[FFmpeg-devel] [PATCH] AAC encoder: improve SF range utilization

[Claudio Freire]

Attached

Before pushing this, I'd like some feedback, especially about
the implementation of point 3. I'm not sure the AAC encoder
setting the cutoff in the encoder context like this is legal or desirable.
It does work quite well, and all attempts to do it otherwise were either
very invasive or repeated lots of complex code, so I opted for this
approach. But perhaps someone more familiar with the interfaces
and the contracts behind them could comment on this.

This patch does 4 things, all of which interact and thus it
woudln't be possible to commit them separately without causing
either quality regressions or assertion failures.

Fate comparison targets don't all reflect improvements in
quality, yet listening tests show substantially improved quality
and stability.

1. Increase SF range utilization.

The spec requires SF delta values to be constrained within the
range -60..60. The previous code was applying that range to
the whole SF array and not only the deltas of consecutive values,
because doing so requires smarter code: zeroing or otherwise
skipping a band may invalidate lots of SF choices.

This patch implements that logic to allow the coders to utilize
the full dynamic range of scalefactors, increasing quality quite
considerably, and fixing delta-SF-related assertion failures,
since now the limitation is enforced rather than asserted.

2. PNS tweaks

The previous modification makes big improvements in twoloop's
efficiency, and every time that happens PNS logic needs to be
tweaked accordingly to avoid it from stepping all over twoloop's
decisions. This patch includes modifications of the sort.

3. Account for lowpass cutoff during PSY analysis

The closer PSY's allocation is to final allocation the better
the quality is, and given these modifications, twoloop is now
very efficient at avoiding holes. Thus, to compute accurate
thresholds, PSY needs to account for the lowpass applied
implicitly during twoloop (by zeroing high bands).

This patch makes twoloop set the cutoff in the encoder context
the first time it runs, and makes PSY account for it during
threshold computation, making PE and threshold computations
closer to the final allocation and thus achieving better
subjective quality.

4. Tweaks to RC lambda tracking loop in relation to PNS

Without this tweak some corner cases cause quality regressions.
Basically, lambda needs to react faster to overall bitrate
efficiency changes since now PNS can be quite successful in
enforcing maximum bitrates, when PSY allocates too many bits
to the lower bands, suppressing the signals RC logic uses to
lower lambda in those cases and causing aggressive PNS.

This tweak makes PNS much less aggressive, though it can still
use some further tweaks.
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