In this note I decided to bring together all the toolkit that was required for the system development:
I'll start with free programs:
Reference codec H.264 - http://iphome.hhi.de/suehring/tml/
Analyser of mp4 files - http://code.google.com/p/mp4parser/
Analyser of H.264 - http://sourceforge.net/projects/h264bitstream/
Perhaps, there is no more among free tools.
The following software products are paid:
Elecard On the company's website there are a huge number of software products, meant for video analysis. Prices are one of the lowest among competitors. The only thing that I absolutely do not understand is why they produced so many different products, while only simultaneous usage of them make sense. I tested demo-version and found out, that I have to purchase all of them in a full version, or not to purchase it at all. If you're developing video codecs, the acquisition of the cut version can be compared with the purchase of pants that have only one leg. Well, all right, if full version – so full. I opened one of my test files in their analyser and...saw nothing. The analyzer successfully opened it, delivered no errors, but nothing analyzed as well. I sent a test file to the Elecard company, then I received confirmation that this bug exists indeed and they will inform me, when this bug will be fixed. Well there is something about a year of my waiting. In general, the Elecard company, with all my respect to it, appeared to be non-responsible. We are going further ahead.
CodecVisa It is a good analyser, also you can download demo-version from their site. User-friendly interface. There is just one shag. Basically, it analyzes H.264 streams, which do not contain any cardinal errors. But as I have developed video codec, I have met fatal errors in video data flow constantly. In this case the analyser hung lifelessly and cannot be restored. On one of the video samples it seemed to me that the analyser conduct incorrect analysis, I also sent this sample to the company, and I was informed that a bug was found in the program indeed, though it didn't showed in my sample and that it will be fixed in the next version. We must hand it to the company, judging by information on the site, in full accordance with their words, in the next version the bug was fixed.
Venera Analizer This is the analyser of a quite different level, besides H.264, here is an mp4 analysis, and a lot of other things. But, unfortunately, again, when I tried to check analysis of a test mp4 file, a bug showed in the analyser instantly. Well, as I have already used to it, as usual, I sent all to the developers, which confirmed the presence of a bug. Honestly, this bug can be rather considered as a misprint, and it can be generally not pay attention to. In general, I moved on to the next analyser.
Vega Analizer I must say that at checking all test files the analyser never showed failure, I have found no bugs, and it puts out much more detailed information about analysis, in comparison with all of the above analysers. Technical support organized on a high level; thus, I decided that this is exactly the analyser, which we need. The price was completely corresponded to the quality, i.e. it was considerably more expensive than all of its predecessors. But it was really worth it. At the moment I got tentative approval for funding allocation to purchase this analyser, so, presumably, after the Mpeg-Dash standard support will be added to it, we will buy it.
Sencore The most expensive analyser of all above-listed. Honestly, I have not tried test version. But taking into account the fact that it’s price is considerably higher than Vega Analizer’s price, and at the same time, we are fully satisfied by the Vega, the need to test this analyser may do not even appear.
In tote, about all of enumerated analyzers, except for the Sencore and Elecard, we can say that the price is approximately corresponds to the quality. About Sencore I just can't say anything, because I have not tested it, and Elecard just could not even be made to analyze something, so even if it was free, you can't get any sense out of it. The rest - the more expensive, the quality.
Igor, October 2012.
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