[Spice-devel] Streaming video performance concepts

[Alon Levy]

On Wed, Jun 22, 2011 at 03:44:40PM -0400, John A. Sullivan III wrote:
> On Wed, 2011-06-22 at 17:01 +0200, Alon Levy wrote:
> > On Wed, Jun 22, 2011 at 09:56:28AM -0400, John A. Sullivan III wrote:
> > > On Wed, 2011-06-22 at 11:27 +0200, Alon Levy wrote:
> > > > <snip>> Thank you very much for the explanation.  It's pretty much what I
> > > > > expected - that the codec is different, trading CPU efficiency for
> > > > > bandwidth inefficiency and I certainly understand the reasons why.
> > > > > 
> > > > > Is there any thought or plan to make the codec configurable for those
> > > > > who are willing to sacrifice CPU for bandwidth, e.g., VP8, Theora, or
> > > > > H.264?
> > > > > 
> > > > 
> > > > I haven't done any testing on this but I think the cpu requirements are large.
> > > > maybe with hardware doing the encoding this would work well enough. Technically
> > > > just dropping in a different codec and extending the protocol doesn't sound like
> > > > a lot of work. Patches welcome?
> > > <snip>
> > > I wish I had the skill set to help in that way! Thanks - John
> > > 
> > Would you be able to provide some benchmarks (choose some pc you have) for:
> >  encoding speed of
> >   VP8, Theora, H.264
> >  for various bitdepths and resolutions (you choose, maybe just one - take the resolutions
> >  of a normal youtube window and a fullscreen of your choice).
> > ?
> > 
> > Alon
> > 
> I would be delighted to do so if it will help.  I don't have a clue how
> to.  If you have a link or reference you can point me to, that would be
> appreciated. Otherwise, it will be off to the world of Internet
> research.  Thanks - John

It's been pointed to me off list that my suggestion was very inaccurate, and that perhaps
we have other considerations, like prefering an open (source, no patents) codec like
Theora even if it is worse then H.264 / VP8. Yaniv gave a link to an already old but
interesting comparison: http://keyj.emphy.de/video-encoder-comparison/

>