AVC-Intra
Encyclopedia
AVC-Intra is a type of video coding developed by Panasonic
that is fully compliant with the H.264/MPEG-4 AVC
standard and additionally follows the SMPTE RP 2027-2007 recommended practice specification.
AVC-Intra is available in a number of Panasonic
's high definition broadcast products, such as, for example, their P2 card
equipped broadcast cameras. It is now also supported in various products made by other companies.
Panasonic
announced AVC-Intra codec support in April 2007. The use of AVC-Intra provides production quality HD video at bit rates more normally associated with ENG (Electronic news gathering
) applications, permitting full resolution, 10 bit field capture of high quality HD imagery in one piece camera-recorders.
AVC-Intra is intended to serve needs of video professionals who have to store HD digital video on digital storage media for editing and archiving purposes. It defines 10-bit intra-frame only compression, which is easy for editing and preserves maximum video quality. The technology significantly outperforms the older HDV
(MPEG2 based) and DVCPRO HD (DV
based) formats, allowing the codec in certain conditions to maintain better quality in half the storage space of DVCPRO HD.
Common to both classes;
Panasonic implementation of AVC-Intra codec has following limitations: 8x8 transform only, 8x8 intra prediction only, 10 slices per picture, MBAFF for interlace material, custom quantization matrices for each class and each resolution.
The Panasonic AVC-Ultra family defines an additional three new encoding parameters within the MPEG-4 Part 10 standard, utilizing up to the 4:4:4 Intra Predictive Profile,
as well as an additional low bitrate proxy recording mode.
The most efficient new parameter within AVC-Ultra is by Panasonic called, AVC-LongG. AVC-LongG enables compression of video resolutions up to 1920x1080 @ 23.97, 25 and 29.97p, with 10 bits of pixel depth at
4:2:2 color sampling, at data rates as low as 25 Mbit / sec.
More over, the AVC-Intra Class 50/100 is now extended to Class 200 and Class 4:4:4. The Class 200 mode extends the bitrate to 226 Mbit / sec for 1080/23,97p, while the Class 4:4:4 extends the possible resolution from 720p to 4K with pixel depths at 10 and 12 bits.
The bitrate settings for Class 4:4:4 varies between 200 and 440 Mbit / sec depending on the resolution, frame rate and bit depth.
Both the Class 200 and the Class 4:4:4 are Intra-only coding modes.
The AVC-Proxy mode enables extremely fast ENG content delivery and offline edits of 720p and 1080p video
at bitrates varying between 800 Kbit to 3,5 Mbit / sec at 8 bits of pixel depth.
Panasonic
Panasonic is an international brand name for Japanese electric products manufacturer Panasonic Corporation, which was formerly known as Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd...
that is fully compliant with the H.264/MPEG-4 AVC
H.264/MPEG-4 AVC
H.264/MPEG-4 Part 10 or AVC is a standard for video compression, and is currently one of the most commonly used formats for the recording, compression, and distribution of high definition video...
standard and additionally follows the SMPTE RP 2027-2007 recommended practice specification.
AVC-Intra is available in a number of Panasonic
Panasonic
Panasonic is an international brand name for Japanese electric products manufacturer Panasonic Corporation, which was formerly known as Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd...
's high definition broadcast products, such as, for example, their P2 card
P2 (storage media)
P2 is a professional digital recording solid-state memory storage media format introduced by Panasonic in 2004, and especially tailored to electronic news-gathering applications. It features tapeless recording of DV, DVCPRO, DVCPRO25, DVCPRO50, DVCPRO-HD, or AVC-Intra streams on a solid-state...
equipped broadcast cameras. It is now also supported in various products made by other companies.
Panasonic
Panasonic
Panasonic is an international brand name for Japanese electric products manufacturer Panasonic Corporation, which was formerly known as Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd...
announced AVC-Intra codec support in April 2007. The use of AVC-Intra provides production quality HD video at bit rates more normally associated with ENG (Electronic news gathering
Electronic news gathering
ENG is a broadcasting industry acronym which stands for electronic news gathering. It can mean anything from a lone broadcast journalist reporter taking a single professional video camera out to shoot a story, to an entire television crew taking a production truck or satellite truck on location...
) applications, permitting full resolution, 10 bit field capture of high quality HD imagery in one piece camera-recorders.
AVC-Intra is intended to serve needs of video professionals who have to store HD digital video on digital storage media for editing and archiving purposes. It defines 10-bit intra-frame only compression, which is easy for editing and preserves maximum video quality. The technology significantly outperforms the older HDV
HDV
HDV is a format for recording of high-definition video on DV cassette tape. The format was originally developed by JVC and supported by Sony, Canon and Sharp...
(MPEG2 based) and DVCPRO HD (DV
DV
DV is a format for the digital recording and playing back of digital video. The DV codec was launched in 1995 with joint efforts of leading producers of video camcorders....
based) formats, allowing the codec in certain conditions to maintain better quality in half the storage space of DVCPRO HD.
Technical details
There are two classes;- AVC-Intra 50:
- nominally 50 Mbit/s, size of each frame is fixed
- CABAC entropy coding only.
- 1920x1080 formats are High 10 Intra Profile, Level 4
- 1280x720 formats are High 10 Intra Profile, Level 3.2
- 4:2:0 chrominance sampling
- frames are horizontally scaled by 3/4 (1920x1080 is scaled to 1440x1080. 1280x720 is scaled to 960x720)
- AVC-Intra 100:
- nominally 100 Mbit/s, size of each frame is fixed
- CAVLC entropy coding only.
- All formats are High 4:2:2 Intra Profile, Level 4.1
- 4:2:2 chrominance sampling
- frames are not scaled
Common to both classes;
- Frame rates: 1920x1080 (23.98p / 25p / 29.97p / 50i / 59.94i), 1280x720 (23.98p / 25p / 29.97p / 50p / 59.94p)
- 10 bit luma and chroma
Panasonic implementation of AVC-Intra codec has following limitations: 8x8 transform only, 8x8 intra prediction only, 10 slices per picture, MBAFF for interlace material, custom quantization matrices for each class and each resolution.
- AVC-Ultra:
The Panasonic AVC-Ultra family defines an additional three new encoding parameters within the MPEG-4 Part 10 standard, utilizing up to the 4:4:4 Intra Predictive Profile,
as well as an additional low bitrate proxy recording mode.
The most efficient new parameter within AVC-Ultra is by Panasonic called, AVC-LongG. AVC-LongG enables compression of video resolutions up to 1920x1080 @ 23.97, 25 and 29.97p, with 10 bits of pixel depth at
4:2:2 color sampling, at data rates as low as 25 Mbit / sec.
More over, the AVC-Intra Class 50/100 is now extended to Class 200 and Class 4:4:4. The Class 200 mode extends the bitrate to 226 Mbit / sec for 1080/23,97p, while the Class 4:4:4 extends the possible resolution from 720p to 4K with pixel depths at 10 and 12 bits.
The bitrate settings for Class 4:4:4 varies between 200 and 440 Mbit / sec depending on the resolution, frame rate and bit depth.
Both the Class 200 and the Class 4:4:4 are Intra-only coding modes.
The AVC-Proxy mode enables extremely fast ENG content delivery and offline edits of 720p and 1080p video
at bitrates varying between 800 Kbit to 3,5 Mbit / sec at 8 bits of pixel depth.
Third Party Support
- AvidAvid TechnologyAvid Technology, Inc. is an American company specializing in video and audio production technology; specifically, digital non-linear editing systems, management and distribution services. It was created in 1987 and became a publicly traded company in 1993...
's Media ComposerMedia ComposerMedia Composer, frequently referred to as "Avid", is a type of computer software application known as a Non-linear editing system . It is the flagship product of Avid Technology. It was released in 1989 on the Macintosh II as an offline editing system...
3.5.0 provides support via Avid Media Access (AMA), a new plug-in architecture - Apple's Final Cut ProFinal Cut ProFinal Cut Pro is a non-linear video editing software developed by Macromedia Inc. and then Apple Inc. The most recent version, Final Cut Pro X, runs on Mac personal computers powered by Mac OS X version 10.6.7 or later and using Intel processors...
7 provides native AVC-Intra decoding within a ProRes 422 timeline. - MXF4mac offers an AVC-Intra codec for QuickTime that allows to export AVC-Intra and to set up native AVC-Intra timelines in Final Cut Pro.
- EVS Broadcast Equipment, SAEVSEVS may refer to:* European Voluntary Service* EVS Broadcast Equipment* EVS, the Electric Vehicle Symposium* EVS - Enhanced vision system* EVS - EVS Professional Training Institute...
has announced AVC-Intra 100 support for their XT[2]+, XT[3] and XS server family - MainConceptMainConceptMainConcept GmbH is a software company developing video/audio codecs and also applications and plug-ins related to video/audio encoding.-History:...
offer an AVC-Intra encoder and decoder as part of their Codec SDK - Harris CorporationHarris CorporationHarris Corporation is a Florida-based international communications equipment company that produces wireless equipment, electronic systems, and both terrestrial and spaceborne antennas for use in the government, defense, and commercial sectors. It is also the largest private-sector employer in...
announced AVC-Intra support for the NEXIO AMP line of video servers at NABNABNAB may stand for:* Name and address book* National Assessment Bank, an internal exam used by the Scottish Qualifications Authority* National Association of Broadcasters, the industry group representing the commercial radio stations and television stations of the United States** NAB Show, an annual...
2008 - Omneon IncOmneonOmneon develops and markets video server and computer storage products for companies that produce and distribute audio and video content for television and the Internet. Founded in 1998, the company is reported to have a wide range of clients in the television broadcast sector from around the...
has announced AVC-Intra support for their Spectrum and MediaDeck products - QuantelQuantelQuantel is a company based in the United Kingdom and founded in 1973 that designs and manufactures digital production equipment for the broadcast television, video production and motion picture industries...
demonstrated AVC-Intra workflow at NABNational Association of BroadcastersThe National Association of Broadcasters is a trade association, workers union, and lobby group representing the interests of for-profit, over-the-air radio and television broadcasters in the United States...
2007, and released to customers in 2008 with their V4 software. - Grass ValleyGrass Valley (company)Grass Valley, previously known as Grass Valley Group, is a privately held company based in California, USA. Grass Valley produces technology for the video and broadcast industry. On January 29, 2009, Thomson announced its intention to sell the Grass Valley business unit...
has announced native support for AVC-Intra in EdiusEdiusEDIUS is a video editing software package originally developed by the Japanese based Canopus Corporation until 2005, when the Canopus Corporation was sold to Grass Valley.EDIUS is a non-linear editor that works with most modern video formats....
4.5 - AdobeAdobe SystemsAdobe Systems Incorporated is an American computer software company founded in 1982 and headquartered in San Jose, California, United States...
's After Effects CS5 provides native AVC-Intra decoding. - Vanguard Software Solutions provides an H.264/AVC PC SDK capable of encoding at 100 Mbit/s in real-time
- FFmpegFFmpegFFmpeg is a free software project that produces libraries and programs for handling multimedia data. The most notable parts of FFmpeg are libavcodec, an audio/video codec library used by several other projects, libavformat, an audio/video container mux and demux library, and the ffmpeg command line...
and Libav support decoding of both forms of AVC-Intra Note: ffmpeg.exe from Zeranoe FFmpeg build from 2011-09-15 which uses libavcodec 53.14.0 cannot decode P2 .MXF (1440x1080), neither it can't decode AVC-Intra stream put into .ts container
Third Party Implementation (IP Cores)
Several companies have introduced AVC Intra codec IP Core to the market.- Jointwave provides AVC-Intra 50 and AVC-Intra 100 encoderEncoderAn encoder is a device, circuit, transducer, software program, algorithm or person that converts information from one format or code to another, for the purposes of standardization, speed, secrecy, security, or saving space by shrinking size.-Media:...
IP. - Vanguard Software Solutions provides AVC-Intra 50 and 100 encoder IP (up to AVC-Ultra: 1080p60 at 300 Mbps).
- Nethra Imaging provides AVC-Intra 50 and 100 encoder IP.