1. 28 Nov, 2015 1 commit
  2. 11 Oct, 2015 1 commit
    • Claudio Freire's avatar
      AAC encoder: Extensive improvements · 01ecb717
      Claudio Freire authored
      This finalizes merging of the work in the patches in ticket #2686.
      
      Improvements to twoloop and RC logic are extensive.
      
      The non-exhaustive list of twoloop improvments includes:
       - Tweaks to distortion limits on the RD optimization phase of twoloop
       - Deeper search in twoloop
       - PNS information marking to let twoloop decide when to use it
         (turned out having the decision made separately wasn't working)
       - Tonal band detection and priorization
       - Better band energy conservation rules
       - Strict hole avoidance
      
      For rate control:
       - Use psymodel's bit allocation to allow proper use of the bit
         reservoir. Don't work against the bit reservoir by moving lambda
         in the opposite direction when psymodel decides to allocate more/less
         bits to a frame.
       - Retry the encode if the effective rate lies outside a reasonable
         margin of psymodel's allocation or the selected ABR.
       - Log average lambda at the end. Useful info for everyone, but especially
         for tuning of the various encoder constants that relate to lambda
         feedback.
      
      Psy:
       - Do not apply lowpass with a FIR filter, instead just let the coder
         zero bands above the cutoff. The FIR filter induces group delay,
         and while zeroing bands causes ripple, it's lost in the quantization
         noise.
       - Experimental VBR bit allocation code
       - Tweak automatic lowpass filter threshold to maximize audio bandwidth
         at all bitrates while still providing acceptable, stable quality.
      
      I/S:
       - Phase decision fixes. Unrelated to #2686, but the bugs only surfaced
         when the merge was finalized. Measure I/S band energy accounting for
         phase, and prevent I/S and M/S from being applied both.
      
      PNS:
       - Avoid marking short bands with PNS when they're part of a window
         group in which there's a large variation of energy from one window
         to the next. PNS can't preserve those and the effect is extremely
         noticeable.
      
      M/S:
       - Implement BMLD protection similar to the specified in
         ISO-IEC/13818:7-2003, Appendix C Section 6.1. Since M/S decision
         doesn't conform to section 6.1, a different method had to be
         implemented, but should provide equivalent protection.
       - Move the decision logic closer to the method specified in
         ISO-IEC/13818:7-2003, Appendix C Section 6.1. Specifically,
         make sure M/S needs less bits than dual stereo.
       - Don't apply M/S in bands that are using I/S
      
      Now, this of course needed adjustments in the compare targets and
      fuzz factors of the AAC encoder's fate tests, but if wondering why
      the targets go up (more distortion), consider the previous coder
      was using too many bits on LF content (far more than required by
      psy), and thus those signals will now be more distorted, not less.
      
      The extra distortion isn't audible though, I carried extensive
      ABX testing to make sure.
      
      A very similar patch was also extensively tested by Kamendo2 in
      the context of #2686.
      01ecb717
  3. 17 Sep, 2015 1 commit
    • Claudio Freire's avatar
      AAC encoder: refactor to resynchronize MIPS port · 8df9bf8e
      Claudio Freire authored
      This patch refactors the AAC coders to reuse code
      between the MIPS port and the regular, portable C code.
      There were two main functions that had to use
      hand-optimized versions of quantization code:
       - search_for_quantizers_twoloop
       - codebook_trellis_rate
      
      Those two were split into their own template header
      files so they can be inlined inside both the MIPS port
      and the generic code. In each context, they'll link
      to their specialized implementations, and thus be
      optimized by the compiler.
      
      This approach I believe is better than maintaining
      several copies of each function. As past experience has
      proven, having to keep those in sync was error prone.
      In this way, they will remain in sync by default.
      
      Also, an implementation of the dequantized output
      argument for the optimized quantize_and_encode
      functions is included in the patch. While the current
      implementation of search_for_pred still isn't using
      it, future iterations of main prediction probably will.
      It should not imply any measurable performance hit while
      not being used.
      8df9bf8e