h264 (x264) vs Theora

[Emanuele_Z]

(I made work the tool with latest build of libav* libraries).

Here are the charts for the PSNR and SSIM for this file:
http://web.mit.edu/xiphmont/Public/t...rix-300-AQ.ogv
Video size is 640x272
It has been encoded with default parameters, baseline profile for x264 and default settings with libtheora 1.1. Both of them 2 passes (first pass turbo).
Stats are the average each 25 frames.

PSNR: http://yfrog.com/jymatrixpsnrj
SSIM: http://yfrog.com/0umatrixssimj

As you can see both stats are in total favour of x264. The SSIM is even greater.
I'll post some HD video stats later on.

Cheers,

[VertexPusher]

As you can see both stats are in total favour of x264. The SSIM is even greater.

And this is only H.264 Baseline Profile, i.e. the bottom end of H.264 compression efficiency.

Here's an example from the top end: The new Wall Street movie trailer, 1280x544, encoded at 1800 kb/s (average bitrate) with High Profile settings.

http://www.filefactory.com/file/b03d..._1800_x264_mkv
Size: 20 MB (no audio)
SHA1: 9568d938101d9faeead95a5c766d296f8031f81b

The source file (70 MB) can be downloaded from Apple's website:

wget -U "QuickTime/7.6.5" http://movies.apple.com/movies/fox/wallstreetmoneyneversleeps/wallstreet-tlrd_h720p.mov

I did not make a Theora version, but my guess is that the compression artifacts at 1800 kb/s will totally destroy the video.