First Look: H.264 and VP8 Compared

[Udedenkz]

  On 22/05/2010 at 15:27, thealexweb said:

No just no

Well, to be honest, I do not know whether or not realvideo is open. So the comparison might be flawed.

But otherwise, if assuming that it is free, then it can be used instead.

[HawkMan]

  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. Let's not even talk about the advantages of Matroska container in WebM.

You mean like the 8 years the article mention it took the open source community to fix the broken VP2/theora ?

Open source doesn't mean things will get fixed any faster. Not when you consider a few things. the people hired to make the encoders for h,264 and the guys who make encoders at fraunhofer. These are guys with some exceptional skill in the area getting paid in LOTS of zeroes. Yeah sure there's a lot of people on the open source code, but unlikely any of them will be that good, if they where they'd be working for fraunhofer or any of the others. But even if they're that good. you're left with a logistical nightmare, the guys who collate don't know who's that good and who's not and they could be dwarfed with thousands of code submissions. Each of which would need to be tested if it improves anything or breaks a million other things. So we'll end up in the same situation as all other big open source project,. the central team will simply stop taking code submissions and rather code the suggestions themselves. It's faster and avoids a **** ton of administration.

Of course some random guy could modify it and release a coded ork opf his own, but then you're back to the skill issue. and not seeing that happening when you have a big core team at google. Heck as it is they don't even have a spec to work from. They only have a document which is merely C code copy and pasted from the code itself. yeah that's not a spec. Which is why it's now locked down as a final spec full of flaws and bugs that can't be fixed, since bugs in the encoder, is now part of the codec spec :groan:

Open source is one of the things that demonstartes the too many chefs saying very well.

[undu]

  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).

First of all, x264 is not a codec, it's an encoder. People in this thread aren't saying it's going to be better than h.264, they're saying there's room for improvement in the codec, just like happened to vp3 with theora.

And lastly you're the one who seems to be in an alternate world, mp3 is the most used audio codec and jpeg is the most used picture format and it's not because they're the best available, they're just "good enough", check the facts, because you've got them all wrong.

[HawkMan]

  On 22/05/2010 at 14:44, Boz said:

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.

Actually the in depth analysis shows some clear similarities between VP8 and h.264, meaning VP8 is most likely riddled with patent infringement, meaning it's not that open and you may have to pay a license to use i anyway. And then you're stuck paying royalties for a codec whose final spec was locked down full of flaws and bugs which actually stemmed from the codec and can't be removed cause the spec is now locked to avoid the whole backwards compatibility nightmare of xvid back in the days

[ichi]

  On 22/05/2010 at 13:58, torrentthief said:

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.

A lot better? Pretty much every review so far says they are very similar.

[HawkMan]

  On 22/05/2010 at 15:58, undu said:

First of all, x264 is not a codec, it's an encoder. People in this thread aren't saying it's going to be better than h.264, they're saying there's room for improvement in the codec, just like happened to vp3 with theora.

And lastly you're the one who seems to be in an alternate world, mp3 is the most used audio codec and jpeg is the most used picture format and it's not because they're the best available, they're just "good enough", check the facts, because you've got them all wrong.

Actually mp3 is biggest because it was the best back when digital music took off. after that it's pretty much been stuck there.

and other formats would possibly be bigger if Apple didn't insist on using their own crap to make their stuff incompatible with others so they could lock you in, resulting in a division of the more modern high quality audio formats.

Same thing with jpeg, back when the internet needed a image format in it's birth, jpeg was there, it was small and it had decent image quality, there was no jpeg 2000 or microsoft new image format that I don't remember the name of back then. and well. you where unlikely to be downloading TIFF's on a 14.4 modem, or a 28.8. you're still pretty much.

Yes they're sub standard formats TODAY, but that's because in tech, things tend to change an dmover forward, and improve.

[Boz]

  On 22/05/2010 at 15:58, HawkMan said:

Actually the in depth analysis shows some clear similarities between VP8 and h.264, meaning VP8 is most likely riddled with patent infringement, meaning it's not that open and you may have to pay a license to use i anyway.

This is the issue.. It's really subjective and really fear mongering than anything else. It doesn't matter they are similar. The fact that MPEG-LA "might" go after some patent claims or whether they'll have the grounds for the case is really speculative and they've been going after Theora for a while now and nothing.

And btw, it has nothing to do with being "open".. It's already open source and open.

Whether or not MPEG-LA will succeed in their crusade in trying to prevent an open source codec without royalty fees is another matter completely. I don't think they can do anything really. Sure, since Google is making this available they are a much larger target, but until we see the ruling there is no basis really to say that VP8 will have licensing attached to it.

  On 22/05/2010 at 15:59, ichi said:

A lot better? Pretty much every review so far says they are very similar.

Actually VP8 is better in quite a few cases than H.264 Base.. it only falls behind on H.264 Main and High Profile, but since this is the codec for the web, it doesn't have to beat Main or HIgh Profile. It just needs to be as good as H.264 Base and be open source and royalty free.

It's also absolutely fantastic that they are using Matroska (probably the best container currently) and open source Vorbis.

It truly frees up the web from proprietary standards.

  On 22/05/2010 at 16:03, HawkMan said:

Same thing with jpeg, back when the internet needed a image format in it's birth, jpeg was there, it was small and it had decent image quality, there was no jpeg 2000 or microsoft new image format that I don't remember the name of back then. and well. you where unlikely to be downloading TIFF's on a 14.4 modem, or a 28.8. you're still pretty much.

Yes they're sub standard formats TODAY, but that's because in tech, things tend to change an dmover forward, and improve.

They are sub standard formats today because they are proprietary. As long as proprietary licensed technology is making money they have no incentive to improve it.

[PyX]

My eyes say H.264 wins hands down. I don’t know about the other technicalities.

I can't wait to see what's going to happen with this battle… Blu-Ray vs HD-DVD is done, Flash versus HTML5 is still moving forward, and now this.

[Boz]

  On 22/05/2010 at 16:44, PsykX said:

My eyes say H.264 wins hands down. I don?t know about the other technicalities.

I can't wait to see what's going to happen with this battle? Blu-Ray vs HD-DVD is done, Flash versus HTML5 is still moving forward, and now this.

There is no Flash vs HTML5. They will both exist just fine as Flash works on top of HTML5.

[Petvas]

I dont really care if VP8 is open source. I care about quality and H.264 is the defacto standard.

[Luis Mazza]

  On 22/05/2010 at 12:17, Petvas said:

I find h.264 much better in all pictures above. The difference is big.

+1

Now that Windows is capable of playing H.264 Google comes up with an alternative? And what about HD video comparisons? SD is only available on cellphones nowadays.

You should choose to make a difference of a pile of colored diamonds then from a pile of colored junk, because it is not only more pleasing, but also makes much more sense from now on.

[HawkMan]

  On 22/05/2010 at 16:41, Boz said:

They are sub standard formats today because they are proprietary. As long as proprietary licensed technology is making money they have no incentive to improve it.

No this is the same issue as with vp8 now. the spec is LOCKED. they can't be changed anymore. there isn't only one way to make or read a jpeg. We're way past the limit of what we can improve on the original jpeg spec. and they can't improve the spec without breaking it.

So now, even if they where open source and unlicensed, jpeg wouldn't be any better today than they are, same with mp3, old locked spec. this is why we make new formats.

[MS Bob 11]

Is there any debate over which is better? NO!!!! H.264 is better hands down. But VP8 is a competitive trying-to-be-open alternative. Comparing them is missing the whole point. The x264 author himself says it's between VC-1 and H.264. Aren't you glad you get something free and open source that's at least competitive and not **** like the VP3-based Theora?

[Angel Blue01]

Based on the screenshots with the exception of the skateboarding video, VP8 looks as good as H.264 to me.

[HawkMan]

  On 22/05/2010 at 17:19, Angel Blue01 said:

Based on the screenshots with the exception of the skateboarding video, VP8 looks as good as H.264 to me.

So we're supposed to choose open source because, not because it's better, but it's good enough... oh and it makes you feel warm and fuzzy inside... and it suffers the same patent and license probelms as the format it replaces.

yeah great reasoning. with the similarities you'd be mad to think MPEG-LA isn't going to go after them, sue, and win. and then it doesn't matter if it's open or released freely, content deliverers still need to pay so it'd be the same as h.264. only you know, not quite as good.

[Elliott]

  On 22/05/2010 at 16:03, HawkMan said:

and other formats would possibly be bigger if Apple didn't insist on using their own crap to make their stuff incompatible with others so they could lock you in, resulting in a division of the more modern high quality audio formats.

What "proprietary crap" has Apple pushed? :huh: AAC/MP4 audio (the successor to MP3) enjoys the semi-prominence that it currently has thanks to Apple. Yes, music bought from the iTunes Store used to be encumbered with DRM until Apple and Amazon pushed the record industry to get rid of DRM back in 2007.

Anyway, VP8 is looking pretty good (still inferior to H.264 as far as I can tell), but I'm holding off for performance tests (especially on mobile devices). If it's going to suck away at the battery life and CPU power of devices that currently exist, then it's not practical.

Also, how does performance and quality compare on HD content?

[HawkMan]

  On 22/05/2010 at 17:43, Elliott said:

What "proprietary crap" has Apple pushed? :huh: AAC/MP4 audio (the successor to MP3) enjoys the semi-prominence that it currently has thanks to Apple. Yes, music bought from the iTunes Store used to be encumbered with DRM until Apple and Amazon pushed the record industry to get rid of DRM?back in 2007.

Anyway, VP8 is looking pretty good (still inferior to H.264 as far as I can tell), but I'm holding off for performance tests (especially on mobile devices). If it's going to suck away at the battery life and CPU power of a device, then it's not practical.

I love revisionist history. The record company that actually first removed DRM did it without apple pushing anything, in fact apple wanted them to keep DRM. they decided to drop it anyway, and then eventually the others followed. It was funny at the time to see that after apple couldn't change their mind, then they suddenly advertised how "they" had forced them to drop drm and how itunes now had DRM less music :facepalm:

The whole point was the DRM which broke the AAC spec though. instead they could have gone with the just as safe plays for sure drm that not only worked but alsop had cross compatibility and was part of the spec for that audio format. But then they couldn't lock you in so...

[ichi]

  On 22/05/2010 at 17:25, HawkMan said:

So we're supposed to choose open source because, not because it's better, but it's good enough... oh and it makes you feel warm and fuzzy inside... and it suffers the same patent and license probelms as the format it replaces.

Not good enough, it's about as good as h264 for it's intended use. Being open source is irrelevant now, considering that specs are frozen, but being royalty free for all intents and purposes still matters a lot though.

Regarding patent issues Google seems quite confident about VP8 being safe, but they might be wrong. It's a matter of wether MPEG LA will put up or just spread FUD as they did with Theora: if they actually have patents on VP8 then go on and sue instead of spreading vague claims, so we can either:

-Ditch VP8 if it's really unusable as a royalty free codec.

-Confirm that patents don't actually apply.

-Get those patents invalidated.

That considered I guess MPEG LA is better off playing the FUD card rather than risking their IP portfolio.

[HawkMan]

  On 22/05/2010 at 17:50, ichi said:

Not good enough, it's about as good as h264 for it's intended use. Being open source is irrelevant now, considering that specs are frozen, but being royalty free for all intents and purposes still matters a lot though.

about as good in other words is the same as

- blurrier picture with less details (the second last image)

- artifacting on movement

- not nearly as good at handling high speed movement.

yeah, sure the differences aren't hugely major, well except for the artifacting on movement, and well we are talking MOVIEs here, not stills. But generally when you scale codecs up to high def, the flaws that are in it aren't reduced, they are usually magnified significantly, especially if it doesn't handle movement very well as this ione shows it does not do .

[ObiWanToby]

  On 22/05/2010 at 14:23, Avi said:

Wow, they used Mainconsept's H.264 encoder? Why? x264 blows it out of the water.

Even so h.264 still looks pretty damn good in comparison. They probably chose Mainconcept so they would look better :(

[Richard Hammond]

  On 22/05/2010 at 18:39, ObiWanToby said:

Even so h.264 still looks pretty damn good in comparison. They probably chose Mainconcept so they would look better :(

Seriously?

The Mainconcept h.264 encoder is AWFUL.

[HawkMan]

  On 22/05/2010 at 18:47, Richard Hammond said:

Seriously?

The Mainconcept h.264 encoder is AWFUL.

considering the post he quoted, I think that's what he meant, his just worded his post terribly :p

[ObiWanToby]

Yeah they were Google...

"They probably chose Mainconcept so VP8 would look better."

I thought the context would carry through the quote :(

[Richard Hammond]

Oh sorry.

[boogerjones]

  On 22/05/2010 at 13:00, ipodman715 said:

Great technical comparison

I wouldn't call it a great comparison. The guy is biased since he's develops an h.264 encoder (and a good one; I use it all the time). He makes some knowledgeable code comparisons, but then compares video without telling us the settings used and concludes h.264 is magnitudes better (what a surprise from a guy with a vested interest in the codec). Later he steps out of bounds and makes some wild comments on the legal situation (which he knows nothing about).

Comparing individual frames is far less useful than comparing fluid video. And I'm not sure why everyone here is hating on the VP8 video. The obvious conclusion is that the video looks comparable at similar bitrates in the article's test. Do any of you idiots think you could pick out which video came from which codec in a blinded test? It's similar to people arguing about 128 versus 320 kbps audio; nobody can tell the difference when put to the test.

Do I think h.264 is overall a technically better codec? Yes, but we don't need the best technical codec. We need a sufficient codec free of the financial threat.