The Rebel Alliance's AV1 Video Codec Encoding Guide

30 Apr 2018

the rebel alliance has finally released the av1 video codec

aomenc encoder aomenc
aomdec decoder aomdec file.webm output.y4m or aomdec file | mpv -

-v for verbose
--cpu-used= for quality level like x264s profiles and 0 is placebo and 4 is fastest
-w for width and -h for height

ffmpeg to prep the source video

ffmpeg -i 8bit-src.mkv --pix_format yuv420p 8bit.y4m
ffmpeg -i 10bit-src.mkv --pix_format yuv420p10le 10bit.y4m
ffmpeg -i 12bit-src.mkv --pix_format yuv420p12le 12bit.y4m

* Encode 8-bit AV1

aomenc -v -w 1920 -h 1080 --cpu-used=0 --target-bitrate=1500 --threads=16 --profile=0 --aq-mode=0 --lag-in-frames=25 --auto-alt-ref=1 -o av1-8bit.webm 8bit.y4m

Encode 10-bit AV1

aomenc -v -w 1920 -h 1080 --cpu-used=0 --target-bitrate=1500 --threads=16 --profile=0 --aq-mode=0 --lag-in-frames=25 --auto-alt-ref=1 -o av1-10bit.webm 10bit.y4m

Encode 12-bit AV1

aomenc -v -w 1920 -h 1080 --cpu-used=0 --target-bitrate=1500 --threads=16 --profile=0 --aq-mode=0 --lag-in-frames=25 --auto-alt-ref=1 -o av1-12bit.webm 12bit.y4m

ffmpeg output yuv420 (8-bit), yuv420p10le (10-bit), yuv420p12le (12-bit)
Encodng Speed/Quality --cpu-used 0 to 4 is currently tuned

if this is wrong please contact me on twitter or by email

The Fire Escape 4K Benchmark

3 Jun 2017

The Fire Escape is a 4K benchmark that measure the time it takes to encode a 4K file to x264 using open souce video editor OpenShot

uses a shotcut project file with a raw 4k video file, flac music by GUNSHIP, Text Overlay

above scores are average of 5 runs
please note that these systems are not benchmark systems and are real world

bench.x264.py Encoding 3840x2160p24 4K Shotcut Project using qmelt to x264 with Slow Preset and 16 CRF
bench.x265.py Encoding 3840x2160p24 4K Shotcut Project using qmelt to x265 with Slow Preset and 16 CRF
~~bench.vp9.py~~ whenever google gets around to implementing proper multi-threading
~~bench.av1.py~~ whenever aomedia gets around to finalizing spec and implementing multi-threading

Install

Download https://github.com/nwgat/TheFireEscape/archive/master.zip
Run TheFireEscape.bat and select 1 (this will install python, dl 4k source file with shotcut and uncompress)
Run TheFireEscape.bat to select 2 (x264) or 3 (x265) benchmarks
Submit x264 results here

Tests cpu/ram and ssd/hdd and the results are in seconds

Special Thanks to

iWalkingCorpse for 1500X
Vegetables for 1700 3.8Ghz
Xplode for Threadripper 1950X
T-Nan for 7800X
shillzude for 5820K

This Benchmark is based on Shotcut and MLT open source project https://www.shotcut.org/

Setting up Microsoft's Beam LiveStreaming with AMD ReLive

11 Dec 2016

Beam

Goto https://beam.pro/me/channel
Stream Key > Setup Stream > Use RTMP

AMD ReLive

Crimson Settings > ReLive > Streaming > Custom Stream
Server URL: Paste Closest Ingest here
Connection Key: Paste Stream Key here
Streaming Profile High (720p60 @ 3.5Mbps)

Notes:

test stream record https://beam.pro/nwgat?vod=655012 (source mp4)
The quality varies by scenes/games
AMD seems to be doing CABAC coding which is nice
~~~I dont know if 2-Pass is enabled yet~~ yep they are doing 2-Pass
no HEVC streaming (yet) even with a custom server
rant: why the heck do stream sites only do 3.5Mbps? its annoying

Simple Daala Encoder

2 Aug 2015

Created this simple encoder script while trying out daala

Features:

Select file
Number of frames to skip
Number of frames to encode
Uncompressed y4m output file
Lossless png file from daala encode (uses y4m file from dump_video)
Lossless png file from source
Linux Bash Version
and by unpopular demand a Batch Version for Windows

Requirments

encoder expects y4m, so you need to ffmpeg -pix_fmt yuv420p -i any-source-video.webm output.y4m
ffmpeg needed for png frame extracting

Install Linux

cd daala/examples/

wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nwgat/scripts/master/nwgatdaalaenc.sh

chmod +x nwgatdaalaenc.sh

./nwgatdaalaenc.sh

Install windows

Download https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nwgat/scripts/master/nwgatdaalaenc-win.bat

copy to daala folder

Run it

notes:

Need to figure out why echo says its off on windows
Inputing nothing into frames/encodeframes on windows fails, need to figure that out
Perhaps more options to say yes or no, but this works for me

Daala for Windows

11 Apr 2015

(almost) up to date daala builds for windows
64-bit for now, if anyone need 32-bit just contact me

Daala Websites
Website - GitHub - Demos - Doom9 Discussion

Compiler Details(for nwgat builds)

Cygwin64 1.7.32(0.274/5/3) or later
libogg 1.3.1-1 or later

Usage

Source: ffmpeg -pix_fmt yuv420p -i any-source-video.webm source.y4m
Source: (720p resize) ffmpeg -pix_fmt yuv420p scale=1280:-1 -i any-source-video.webm source.y4m
Encoding: encoder_example -v 20 source.y4m -o daala-video.ogv
Decoding: dump_video daala-video.ogv -o daala-video.y4m
Playback: Play daala-video.y4m in MPC-BE

Use between 0-55 (0 being lossless), daala supports upto 511 but thats pointless in my testing

Issues

Only use same build for the encoded file.
daala is not finished. so file decoding will break between builds

Download

https://mf4.xiph.org/jenkins/job/daala-mingw64/lastBuild/ (Daily MingW x64)
http://awesome.nwgat.ninja/daala (Infrequent Cygwin x64)
https://encoder.pw/daala/x86_64/ (MingW x64?)