Intel Quick Sync vs. AMD VCE vs. AMD Video Core Next

General questions or discussion about HandBrake, Video and/or audio transcoding, trends etc.
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xov5dor
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Intel Quick Sync vs. AMD VCE vs. AMD Video Core Next

Post by xov5dor »

Does anyone have any examples, clips or links to other sites that show and speak in detail of the quality and compression of these hardware encoders? I am most interested in the quality, speed and compression of Quick Sync and Video Core Next when encoding to HEVC/H.265 vs. software encoding. I am not sure but, I think AMD Video Core Next can only be found on the latest AMD APUs. If anyone has the latest form of these hardware encoders could you create short clips of the source and encodes using software encoders and hardware encoders to HEVC/H.265? Thanks in advance.
Last edited by xov5dor on Sat Feb 02, 2019 4:46 am, edited 1 time in total.
Woodstock
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Re: Intel Quick Sync vs. AMD VCE vs. AMD Video Core Next

Post by Woodstock »

If quality and compression (smaller size) are your important criteria, the hardware encoders do not excel at those. Speed, they do very well at.
xov5dor
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Re: Intel Quick Sync vs. AMD VCE vs. AMD Video Core Next

Post by xov5dor »

I want to know which of the hardware encoders is the best at quality, compression and speed. Also, how they compare to the software encoders. HEVC/H.265 can contain more in a smaller space. I were thinking since the previous is true, the hardware encoders should not lose that much quality if the sources are uncompressed.
Deleted User 13735

Re: Intel Quick Sync vs. AMD VCE vs. AMD Video Core Next

Post by Deleted User 13735 »

. I want to know which of the hardware encoders is the best at quality, compression and speed
You didn't read or chose to ignore the correct answer, didn't you?
. If quality and compression (smaller size) are your important criteria, the hardware encoders do not excel at those. Speed, they do very well at.
You will get quality and compression with software codecs. You will get compression and speed with hardware codecs. Think on it.
xov5dor
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Re: Intel Quick Sync vs. AMD VCE vs. AMD Video Core Next

Post by xov5dor »

Their has to be an order of the 3 hardware encoders from best to worst. That is what I am asking. The comparison of hardware and software encoders that I asked about is to know how much of a difference between them exists. Not which is the best between software and hardware encoders.
Deleted User 13735

Re: Intel Quick Sync vs. AMD VCE vs. AMD Video Core Next

Post by Deleted User 13735 »

. Their has to be an order of the 3 hardware encoders from best to worst.
There does?
I won't speak for Woodstock, but I think the differences are trivial enough between the three to be inconsistent across sytems, settings, Bitrates, and video sources.

There are plenty of tests around, some of them reliable, to help you make your choices. I think if you will critically compare hardware renders from high-motion source, you may see where we are coming from. Even some producers are backpedaling and rejoining the x264-cpu ranks, even for 4k 8-bit.

OK, so you are shopping for a new CPU. Tomshardware is a good place to start for encoder benchmarks. Personally, I would ignore gaming benchmarks entirely on an editing build.
Woodstock
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Re: Intel Quick Sync vs. AMD VCE vs. AMD Video Core Next

Post by Woodstock »

The thing about hardware compression is that certain shortcuts are taken to make the compression FAST. The target market is streaming video from live sources, like teleconferences. Quality and absolute size are secondary concerns in the design. So, if either of those are in YOUR criteria, then the hardware encoders are all "deficient" for your needs.

You're wanting to know which one is "less deficient" than the others, but that depends upon whether or not your video sources match well with the shortcuts taken by the designers. That is something only you would be able to test.

The subjective part of this question is what makes it so hard to answer, because we are not you. Musicvid's needs are far different from mine (quality is critical in his application). My version of "acceptable quality" varies with the content - DVD quality is fine if a story is compelling enough to keep me engaged in the story, rather than looking for encoding artifacts to pass the time.

For what it is worth, I tested QSV against x264 some time ago, and found the QSV quality "acceptably close" to x264 for me. The speed diff was phenomenal. But the 5% increase in file sizes for that "mostly the same" quality was not acceptable to me, so I abandoned hardware encoding.
Deleted User 13735

Re: Intel Quick Sync vs. AMD VCE vs. AMD Video Core Next

Post by Deleted User 13735 »

Good summation.
I would add that with crf and veryfast, I can get "acceptably fast" encoding with x264-cpu, but with measurably better quality than on-chip solutions. "Less bad" isn't in my production core values.
xov5dor
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Re: Intel Quick Sync vs. AMD VCE vs. AMD Video Core Next

Post by xov5dor »

Satisfactory for each person differs. That is why I asked about clips to HEVC/H.265 using hardware encoders. That way I can decide for myself if hardware encoded HEVC/H.265 files are acceptable. If the differences are trivial between the 3. What level of triviality is it? If the 3 reach a level of trivial gaps their quality may good enough. Files encoded to x264 are not what I am seeking. I know that x264 CPU created files are faster compared to x265.
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BradleyS
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Re: Intel Quick Sync vs. AMD VCE vs. AMD Video Core Next

Post by BradleyS »

NVENC vs x264 comparisons are available on YouTube. With newer hardware and a higher quality encoder preset, it's similar in quality to x264 fast. Maybe veryfast with older hardware.

That x264 with relatively fast/restricted settings can equal or best ASIC encoder quality should make it clear, hardware encoding is for speed. I wouldn't expect x265 to provide much improvement here unless the bit rate is extremely low or the resolution ultra high, which are the areas it currently excels.
Deleted User 13735

Re: Intel Quick Sync vs. AMD VCE vs. AMD Video Core Next

Post by Deleted User 13735 »

A friend of mine just posted these tests on another forum. Posted without comment because they're not mine.
https://s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/l ... A7A44D.jpg
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