The latest crop of HDTV codecs emanating from Avid, Panasonic and Sony were subjected to assessment by a group of EBU video coding experts at the beginning of March.
High quality 1080p sequences
Crucial to the success of the operation was the set of high quality 1080p test sequences that had been previously manufactured by the group in Oslo (reported in a previous news item). The assessments took the form of a group of video coding experts viewing the test sequences displayed on a Dolby PRM-4200 picture monitor under reference viewing conditions.
Each codec was assessed against the original test sequences and against the sequences processed through two agreed 'legacy' formats - Sony HDCAM-SR and the Avid DNxHD codec running at approximately 180 Mbit/s that is in current use for 1080i and 720p formats (the performance of this codec is reported in EBU BPN 076 ). Each codec was also assessed in multiple concatenated generations of itself - up to the 7th generation with a pixel shift between generations - to simulate a stand-alone production chain.
The results of the assessments are reported for each codec in a separate EBU BPN publication that is strictly reserved for EBU members. BPN 097 reports on the Avid DNxHD codec, BPN 098 reports on the Panasonic AVC-I 200 codec and BPN 099 reports on the Sony SR-Lite codec. An accompanying supplement sets out the test plan used for these assessments. For more information on these tests, you can contact Dr Hans Hoffmann (EBU) .