Make your first HEVC stream

This article shows how to encode your video with HM (HEVC Test Model (HM)), the reference implementation developed by the standard organizations.

HM is provided as a source code so that we can build on various platforms. But let’s focus on Windows and Microsoft Visual Studio tool chain for now.

Step 0: Prerequisite

1. Microsofot Visual Studio 2008 or later. Express version should work. [Download]
2. Your favorite YUV viewer such as YUV Player [Download]
3. Subversion client such as Sliksvn [Download]
4. Sample YUV file such as this [Download]

Step 1: Download the source tree

Get the latest version of HM.

% svn co https://hevc.hhi.fraunhofer.de/svn/svn_HEVCSoftware/trunk

Step 2: Build it!

Start Visual Studio command line prompt and build HM_vc9.sln located in trunk/build directory.

% msbuild /p:Configuration=Release HM_vc9.sln

Step 3: Encode it!

Open a notepad and make a configuration text file as shown at the bottom of this article. Save it as test.config. The encoder tool is called TAppEncoder.exe which should be located in trunk/bin/vc9/win32/release.

% TAppEncoder.exe -c test.cfg -i mobile_cif.yuv

Step 4: Check the output

The step above encodes the first 10 frames at 100kbps and creates mobile.hevc, which is your first HEVC stream. Congratulations!

The encoding tool also conveniently made YUV file which was decoded from the HEVC stream. You can compare the original (mobile_cif.yuv) and encoded file (mobile_out.yuv).

This is the original frame.

This is the encoded frame.

Do you see the difference? It’s doing pretty good job for 100kbps – but you can see some compression artifact here.

Configuration file

Here is the configuration file I used. Hover the mouse to right-top area to copy it.

Update: The config file was updated to the latest HM (Feb 6, 2013)

#======== File I/O =====================
BitstreamFile                 : mobile.hevc
ReconFile                     : mobile_out.yuv

FrameRate                     : 24          # Frame Rate per second
FrameSkip                     : 0           # Number of frames to be skipped in input
SourceWidth                   : 352         # Input  frame width
SourceHeight                  : 288         # Input  frame height
FramesToBeEncoded             : 10          # Number of frames to be coded

#======== Unit definition ================
MaxCUWidth                    : 64          # Maximum coding unit width in pixel
MaxCUHeight                   : 64          # Maximum coding unit height in pixel
MaxPartitionDepth             : 4           # Maximum coding unit depth
QuadtreeTULog2MaxSize         : 5           # Log2 of maximum transform size for
                                            # quadtree-based TU coding (2...6)
QuadtreeTULog2MinSize         : 2           # Log2 of minimum transform size for
                                            # quadtree-based TU coding (2...6)
QuadtreeTUMaxDepthInter       : 3
QuadtreeTUMaxDepthIntra       : 3

#======== Coding Structure =============
IntraPeriod                   : -1          # Period of I-Frame ( -1 = only first)
DecodingRefreshType           : 0           # Random Accesss 0:none, 1:CDR, 2:IDR
GOPSize                       : 4           # GOP Size (number of B slice = GOPSize-1)
#        Type POC QPoffset QPfactor tcOffsetDiv2 betaOffsetDiv2  temporal_id #ref_pics_active #ref_pics reference pictures predict deltaRPS #ref_idcs reference idcs 
Frame1:  B    1   3        0.4624   0            0               0           4                4         -1 -5 -9 -13       0
Frame2:  B    2   2        0.4624   0            0               0           4                4         -1 -2 -6 -10       1      -1       5         1 1 1 0 1
Frame3:  B    3   3        0.4624   0            0               0           4                4         -1 -3 -7 -11       1      -1       5         0 1 1 1 1            
Frame4:  B    4   1        0.578    0            0               0           4                4         -1 -4 -8 -12       1      -1       5         0 1 1 1 1
ListCombination               : 1           # Use combined list for uni-prediction in B-slices

#=========== Motion Search =============
FastSearch                    : 1           # 0:Full search  1:TZ search
SearchRange                   : 64          # (0: Search range is a Full frame)
BipredSearchRange             : 4           # Search range for bi-prediction refinement
HadamardME                    : 1           # Use of hadamard measure for fractional ME
FEN                           : 1           # Fast encoder decision
FDM                           : 1           # Fast Decision for Merge RD cost

#======== Quantization =============
QP                            : 32          # Quantization parameter(0-51)
MaxDeltaQP                    : 0           # CU-based multi-QP optimization
MaxCuDQPDepth                 : 0           # Max depth of a minimum CuDQP for sub-LCU-level delta QP
DeltaQpRD                     : 0           # Slice-based multi-QP optimization
RDOQ                          : 1           # RDOQ
RDOQTS                        : 1           # RDOQ for transform skip

#=========== Deblock Filter ============
DeblockingFilterControlPresent: 0           # Dbl control params present (0=not present, 1=present)
LoopFilterOffsetInPPS         : 0           # Dbl params: 0=varying params in SliceHeader, param = base_param + GOP_offset_param; 1=constant params in PPS, param = base_param)
LoopFilterDisable             : 0           # Disable deblocking filter (0=Filter, 1=No Filter)
LoopFilterBetaOffset_div2     : 0           # base_param: -13 ~ 13
LoopFilterTcOffset_div2       : 0           # base_param: -13 ~ 13

#=========== Misc. ============
InternalBitDepth              : 8           # codec operating bit-depth

#=========== Coding Tools =================
SAO                           : 1           # Sample adaptive offset  (0: OFF, 1: ON)
AMP                           : 1           # Asymmetric motion partitions (0: OFF, 1: ON)
TransformSkip                 : 1           # Transform skipping (0: OFF, 1: ON)
TransformSkipFast             : 1           # Fast Transform skipping (0: OFF, 1: ON)
SAOLcuBoundary                : 0           # SAOLcuBoundary using non-deblocked pixels (0: OFF, 1: ON)

#============ Slices ================
SliceMode                : 0                # 0: Disable all slice options.
                                            # 1: Enforce maximum number of LCU in an slice,
                                            # 2: Enforce maximum number of bytes in an 'slice'
                                            # 3: Enforce maximum number of tiles in a slice
SliceArgument            : 1500             # Argument for 'SliceMode'.
                                            # If SliceMode==1 it represents max. SliceGranularity-sized blocks per slice.
                                            # If SliceMode==2 it represents max. bytes per slice.
                                            # If SliceMode==3 it represents max. tiles per slice.

LFCrossSliceBoundaryFlag : 1                # In-loop filtering, including ALF and DB, is across or not across slice boundary.
                                            # 0:not across, 1: across

#============ PCM ================
PCMEnabledFlag                      : 0                # 0: No PCM mode
PCMLog2MaxSize                      : 5                # Log2 of maximum PCM block size.
PCMLog2MinSize                      : 3                # Log2 of minimum PCM block size.
PCMInputBitDepthFlag                : 1                # 0: PCM bit-depth is internal bit-depth. 1: PCM bit-depth is input bit-depth.
PCMFilterDisableFlag                : 0                # 0: Enable loop filtering on I_PCM samples. 1: Disable loop filtering on I_PCM samples.

#============ Tiles ================
UniformSpacingIdc                   : 0                # 0: the column boundaries are indicated by ColumnWidth array, the row boundaries are indicated by RowHeight array
                                                       # 1: the column and row boundaries are distributed uniformly
NumTileColumnsMinus1                : 0                # Number of columns in a picture minus 1
ColumnWidthArray                    : 2 3              # Array containing ColumnWidth values in units of LCU (from left to right in picture)   
NumTileRowsMinus1                   : 0                # Number of rows in a picture minus 1
RowHeightArray                      : 2                # Array containing RowHeight values in units of LCU (from top to bottom in picture)

LFCrossTileBoundaryFlag           : 1                  # In-loop filtering is across or not across tile boundary.
                                                       # 0:not across, 1: across 

#============ WaveFront ================
WaveFrontSynchro                    : 0                # 0:  No WaveFront synchronisation (WaveFrontSubstreams must be 1 in this case).
                                                       # >0: WaveFront synchronises with the LCU above and to the right by this many LCUs.

#=========== Quantization Matrix =================
ScalingList                   : 0                      # ScalingList 0 : off, 1 : default, 2 : file read
ScalingListFile               : scaling_list.txt       # Scaling List file name. If file is not exist, use Default Matrix.

#============ Lossless ================
TransquantBypassEnableFlag: 0  # Value of PPS flag.
CUTransquantBypassFlagValue: 0 # Constant lossless-value signaling per CU, if TransquantBypassEnableFlag is 1.

#============ Rate Control ======================
RateControl                         : 0                # Rate control: enable rate control
TargetBitrate                       : 1000000          # Rate control: target bitrate, in bps
KeepHierarchicalBit                 : 1                # Rate control: keep hierarchical bit allocation in rate control algorithm
LCULevelRateControl                 : 1                # Rate control: 1: LCU level RC; 0: picture level RC
RCLCUSeparateModel                  : 1                # Rate control: use LCU level separate R-lambda model
InitialQP                           : 0                # Rate control: initial QP
RCForceIntraQP                      : 0                # Rate control: force intra QP to be equal to initial QP

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