The decoder supports two modes: decode and display. The only supported input format is ivf.
- decode:
make
./decode [path to the compressed input video] [path to the output video]
In decode mode, the input data is decoded into yuv (I420p) format.
To play the yuv output, one can use the following command (requires ffmpeg to be installed):
ffplay -video_size [width]x[height] -framerate [framerate] -pix_fmt yuv420p [path to YUV file]
- display
make display
./display [path to the compressed input video]
(One may need to modify the OpenCV path /usr/include/opencv4/ on a distro other than Arch Linux.)
In display mode, the decoded video is displayed simultaneously. Note that pressing the Right key allows the user to fast-forward (seek) the video.
For a longer video to try out the seeking feature, one can use https://www.csie.ntu.edu.tw/~b07902134/aimer.ivf. (Not included due to its size.)
The decoder is tested with the test-vectors. The script can be found in test/test_vector.py.
To test the decoder:
VP8_TEST_VECTORS=example/vp8-test-vectors/ make test
VP8 is a video codec that is comparable to H.264 in terms of compression / quality. However, unlike H.264, VP8 is royality-free, and can usually be decoded at a higher speed. In addition, VP8, being in the VP family of codecs, can be said to be a predecessor of the new anticipated AV1 codec.