Back in the spring I posted a video of Motorola Technical Fellow Dr. Sean McCarthy discussing the concept of perceptual video processing (PVP). A PVP plug-in is used in Motorola’s next-gen encoding platform to improve compression and decrease the bandwidth needed to transmit high-definition television. In the footage here, Motorola’s Andy Hooper shows two video streams side by side; one with variable-bitrate content coming direct from a satellite, and one with content passed through a Motorola encoder. The quality between the two streams is comparable, but the bitrate in the second one is about half that of the first – 6 Mbps versus an average of roughly 12 Mbps.
The YouTube clip here actually runs through the entire video headend stack, from satellite receiver, to video multiplexer, to edge QAM gear, to encoding equipment. It’s a great primer if you’re interested. Or you can skip to the end for the side-by-side encoding demo.
While this is potentially very cool, the video is hardly useful evidence that it works well. The YouTube video is in 360p and only shows two random flat panel TVs in the background, hardly useful as proof that the encoder doesn’t degrade the signal.
Matt- Yeah, wish I could show better here. I’ll see if I can grab something better at SCTE later this month when I’m on site.
Cool! That would be great
Also do you know who is planning on using their new encoding platform? It seems like the major cable companies could really benefit from deploying these ASAP.
[...] Perceptual Video Processing Cuts Bitrate in Half – how to use PVP to cut bandwidth requirements while maintaining video [...]