Fastest decompression codec. Please help

[mushakk]

Hi,

I need to decode a hi resolution (near 1920x1080) video in an Intel Atom and I wondering if some of you could help me to select the best codec to achieve this.

The compression time isn't a problem I need only to reproduce it in a Full Screen TV.

The video is only a little part of a big application.

Note: I'm using 'AVI for Windows' to render the video in an OpenGL surface, FFDShow and Windows 7.

Thanks in advance!

[LoRd_MuldeR]

You are seeking for lossless or lossy compression?

Anyway, if you want to compare different formats and/or decoders, then TimeCodec (http://haali.su/mkv/timeCodec.exe) is your friend.

Though using Video for Windows (VFW) - I guess that is what you mean with 'AVI for Windows' - will put a huge limitation on the video formats and decoders you can use.

Why do you need VFW? Can't use something like libav or ffmpegsource directly? Or at least use a less antiquated framework, like DirectShow?

[mushakk]

Hi!

You are seeking for lossless or lossy compression?

lossy

Though using Video for Windows (VFW) - I guess that is what you mean with 'AVI for Windows' - will put a huge limitation on the video formats and decoders you can use.


Yes, was a typo/mistake. Sorry. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_for_Windows)
With ffdshow installed you can decode almost all video formats.

Why do you need VFW?

Because is really easy to use it. I only want to get frames to render them over a 3D surface.

In any case I need to know which codecs are more efficient when it comes to be decompressed. (xvid, divx, h.263, h.264, ...)

[jmac698]

I did a big test of lossless codecs, doesn't help though, but huffyuv is fast to decompress. For lossless you might try mpeg2, there might be accerlation for it (depending on your laptop), anyhow it's pretty fast in software. I've even seen reports of coreavc being fast enough to play HD.

[LoRd_MuldeR]

mushakk, do not mix up "format" and "codec". While a format is specification (bitstream syntax, algorithms, etc), a codec is a piece of software that implements the specification. For example, Xvid and DivX are two software implementations of the very same video format, namely MPEG-4 ASP. It is very important to make that difference here, because for the same video format there may be various different decoders available (software or hardware) - and these may vary greatly in decoding performance. But again, restricting yourself to VFW (and thus the VFW-intrerface of ffdshow) will limit the decoders you can try.

Anyway, when looking for a lossy format that is fast to decode, you will probably want something simple, such as MPEG-2 or even MPEG-1. But these are almost never used with an AVI container. MPEG-4 ASP (Xvid, DivX and friends) is more complex than MPEG-2, but should still be fast to decode. H.264 is even more complex than MPEG-4 ASP, but on the other hand there are highly-optimized and multi-threaded decoders available for H.264. Last but not least you could try an intraframe-only compression format, such as Motion JPEG (MJPEG) or Digital Video (DV).

[Blue_MiSfit]

I think MPEG-2 will probably be your best bet, or possibly VC-1, given that they're both much easier to decode than the obvious choice: H.264.

You could try H.264, with something like x264's "--tune fastdecode" parameter set (CAVLC, no deblocking etc etc).

Does the system in question have any DXVA acceleration? If so this is definitely the way to go.