libaom v3.6.0 Helia Released

[Wan-Teh Chang]

Hello everyone,

libaom v3.6.0 Helia has been released. The source code of the
release can be checked out from the git repository[1] using the
release tag v3.6.0. Alternatively, the release tarball[2], along with
the signature file[3], can be downloaded.

Thanks.

[1] https://aomedia.googlesource.com/aom
[2] https://storage.googleapis.com/aom-releases/libaom-3.6.0.tar.gz
[3] https://storage.googleapis.com/aom-releases/libaom-3.6.0.tar.gz.asc

2023-02-03 v3.6.0
This release includes compression efficiency and perceptual quality
improvements, speedup and memory optimizations, and some new features.
This release is ABI compatible with the last release.

- New Features
* New values 20-27 (corresponding to levels 7.0-7.3 and 8.0-8.3) for
the encoder control AV1E_SET_TARGET_SEQ_LEVEL_IDX (note that the
proposal to add the new levels are still in draft status). The
original special value 24 (keep level stats only for level
monitoring) is renumbered as 32.
* New encoder control AV1E_SET_SKIP_POSTPROC_FILTERING to skip the
application of post-processing filters on reconstructed frame in
all intra mode.
* New encoder option "kf-max-pyr-height": Maximum height of pyramid
structure used for the GOP starting with a key frame (-1 to 5).
* Make SVC work for screen content.
* Rate control improvements to reduce frame-size spikes for screen
content coding.
* RISC-V architecture support with gcc toolchain.

- Compression Efficiency Improvements
* Peak compression efficiency in VOD setting is improved by 1%.
* 0.7% - 2.2% RTC encoding BDrate gains for real time speed 8 to 10.
* 15% RTC encoding BDrate gains for screen content speed 10.

- Perceptual Quality Improvements
* Resolved a visual quality issue that was reported for high
resolution clips (2K) for speed 4 and above in VOD use case.
* Visual quality improvements to screen content coding.
* Quality improvements to temporal layer RTC coding.

- Speedup and Memory Optimizations
* RTC single-thread encoder speedup:
o ~6% instruction count reduction for speed 5 and 6.
o ~15% instruction count reduction for speed 7.
o ~10% instruction count reduction for speed 8 to 10 (>=360p
resolutions).
* RTC multi-thread encoder speedup (beyond single-thread speedup):
o 5-8% encode time reduction for speed 7 to 10.
* RTC screen-content encoder speedup:
o 11% instruction count reduction for speed 9 and 10 (>=720p
resolutions).
* ~5% reduction in heap memory requirements for RTC, speed 6 to 10.
* AVIF:
o 4-5% speedup for speed 9 in still-picture encoding mode.
o 3-4% heap memory reduction in still-picture encoding mode for
360p-720p resolutions with multiple threads.

- Bug Fixes
* Added a workaround for an AV1 specification bug which makes
TRANSLATION type global motion models unusable.
* Fixed AddressSanitizer global-buffer-overflow errors in
av1/encoder/arm/neon/av1_fwd_txfm2d_neon.c.
* Fixed AddressSanitizer heap-buffer-overflow error in
av1_wiener_convolve_add_src_neon().
* chromium:1393384 Avoid scene detection on spatial resize.
* aomedia:3308 Remove color artifacts under high motion.
* aomedia:3310 Avoid out of memory failures with Visual Studio 2017,
2019, and 2022 for Win32 x86 builds.
* aomedia:3346 Make SVC work properly for screen content.
* aomedia:3348 Fix a bug where an uninitialized search_site is used.
* aomedia:3365 Work around what seems like a Visual Studio 2022
compiler optimization bug.
* aomedia:3369 Incorrect PSNR values reported by libaom for 12-bit
encode.

[Roberto Oliveira]

Hello Mr. Wan Teh Chang.

I Would like to compliment all the work with AV1 format, and AVIF and animated AVIF. All of these formats can be incredibly useful for anyone working in the field.

Unfortunately, we know that innovations don't always reach general use faster. Because users often get used to the most available and commonly used features.

But, for those who understand multimedia technology, they know the importance that these formats can have, and already have, due to the development that has already taken place. All that remains is to spread for greater use, because the advantages are enormous.

Mr. Wan-Teh Chang, notably in video encoding, it is very important to reduce size and maintain quality, the range of gains in this area would be enormous. This is also true for AVIF and animated AVIF. Animated AVIF replacing GIF in some applications can also be very advantageous.

The biggest problem in the area is that these new innovations are supported by a greater number of programs, browsers and Internet services.

 I would like to compliment you.

 Yours sincerely,

Roberto Oliveira