[iptv-users] Open Source x264 Encoder

[Bruce Buchanan]

If I remember correctly, the price of the encoder for an HD channel is $8,000 or $9,000.


Bruce Buchanan
Senior Network Technician
Nexicom
5 King St. E., Millbrook, ON, LOA 1GO
Phone: 705-932-4147
Cell: 705-750-7705
Web: http://www.nexicom.net
Nexicom - Connected. Naturally.

-----Original Message-----
From: iptv-users-bounces at puck.nether.net [mailto:iptv-users-bounces at puck.nether.net] On Behalf Of Jared Gordon
Sent: Friday, January 22, 2010 1:36 PM
To: frnkblk at iname.com; João Serra; iptv-users at puck.nether.net
Subject: Re: [iptv-users] Open Source x264 Encoder

Just SD.

-----Original Message-----
From: Frank Bulk - iName.com [mailto:frnkblk at iname.com] 
Sent: Friday, January 22, 2010 11:55 AM
To: Jared Gordon; João Serra; iptv-users at puck.nether.net
Subject: RE: [iptv-users] Open Source x264 Encoder

Jared:

Are those MPEG-4 SD encoder costs, or HD, too?  Everything we've looked at
is $25 to $35K per channel.

Frank

-----Original Message-----
From: iptv-users-bounces at puck.nether.net
[mailto:iptv-users-bounces at puck.nether.net] On Behalf Of Jared Gordon
Sent: Friday, January 22, 2010 8:46 AM
To: João Serra; iptv-users at puck.nether.net
Subject: Re: [iptv-users] Open Source x264 Encoder

As a small IPTV service provider, we simply don't have the time or expertise
to play around with an open source solution.  We want something turn-key,
and "hardware" or proprietary encoders fit the bill.  Actually the encoders
we use (Astria/Motorola/Vidtel blades) run a flavor of linux to operate the
hardware.  We get pretty darn good results doing SD content at 2.9Mb/sec
(constant bit rate) using Mpeg4 encoders.  I think your IPTV provider might
be cutting bandwidth corners trying to squeeze it down to 2Mb- it's just not
enough bandwidth from my experiences in a headend-to-set top box scenario.
I'm sure there is always another encoder out there that will do better job,
but when you factor in cost (including development and testing), time to
deploy, and stability, I think it would be a challenge to beat a dedicated
hardware encoder.  Our Mpeg4 encoder costs are about $5600/channel for new
encoding gear (not including distribution, or the chassis)- $3400/channel if
you can find used encoders.  
I'm open to suggestions however, as we're always looking for a way to reduce
costs and increase quality.  Now if you could put together something similar
to what you described, and sell it for less than $3400/channel- I'd be all
about that.  :)

Regards,

Jared Gordon

Winnebago Coop Telecom Assn


-----Original Message-----
From: iptv-users-bounces at puck.nether.net
[mailto:iptv-users-bounces at puck.nether.net] On Behalf Of João Serra
Sent: Thursday, January 21, 2010 8:35 PM
To: iptv-users at puck.nether.net
Subject: [iptv-users] Open Source x264 Encoder

I noticed that almost all of you are working at some IPTV provider,
I'm just an IPTV application Developer and i don't deal with encoders
at all, so i have a question for all of you:

Have you tried the open-source X264 H.264 encoder? According to the
things i read on the net, x264 can out perform every hardware encoder
on the market, even in real-time, both in quality and speed... In the
last version it can even encoder in real time without latency, making
it suitable for video-conferencing applications...
I suggest you to read this post in one of the x264 developers blog -
http://x264dev.multimedia.cx/?p=249&cpage=1#comment-2427 According to
him, there are no h264 encoders in the market(both software and
hardware) that can achieve that level of low-latency... (I know IPTV
doesn't care much about latency, I'm just trying to illustrate the
power of x264)

My IPTV provider, for instance, uses 2 MB/s(in average, they use VBR)
h264 streams for SD content(they're using Harmonic's Divicom Electra
8000) and it really looks awful when compared to a couple of x264
files i have encoded with x264 at 500kb/s(average - VBR encoded) Yes,
i know i can't compare off-line encoding with real-time encoding, so i
did another test: I encoded a video in real-time on a Core 2 Duo with
the same average bitrate of 2mb/s and again, my provider hardware
encoder looses again in quality... I tried Sports, Movies, News, etc
and looking to my Samsung LCD, o difference is very visible, x264
wins!

So, my question to you is: why do you use those very very expensive
hardware encoders that produce mediocre results, if Software encoders
can easily outperform them? And they are much more cheaper(they are a
just standard servers, you can even add SDI/ASI PCI cards if you
want)...

I know x264 can be a pain in the ass to configure, given the bazillion
features and options it supports, however, i think it's a fair
trade-off, if you consider it's price...
I only think i cannot test is it's stability, have any of you tested
it? For instance, letting a Red Hat Enterprise Linux box real time
encoding a stream for a couple of months without interruption?
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