brentaal Posted May 22, 2010 Share Posted May 22, 2010 First Look: H.264 and VP8 Compared VP8 is now free, but if the quality is substandard, who cares? Well, it turns out that the quality isn't substandard, so that's not an issue, but neither is it twice the quality of H.264 at half the bandwidth. See for yourself, below.To set the table, Sorenson Media was kind enough to encode these comparison files for me to both H.264 and VP8 using their Squish encoding tool. They encoded a standard SD encoding test file that I've been using for years. I'll do more testing once I have access to a VP8 encoder, but wanted to share these quick and dirty results. Here are the specs; VP8 on the left, H.264 on the right: You can download and play the files themselves, though you'll need to download a browser from http://www.webmproject.org/users/ to play the webm file. Click here to download the H.264 file, and here for the VP8 file. What about frame comparisons? Here you go; you can click on each to see a larger version that reveals more detail. Low motion videos like talking heads are easy to compress, so you'll see no real difference. In another low motion video with a terrible background for encoding (finely detailed wallpaper), the VP8 video retains much more detail than H.264. Interesting result. Moving to a higher motion video, VP8 holds up fairly well in this martial arts video. In higher motion videos, though, H.264 seems superior. In this pita video, blocks are visible in the pita where the H.264 video is smooth. The pin-striped shirt in the right background is also sharper in the H.264 video, as is the striped shirt on the left. In this very high motion skateboard video, H.264 also looks clearer, particularly in the highlighted areas in the fence, where the VP8 video looks slightly artifacted. In the final comparison, I'd give a slight edge to VP8, which was clearer and showed fewer artifacts. What's this add up to? I'd say H.264 still offers better quality, but the difference wouldn't be noticeable in most applications. Article @ StreamingMedia.com Link to comment https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/903550-first-look-h264-and-vp8-compared/ Share on other sites More sharing options...
Petvas Posted May 22, 2010 Share Posted May 22, 2010 I find h.264 much better in all pictures above. The difference is big. Link to comment https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/903550-first-look-h264-and-vp8-compared/#findComment-592655028 Share on other sites More sharing options...
torrentthief Posted May 22, 2010 Share Posted May 22, 2010 h264 will of course be better, but give it 12 months and i'm sure they will be equal by then now that it has been open sourced and dozen's of tech companies are involved with it. Lets hope someone makes a plugin for firefox to use windows 7 for h264 playback that way we can have videos in the same great quality as flash but with less cpu usage and crashes. Link to comment https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/903550-first-look-h264-and-vp8-compared/#findComment-592655054 Share on other sites More sharing options...
rawr_boy81 Posted May 22, 2010 Share Posted May 22, 2010 On 22/05/2010 at 12:17, Petvas said: I find h.264 much better in all pictures above. The difference is big. I wouldn't call the difference that great; is h264 better? sure but with some investment in the next year I can see the gap closing to the point that the difference is unnoticeable. Link to comment https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/903550-first-look-h264-and-vp8-compared/#findComment-592655072 Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Teej Posted May 22, 2010 Share Posted May 22, 2010 On 22/05/2010 at 12:17, Petvas said: I find h.264 much better in all pictures above. The difference is big. I'd say better, but not tons better. In fluid motion I think the differences would be more negligible then the differences between Youtube in 360p and 480p. Link to comment https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/903550-first-look-h264-and-vp8-compared/#findComment-592655090 Share on other sites More sharing options...
ipodman715 Posted May 22, 2010 Share Posted May 22, 2010 Great technical comparison enigma-penguin 1 Share Link to comment https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/903550-first-look-h264-and-vp8-compared/#findComment-592655100 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Waylander Posted May 22, 2010 Share Posted May 22, 2010 there is another article here, beaten but look at those comparisons towards the end, vp8 is only on par with xvid, x264 high profile kicks its ass. vp8 is slower to decode as well :wacko: for a codec thats supposed to be used for streaming i dont see how that is acceptable Link to comment https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/903550-first-look-h264-and-vp8-compared/#findComment-592655114 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Saul Goodman Posted May 22, 2010 Share Posted May 22, 2010 On 22/05/2010 at 12:39, rawr_boy81 said: but with some investment in the next year I can see the gap closing to the point that the difference is unnoticeable. After reading the WebM FAQ, looks like the spec is final. Or am I misunderstanding something here? Link to comment https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/903550-first-look-h264-and-vp8-compared/#findComment-592655176 Share on other sites More sharing options...
ichi Posted May 22, 2010 Share Posted May 22, 2010 On 22/05/2010 at 13:08, Waylander said: x264 high profile kicks its ass Sure it does, but if you are targeting web streaming and playback on portable devices you can only go with base profile, were quality is about the same. Link to comment https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/903550-first-look-h264-and-vp8-compared/#findComment-592655186 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skyfrog Posted May 22, 2010 Share Posted May 22, 2010 I've never even heard of VP8, or hadn't until this html 5 issue came along. Seeing examples now I'm not impressed at all. Link to comment https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/903550-first-look-h264-and-vp8-compared/#findComment-592655200 Share on other sites More sharing options...
torrentthief Posted May 22, 2010 Share Posted May 22, 2010 On 22/05/2010 at 13:49, ichi said: Sure it does, but if you are targeting web streaming and playback on portable devices you can only go with base profile, were quality is about the same. x264 base profile is actually alot better quality than VP8 still:( Lets hope google throw some serious money to improve the quality of VP8 and also increase the speed of encoding and reduce cpu utilisation for playback. Link to comment https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/903550-first-look-h264-and-vp8-compared/#findComment-592655206 Share on other sites More sharing options...
The_Decryptor Veteran Posted May 22, 2010 Veteran Share Posted May 22, 2010 On 22/05/2010 at 13:42, Saul Goodman said: After reading the WebM FAQ, looks like the spec is final. Or am I misunderstanding something here? The spec (flaws and all) is final, but the encoders can always improve (Theora got a large update lately that fixed a lot of quality issues) Edit: The x264 dev says VP8 is better than base profile H.264, but he's not talking about the encoders in that regard, which is really the biggest issue (a lame H.264 encoder can still make a bad H.264 video) Link to comment https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/903550-first-look-h264-and-vp8-compared/#findComment-592655216 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boz Posted May 22, 2010 Share Posted May 22, 2010 I think people are forgetting here one huge thing!!!.. VP8 will be open source, h.264 will not. If performance of VP8 is very similar or outperforms h.264 Baseline (the x.264 already confirms that the quality is better than h.264 Baseline).. it is already a winner. The open source part is what will make VP8 shine through time. It's all about encoders/decoders. You can have a great MPEG-1 look considerably better over h.264 if the encoder is better and h.264 is awful. Same goes for VP8 and considering open source nature it will be improved much more rapidly then anything h.264 out there. Let's not even talk about the advantages of Matroska container in WebM. Btw, Flash will support VP8 as well.. so one platform supporting Sorenson, VP6, H.264, VP8. Awesome! Link to comment https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/903550-first-look-h264-and-vp8-compared/#findComment-592655220 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Udedenkz Posted May 22, 2010 Share Posted May 22, 2010 It should be no surprise to anyone if, 1. VP8 looks worse. 2. Performs Worse. 3. Does not offer better compression. 4. Is pushed by some companies as a godsend. I can't help but compare VP8 to realvideo. Link to comment https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/903550-first-look-h264-and-vp8-compared/#findComment-592655238 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Avi Posted May 22, 2010 Share Posted May 22, 2010 Wow, they used Mainconsept's H.264 encoder? Why? x264 blows it out of the water. Link to comment https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/903550-first-look-h264-and-vp8-compared/#findComment-592655278 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rigby Posted May 22, 2010 Share Posted May 22, 2010 VP8 looks terrible. Please, let's not have enough "Real Media" all over the internet. Link to comment https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/903550-first-look-h264-and-vp8-compared/#findComment-592655290 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Waylander Posted May 22, 2010 Share Posted May 22, 2010 On 22/05/2010 at 14:01, Boz said: I think people are forgetting here one huge thing!!!.. VP8 will be open source, h.264 will not. If performance of VP8 is very similar or outperforms h.264 Baseline (the x.264 already confirms that the quality is better than h.264 Baseline).. it is already a winner. The open source part is what will make VP8 shine through time. It's all about encoders/decoders. You can have a great MPEG-1 look considerably better over h.264 if the encoder is better and h.264 is awful. Same goes for VP8 and considering open source nature it will be improved much more rapidly then anything h.264 out there. Let's not even talk about the advantages of Matroska container in WebM. Btw, Flash will support VP8 as well.. so one platform supporting Sorenson, VP6, H.264, VP8. Awesome! umm x264 is opensource and mpeg la are not going to charge for internet video upto 2016* (and probably the 5 year term after that as well) why switch to a worse codec (which might not even be patent free link just because? *source the important bit quoted Specifically, the "MPEG LA announced today that its AVC Patent Portfolio License will continue not to charge royalties for Internet Video that is free to end users (known as Internet Broadcast AVC Video) during the next License term from January 1, 2011 to December 31, 2016 Link to comment https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/903550-first-look-h264-and-vp8-compared/#findComment-592655294 Share on other sites More sharing options...
ToneKnee Posted May 22, 2010 Share Posted May 22, 2010 On 22/05/2010 at 14:11, Udedenkz said: It should be no surprise to anyone if, 1. VP8 looks worse. 2. Performs Worse. 3. Does not offer better compression. 4. Is pushed by some companies as a godsend. I can't help but compare VP8 to realvideo. *facepalm* Link to comment https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/903550-first-look-h264-and-vp8-compared/#findComment-592655304 Share on other sites More sharing options...
hdood Posted May 22, 2010 Share Posted May 22, 2010 On 22/05/2010 at 14:01, Boz said: I think people are forgetting here one huge thing!!!.. VP8 will be open source, h.264 will not. H.264 is a specification, not an actual implementation. There are tons of different H.264 implementations (both decoders and encoders). Some open source, some not. I think what you mean is that Google grants you a royalty-free license to use WebM, as well as their own implementation. On 22/05/2010 at 14:01, Boz said: You can have a great MPEG-1 look considerably better over h.264 if the encoder is better and h.264 is awful. Same goes for VP8 and considering open source nature it will be improved much more rapidly then anything h.264 out there. How do you figure? There are open source H.264 encoders as well, such as x264. Link to comment https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/903550-first-look-h264-and-vp8-compared/#findComment-592655308 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pulgafree Posted May 22, 2010 Share Posted May 22, 2010 I can't decide wich is better since we try to compare video, and the website offers pictures instead. Image quality is not all that matters on video codecs. Link to comment https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/903550-first-look-h264-and-vp8-compared/#findComment-592655320 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boz Posted May 22, 2010 Share Posted May 22, 2010 On 22/05/2010 at 14:29, Waylander said: umm x264 is opensource and mpeg la are not going to charge for internet video upto 2016* (and probably the 5 year term after that as well) why switch to a worse codec (which might not even be patent free link just because? *source the important bit quoted Specifically, the "MPEG LA announced today that its AVC Patent Portfolio License will continue not to charge royalties for Internet Video that is free to end users (known as Internet Broadcast AVC Video) during the next License term from January 1, 2011 to December 31, 2016 There's a huge difference.. when you have an open source / royalty free standard (codec) you are not at the mercy of MPEG-LA deciding 3 years from now that they will start charging. The issue here is that MPEG-LA is fighting franticly with all this bad press and people crapping on VP8 because they want to establish h.264 as standard. It is already in significant presence but the issue here is that h.264 is not free and will never be because companies behind it want to make money. So they might let it go now and not collect royalties because they want to make h.264 standard and irreplacable and when that happens and when everything uses it, they can do whatever they want and there's no going back. No such dangers exist with VP8. Codec is open sourced, it uses Matroska container and Vorbis audio. It's as open is it can get. The quality is good enough or better than H.264 Baseline which is more then enough for any web video. H.264 Main/High Profile are mostly used for Blu-rays and such stuff. And all this scares the crap out of MPEG-LA and why major companies like Microsoft, Apple will not support it. Now we can really see how much these companies support open web. Argote 1 Share Link to comment https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/903550-first-look-h264-and-vp8-compared/#findComment-592655344 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Waylander Posted May 22, 2010 Share Posted May 22, 2010 vorbis is only as patent free as Xiph claim it is, Fraunhofer claim otherwise link same with VP8, and MPEG-LA will never charge for internet video imo because keeping it free ensures there is a growing userbase of h.264 users to purchase hardware capable of decoding it which is where they make there money and its not like you notice there licence fee on most devices Link to comment https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/903550-first-look-h264-and-vp8-compared/#findComment-592655410 Share on other sites More sharing options...
George P Global Moderator Posted May 22, 2010 Global Moderator Share Posted May 22, 2010 Having VP8 be open source doesn't magically make it end up or be better than something else. I find this line of thinking as kinda funny. Lots of h264 codecs are open, people keep bringing up x264 for example. Thinking that "oh just give it a year and VP8 will be better" is laughible. Why would h264 projects stand still? Honestly, some people seem to live in an alternate world or something. Another thing, isn't the low prifile or base profile argument pointless? Many sites stream HD right now, many youtube vids are in HD as well (720p). h264 was done with HD in mind from the get go. If we wanted to stick with 360p or 320p we could've just stuck with Xvid (mpeg4 part 2, or is it part 4? I forget now :p). p1p3 and Udedenkz 2 Share Link to comment https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/903550-first-look-h264-and-vp8-compared/#findComment-592655448 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Udedenkz Posted May 22, 2010 Share Posted May 22, 2010 On 22/05/2010 at 15:20, GP007 said: Having VP8 be open source doesn't magically make it end up or be better than something else. I find this line of thinking as kinda funny. Lots of h264 codecs are open, people keep bringing up x264 for example. Thinking that "oh just give it a year and VP8 will be better" is laughible. Why would h264 projects stand still? Honestly, some people seem to live in an alternate world or something. Another thing, isn't the low prifile or base profile argument pointless? Many sites stream HD right now, many youtube vids are in HD as well (720p). h264 was done with HD in mind from the get go. If we wanted to stick with 360p or 320p we could've just stuck with Xvid (mpeg4 part 2, or is it part 4? I forget now :p). +1 Link to comment https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/903550-first-look-h264-and-vp8-compared/#findComment-592655454 Share on other sites More sharing options...
thealexweb Posted May 22, 2010 Share Posted May 22, 2010 On 22/05/2010 at 14:11, Udedenkz said: I can't help but compare VP8 to realvideo. No just no Link to comment https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/903550-first-look-h264-and-vp8-compared/#findComment-592655466 Share on other sites More sharing options...
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