LCEVC - Low Complexity Enhancement Video Coding

ksec · 14th February 2022, 09:52

Since there is no thread that is dedicated to LCEVC[0] I may as well start one.

Because I just discovered SBTVD 3.0 [1], the Television Broadcasting standards used in South America has adopted LCEVC usage. That is a whole ecosystem of mandatory support for LCEVC.

Not sure what the baseline Codec yet. May be VVC.

[0] https://www.v-nova.com/lcevc-enhanced-video/

[1] https://www.v-nova.com/press-release...stem-tv-3-0-2/

Selur · 14th February 2022, 10:21

Looks like some glsl sharpening filters,...

filler56789 · 14th February 2022, 10:33

🧐 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LCEVC

It is already possible to encode video files with LCEVC using FFmpeg 4.0.1-17...

😳

Selur · 14th February 2022, 13:07

Only if you have a ffmpeg version which is build with that encoder,... (haven't seen one around)

lvqcl · 14th February 2022, 13:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by filler56789

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LCEVC

Quote from this wiki page:

Quote:

Keywords for further studding (may require searches outside of wikipedia)

LOL.

ksec · 14th February 2022, 15:57

Oh wow from Wiki

Quote:

It will be used to enhance a video base layer encoded with VVC for broadcast and broadband delivery.

So this is VVC + LCEVC!! Oh I want to play with it.

Jamaika · 14th April 2022, 17:31

Does anyone know where to download opensource lcevc from?
http://mpegx.int-evry.fr/software/MPEG/LCEVC/LTM.git
I found a software-based decoder on github.
https://github.com/eocene317/LTM-master

Blue_MiSfit · 14th April 2022, 20:02

LC-EVC is definitely neat

Think of it like HE-AAC for video, except instead of being locked to using AAC as the base codec (or rather AVC as most commonly used with LC-EVC) you can use whatever base codec you want.

You essentially subsample the video (typically, though you don't have to) and then store high frequency information separately to aid the reconstruction of a higher quality image in the decoder. This way you can spend all your bits to encode a very stable base layer, even if it's soft.

You get added benefits here like often only needing to encode and decode 1/4 to 1/2 the pixels in the base layer, which has clear performance benefits. You can also reduce the bitrate a fair bit, which leads to overall bit savings for a given encode / ABR ladder.

It's not perfect, but there's definitely something to this approach!

benwaggoner · 14th April 2022, 22:00

And not it's not "just" blind postprocessing like the old WMV and MPEG-4 ASP players. Metadata is generated while encoding that the LC-EVC decoding filter uses to more accurately reconstruct the look and feel of removed detail. And it is set up so that the preprocessing layer can be generated outside of DRM protected memory, and then the resulting bitmap merged with the decoded frames.

birdie · 15th April 2022, 07:40

Some paper https://arxiv.org/abs/2204.05580

ksec · 16th April 2022, 10:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by birdie

Some paper https://arxiv.org/abs/2204.05580

No wonder why it is making some noise in broadcast industry. It seems LCEVC would do exceptionally well with low movement materials, I am thinking News and possibly anime content. Where it gets 50 to 60% bitrate reduction regardless x264 or x265.

rwill · 16th April 2022, 11:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by ksec

No wonder why it is making some noise in broadcast industry. It seems LCEVC would do exceptionally well with low movement materials, I am thinking News and possibly anime content. Where it gets 50 to 60% bitrate reduction regardless x264 or x265.

Yeah running x264 with the medium preset and x265 with the veryfast preset somewhat matches the quality of broadcast encoders I guess...

The github with the data set is also very interesting, just a license and a readme. The readme states to send an email to maybe get access to the data set...

Forteen88 · 3rd May 2022, 18:40

Someone else did a test on LCEVC here,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Frrw8O2ax6I

LCEVC got really good results there too.

benwaggoner · 4th May 2022, 19:43

LCEVC does have some nice attributes, and does improve the psychovisual appearance of detail. I'm kind of reminded of VP6's postprocessing of years gone by. The core VP6 codec wasn't great by any means, and way too PSNR-is-law. But the decoder's postprocessing did a great job of synthesizing noise, sharpening, deblocking, and deringing. None of that actually adds new discernible vision information, but but did keep the video from looking nearly as "web video" at lower bitrates compared to VC-1 and that era's H.264 encoders.

LCEVC is a more advanced version of that, with metadata that can actually improve real detail, instead of just mask the lack of it. And it is backwards compatible. The base stream remains decodable even if LCEVC isn't enabled on that device. At low bitrates, the metadata can make up a good fraction of the total bitrate, so it would be generally better to stream the base layer independently, and only the LCEVC on a player identified to support it. The overhead is much less material >1 Mbps.

Jamaika · 7th May 2022, 07:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by ksec

Since there is no thread that is dedicated to LCEVC[0] I may as well start one.

Because I just discovered SBTVD 3.0 [1], the Television Broadcasting standards used in South America has adopted LCEVC usage. That is a whole ecosystem of mandatory support for LCEVC.

Not sure what the baseline Codec yet. May be VVC.

[0] https://www.v-nova.com/lcevc-enhanced-video/

[1] https://www.v-nova.com/press-release...stem-tv-3-0-2/

I'm looking at an ad for lcevc v-nova. I believe she is outdated.
I don't know how evc differs from lcevc. The evc implantation on their sites is advertised as lcevc. In addition the codec libraries are old from two years ago.

https://gitlab.com/v-nova-public/ETM/-/tree/vnova/ltm
https://gitlab.com/v-nova-public/VTM/-/tree/vnova/ltm
https://gitlab.com/v-nova-public/HM/-/tree/vnova/ltm
https://gitlab.com/v-nova-public/JM/-/tree/vnova/ltm

The same is true for the LTM converter (EVC, VVC, H265, H264). In addition converter is incomplete and has bugs.

How does this relate to the new free codecs on git?

https://github.com/mpeg5/xeve
https://github.com/mpeg5/xevd
https://github.com/fraunhoferhhi/vvenc
https://github.com/fraunhoferhhi/vvdec
https://vcgit.hhi.fraunhofer.de/jvet/VVCSoftware_VTM
https://vcgit.hhi.fraunhofer.de/jvet/HM
https://vcgit.hhi.fraunhofer.de/jvet/JM

rwill · 7th May 2022, 09:05

The v-nova repo things are just slightly modified reference softwares. Strange, I thought at least ETM availability is being watched over by MPEG.

The free codecs on git are the respective reference softwares except for xeve/xevd and vvenc/vvdec which try to be independent implementations of their video coding standard.

EVC is not really related to LC-EVC by the way.

LC-EVC can be put on top of more or less any video codec, I guess thats why v-nova has forks of the AVC, HEVC, VVC and EVC reference softwares in their git.

14th February 2022, 09:52	#1 \| Link
ksec Registered User Join Date: Mar 2020 Posts: 111	LCEVC - Low Complexity Enhancement Video Coding Since there is no thread that is dedicated to LCEVC[0] I may as well start one. Because I just discovered SBTVD 3.0 [1], the Television Broadcasting standards used in South America has adopted LCEVC usage. That is a whole ecosystem of mandatory support for LCEVC. Not sure what the baseline Codec yet. May be VVC. [0] https://www.v-nova.com/lcevc-enhanced-video/ [1] https://www.v-nova.com/press-release...stem-tv-3-0-2/ __________________ Previously iwod

14th February 2022, 10:21	#2 \| Link
Selur Registered User Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: Germany Posts: 7,156	Looks like some glsl sharpening filters,... __________________ Hybrid here in the forum, homepage

14th February 2022, 13:07	#4 \| Link
Selur Registered User Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: Germany Posts: 7,156	Only if you have a ffmpeg version which is build with that encoder,... (haven't seen one around) __________________ Hybrid here in the forum, homepage

14th April 2022, 20:02	#8 \| Link
Blue_MiSfit Derek Prestegard IRL Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: Los Angeles Posts: 5,980	LC-EVC is definitely neat Think of it like HE-AAC for video, except instead of being locked to using AAC as the base codec (or rather AVC as most commonly used with LC-EVC) you can use whatever base codec you want. You essentially subsample the video (typically, though you don't have to) and then store high frequency information separately to aid the reconstruction of a higher quality image in the decoder. This way you can spend all your bits to encode a very stable base layer, even if it's soft. You get added benefits here like often only needing to encode and decode 1/4 to 1/2 the pixels in the base layer, which has clear performance benefits. You can also reduce the bitrate a fair bit, which leads to overall bit savings for a given encode / ABR ladder. It's not perfect, but there's definitely something to this approach! __________________ These are all my personal statements, not those of my employer :) Last edited by Blue_MiSfit; 14th April 2022 at 20:05.

14th April 2022, 22:00	#9 \| Link
benwaggoner Moderator Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Portland, OR Posts: 4,653	And not it's not "just" blind postprocessing like the old WMV and MPEG-4 ASP players. Metadata is generated while encoding that the LC-EVC decoding filter uses to more accurately reconstruct the look and feel of removed detail. And it is set up so that the preprocessing layer can be generated outside of DRM protected memory, and then the resulting bitmap merged with the decoded frames. __________________ Ben Waggoner Principal Video Specialist, Amazon Prime Video My Compression Book

14th February 2022, 10:33	#3 \| Link
filler56789 SuperVirus Join Date: Jun 2012 Location: Antarctic Japan Posts: 1,350	🧐 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LCEVC It is already possible to encode video files with LCEVC using FFmpeg 4.0.1-17... 😳

14th April 2022, 17:31	#7 \| Link
Jamaika Registered User Join Date: Jul 2015 Posts: 682	Does anyone know where to download opensource lcevc from? http://mpegx.int-evry.fr/software/MPEG/LCEVC/LTM.git I found a software-based decoder on github. https://github.com/eocene317/LTM-master

15th April 2022, 07:40	#10 \| Link
birdie Artem S. Tashkinov Join Date: Dec 2006 Posts: 313	Some paper https://arxiv.org/abs/2204.05580

3rd May 2022, 18:40	#13 \| Link
Forteen88 Herr Join Date: Apr 2009 Location: North Europe Posts: 556	Someone else did a test on LCEVC here, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Frrw8O2ax6I LCEVC got really good results there too.

4th May 2022, 19:43	#14 \| Link
benwaggoner Moderator Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Portland, OR Posts: 4,653	LCEVC does have some nice attributes, and does improve the psychovisual appearance of detail. I'm kind of reminded of VP6's postprocessing of years gone by. The core VP6 codec wasn't great by any means, and way too PSNR-is-law. But the decoder's postprocessing did a great job of synthesizing noise, sharpening, deblocking, and deringing. None of that actually adds new discernible vision information, but but did keep the video from looking nearly as "web video" at lower bitrates compared to VC-1 and that era's H.264 encoders. LCEVC is a more advanced version of that, with metadata that can actually improve real detail, instead of just mask the lack of it. And it is backwards compatible. The base stream remains decodable even if LCEVC isn't enabled on that device. At low bitrates, the metadata can make up a good fraction of the total bitrate, so it would be generally better to stream the base layer independently, and only the LCEVC on a player identified to support it. The overhead is much less material >1 Mbps. __________________ Ben Waggoner Principal Video Specialist, Amazon Prime Video My Compression Book

7th May 2022, 09:05	#16 \| Link
rwill Registered User Join Date: Dec 2013 Posts: 317	The v-nova repo things are just slightly modified reference softwares. Strange, I thought at least ETM availability is being watched over by MPEG. The free codecs on git are the respective reference softwares except for xeve/xevd and vvenc/vvdec which try to be independent implementations of their video coding standard. EVC is not really related to LC-EVC by the way. LC-EVC can be put on top of more or less any video codec, I guess thats why v-nova has forks of the AVC, HEVC, VVC and EVC reference softwares in their git.

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