|
AV1 is the first-generation royalty free video coding standard developed by the Alliance for Open Media (AOM). Since it was finalized in 2018, there have been a lot of attempts to compare the compression efficiency of AV1 against previous generations of video coding standards, such as HEVC, VP9, etc. Some study results have been published previously, but the results vary significantly depending on test conditions and encoder configurations used. It is challenging to design a test configuration and align the encoding parameters to perform a benchmarking test between coding standards and their encoder implementations. Recently, 3GPP started an exploration project to evaluate next generation video coding standards, after AVC and HEVC, for consideration in future 3GPP standards and applications. In this project, a comprehensive set of test conditions was defined to compare the submitted coding specifications, including AV1, VVC, and EVC, versus HEVC and AVC. The evaluation was conducted using reference encoders for each specification. The reference encoders of each proposed coding specification were thoroughly tested using the defined test condition set to provide benchmarking data that could be used in their evaluation and possible inclusion for future 5G streaming services. In this paper, we will first discuss the test scenarios and test configurations for the 3GPP benchmarking test. Then, the detailed encoding parameters for the AV1 reference encoder, which comply with this set of test conditions, will be introduced and the benchmarking test result will be presented. Finally, we will introduce some encoding settings that can be applied to the AV1 reference encoder without some HM and VTM inspired restrictions defined in the test 3GPP test conditions and the corresponding compression efficiency improvement that can be achieved in the expected AV1 usage.
|
