-media-project.html)

:)

[CruNcher]

Yeah though i find it bad news that Microsoft bought Skype :(
Skype always drove the VPx for low latency Videoconferencing and im not sure if Microsoft will continue that (actually it would be pretty strange if they would) :( on the other side with websockets nowadays skypes videoconferencing doesn't matter that much anymore.

[mariush]

They'll probably just bundle Silverlight with Skype in the next version, arguing they can auto switch to various bitrate streams on the fly with it or some other crap....

[CruNcher]

@mariush
you shouldn't underestimate with what the guys from Beijing might come up with ;), they worked exactly on this with their Titanium Codec http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/people/yanlu/

[mariush]

I'm not saying multi-bitrate vc1 is bad.. it could be very good. What irks me is that pretty much all technologies end up getting shoved down people's throats, whether they want it or not.

Just today I got a message saying important update available - the only thing was Microsoft Malicious Software whatever it's called.... People have short memory but when Microsoft bought Gecad's IP (rav antivirus) antivirus software makers complained that they'll get out of business and Microsoft said the software will be optional to download from website so it's not a problem. Well, soon it turned to optional software components and now for a long time it's important software update and always checked even if I don't have it installed now.

Now a new thing there in the optional updates is Microsoft Live Essentials... how much time do I have until they'll push it to "important updates" and always checked...
Silverlight is also always checked each week in the optional updates and I have to uncheck it manually just to get the popup stop nagging me.

It's damn annoying and frustrating and makes me lose trust in MS's products so much I don't even care to try these nice technologies they may make.

Imho the technology behind video in skype will change 100% because they have the vc1/h264 hardware decoding in Xbox360 and they'll want to integrate Xbox360 with Skype... and for pc, what better way to implement it than silverlight, which they can just load as a plugin in an embedded html page or something like that. Microsoft is also having patents and is part of the h264/vc1 licensing group so they don't really care that much about royalties...

[zambelli]

Microsoft pays VC-1 and H.264 royalties just like everyone else. In fact, it pays more than most since it ships quite a few decoders (i.e. Windows, Xbox, Zune, Silverlight, etc.).

[Disabled]

In fact, it pays more than most since it ships quite a few decoders...

Thats wrong. H264 royalties are capped at (I guess) 5 Million $, so Microsoft pays less per license then anyone else (unless youre under 100000 shipped units and its free).

[mariush]

Microsoft pays VC-1 and H.264 royalties just like everyone else. In fact, it pays more than most since it ships quite a few decoders (i.e. Windows, Xbox, Zune, Silverlight, etc.).

Of course they pay just like anyone else - well maybe not like everyone else because I'm sure they get a blanket/volume/negociated license.

But being one of the largest companies with patents in the MPEG-LA patent pools, they also get some money back from licensing "at the end of the day".

Just by looking at the list of patents in the patent pool for h264 alone, Microsoft has 4 pages of patents there:
http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/avc/Documents/avc-att1.pdf

Anyway, this is getting to be a bit off topic...

ps. Judging by the signature in the footer of your post, I think you could at least mention that you work for Microsoft or are involved with them.

[IgorC]

Yeah though i find it bad news that Microsoft bought Skype :(
Skype always drove the VPx for low latency Videoconferencing and im not sure if Microsoft will continue that (actually it would be pretty strange if they would) :( on the other side with websockets nowadays skypes videoconferencing doesn't matter that much anymore.
VP8 and Skype's speech codec (SILK) are both open source. No big threat.

Also, Skype and Xiph have joined their codecs into new open source one with high quality and low delay. Opus.
It's a hybrid codec: SILK (low bitrate) + CELT (high quality MDCT encoder).
It performs very good now.
See the results of the last comparison in my signature.

[cid_xvid]

VP8 and Skype's speech codec (SILK) are both open source. No big threat.

Also, Skype and Xiph have joined their codecs into new open source one with high quality and low delay. Opus.
It's a hybrid codec: SILK (low bitrate) + CELT (high quality MDCT encoder).
It performs very good now.
See the results of the last comparison in my signature.

Skype has been adquired by Microsoft. I am afraid of the future of Opus encoder.

[iwod]

It is interesting that Opus is THAT good while free of patents. And yet we cant say the same for Video Codec.

[IgorC]

It is interesting that Opus is THAT good while free of patents. And yet we cant say the same for Video Codec.

There is very high quality and open source H.264 encoder (x264).While there is no such encoder for AAC standard.

That is one of the reasons why Opus had chance to do well comparing to commercial AAC encoders. Those AAC encoders aren't bad but it's often to see that open source implementations perform generally better.

[IgorC]

VP8 Codec SDK "Cayuga" Released

http://blog.webmproject.org/

Also now VP8 is used in One-to-One Skype calls.

[GoWebM]

Today we're making available "Cayuga," the third named release of the VP8 Codec SDK (libvpx). Note that the VP8 format definition has not changed, only the SDK. You can download the Cayuga libvpx snapshot (version 0.9.7) from the WebM Project Downloads page or clone it from our Git repository.

As promised, for Cayuga we targeted more areas for encoder speed improvements. Using our previous release ("Bali") as a benchmark, we’ve seen the following VP8 encoder improvements on x86 processors.

+11.5% "Best" mode (at speed 0)
+21.5% "Good" mode (at speed 0)
+22.5% "Real-time" mode (at speed 6, a typical speed for videoconferencing applications)

We also compared the encoder performance of "Cayuga" to our first named release ("Aylesbury") release and got the following results:

+35% "Best" mode (at speed 0)
+75% "Good" mode (at speed 0)
+52% "Real-time" mode (at speed 6)

We saw the following improvements on ARM processors:

On ARM Cortex A9 with Neon extensions, real-time encoding of video telephony content is 35% faster than Bali on single core and 48% faster on multi-core.

On the NVIDIA Tegra2 platform, real time encoding is 40% faster than Bali.

For more technical readers, here are some detailed improvements we made in the libvpx Cayuga encoder:

Improved the datarate control in one-pass realtime compression.

Improved one-pass variable bitrate (VBR) visual quality by average ~7% across a large collection of videos.

Improved video conferencing user experience through error concealment, a feature that produces high visual quality frames even under conditions of substantial packet loss.

Improved the ARM v6 and v7 encoders and decoders through greater use of SIMD features and strong use of cache prefetching.

Thanks to everyone who worked on Cayuga, and welcome to our eleven new contributors:

Alok Ahuja
Alexis Ballier
Ronald Bultje
Rafael Ávila de Espíndola
Ralph Giles
Stefan Holmer
Mike Hommey
Taekhyun Kim
Aron Rosenberg
Joshua Bleecher Snyder
Thijs Vermeir

Source: VP8 Codec SDK "Cayuga" Released (http://blog.webmproject.org/2011/08/vp8-codec-sdk-cayuga-released.html)

[Sirber]

Any Video Converter (http://www.filehippo.com/es/download_any_video_converter/changelog/) Version 3.23 (released on May 11, 2011 ), add WebM as supported input and output video format.

Then:

* Non-commercial WebM Tools (Windows): Miro Video Converter, XMedia Recode, Firefogg, MediaCoder.

* Commercial WebM Tools (No cloud soft.): Bigasoft Total Video Converter, Any Video Converter.

Do you know of others?




Sorry my english:p

Bencos ;) using ffmpeg. http://www.detritus.qc.ca

[GoWebM]

Starting today, “Cloudberry”, the third release of the Hantro H1 VP8 hardware encoder, is available at no cost through the WebM Project hardware page. Partners having already signed the online licensing agreement will receive an automatic update.

Moving along with our mission statement - creating the world’s best real-time video encoder - we’re again one step closer to our goal thanks to Cloudberry’s substantial quality gains. In PSNR comparisons, Cloudberry performs on average 1.27 dB better than our initial Anthill release, which we launched less than five months ago. It also beats the previous Blueberry release by 0.45 dB, with comparable increases using the SSIM quality metric.

We’ve also bridged an important milestone: Cloudberry is able to encode high-quality 720p video (video teleconference use cases) at well under 1 Mbps, as shown in the following chart.

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/vTMcLDKUns64BlXObK05i4Cp9OyI5Z_-JC1lEbUm4k31ui8jMuqCcqF5z1PgbjyAinaQlQzuhxGWHuVnUC0mroVmb7V3KjAXN-tjTldtFEmZ5ENhLFw


The optimized Cloudberry control software is backwards compatible and will also benefit chips with the Blueberry hardware inside them, providing 0.08 dB average PSNR increase without any hardware changes required.

In our next release, we are focusing on further software-based quality improvements especially related to multipass encoding and optimal usage of VP8 Golden frames - both of which will benefit SoCs that use either Blueberry or Cloudberry. On the hardware side, we also have numerous improvements in mind, such as further optimizing the macroblock mode selection. This fourth release is planned to be available at the end of Q3.

The VP8 H1 encoder IP has been licensed already to nearly 40 semiconductor companies through the WebM Project, and more requests are pouring in. For licensing details about the H1, see our hardware page. Our reseller partner Verisilicon also licenses Cloudberry as a part of the multiformat Hantro H1 encoder.


For more technical readers, here is the list of new features in Cloudberry:

- RD-optimized quantization
- Improved intra/inter macroblock mode selection
- Improved inter macroblock RD functions
- Improved intra macroblock mode selection
- More macroblock level coding information returned to software (enables effective multipass optimizations)

The following curves show PSNR quality metrics for a 720p video call, comparing the H1 Cloudberry release to previous H1 releases and to the libvpx Bali software SDK release. As a point of interest, the Cloudberry encoder performs similarly to libvpx’s “-rt -cpu-used=-5” setting, which is equivalent to what a WebRTC based application can achieve on the fastest PCs.

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/ZjtIeonuPNANtOV3cMei9gKJRCczXkeJf1HOyygyOhRCd22YOdjP6ecmYOAvBK03tilY0hbc1EGJeRWD7vOS4H0X_mmasxLgskmZblNdvWouU6lGguA


Source: Third Generation VP8 Hardware Encoder IP “Cloudberry” Released (http://blog.webmproject.org/2011/08/third-generation-vp8-hardware-encoder.html)