Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Parallelization and performance evaluation of open-source HEVC codecs

  • Published:
The Journal of Supercomputing Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) was developed by the Joint Collaborative Team on Video Coding (JCT-VC) to replace the current H.264/Advanced Video Coding (AVC) standard, which has dominated digital video services in all segments of the domestic and professional markets for over 10 years. In terms of rate-distortion, HEVC roughly doubles the compression performance of H.264/AVC, but at a cost of extremely high computational complexities during encoding. Parallelizing HEVC encoding is an efficient way of fulfilling this computational requirement. Since its standardization, several open-source HEVC video codecs have been developed with parallel encoding capabilities. This paper presents a rate-distortion/complexity analysis of the open-source HEVC codecs using objective measures of assessment to analyze their real parallelization capabilities. Experimental results show that DivX265 and x265 obtain the best parallel performance on average for the high-quality encoding scenario. In the case of the high-speed encoding scenario, x265 obtains the best parallel performance. In both scenarios, the coding efficiency of the encoders remains virtually unaffected regardless of the amount of parallelism.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Fig. 6
Fig. 7
Fig. 8
Fig. 9

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Bjøntegaard G (2001) Calculation of average PSNR differences between RD-curves. Tech. Rep. VCEG-M33, ITU-T Video Coding Experts Group (VCEG)

  2. Bjøntegaard G (2008) Improvements of the BD-PSNR Model. Tech. Rep. VCEG-AI11, 35th VCEG Meeting, ITU-T SG16 Q6 Document

  3. Bossen F (2013) Common Test Conditions and Software Reference Configurations. Tech. Rep. JCTVC-L1100

  4. Casal J (2016) HomerHEVC Encoder. https://github.com/jcasal-homer/HomerHEVC/. Accessed May 2016

  5. Cebrián-Márquez G, Hernández-Losada JL, Martínez JL, Cuenca P, Tang M, Wen J (2015) Accelerating HEVC using heterogeneous platforms. J Supercomput 71(2):613–628. doi:10.1007/s11227-014-1313-8

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. DivX (2016) DivX265 Encoder. http://labs.divx.com/divx265. Accessed May 2016

  7. García-Lucas D, Cebrián-Márquez G, Cuenca P (2016) On the Capabilities of the Open-Source HEVC Codecs. In: 16th International Conference on Mathematical Methods in Science and Engineering (CMMSE)

  8. Henry F, Pateux S (2011) Wavefront parallel processing. Tech. Rep. Geneva, Switzerland, JCTVC-E196

  9. ISO/IEC, ITU-T (2015) High efficiency video coding (HEVC). ITU-T Recommendation H.265 and ISO/IEC 23008-2 (version 3)

  10. ISO/IEC, ITU-T (2016a) Advanced video coding for generic audiovisual services. ITU-T Recommendation H.264 and ISO/IEC 14496-10 (version 10)

  11. ISO/IEC, ITU-T (2016b) HEVC Test Model (HM) Reference Software. https://hevc.hhi.fraunhofer.de/. Accessed May 2016

  12. Kim BG (2016) Fast coding unit (CU) determination algorithm for high-efficiency video coding (HEVC) in smart surveillance application. J Supercomput. doi:10.1007/s11227-016-1730-y

  13. Kim IK, Min J, Lee T, Han WJ, Park J (2012) Block partitioning structure in the HEVC standard. IEEE Trans Circuits Syst Video Technol 22(12):1697–1706. doi:10.1109/TCSVT.2012.2223011

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Misra K, Segall A, Horowitz M, Xu S, Fuldseth A, Zhou M (2013) An overview of tiles in HEVC. IEEE J Sel Topics Signal Process 7(6):969–977. doi:10.1109/JSTSP.2013.2271451

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. Ohm JR, Sullivan GJ, Schwarz H, Tan Thiow Keng, Wiegand T (2012) Comparison of the coding efficiency of video coding standards—including high efficiency video coding (HEVC). IEEE Trans Circuits Syst Video Technol 22(12):1669–1684. doi:10.1109/TCSVT.2012.2221192

    Article  Google Scholar 

  16. Piñol P, Migallón H, López-Granado O, Malumbres MP (2014) Parallel strategies analysis over the HEVC encoder. J Supercomput 70(2):671–683. doi:10.1007/s11227-014-1121-1

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. Sullivan G, Minoo K (2012) Objective Quality metric and alternative methods for measuring coding efficiency. In: Tech. Rep. 8th Meeting: San Jose, CA, USA, JCTVC-H0012, ITU-T/ISO/IEC Joint Collaborative Team on Video Coding (JCT-VC)

  18. Sullivan GJ, Ohm JR, Han Woo-Jin, Wiegand T (2012) Overview of the high efficiency video coding (HEVC) standard. IEEE Trans Circuits Syst Video Technol 22(12):1649–1668. doi:10.1109/TCSVT.2012.2221191

    Article  Google Scholar 

  19. Ultra Video Group (2016a) Kvazaar HEVC encoder. https://github.com/ultravideo/kvazaar. Accessed May 2016

  20. Ultra Video Group (2016b) Ultra Video Group Homepage. http://ultravideo.cs.tut.fi/. Accessed May 2016

  21. x265 (2016) Source Code Repository. http://hg.videolan.org/x265. Accessed May 2016

Download references

Acknowledgments

This work was jointly supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO) and the European Commission (FEDER funds) under the Project TIN2015-66972-C5-2-R, and by the Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports under the Grant FPU13/04601.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Albacete Research Institute of Informatics (I3A), University of Castilla-La Mancha, Albacete, Spain

    David García-Lucas, Gabriel Cebrián-Márquez & Pedro Cuenca

Authors
  1. David García-Lucas
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Gabriel Cebrián-Márquez
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Pedro Cuenca
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Pedro Cuenca.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

García-Lucas, D., Cebrián-Márquez, G. & Cuenca, P. Parallelization and performance evaluation of open-source HEVC codecs. J Supercomput 73, 495–513 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11227-016-1895-4

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11227-016-1895-4

Keywords

Search

Navigation