| |  |
BitJazz
SheerVideo FAQ
Speed: Other Codecs
Is SheerVideo faster than Animation?
Is SheerVideo faster than DV or DV-25?
Is SheerVideo faster than Microcosm?
Is SheerVideo faster than Motion JPEG?
Is SheerVideo faster than PNG?
Is SheerVideo faster than Photo JPEG?
Is SheerVideo faster than PhotoJazz?
Is SheerVideo faster than Sorenson?
Is SheerVideo faster than StuffIt?
Is SheerVideo faster than Zip?
Is SheerVideo faster than uncompressed, None, or Component Video?
 Is SheerVideo faster than uncompressed, None, or Component Video?
Yes, in any situation where transmission, storage, or retrieval is the bottleneck,
(which is to say, in just about any situation),
SheerVideo is more than twice as fast as uncompressed,
because SheerVideo is faster than just about any transmission or storage device,
and slashes storage and transmission data rates in half.
Thus, any time you are using Apple's None (uncompressed RGB[A] 8b) codec
or Apple's Component Video (uncompressed Y'CbCr 8bw 4:2:2) codec
with a disk or network or bus that goes slower than SheerVideo,
you could save time by using SheerVideo instead of None or Component Video.
For example, even if you have a slow single-CPU 500 MHz G4 computer and a fast disk with a transfer rate of 30 MB/s,
you could work twice as fast with SheerVideo.
top | next
Is SheerVideo faster than Zip? Yes. At 100 MiB/s (mebibytes per second) on a single-processor 1 GHz Mac G4,
SheerVideo encodes nearly 120 times as fast as
Aladdin System's fast Zip utility implementation (0.92 MiB/s).
And unlike Zip, SheerVideo is available as a QuickTime codec for convenient access in video applications.
Note that SheerVideo is also on average 35% more powerful (2.20) than Zip (1.80) for real-world footage.
However, for poster-quality imagery, Zip is generally much more powerful.
And as a general-purpose compression utility, Zip can compress any data,
whereas SheerVideo specializes in uncompressed video.
previous | top | next
Is SheerVideo faster than StuffIt? Yes, SheerVideo, at 110 MiB/s (mebibytes per second) on a 1-CPU 1 GHz Mac G4,
encodes nearly 160 times faster than
Aladdin System's StuffIt 6 utility (0.67 MiB/s).
And in contrast to StuffIt, SheerVideo is available as a QuickTime codec so that it can be used from within video applications.
In addition, SheerVideo is 5% more powerful (2.20) than StuffIt 6 (2.09) for real-world imagery.
For poster-quality content, however, StuffIt is generally much more powerful.
And whereas SheerVideo is only designed to compress uncompressed video,
StuffIt is a general-purpose compression utility that can compress any data.
previous | top | next
Is SheerVideo faster than PNG? Yes, SheerVideo encodes 60 times faster (110 MiB/s on a single-processor 1 GHz Mac G4)
than Apple's excellent PNG codec implementation (1.8 MiB/s),
and decodes nearly 6 times as fast (100 MiB/s) as PNG (17.6 MiB/s).
What's more, SheerVideo is 20% more powerful (2.20) than PNG (1.80) for real-world footage.
And, unlike PNG, SheerVideo supports native video formats as well as RGB[A].
But for poster-quality pictures, PNG is in general a lot more powerful.
In fact, PNG provides excellent support for low-quality formats such as indexed-color images,
which SheerVideo does not.
previous | top | next
Is SheerVideo faster than Animation? Yes and no.
SheerVideo encodes 2.4 times as fast (110 MiB/s on a single-CPU 1 GHz Mac G4)
as Apple's Animation codec (43 MiB/s),
but decodes 31% slower (100 versus 145 MiB/s) RAM-to-RAM.
For real-world imagery, though, this is a pointless comparison,
because SheerVideo is over 100% more powerful (2.2) than Animation (1.06), which hardly compresses it at all.
So in practice Animation ends up as slow as uncompressed, because it gets hung up in the same bottlenecks.
And in contrast to Animation, SheerVideo supports native video formats as well as RGB[A].
But for poster-quality footage, especially with large areas of constant color as in conventional 2-dimensional animation,
which is what it's designed for, the Animation codec is usually much more powerful.
In fact, unlike SheerVideo, Animation also supports low-quality image formats such as indexed-color images.
previous | top | next
Is SheerVideo faster than Microcosm? Yes, SheerVideo (110 MiB/s on a 1-processor 1 GHz Mac G4) encodes 70 times faster than
Digital Anarchy's
Microcosm codec (1.5 MiB/s),
and decodes 15 times faster than Microcosm (100 versus 6.3 MiB/s).
Despite this huge speed advantage, SheerVideo is only 3% less powerful (2.20) than Microcosm (2.27) for real-world footage.
And unlike Microcosm, SheerVideo supports native video formats as well as RGB[A].
However, Microcosm already supports 16-bit channels,
and for poster-quality content, Microcosm tends to have much higher compression power.
previous | top | next
Is SheerVideo faster than PhotoJazz? Yes. On a single-CPU 1 GHz Mac G4, for example, SheerVideo encodes (110 MiB/s)
and decodes (100 MiB/s) 50 times faster than
BitJazz's
PhotoJazz (1.9 MiB/s).
Note that SheerVideo is only 11% less powerful (2.20) than PhotoJazz (2.51) for real-world footage,
and, unlike PhotoJazz, SheerVideo supports native video formats as well as RGB[A].
On the other hand, PhotoJazz supports many other formats as well,
such as RGB[A*] 16b, CMYK[A*] 8b & 16b, multispectral, multitone, monochrome, and spot colors,
and is also a much more powerful compressor for poster-quality imagery.
previous | top | next
Is SheerVideo faster than Photo JPEG? Yes, SheerVideo compresses 4 times as fast (110 MiB/s on a 1-processor 1 GHz Mac G4)
as Apple's
superb Photo JPEG codec implementation (27 MiB/s) at its Best quality setting,
and decompresses 3 times as fast (100 MiB/s) as Photo JPEG (38 MiB/s).
This even though SheerVideo maintains perfect fidelity, whereas Photo JPEG degrades the image;
and even though SheerVideo is comparable in compression power to Best-quality Photo JPEG.
Furthermore, SheerVideo supports alpha, which Photo JPEG doesn't.
On the other hand, Photo JPEG provides for much higher compression than can be attained with perfect fidelity.
previous | top | next
Is SheerVideo faster than Motion JPEG? Yes, for RGB and Y'CbCr 8bv 4:4:4, SheerVideo compresses 3 times as fast (110 MiB/s on a single-CPU 1 GHz Mac G4)
as Apple's
blisteringly fast Motion JPEG A and Motion JPEG B codec implementations (36 MiB/s) at their Best quality setting,
and decompresses twice as fast (100 MiB/s) as Motion JPEG (47 MiB/s).
For Y'CbCr 8bv/w 4:2:2, SheerVideo (113 MiB/s) compresses 4 times as fast as M-JPEG (26 MiB/s)
and decompresses (88 MiB/s) nearly 3 times as fast as M-JPEG (35 MiB/s).
What's more, SheerVideo achieves this speed advantage without sacrificing a single bit of image quality,
in contrast to Motion JPEG, which compresses the image by approximating it and hence degrading it.
Even so, SheerVideo is comparable in power to Best-quality Motion JPEG.
And unlike Motion JPEG, SheerVideo supports alpha.
On the other hand, Motion JPEG also provides for much higher compression power than a perfect-fidelity codec can possibly achieve.
previous | top | next
Is SheerVideo faster than DV or DV-25? Yes, SheerVideo compresses more than 5 times as fast (110 versus 19 MiB/s on a single-processor 1 GHz Mac G4)
and decompresses nearly twice as fast as (100 versus 54 MiB/s)
Apple's blazingly fast DV-25 codec implementation for RGB.
For Y'CbCr 8bv 4:2:2, SheerVideo compresses 8 times as fast as DV (113 versus 14 MiB/s)
and decompresses just as fast as DV (88 MiB/s compared to 87).
And SheerVideo does this while maintaining perfect fidelity,
whereas DV-25 degrades the image by an average of 3.75 b/S (bits per sample) for Y'CbCr 8bv 4:2:2, and 2.48 b/S for RGB 8b.
Moreover, unlike DV, which only supports two standard resolutions, NTSC (720 x 480) and PAL/SECAM (720 x 576),
SheerVideo supports images of any resolution.
And SheerVideo also supports alpha, which DV-25 doesn't.
On the other hand, for low-end standard-definition video work, DV-25 is generally a much more cost-effective solution.
previous | top | next
Is SheerVideo faster than Sorenson? Yes, but this isn't a fair question.
SheerVideo is a perfect-fidelity codec designed for production, interchange, and archival,
whereas Sorenson Video is an approximating codec designed for distribution.
But since you asked, SheerVideo compresses 20 times as fast (110 MiB/s on a single-processor 1 GHz Mac G4)
as Sorenson 3 (5.5 MiB/s) at its maximum quality settings,
and SheerVideo decompresses more than 4 times as fast (100 MiB/s) as Sorenson 3 (23 MiB/s) at maximum quality.
Note also that SheerVideo supports alpha compression, which Sorenson doesn't.
On the other hand, Sorenson can obviously compress video far more than any perfect-fidelity codec.
previous | top
|
|
|
