[Ffmpeg-devel] Progress of SNOW

[Unga]

Hi

Btw what is the progress of Snow codec? 

I have encoded 1 minute of HD video (1280x720) into
Xvid, Theora and Snow.

Here are the file sizes:
1. Xvid            17MB
2. Snow            17MB
3. Ogg/Theora Q10  61MB

The Xvid file was made using mencoder by 2 passes with
following options:
bitrate=2500:autoaspect:chroma_opt:vhq=4:bvhq=1:quant_type=mpeg:pass=1

The Snow file was made using mencoder by 2 passes with
following options:
vcodec=snow:vstrict=-2:vpass=1:vbitrate=$B:pred=0:cmp=2:subcmp=2:mbcmp=1:qpel
vcodec=snow:vstrict=-2:vpass=2:vbitrate=$B:pred=0:cmp=12:subcmp=12:mbcmp=1:qpel:vme=8:refs=8

File size and quality wise Snow is very attractive and
is in the class of Xvid (Mpeg-4). But to encode
Ogg/Theora Q10 from a YUV4MPEG2 file takes about 4
minutes and Snow takes 10 hours! Playback wise also
Snow takes 80% of the CPU and load average shoots up
to 2.50.

If Snow developers can improve the efficiency of
encoding and especially the decoding, it will meltdown
Mpeg-4.

Btw, do we have to pay any royalties for encoding,
decoding and distributing Snow contents?

Best Regards
Unga

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