Wednesday, February 4, 2009

On2 VP6 H.264 Comparison

Flash Video Codec Comparison is a paper we researched and wrote for On2 Technologies. While we finished the paper in early 2008, the outcome of our impartial research seemed a bit less-than-impressive for On2.

As such, they held it until mid-2008 before releasing it, coincidentally, around the same time that VP8 was released (see VP8 commentary piece on StreamingMedia.com). 

Our standard contract allows any white paper we write to be a) vetted for accuracy by the client, b) published at our discretion, as we have final say over what the paper states in order to maintain objectivity, and c) re-published by Transitions, Inc., after it has been made available by the client for a six-month period of time. 

Six months has now passed, so we make the Flash Video Codec Comparison paper available for general consumption.


For our test bed, we used four stock machines without accelerated graphics cards, to properly test files for consistent playback smoothness. We used both Windows and Macintosh machines:
• MacPro 8-core (not your average machine but one that guaranteed us that we could check files for playback smoothness, eliminating the potential that a file had a glitch in transcoding)
• Dell Dimension 5150 with a 3.4 Ghz Pentium 4
• Macbook (Blackbook) Core2Duo Dual Core
• Dell Inspiron with a 1.7 Ghz Pentium 4