Deep Dive into SVT-AV1's Evolution (Part 2): Encoder Parameters Revisited
Welcome to the second part of my SVT-AV1 testing analysis!
Welcome to the second part of my SVT-AV1 testing analysis!
It's been almost a year since SVT-AV1 v2.0.0 dropped in March 2024, and we finally got v3.0.0 in late February of this year. Minor versions v3.0.1 and v3.0.2 came along afterward with some bug fixes and ARM SIMD improvements, but they didn't meaningfully alter encoding results.
So what's actually different between these versions? I've been wanting to run tests across all the major releases from v2.0.0 to v3.0.x to see how the speed vs quality trade-offs have evolved this past year. Using SSIMULACRA2, Butteraugli, XPSNR, and VMAF (plus some methodology tweaks I'll get into), I'll break down what each version brought to the table and in a second part, we'll also deep dive a few specific options that appeared in the encoder since my first blog post release so you can figure out what you may want to use for your projects. That includes variance boost, fast decode, temporal filtering strength and a few others...
SVT-AV1 v2.2.0 was released in late August and a minor version v2.2.1 followed suit to adress some bugs. This blog post will focus on comparing this new encoder version to the last, on the basis of benchmarks and visual comparisons. We will quantify the new trade-offs between compression efficiency and encoding speed, so you can choose the right balance for your projects. Our metrics of choice today will be SSIMULACRA2 and XPSNR, used in conjonction with a revised methodology.
AV1 for Dummies is a comprehensive, legible guide on how to get started with AV1 at any experience level. Whether you're on Windows using your first video encoding program, or a seasoned Linux user looking to optimize your encoding pipeline, this guide has you covered.
SVT-AV1, the most scalable AV1 encoder, has received a new update and one may wonder if the old presets recommendation still holds today. We will delve into that in this blog post, based on a series of speed and visual quality benchmarks with SSIMULACRA2 and XPSNR of SVT-AV1 2.1.0 on a corpus of varied animated clips.
This blog post is based on a series of visual quality benchmarks with SSIMULACRA2 and speed benchmarks of SVT-AV1 1.8.0 on a corpus of animated clips.
The resources available will range from graphs to image comparisons (WIP). The former has the advantage of being easily understandable, showcasing pure efficiency comparisons between encoder parameters using metrics as the reference, while the latter are image samples from the encoded files during the tests that enable you to check quality for yourself and add another layer of subjective interpretation to these comparisons.
This guide will show you how to encode in AV1 the right and optimal way. Yes, you using standalone libaom
, libsvtav1
, and librav1e
from FFmpeg or even piping yuv4mpeg
into mainline aomenc are all unoptimal.
A big part of understanding any multimedia codec technology is knowing the application for such technology. For images, a big use case is web delivery. Compared to other multimedia, images are incredibly popular on the Web & knowing how to serve them properly can be a massive boon to your website's traffic as well as less of a headache for users on slower connections or who are under bandwidth constraints. The most disappointing part is that images are often poorly done on the web; all too frequently will you run into a site serving massive photographic PNGs for no reason, or photography sites serving photographs fresh out of the editing software with no thought put into their final delivery. A little effort, patience, & knowledge will go a long way toward improving the user experience for individuals using your site, & this article will illustrate some of the basics.