THE VIDEO CODING HANDBOOK BroadcastEngineering

Codecs and workflow:

Making the optimum choice BY DAVID AUSTERBERRY

S
ony’s recent release of multi-
codec cameras (the F5 and
F55) is a reminder that there
is no such thing as the ideal
codec. Not only do the cameras sup-
port RAW and existing codecs, but
Sony introduced XAVC codec to give
additional capability and 4K com-
pressed recording.
The choice the Director of
Photography (DoP) uses ultimately de-
pends on a number of issues particular-
ly the program genre. An observational
documentary is less demanding on final
picture quality than prime-time drama.
In an ideal world one codec would
be used from camera to master con-
trol. That would avoid concatenation of
coding artifacts. However in most ap-
plications it is just not practical. In any Automation can be the element that takes media workflow to the next level of efficiency.
workflow there are touchpoints: Image courtesy Harris.
1) camera files
2) editing files and ingest to the playout server as Camera Data
3) delivery broadcast 25Mb/s 4:2:0 long GOP at 20Mb/s. How much data does a sensor cre-
transmission master This is decoded to HD-SDI for the ate? Consider high frame rate record-
4) playout server files master control switcher and keying, ing at 60fps (progressive). A three chip,
Each of these may use a differ- and then finally encoded to HD at a HD camera (1920 x 1080), with a 16-bit
ent codec. For example: shoot HD at nominal 6Mb/s. variable bit rate in a sample, generates 99.5Mb per frame,
MPEG-2 4:2:2, 50Mb/s, long GOP; edit statistical multiplexer. a stream of 6Gb/s or 746MB of data
and finish at DNxHD 145, deliv- every second.
er as HDCAM-SR HD VTRs A 4K (3840 x 2160) single-chip
The first generation of HD cam- Bayer array generates 133Mb per frame
corders based on videotape had a or 8Gb/s.
choice of DVCPRO100 or HDCAM Few sensors have a bit depth of 16, so
recording. WIth data rates of these numbers can be reduced for the 14
100 and 140 Mb/s respec- bits typical for cameras, but that is still
tively not only was com- 5.2Gb/s for the 3-chip HD camera.
pression a necessity, but
the images were down- Single Sensor Color Imaging
sampled from 1920 to 1440 As DoPs demand super 35mm sized
line lengths to lower band- sensors, more cameras are now using
width. HDCAM-SR allowed the single chip design. A three- chip
recording at 440 or 880Mb/s, and re- camera with super 35mm sized sensor
solved many of the quality issues. would be very large. It would also have
The Sony F55 supports RAW, MPEG-2, MPEG-4 Before considering the compression a long back focus, meaning that regu-
SStP and XAVC recoridng. format, what is being compressed? lar cine lenses would be unsuitable. It is

1 broadcastengineering.com
THE VIDEO CODING HANDBOOK
Format W H Bit-depth
HD 444 1920 1080 14
HD 444 10-bit 1920 1080 10
HD 422 10-bit 1920 1080 10
HD 422 8-bit 1920 1080 8 33,177,600
HD 420 8-bit 1920 1080 8 24,883,20
RAW HD 1920 1080
Table 1
more cost-effective to use a single sensor
with a color filter array (CFA) for large
sensor designs. However, it is accepted
that the resolution of a single sensor
with a Bayer CFA, with a good demo-
saicing algorithm, is around 30 percent
lower than a 3-chip imager of the same
pixel dimensions.
For an HD camera , a single chip
camera needs a resolution of around
2300 x 1300 to equal a 3-chip 1920 x
1080 imager. It should be noted that
many single chip cameras have sensors
exceeding this size, so should achieve
good resolution in HD.
The single chip camera
can ease the issues of mov-
ing data to the post house.
If the raw data from the
chip is recorded, rather
than the demosaiced RGB
or YUV signals, then there
can be considerable saving
in data. Table 1 shows some
numbers for a 14-bit sensor
shooting 60P. A three sen-
sor design outputs 5.2Gb/s
against only 1.74 Gb/s from
a RAW sensor. Note the
RAW signal is a lower bit The ARRI Alexa can encode to DNxHD and ProRes with
options installed.
rate than a sub-sampled
4:2:2 8-bit signal.
In most cameras, the sub-sampled
YUV signal is truncated to 10 or 8 bits
then encoded using one of the MPEG
standards at 1080i 25/29.96 or 720P
50/59.94. I-frame or long GOP. For ex-
ample AVC-I at 100Mb/s and XDCAM
at 50Mb/s. Such data rates are similar to
existing SD rates, so easily handled by
networks and storage. Converting from
linear to log sampling helps, saving two
bits for a given dynamic range, with 12-
bit log considered equivalent to 10-bit
2
Bits per frame Mb/s @ 60fps
87,091,200 5,225
62,208,000 3,732
41,472,000 2,488
1,990
1,492
29,030,400 1,741
linear. Many digital cinema shoot use
log coding.
The goal of one codec
But what of the target of using one
codec all the way through to master
control?
To improve the performance of their
NLEs, Apple and Avid developed edit-
specific codecs: ProRes and DNxHD.
For good performance the NLE requires
the minimum rendering to display clips
on the timeline. The editor’s work will be
slowed for a codec that requires consid-
erable rendering. Moore’s Law will fix
the rendering issues over time, but 4K
waits in the wings with four times the
data rate. Edit workstations always seem
to be short on power!
Adding the edit codec immediately
introduced two transcodes on the input
and output of post.
One route popular with camera man-
ufacturers is to include onboard record-
ing in a compressed, 8-bit. format, and
supply an uncompressed output for one
of the many after-market recorders.
BroadcastEngineering
Some of these recorders now support
encoding direct to DNxHD and ProRes,
neatly circumventing the need for cod-
ing or transcoding during ingest to
the NLE.
Different Needs
Most camera codecs use one of the
ISO/IEC MPEG family: MPEG-2,
MPEG-4 part 2 or AVC. Some DSLRs
record motion JPEG to ease the inter-
nal processing requirements. To meet
the conflicting requirements of produc-
tions for different genres, camera man-
ufacturers are offering more choices.
These include:
• RAW output
• uncompressed, RGB or YUV, log and
linear, 12, 10 or 8 bits
• compressed
The next step is the introduction of
high-efficiency video coding (HEVC).
Most likely this will first appear as a
delivery codec, to stream 4K to home
viewers and lower resolutions to
mobile devices.
Looking at all this, it looks like a
multi-codec camera is going
to add choices to support dif-
ferent workflows. One camera
can create large files for grad-
ing, or small files for a straight-
though edit. One camera can
be used for different produc-
tion genres. If a camera has
an uncompressed output,
HD-SDI or HDMI, then after-
market field recorders achieve
much the same aim.
Although one codec from
acquisition to the air server
suitable works for news and docu-
mentaries, but for other genres
that require a higher picture
quality, then transcoding becomes
a necessity.
A director has all the choices avail-
able, but choosing the right one needs
a joint decision from the DoP, digital
intermediate technician, colorist and
editor to achieve the optimum picture
quality within the many constraints of
production, not least being cost. BE
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THE VIDEO CODING HANDBOOK BroadcastEngineering

Codec evolution:
Panasonic’s AVC-Ultra is the
latest iteration of AVC. BY STEVE MULLEN

T
here is no doubt that we are in
the midst of a rapid evolution
of codec design. Traditional
codecs, some might call them
legacy codecs, are gaining evolutionary
improvements. These codecs include
HDCAM, AVC-Intra 50 and 100 as well
as AVCHD 1.0. This article will, after a
brief overview of AVC-Intra and ProRes
422 as well as the new sensors that drive
codec evolution, focus on AVC-Ultra.
There are five flavors of ProRes 422 in
comparison to uncompressed video.
(See Table 1.)
Although ProRes 422 codecs are 10-
bit codecs, they may carry 12-bit data
values. However, they vary in terms
of color space and compression ratios.
ProRes 4444, however, has additional
functionality. The first three 4’s indicate
that the codec is capable of carrying ei-
ther RGB values or luminance plus two
chroma components, with all three val-
ues present for each pixel. The fourth 4
3000
4:4:4 formats
2237
2250
Mb/s
indicates that an alpha value can be car-
ried along with each pixel. When camer-
as record ProRes 4444, the fourth value
is not present, making the data stream
simply 4:4:4.
The advantage of the ProRes proxy
codec is best experienced in Final Cut
X. When you import any type of data,
you have the option of automatically, in
the background, creating a ProRes 422
or proxy version of the original file. You
then edit the 4:2:2 10-/12-bit proxy video,
which allows real-time editing of most
any format on almost any Mac. During
4:2:2 formats
export, the original file is used as a source
of all image data.
AVCHD has evolved to version 2,
which has two new features: the abil-
ity to record at frame rates of 50fps or
60fps, and to record at 28Mb/s at these
higher frame rates. To date, the AVCHD
specification has not been enhanced to
support Quad HD or 4K2K images. For
this reason, cameras, such as the JVC
HMQ10, record Quad HD in generic
AVC/H.264. Using Level 5.1 or Level
5.2, 24fps or 60fps respectively can
be recorded.
Panasonic’s AVC-Intra is avail-
able in two formats: a 50Mb/s codec
and a 100Mb/s codec. AVC-Intra re-
cords a complete range of frame rates.
At 1920 x 1080: 23.98p, 25p, 29.97p,
50i and 59.94i. At 1280 x 720: 23.98p,
25p, 29.97p, 50p and 59.94p. The
characteristics of each of these two fla-

1500 1326
vors differ. (See Table 2.)
750
330 Codec parameters
220 147 102 45 All codecs have a similar set of param-
0
Uncompressed ProRes Uncompressed ProRes ProRes ProRes ProRes
eters. These include image resolution,
12-bit 4:4:4 4444 10-bit 4:2:2 422 (HQ) 422 422 (LT) 422 (Proxy) image composition (single frame versus
[no alpha]
two fields), de-Bayered versus raw (pro-
Data rates
Uncompressed and Apple ProRes at 1920 x 1080, 29.97fps gressive-only), image frame rate or field
rate, color sampling (4:4:4, 4:2:2, 4:1:1 or
4:2:0), RGB versus YCrCb, compression
Table 1: ProRes 422 formats ratio, and bit depth.

3 broadcastengineering.com
THE VIDEO CODING HANDBOOK
AVC-Intra 50
Nominally 50Mb/s, size of each
frame is fixed
CABAC entropy coding only
1920 x 1080 formats are High-10
Intra Profile, Level 4
1280 x 720 formats are High-10 Intra
Profile, Level 3.2
4:2:0 chrominance sampling
60Hz video: frames are horizontally
downscaled scaled by ¾: (1920 x
1080 is scaled to 1440 x 1080, while
1280 x 720 is scaled to 960 x 720).
50Hz video is not downscaled.
10-bit luma and chroma
AVC-Intra 100
Nominally 100Mb/s, size of each
frame is fixed
CAVLC entropy coding only
1920 x 1080 formats are High 4:2:2
Intra Profile, Level 4.1
1280 x 720 formats are High 4:2:2
Intra Profile, Level 4.1
4:2:2 chrominance sampling
Frames are not downscaled
10-bit luma and chroma
Table 2: AVC-Intra formats
Vmax
6
8 smoothness of the camera’s gray scale
4
7 increases. (See Figure 1.) (Banding is
5 2
6
3
4 5
3
4 sor’s dynamic range — thereby realiz-
2 ing the sensor’s potential.
3
2 1
2 provide 12-bit sample depth. Alternately,
1
1 1
Vmin
1-bit 2-bit 3-bit
Figure 1. Grayscale smoothness as a
function of bit depth
4
Traditional codecs employ bit depths
of either 8 or 10 bits. The number of bits
used for recording is independent of the
number of bits output by the sensor’s an-
alog-to-digital converter.
Nevertheless, a camera’s dynamic
range is a function of sensor perfor-
mance (low noise is critical), number
of A/D bits and the number of codec
recording bits. Each stop requires a
doubling of sensor output voltage, and
each bit represents a doubling of voltage.
Therefore, a 12-bit A/D has the potential
to capture a 12-stop dynamic range.
1 2
1 2 3 4 5 6
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Figure 2. Legacy video sensor and processing
Y Z
1 2 3 4 5 6
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Figure 3. Contemporary cinema sensor and processing
As a camera’s bit depth increases, the
reduced.) Therefore, the A/D and post
A/D processing traditionally has more
bits than necessary to capture the sen-
Both ProRes 4444 and AVC-Ultra can
data can be converted to log values. In this
case, 16 bits can be represented by only 10
bits. Thus, when looking at bit depth spec-
ifications, it’s important to know whether
it’s log data.
BroadcastEngineering
Consider an illumination range of 18
stops. Assuming older sensor technol-
ogy, at best only 12 stops can be cap-
tured by the sensor. However, these 12
stops are not all usable. Low illumina-
tion causes several stops to be lost be-
cause of high levels of noise. Likewise,
at high illumination, several stops are
lost due to clipping under extreme light
levels. The effective dynamic range is
only about six stops. (See Figure 2.)
In Figure 2, the brown diagonal line
shows a perfectly linear gamma. In order
for a video signal to be displayed cor-
V max
X
V min
Usable sensor range
3 4 5 6
7 8 9 10 11 12 Sensor range
9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 Illumination range
V max
V min
7 8 9 10 11 12 Usable sensor range
9 10 11 12 13 14 15 Sensor range
9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 Illumination range
rectly on a monitor, a nonlinear gamma
must be applied to the signal from the
A/D. In the HD world, it’s called Rec. 709.
(Red curve.) This curve provides the
video image that we are used to look-
ing at. When video will be transferred
to film, a lower contrast video image is
required. (Blue curve.) The “X” marks
the point where the filmic curve yields
a brighter mid-tone image that reduces
apparent contrast.
Consider a contemporary sensor.
(See Figure 3.) The illumination range
remains the same at 18 stops. The
potential sensor range, however, has
broadcastengineering.com
THE VIDEO CODING HANDBOOK
increased to 15 stops. Because of im-
proved technology, fewer stops are lost
to noise and bright light clipping. Thus,
the sensor is able to capture a usable 12-
stop dynamic range.
Once again, the brown diagonal
shows a linear gamma curve, and the
red curve shows Rec. 709 gamma. To
record a 12-stop signal, a 12-bit codec
Class 4:4:4 Class 200
200Mb/s 226Mb/s
Bit rate to @ to
400Mb/s 1080/23.98p
720p
720p
1080p
Frame size 1080p
2K
1080i
4K
10- to 12-bit 10-bit pixel
Bit depth pixel depth at depth at
4:4:4 4:2:2
Codec Intra Intra
Table 3: AVC-Ultra formats
can be employed. Alternately, some
cinema cameras utilize a logarithmic
gamma (green curve) that is applied to
sensor data. At point “Y,” the logarith-
mic curve yields a brighter picture that
reduces apparent contrast. Likewise, at
point “Z,” the logarithmic curve yields
a darker picture that also reduces ap-
parent contrast.
This explains why a logarithmic
image looks so much “flatter” than a
Rec. 709 image. After log conversion,
only 10 bits are required to carry the
12-stop signal range.
AVC-Ultra
Today’s sophisticated sensors de-
mand a recording system that is capable
of carrying a much higher-level quality
image. For this reason, Panasonic has
announced AVC-Ultra. AVC-Ultra is
backward compatible with AVC-Intra.
That means that an AVC-Ultra decoder
can decompress all of Panasonic’s P2
codecs. AVC-Ultra offers several qual-
ity levels. (See Table 3.)
The Panasonic AVC-Ultra family de-
fines three new encoding parameters
5
BroadcastEngineering
from the MPEG-4 Part 10 standard.
Unlike the Intra codecs, Ultra co-
decs can utilize the AVC/H.264 4:4:4
Predictive Profile.
AVC-Intra Class 50 and 100 are ex-
tended to Class 200 and Class 4:4:4. The
Class 200 mode extends the bit rate to
226Mb/s for 1080/23.97p, while Class
4:4:4 extends the possible resolution
AVC-LongG AVC-Proxy
800kb/s
As low as
25Mb/s
3.5Mb/s
720p
720p
1080p
1080p
1080i
10-bit pixel 8-bit pixel depth
depth at 4:2:2 at 4:2:0
Inter Inter
from 720p to 4K with value depths of
10 and 12 bits. It’s possible Class 4:4:4
at 10 or 12 bits with a 4K frame size
will be employed in the 4K camera
Panasonic showcased at NAB2012.
The Class 4:4:4 bit rate varies between
200Mb/s and 440Mb/s depending on
resolution, frame rate and bit depth.
There is also a new 8-bit AVC-Proxy
mode that enables offline edits of 720p
and 1080p video at bit rates varying be-
tween 800kb/s and 3.5Mb/s.
Both the Class 200 and the Class
4:4:4 are intra-frame codecs. Although
Panasonic has always promoted intra-
frame encoding, its new AVC-LongG is
an inter-frame codec. AVC-LongG en-
ables compression of video resolutions
up to 1920 x 1080 at 23.97p, 25p and
29.97p. Amazingly, 4:2:2 color sampling
with 10-bit pixel depth can be recorded
at data rates as low as 25Mb/s. BE
Steve Mullen is the owner of DVC. He can
be reached via his website at http://home.
mindspring.com/~d-v-c.
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THE VIDEO CODING HANDBOOK BroadcastEngineering

ACV-I: There are benefits to

using an intra-based codec
for broadcast contribution. BY PIERRE LARBIER

B
roadcast contribution appli-
cations like newsgathering,
event broadcasting or content
exchange currently benefit
from the large availability of high-speed
networks. These high-bandwidth links
open the way to a higher video qual-
ity and distinctive operational require-
ments such as lower end-to-end delays
or the ability to store the content for fur-
ther edition.
Because a lighter video compres-
sion is needed, the complexity of
common long-GOP codecs can be
avoided, and simpler methods like
intra-only compression can be consid-
ered. These techniques compress pic- Engineers have a variety of video coding tools available. Choosing a “best fit” involves
tures independently, which is highly making choices between multiple performance factors.
desirable when low latency and error
robustness are of major importance. redundancies, predicted pixels are Another problem inherent to long-
Several intra-only codecs, like JPEG found in already decoded adjacent pic- GOP compression relates to video qual-
2000 or MPEG-2 Intra, are today avail- tures, while spatial prediction is built ity that varies significantly from picture
able, but they might not meet all broad- with pixels found in the same picture. to picture. For example, Figure 1 depicts
casters’ needs. Long-GOP compression makes use of the PSNR along the sequence ParkJoy
AVC-I, which is simply an intra-only both methods, and intra-only compres- when encoding it in long-GOP and in
version of H.264/AVC compression, of- sion is restricted to spatial prediction. intra-only. While the quality of the long-
fers a significant bit-rate reduction over Long-GOP approaches are more ef- GOP pictures is always higher than the
MPEG-2 Intra, while keeping the same ficient than intra-only compression, but one of their intra-only counterparts, it
advantages in terms of interoperability. they have also distinctive disadvantages: varies considerably. On the other hand,
AVC-I was standardized in 2005, but • Handling picture dependencies may the quality of consecutive intra-only
broadcast contribution products sup- be complex when seeking in a file. coded pictures is much more stable.
porting it were not launched until 2011. This makes editing a long-GOP file a Therefore, intra-only compression
Therefore, it may be seen as a brand new complex task. might be a better choice than long-GOP
technology, and studies have to be per- • Any decoding error might spread from when:
formed to evaluate if they match current- a picture to the following ones and span • Enough bandwidth is available on the
ly available technologies in operational a full GOP. This means that a single network;
use cases. transmission error can affect decod- • Low end-to-end latency is a decisive
ing for several hundred milliseconds of requirement;
Why intra compression? video and, therefore, be very noticeable. • Streams have to be edited; and
Video compression uses spatial and • Encoding and decoding delay might be • The application is sensitive to trans-
temporal redundancies to reduce the bit increased using long-GOP techniques mission errors.
rate needed to transmit or store video compared to intra-only because of com- Several intra-only codecs are cur-
content. When exploiting temporal pression tools complexity. rently available to broadcasters to

6 broadcastengineering.com
THE VIDEO CODING HANDBOOK BroadcastEngineering

ISO/ITU introduced a precise definition

in the form of profiles (compression
toolsets) in the H.264/AVC standard.

H.264/AVC intra profiles

Provision to using only I-frame cod-
ing was introduced in the second edi-
tion of the H.264/AVC standard with
the inclusion of four specific profiles:
High10 Intra profile, High 4:2:2 Intra
profile, High 4:4:4 Intra profile and
CAVLC 4:4:4 Intra profile. They can be
described as simple sets of constraints
over profiles dedicated to professional
applications. Table 1 gives an overview
of the main limitations introduced by
Figure 1. This figure shows long-GOP versus intra-only compression. these profiles.
Because the intra profiles are defined
serve the needs of contribution On the other hand, more recent formats as reduced toolsets of commonly used
applications: like JPEG 2000 are more efficient but are H.264/AVC profiles, they don’t intro-
• MPEG-2 Intra — This version of not interoperable. Consequently, there duce new features, technologies or even
MPEG-2 compression is restricted to is a need for a codec that could be at the stream syntax. Therefore, AVC-I video
the use I-frames, removing P-frames and same time efficient and also ensure in- streams can be used within systems that
B-frames. teroperability between equipment from already support standard H.264/AVC
• JPEG 2000 — This codec is a signifi- various vendors. video streams. This enables the usage of
cantly more efficient successor to JPEG file containers like MPEG files or MXF,
that was standardized in 2000. What is AVC-I? MPEG‑2 TS or RTP, audio codecs like
• VC-2 — Also known as Dirac-Pro, AVC-I designates a fully compliant MPEG Audio or Dolby Digital, and
this codec has been designed by BBC variant of the H.264/AVC video codec many metadatastandards.
Research and was standardized by restricted to the intra toolset. In other
SMPTE in 2009. Like JPEG 2000, it uses words, it is just plain H.264/AVC using AVC-I video quality
wavelet compression. only I-frames. But, some form of uni- Many academic papers have compared
Older codecs like MPEG-2 Intra ben- formity is needed in order to ensure the coding efficiency of H.264/AVC in in-
efit from a large base of interoperable interoperability between equipment tra-only mode versus other intra codecs.
equipments but lack coding efficiency. provided by various vendors. Therefore, But, those performance comparisons are
carried out using objective metrics like
PSNR or SSIM. (Structural SIMilarity,
H.264/AVC Summary of the restrictions to the when referred to as SSIM Index, is based
Based on:
Intra profiles base profile on measuring three components — lu-
minance similarity, contrast similarity
All pictures are IDR* and structural similarity — and com-
High 4:2:2 profile (no P or B pictures) bining them into a result value.) It is
High10 Intra (targets mainly Limited to 4:2:0 chroma format important to realize that PSNR or SSIM
Contribution appli- (no 4:2:2 chroma format) may not reflect actual visual perception.
cations with up to Consequently, studies published to date
4:2:2 10-bit pixels) All pictures are IDR
High 4:2:2 Intra do not necessarily reflect the visual expe-
(no P or B pictures)
rience of a given codec in the context of
High 4:4:4 Predic- All pictures are IDR broadcast contribution.
High 4:4:4 Intra
tive profile (no P or B pictures) For this reason, we have performed
(targets mainly a visual evaluation of various intra co-
Archiving applica- All pictures are IDR decs intended for broadcast contribu-
CAVLC 4:4:4
tions with up to (no P or B pictures) tion applications. The tests involved a
Intra
4:4:4 14-bit pixels) Only CAVLC entropy coding range of products that could encode and
decode AVC-I and MPEG-2 Intra up to
Table 1. This shows the different H.264/AVC Intra profiles. (IDR = Instantaneous Decoder 150Mb/s, across multiple vendors, and
Refresh, CAVLC = Context Adaptive Variable Length Coding) reference software. This investigation

7 broadcastengineering.com
THE VIDEO CODING HANDBOOK BroadcastEngineering

was done by expert viewers on a large
set of test sequences representative of
high-definition broadcast contribution
content, mostly interlaced.
The outcome of this evaluation is that
two codecs are most suitable for high
bit-rate intra uses — AVC-I and JPEG
2000. The detail level appears to be
about the same with both codecs on bit
The outcome of the investigation is that
two codecs are most suitable for high bit-
rate Intra uses — AVC-I and JPEG 2000.
rates ranging from 50Mb/s to 150Mb/s.
This confirms that the coding efficien-
cy of AVC-I and JPEG 2000 is close.
However, coding artifacts are different.
AVC-I and JPEG-2000
artifacts
Below 100Mb/s, a problematic defect
was observed similarly on both codecs:
Pictures can exhibit an annoying flicker.
This issue is caused by a temporal in-
stability in the coding decisions, ampli-
fied by noise. It seems to appear below
85Mb/s with JPEG 2000 and below
75Mb/s with AVC-I. And, it worsens
as the bit rate decreases. At 50Mb/s and
below, the flicker is extremely problem-
atic, and it was felt that the video quality
was too low for high-quality broadcast
contribution applications, even when
the source is downscaled to 1440 x 1080
or 960 x 720.
Around 100Mb/s, both codecs per-
form well, even on challenging content.
Pictures are flicker-free, and coding
artifacts are difficult to notice. However,
noise or film-grain looks low-pass fil-
tered, and its structure sometimes seems
slightly modified. Even so, it wasn’t felt
this was an important issue.
All those defects are less visible as the
bit rate is increased. But, while AVC-I
picture quality raises uniformly, some
JPEG 2000 products may still exhibit
blurriness artifacts, even at 180Mb/s.
Using available JPEG 2000 contribution
pairs, a bit rate at which compression is
visually lossless on all high-definition
broadcast content was not found. On
the other hand, some encoders appeared
visually lossless at 150Mb/s, even when
encoding grainy content like movies.
Bit rates in contribution
The subjective analysis of an actu-
al AVC-I implementation on various
broadcast contribution content allows
us to categorize its usage according to
the available transmission bandwidth.
On page 48, Table 2 presents findings
on 1080i25 and 720p50 high-definition
formats.
Because AVC-I does not make use
of temporal redundancies, 30Hz con-
tent (1080i30 or 720p60) is more dif-
ficult to encode than 25Hz material.
Additionally, to achieve the same per-
ceived video quality level, bit rates have
to be raised by 20 percent.
Conclusion
The availability of high speed net-
works for contribution applications
enables broadcasters to use intra-only
video compression codecs instead of
the more traditional long-GOP for-
mats. This allows them to benefit from
distinctive advantages like: low encod-
ing and decoding delays; more constant
video quality; easy edit ability when the
content is stored; and lower sensitivity
to transmission errors. However, cur-
rently available intra-only video codecs
require one to choose between interop-
erability and coding efficiency.
AVC-I, being just the restriction
of standard H.264/AVC to intra-only
coding, avoids making difficult com-
promises. It is more efficient than other
available intra-only codecs, but, more
importantly, it benefits from the strong
standardization efforts that permitted
H.264/AVC to replace MPEG-2 in many
broadcastapplications.
Finally, a subjective study across a
range of products from multiple ven-
dors identified specific coding artifacts
that may occur and confirmed the visu-
al superiority of AVC-I versus MPEG-2
and JPEG 2000, whenmeasured at high
bit rates. BE
Pierre Larbier is CTO for ATEME.

Bit rate in AVC-I Remarks

Video quality is too low for high-quality
≤ 50Mb/s
broadcast contribution applications
Acceptable on low-noise sources but poor
50Mb/s - 75Mb/s
on most sequences
75Mb/s - 90Mb/s Acceptable
90Mb/s - 110Mb/s Good
110Mb/s - 150Mb/s Excellent
≥ 150Mb/s Visually lossless
Table 2. This shows AVC-I bit rate versus quality for 1080i25 to 720p50 content.

8 broadcastengineering.com
THE VIDEO CODING HANDBOOK BroadcastEngineering

JPEG 2000, from master

to archive: The codec provides
useful features for broadcasters.
BY JEAN-BAPTISTE LORENT AND FRANÇOIS MACÉ

T
oday’s broadcasters are look-
ing for the highest image
quality, flexible delivery for-
mats, interoperability and
standardized profiles for interactive
video transport and workflows. They
also have a vested interest in a common
high-end format to archive, preserve
and monetize the avalanche of video
footage generated globally.
This is the story behind the rapid adop-
tion of JPEG 2000 compression in the con-
tribution chain. Standardized broadcast
profiles were adopted in 2010 to match
current industry needs (JPEG 2000 Part
1 Amendment 3 — Profiles for Broadcast
Application — ISO/IEC 15444-1:2004/
Amd3), ensuring this wavelet-based co-
dec’s benchmark position in contribution. When JPEG2000 is used as an intraframe video codec, each frame is treated a single
In parallel, these broadcast profiles unit, making it well suited for production applications.
have also filled the industrywide need
for compression standards to archive compression efficiency, but to give also lossless compression, progressive and
and create mezzanine formats, allowing the user better control and flexibility parsable code streams, error resilience,
transcoding to a variety of media dis- throughout the image processing chain. region of interest (ROI), random access
tribution channels. The ongoing stan- The codec provides unique features that and other features in one integrated al-
dardization process of the Interoperable are not available in any other compres- gorithm. (See Figure 1 on page 10.)
Master Format (IMF) by SMPTE based sion method. In video applications, JPEG 2000 is
on JPEG 2000 profiles brings the adop- used as an intraframe codec, so it close-
tion full-circle. JPEG 2000 under ly matches the production workflow in
The U.S. Library of Congress, the the spotlight which each frame of a video is treated as
French Institut National de l’Audiovisuel JPEG 2000 is based on the discrete a single unit. In Hollywood, its ability to
(INA) and several Hollywood studios wavelet transform (DWT) and uses compress frame by frame has made this
have selected the codec for the long- scalar quantization, context modeling, technology popular for digital interme-
term preservation of a century of audio- arithmetic coding and post-compres- diate coding. If the purpose of compres-
visual contents. sion rate allocation. JPEG 2000 provides sion is the distribution of essence and no
JPEG 2000 is different from other random access (i.e. involving a minimal further editing is expected, long-GOP
video codecs. MPEG and other DCT- decoding) to the block level in each sub- MPEG is typically preferred.
based codecs have been designed to band, thus making it possible to decode
optimize the compression efficiency a region, a low-resolution or a low-qual- Broadcast processes
to deliver video to viewers via a pipe ity image version of the image without JPEG 2000 brings valuable features to
with limited bandwidth. JPEG 2000, having to decode it as a whole. the broadcast process, including ingest,
with its wavelet transform algorithm, JPEG 2000 is a true improvement transcoding, captioning, quality control
brings features not only for image in functionality, providing lossy and or audio track management. Its inherent

9 broadcastengineering.com
THE VIDEO CODING HANDBOOK
4K
Lower quality versions
(Auto-bandwidth adaptation)
Pure lossless
HD
Spatial zone
extractions
(Auto-cropping,
4K lossless pan and scan)
JPEG 2000
codestream
Lower resolution versions
(Auto-proxy, auto-scaler)
Figure 1. Many resolutions and different picture quality files can be derived from a
single JPEG 2000 master.
properties fully qualify a codec for creat-
ing high-quality intermediate masters.
Post-production workflows consist
of several encoding/decoding cycles.
JPEG 2000 preserves the highest quality
throughout this process, and no block-
ing artifacts are created. Moreover, the
technology supports all common bit
depths whether 8, 10, 12 bits or higher.
JPEG 2000 enables images to be com-
pressed in lossy and visually or math-
ematically lossless modes for various
applications. (See Figure 2.) Additionally,
its scalability allows a “create once, use
many times” approach to service a wide
range of user platforms.
The technology also enables im-
proved editing: Even at the highest bit
rates, its intrinsic flexibility makes it
user-friendly on laptop and worksta-
tion editing systems, with a limited
number of full bit rate real-time video
tracks. Improving computing hardware
is certain to increase the number of
real-time layers.
Since JPEG 2000 is an intraframe
codec, this prevents error propagation
over multiple frames and allows the
video signal to be cut at any point for
editing or other purposes.
Easy transcoding appeals to high-end
applications where workflows vastly
benefit from transcoding to an inter-
mediate version. JPEG 2000 ensures
a clean and quick operation when bit
rate is at a premium. Professional view-
ers have labeled correctly transcoded
1080p JPEG 2000 files compressed at
10
4K 4K
Visually lossless Lossy
HD SD
4K HD SD
100Mb/s as “visually identical” to the
original 2K footage. Furthermore, the
wavelet-based JPEG 2000 compression
does not interfere with the final — usu-
ally DCT-based — broadcast formats.
Last but not least, several standards
specify in detail how the JPEG 2000
video stream should be encapsulated in
a number of widely adopted containers
such as MXF or MPEG-2 TS.
Professional wireless
video transmission
Wireless transmission is often chal-
lenged to improve its robustness in
broadcast. Uncompressed HD wire-
less transmission is often seen as com-
plex, for even if a 1080p60 transmission
Figure 2. Support for lossless or lossy compression gives the broadcaster
more options.
(3Gb/s) were possible wirelessly, it
would be quite difficult to add the nec-
essary FEC and encryption to the data
stream. Of all the compression algo-
rithms available in the market, JPEG
2000 is seen as one of the top contend-
ers for the following reasons.
JPEG 2000 is inherently more
error resilient than MPEG codecs.
The codestream can be configured so
the most important data (the lowest
BroadcastEngineering
frequency data contains the most visu-
ally significant information) is located
in the front, while successively higher
frequency, less important data can be
placed in the back. Using appropriate
FEC techniques, the lower frequency
data can be protected while less pro-
tection can be applied to the higher
frequency data, as errors in the higher
frequency bands have much less effect
on the displayed image quality.
Also, similar to the contribution, the
low latency of JPEG 2000 is something
that would be practically impossible for
wireless systems using an MPEG system
based on long GOP coding.
Long-term preservation
The broadcasters and video archi-
vists are looking for long-term digital
preservation on disk. In most cases, the
source material is not digital, but film
that needs to be scanned or high-quality
analog videotape. As such, a destination
digital format must then be selected.
Key requirements often include re-
ducing the storage costs of uncom-
pressed video while still maintaining
indefinite protection from loss or
damage. Moreover, the format should
preferably enable digitized content to
be exploited, which means providing
flexibility — workflows again — and se-
curity. For these reasons, several stud-
ies and user reports claim JPEG 2000 to
be the codec for audio-visual archiving.
Several reasons make JPEG 2000
a codec of choice for audio-visual
archiving:
• The JPEG 2000 standard can be used
with two different wavelet filters: the
9/7 wavelet filter that is irreversible
and the 5/3 wavelet filter that is fully
reversible. The 5/3 wavelet filter offers a
pure mathematically lossless compres-
sion that enables a reduction in storage
requirement of 50 percent on average
broadcastengineering.com
THE VIDEO CODING HANDBOOK BroadcastEngineering

while still allowing the exact original

image information to be recovered. The
9/7 wavelet filter can encode in lossy or
visually lossless modes.
• The scalability allowing proxy extrac-
tion, multiple quality layers, is of huge
interest to ease client browsing and re-
trieval or transcoding and streaming.
• JPEG 2000 is an open standard that
supports every resolution, color depth,
number of components and frame rate.
• JPEG 2000 is license- and royalty-free.

The future
Several initiatives are pushing the
industry beyond today’s HD: NHK
Super Hi-Vision, also called 8K and
UHDTV, the Higher Frame Rates in
Cinema initiative by James Cameron
and Peter Jackson (up to 120fps),
16-bit color depth, and the numerous
manufacturers that are now offering
4K technology.
The need for efficient codecs has
gained significant attraction amongst
the industry. The future of JPEG 2000
is bright as it is an open standard that
requires less power, consumes less
space in hardware implementations
and generally delivers greater scalabil-
ity, flexibility and visual quality than
other codecs. An increasing number of
manufacturers, broadcasters and pro-
ducers are using JPEG 2000 implemen-
tations to adapt today’s industry to these
new challenges.  BE
Jean-Baptiste Lorent and François Macé are
product managers at intoPIX.

11 broadcastengineering.com
THE VIDEO CODING HANDBOOK
Will cameras use HEVC coding?
T
he line of compression
schemes is stretching out.
Very soon, we could potential-
ly have MPEG-2 through to
HEVC in use in a single program chain.
All this complicates workflows and
calls for careful planning to avoid un-
necessary transcoding.
Do we need all these compression
standards? Well, yes. As picture reso-
lutions increase, the demand for high-
er efficiency compression will only
increase in step. MPEG-2 started out
for standard definition applications but
has been stretched for HD acquisition
and delivery.
MPEG-4 was going to be the answer
to everything, from small phones up to
movie screens. That has only worked by
adding a new Part for a new compres-
sion scheme. Video started out as Part 2
- Visual Objects. That didn’t prove much
more efficient that MPEG-2, so AVC
was born — MPEG-4 Part 10. However,
the demands for mobile video and the
advent of 4K has led to the need for an
even more efficient codec than AVC,
and that has come to fruition as HEVC
or H.265.
Where does that leave camera design-
ers? One benchmark in the specification
is record time. In the days of tape, shoot-
ers came to expect three or four hours
of record time for a tape; that’s proba-
bly one day’s work. Wind forward a few
years, and writing camera files to mem-
ory cards gives a record time somewhere
between 30 minutes and two hours, all
depends on how much compression you
use. Some cameras have multiple card
slots to give longer record times.
That’s going to mean a handful of
cards to manage and offload to backed
disk storage each day. I can hear the film
guys thinking “a luxury — we had ten-
minute reels. We had to stop, change
reels and check the gate before you were
off again.”
After a period where record times
were restricted, the availability of
12
BY DAVID AUSTERBERRY
The codec you use will be dictated by the camera you choose, so interoperability will
remain an issue.
solid–state memory cards, with 128GB
and larger capacity, has eased those
restrictions.
Camera vendors will design whatever
gets the best pictures to sell their camer-
as. But, that has led to all manner of cod-
ing schemes and compression formats
— and there is the matter of contain-
ers or wrappers. The rise of the single
sensor has added a further choice, raw
or coded.
Camera designers have to adopt a
codec format that meets a number of,
sometimes conflicting, requirements.
First, it must meet the quality expecta-
tions for the camera, for its price and
format. Second, it must not be power
hungry. Third, the data rate must be
as low as possible to ease demands on
the camera storage cards. And fourth,
sometimes a little overlooked, it must be
compatible with popular NLEs.
The low data rate demands indi-
cate an efficient codec design, but the
more recent the compression format,
the more processing power is needed,
immediately conflicting with the low
power requirement. Hence the popular-
ity of MPEG-2 long after AVC was re-
leased. This is where the big engineering
BroadcastEngineering
compromise comes in. If the camera
has an adequate internal compression
format, then uncompressed or raw
data can be made available via SDI or
HDMI connectors for users who want
more of the sensor information. The ex-
ternal recorder has become a common
sight, especially with single large sensor
cameras. Many external recorders also
allow encoding into an edit format like
DNxHD or ProRes, speeding the ingest
process in post.
For the broadcaster, all this choice
gives flexibility at the production stage,
but does not lead to standardization
in the workflow. The edit bay must
deal with this plethora of formats, a
far step from the days of two primary
tape formats, the Betacam family and
the DV family. Even a format like AVC
I-frame encoding comes in two flavors:
Panasonic’s AVC-Intra (and Ultra) plus
Sony’s XAVC. The former is high 422
profile, level 4.1 and the latter is level
5.2. So much for interoperability.
The drive to support 4K is one rea-
son Sony has adopted 5.2, as lower levels
only support up to 2K resolution, and
Panasonic have introduced AVC-Ultra
to support higher data rates.
broadcastengineering.com
THE VIDEO CODING HANDBOOK BroadcastEngineering

Editing the AVC formats does require

a recent NLE workstation, as it requires
considerable processing resources.
Many editors prefer to work with
DNxHD or ProRes, transcoding every-
thing at ingest and this can ease the de-
mands on the power of the workstation.
Many productions are using GoPro
cameras for point-of-view shots, they
are not edit-friendly and require a trans-
code before ingest. For example, the
Hero 3 uses AVC level 5.1 long GOP to
get small files in in the camera. It also
uses an MPEG wrapper, so may require
rewrapping to MXF or QT at the trans-
code stage. It’s just another process that
forms part of post-production.
Will there ever be a single codec for
cameras? I think not. The requirements
of each programming genre are so dif-
ferent. Compare newsgathering with a
high-end VFX shoot. One needs small
files for backhaul, the other needs as
much of the original sensor information
as possible. And, what of HEVC? So far
it’s going to see application as a distribu-
tion codec. The processing resources for
encoding do not make it practical for
current camera electronic, but maybe
one day if we get to 4K 3-D newsgath-
ering, who knows? BE

13 broadcastengineering.com
THE VIDEO CODING HANDBOOK BroadcastEngineering

MPEG HEVC compression

not ready for primetime BY MICHAEL GROTTICELLI

A
t the 2013 NAB Show, the
proliferation of next-gen-
eration MPEG compression
technology, namely HEVC-
compatible (aka, H.265) software and
hardware encoders and decoders, gave
the impression that the technology nec-
essary to move and then display large
data files containing the highest qual-
ity HD (1080p/60) and 4K (3840 x 2160
pixels for delivery or 4096 x 2160 pixels
for production) content was ready to be
deployed. This would clearly improve
the value of bandwidth-constrained
networks. However, a lack of an indus-
try standard, the need for significantly
more processing power to accurately
compress such files and the ongoing As image resolution and video screen size continue to increase and viewers increasingly
move towards the current state-of-the- demand their content on a multiple devices, engineers will need to use a variety of
art (and standardized in January) AVC video coding tools to serve each device or channel.
(H.264) technology to distribute full example, which makes them easier to image quality results. In all cases the
HD 1080p files would seem to make distribute and saves operators in content H.265 decode looked visibly better,
High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) storage costs. even at bit rates as low as 5Mb/s (at the
a far off reality. At the NAB Show, companies such Fraunhofer exhibit booth). Each seem-
This is not to say that it won’t hap- as Elemental Technologies, Ericsson, ingly challenged the other to a compres-
pen, but don’t hold your breath, as most Fraunhofer Institute, Harmonic, sion/image quality contest comparison.
people we spoke to at the show say it’s Media Excel, Motorola, Rovi Corp. and Elemental — which showed the abili-
at least five years off. The benefits to Vanguard Video showed hardware and ty to encode 1080p/60 content to HEVC
multiplatform delivery associated with software solutions (in prototype form) in real time — went so far as to issue
the new HEVC is said to be a 50-per- and side-by-side demonstrations of a highly public “HEVC Throwdown.”
cent improvement in bit-rate efficiency H.265 and H.264 encoding to compare The contest dared competitors and
when compared to the Advanced Video
Coding (AVC) scheme, while maintain-
ing the same image quality or better.
Like H.264 before it, HEVC is the lat-
est version of the MPEG standard. It’s
uses the same idea of recognizing the
difference in motion between frames
and finding near-identical areas with-
in a single frame. With HEVC, these
similarities are subtracted from subse-
quent frames, and whatever is left in
each partial frame is mathematically
transformed to reduce the amount of
data needed to store each frame. This
results in smaller files with nearly the Elemental Technologies hosted a “HEVC Throwdown” at NAB to compare compression
same quality as the 4K original, for results across multiple delivery platforms.

14 broadcastengineering.com
THE VIDEO CODING HANDBOOK
customers to bring content on a USB
drive and have it encoded in H.265 by
Elemental and then see it simultaneous-
ly streamed live (at 500Kb/s) to a tablet
device and at 1080p resolution to a high-
definition television. Participants were
encouraged to visit other video process-
ing companies at NAB to request the
same demonstration of capabilities. It
wasn’t clear how many participated, but
it was a small number.
“Those that only had DVD sources
weren’t able to attempt the challenge be-
cause we didn’t have input for that, but
those that had USB drives were able to
load onto our server and see the trans-
code process at real-time (say 30fps),
and now they have those transcoded
files for evaluation in their labs,” said
Keith Wymbs, vice president of market-
ing at Elemental.
The need for HEVC encoding
is clear, but at what cost?
Because multichannel operators must
process hundreds of files simultaneous-
ly to accommodate the different display
devices, the need for real-time HEVC
encoding (where the money in sponsor-
ship is) is key. Most of the companies
at the show demonstrated the ability to
process on-demand files in real time,
but live encoding in real time requires
more processing and is harder to accom-
plish elegantly.
It was said that HEVC processing re-
quires 10 times more processing than
AVC on the encode side and two to
three times more by comparison for
the decode. That foreshadows the need
for sophisticated parallel processing al-
gorithm designs using multiple gener-
al-purpose programmable architectures
(GPUs and CPUs) at the same time. Off-
the-shelf workstations won’t cut it.
“We are now successfully encoding
HEVC in software in real time, but it’s
not easy or cheap to do at this point,” said
Dustin Encelewski, director of product
marketing at Elemental Technologies,
which has released a whitepaper on
HEVC/H.265. “There’s also the issue
of a lack of a standard, so vendors are
doing its own software and hardware
and experimenting to find the right so-
lution that will work for customers. At
15
the end of the day, the technology has to
be configured in such a way that makes
it practical and cost-effective to use. As
an industry, we’re not there yet.”
Addressing legacy
infrastructure
At the show, Ericsson unveiled its
AVP 4000 encoder platform for the de-
livery of TV services over all networks.
The unit is using Ericsson’s in-house
Ericsson’s AVP 4400 encoder employs the company’s new compression chip.
developed programmable video pro-
cessing chip, which it said addresses
multiple applications, regardless of
codec, resolution or network. (Ericsson
launched what it called the world’s first
HEVC/H.265 encoder at IBC last fall,
the 5500 HEVC.)
“By addressing all applications, co-
decs, resolutions and profiles, the AVP
4000 single platform addresses legacy
equipment while also making it easy
to integrate, expand, re-purpose, repair
and upgrade,” said Matthew Goldman,
senior vice president of technology in
Ericsson’s Solution Area TV group.
He added that customers can use the
AVP 4000 for H.264 and JPEG2000 en-
coding today and then migrate to HEVC
via a simple software upgrade.
“This lowers the overall cost of own-
ership and makes deployments easier to
invest in,” he said.
Goldman said many of the same is-
sues that affected the AVC standard in
its early deployments would delay full-
scale HEVC deployments. HEVC will
initially find a home for B2B backhaul
and contribution applications.
“At this point, the tricky part is real-
time encoding of HEVC, and we be-
lieve it can’t be done well in software
alone,” Goldman said. “We want to be
in control of our own destiny. That’s why
BroadcastEngineering
Ericsson, for the first time ever, has de-
veloped its own compression chip. It’s
a purpose-built, easily programmable
design that includes all our own algo-
rithms that have been developed over
years of lab and real-world testing. The
Main 10 profile is key to this.”
Telcos Verizon in the U.S. and TELUS
in Canada are now experimenting with
the new AVP 4000 to support future TV
platforms with high-quality picture and
services. Therein lies the attraction for
operators and other types of content dis-
tributors. Better image quality (Ericsson
said its 4X better) often results in more
discerning viewers.
Advanced data rate
reduction
Harmonic showed a demo in its
both of its ProMedia Live real-time and
ProMedia Xpress file-based transcoders
using HEVC to compress UltraHD (4K
and higher) content supporting a variety
of real-world scenarios. The point was to
show that UltraHD could be employed
at bandwidths currently used for HD,
using HEVC technology instead of
AVC. UltraHD content was compressed
with HEVC at 3Mb/s to 7Mb/s using a
Broadcom Ultra HD HEVC chipset
decoder. Alongside this, a software de-
coder from NTT Docomo was shown to
demonstrate Ultra HD HEVC decoding
for the multiscreen delivery market.
“The demo outlined the benefits of
Harmonic’s superior preprocessing
when upconverting HD content for dis-
play on an Ultra HD screen,” said Ian
Trow, senior director of emerging tech-
nology and strategy at Harmonic. “The
benefits of the (Harmonic) ProMedia
adaptive bit-rate multiscreen plat-
form used for HD compression yields
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THE VIDEO CODING HANDBOOK BroadcastEngineering

significant quality gains when compared
to legacy HD content similarly upcon-
verted to Ultra HD.”
Fraunhofer HHI showed a new real-
time video compression H.265/ MPEG-
HEVC engine, in software, that it said
it developed with leading players in
mobile technology and consumer elec-
tronics. At NAB, the research institute’s
exhibit booth included a demonstration
of HEVC decoding of 4K content at 5
Mb/s (the lowest with good quality that
I saw on the show floor).
“At Fraunhofer, we are dedicated to
develop technologies and standards that
not only solve the issues faced by the in-
dustry today, but anticipate the needs
of the future,” said Dr. Thomas Schierl,
head of group multimedia communica-
and decoding — using a Vanguard soft-
ware encoder/decoder at its 2013 NAB
Show booth. The company’s stated goal
was to highlight how the compression
efficiency of HEVC facilitates the de-
livery of high-quality video over band-
width-constrained networks to multiple
platforms. One demo focused on a real-
time HEVC encoder delivering stream-
ing content to a Google Nexus 10 tablet
for real-time decoding and playback.
A second demo showcased real-time
HEVC HTTP live streaming to an Apple
iPad. A third featured an IP set-top box
decoding HEVC.
While the talk of this year’s NAB
Show was 4K delivery, the technology
is not yet ready for real-world deploy-
ments. There’s too much legacy equip-
Coding Experts Group and the ISO/
IEC Moving Pictures Experts Group
(MPEG) are working on it. There is now
a Recommendation ITU-T H.265 being
considered for ratification.] Once a stan-
dard is established, vendors will then
build products to support it. Satellite-
and fiber-based contribution should
benefit the most in the short term.
The consensus is that there’s still a
lot of improvement being made to the
MPEG compression platform, so the de-
livery of HD, 4K and even higher image
quality content is possible to support
widespread consumer consumption. It’s
just a matter of how long it will take.BE

Vanguard’s HEVC software-based encoder chip, now in version 265, provides a

powerful toolset for offline encoding that is ideally suited for cloud-based encoding
implementations.
tions at Fraunhofer HHI. “Our role in the
development of HEVC and the real-time
software decoder showcases our ability
to develop innovations that are ahead of
the market to enhance the digital media
workflow of today and tomorrow.”
Fraunhofer HHI’s HEVC real-time
software decoder uses an advanced
multi-threaded architecture, which the
company says makes it very efficient at
low bit rates (with low latency).
As part of its HEVC real-time de-
coder demo, Fraunhofer HHI, part of
the Fraunhofer Digital Cinema Alliance,
also hosted a series of test suites for
HEVC-compliant decoder chips and
set-top boxes.
Targeting multiplatform
delivery
The Motorola Mobility division of
Motorola also showed HEVC encoding
ment that continues to offer operators
“good enough” quality using AVC and
even previous generation MPEG-2 tech-
nology. That’s right: MPEG-2 still works
well for most types of HD content deliv-
ery — to TVs, the Internet and mobile
devices alike.
There was talk that several content
distributors will experiment with HEVC
compression at the upcoming World
Cup soccer tournament in Brazil next
summer. As TV screens get larger, the
need for better compression is clear. But
at what cost?
Then, of course, the industry has to
settle on a standard way of H.265 coding,
which apparently is part of the ATSC 3.0
specification now being developed and
planned for initial deployments in 2016.
[There’s patent negotiations occurring
right now. The Joint Collaborative Team
on Video Coding of the ITU-T Visual

16 broadcastengineering.com