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2 | pj | 1 | BERKELEY MPEG TOOLS (Version 1.0, Release 2; August 1995) |
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3 | Lawrence A. Rowe, Steve Smoot, Ketan Patel, Brian Smith, Kevin Gong, |
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4 | Eugene Hung, Doug Banks, Sam Tze-San Fung, Darryl Brown, and Dan Wallach |
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5 | |||
6 | -------------------- |
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7 | Changes since release one: |
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8 | mpeg_encode - important bug fixes |
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9 | mpeg_play - simple user interface added |
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10 | others - small bugfixes |
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11 | -------------------- |
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12 | |||
13 | Computer Science Division-EECS University of California at Berkeley |
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14 | Berkeley, CA 94720-1776 |
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15 | |||
16 | This distribution is a combined release of tools developed at |
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17 | Berkeley and elsewhere for manipulating MPEG-1 video. |
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18 | |||
19 | This release includes the following tools: |
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20 | |||
21 | mpeg_play - software-only MPEG-1 video decoder |
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22 | mpeg_encode - software-only MPEG-1 video encoder |
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23 | mpeg_stat - a bitstream analysis tool |
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24 | mpeg_blocks - an interactive tool to examine macroblock coding |
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25 | mpeg_bits - an interactive tool to examine bit allocation to blocks |
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26 | |||
27 | The package is available at the URL |
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28 | |||
29 | ftp://mm-ftp.cs.berkeley.edu/pub/multimedia/mpeg/bmt1r1.tar.gz |
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30 | |||
31 | For more information on MPEG standards and other MPEG software and |
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32 | hardware, see http://www-plateau.cs.berkeley.edu/mpeg/index.html. |
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33 | Other sites where you can find interesting MPEG related software |
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34 | and movies are: |
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35 | |||
36 | ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/multimedia/utilities |
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37 | ftp://netcom.com:/pub/cf/cfogg/ |
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38 | http://www.acm.uiuc.edu/rml/Mpeg |
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39 | |||
40 | The remainder of this file describes each tool including changes, |
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41 | if any, from previous releases and other information about the |
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42 | release. In the descriptions below reference is made to papers |
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43 | describing various aspects of these programs. These papers are |
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44 | also available at the Plateau WWW site (http://www-plateau.cs.berkeley.edu/) |
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45 | or in our FTP site in the directory pub/multimedia/papers. |
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46 | |||
47 | |||
48 | MPEG_PLAY (V2.3) |
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49 | |||
50 | This program decodes and displays an MPEG-1 video stream. The |
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51 | program has been written to be portable, which means it has not |
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52 | been optimized for specific platforms. The decoder is implemented |
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53 | as a library that will take a video stream and display it in an X |
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54 | window on an 8, 24 or 32 bit deep display. The main routine is |
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55 | supplied to demonstrate the use of the decoder library. Several |
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56 | dithering algorithms are supplied based on the Floyd-Steinberg, |
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57 | ordered dither, and half-toning algorithms that tradeoff quality |
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58 | and performance. Neither the library nor the main routine handle |
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59 | real-time synchronization or audio streams. |
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60 | |||
61 | A paper published at ACM Multimedia 93 describes the decoder and |
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62 | compares the performance of the program on several platforms (see |
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63 | pub/multimedia/papers/MM93.ps.Z). An updated version of this |
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64 | comparison is included in the file doc/mpegperf.ps in this |
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65 | distribution. This code has also been included in our Continuous |
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66 | Media Player (cmplayer) that plays synchronized audio and video |
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67 | across a network. This system adapts to the decoding performance |
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68 | of the destination machine. A paper describing these algorithms |
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69 | and the performance of the system was published at IS&T SPIE 94 |
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70 | (see /pub/multimedia/papers/CMMPEG-SPIE94.ps.Z). |
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71 | |||
72 | This release fixes numerous bugs in the player including the motion |
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73 | vector problem that caused problems when playing MPEGs generated |
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74 | from computer-generated animations, the error in the color space |
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75 | equations, some IDCT problems, and a number of minor problems with |
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76 | installation on platforms with new OS releases. |
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77 | |||
78 | New features have also been implemented, chief of which are the ability |
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79 | to play system layer MPEG streams (discarding audio), gamma correction, and |
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80 | frame rate control. |
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81 | |||
82 | |||
83 | MPEG_ENCODE (V1.5R2) |
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84 | |||
85 | This program generates an MPEG-1 video bitstream given a sequence |
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86 | of images in an acceptable format (e.g., yuv, ppm, jpeg, etc.). |
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87 | It can be run on one computer (i.e., sequential) or on several |
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88 | computers (i.e., parallel). Our goal was to produce a portable, |
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89 | easy-to-use encoder that can be used to encode video material for |
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90 | a variety of desktop applications (e.g., video-on-demand). The |
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91 | parallelism is done on a sequence of pictures. In other words, |
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92 | you can spawn one or more children to encode continuous runs of |
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93 | pictures. The goal is to allow you to encode using multiple |
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94 | processors, think spare cycles on workstations, to speed up the |
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95 | encoding time. Although performance depends on the speed of |
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96 | individual processors, the file system and network, and the P/B |
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97 | frame search methods, we have encoded 3.75 frames/second on 8 HP |
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98 | Snakes running in parallel as compared with 0.6 frames/second on |
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99 | 1 Snake when coding CIF size images. The encoder has also been |
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100 | ported to an Intel supercomputer (Paragon) on which it has encoded CCIR |
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101 | 601 images at 40 frames/second. |
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102 | |||
103 | A paper describing the parallel encoder and our experiments on a |
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104 | network of workstations was published at the 1994 Picture Coding |
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105 | Symposium (see /pub/multimedia/papers/mpeg-encode.ps.Z). A paper |
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106 | describing the port to the Intel supercomputer and the performance |
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107 | experiments on that system was presented at IS&T SPIE95 (see |
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108 | /pub/multimedia/papers/intelsc-mpeg-encode.ps.Z). This work was |
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109 | done jointly with Ed Delp and his student Ke Shen from Purdue. |
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110 | You can get a copy of the Intel code from /pub/dist/delp/spie95-coding |
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111 | at skynet.ecn.purdue.edu. |
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112 | |||
113 | This release fixed several bugs and added some new features. |
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114 | Specifically, the encoder has been modified to: 1) accept input |
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115 | images generated on the fly by another program, 2) generate constant |
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116 | bitrate bitstreams, 3) be much more flexible about input formats, |
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117 | and 4) allow a priori specification of motion vectors or Qscales on a |
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118 | macroblock level, to avoid repetitive motion searches when reencoding. |
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119 | |||
120 | MPEG_STAT (V2.2R2) |
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121 | |||
122 | MPEG_STAT has been modified to gather more statistics (e.g., bit |
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123 | rate, real Q-scale information, detailed motion vector/cbp information, |
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124 | constrained parameter checking, etc.) and fix some bugs. The major |
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125 | change (from 2.1) was to add some additional verification checks to help |
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126 | determine the validty of a bitstream including illegal motion |
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127 | vectors and CPB settings, and speed it up even more. |
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128 | |||
129 | |||
130 | MPEG_BLOCKS (V1.0R2) |
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131 | |||
132 | This program is a new tool that allows a user to examine how a |
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133 | movie has been encoded on a picture-by-picture basis. It shows |
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134 | size statistics on the different frame types and how each macroblock |
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135 | was coded. The program also shows the decoded image so you can |
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136 | see the effect of these coding parameters. |
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137 | |||
138 | The current version of this program only works on systems that |
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139 | support the X Windowing System and Tcl/Tk because it provides a |
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140 | user-friendly GUI. |
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141 | |||
142 | |||
143 | MPEG_BITS (V1.0R2) |
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144 | |||
145 | This program is also new in this release. It is based on the |
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146 | MPEG_BLOCKS program, but instead of showing block encoding, it |
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147 | shows how many bits were allocated to each block. It uses the same |
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148 | GUI interface. |
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149 | |||
150 | MPEG_BITS also allows you to specify a range of blocks that should |
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151 | receive more bits when recoding the sequence. The mpeg_encoder |
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152 | has not yet been modified to take this specification, but it will |
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153 | in a future release. |
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154 | |||
155 | |||
156 | ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS |
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157 | |||
158 | We gratefully thank Hewlett-Packard, Fujitsu, Hitachi, and Philips who |
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159 | provided financial support for this work. We also want to thank the |
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160 | following people and organizations for their help: |
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161 | |||
162 | Jef Poskanzer who developed the pbmplus package. |
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163 | |||
164 | Eiichi Kowashi of Intel and Avideh Zakhor of U.C. Berkeley who |
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165 | provided valuable suggestions on motion vector searching. |
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166 | |||
167 | Chad Fogg of Chromatic Research, Inc. who has helped us understand |
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168 | many issues in MPEG coding and decoding. |
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169 | |||
170 | Rainer Menes of the Technical University of Munich who |
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171 | ported previous versions of the Berkeley MPEG encoder and |
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172 | decoder to the Macintosh. He has provided us with many suggestions |
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173 | to improve the code. |
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174 | |||
175 | Robert Safranek of ATT for comments, suggestions, and most of |
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176 | the code for custom quantization tables. |
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177 | |||
178 | Jim Boucher of Boston University for jmovie2jpeg. |
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179 | |||
180 | The San Diego SuperComputing Center for providing facilities |
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181 | to develop some of the code contained within. |
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182 | |||
183 | Tom Lane of the Independent JPEG Group who provided us with the basic |
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184 | inverse DCT code used by our player. (tom_lane@g.gp.cs.cmu.edu) |
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185 | |||
186 | Reid Judd of Sun Microsystems who provided advice and assistance. |
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187 | |||
188 | Todd Brunhoff of NVR who provided advice and assistance. |
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189 | |||
190 | Toshihiko Kawai of Sony who provided advice and assistance. |