Streaming and Video Conferencing Features#

The following sections address some aspects of additional requirements that streaming or video conferencing applications may use in the encoding or transcoding process. See the Configuration Change section for additional information.

Dynamic Bitrate Change#

The oneVPL encoder supports dynamic bitrate change according to bitrate control mode and HRD conformance requirements. If HRD conformance is required, for example if the application sets the NalHrdConformance option in the mfxExtCodingOption structure to ON, the only allowed bitrate control mode is VBR. In this mode, the application can change the TargetKbps and MaxKbps values of the mfxInfoMFX structure by calling the MFXVideoENCODE_Reset() function. This sort of change in bitrate usually results in the generation of a new keyframe and sequence header. There are exceptions, such as if HRD information is absent in the stream. In this scenario, the change of TargetKbps does not require a change in the sequence header and as a result the encoder does not insert a keyframe.

If HRD conformance is not required, for example if the application turns off the NalHrdConformance option in the mfxExtCodingOption structure, all bitrate control modes are available. In CBR and AVBR modes the application can change TargetKbps. In VBR mode the application can change TargetKbps and MaxKbps values. This sort of change in bitrate will not result in the generation of a new keyframe or sequence header.

The oneVPL encoder may change some initialization parameters provided by the application during initialization. That in turn may lead to incompatibility between the parameters provided by the application during reset and the working set of parameters used by the encoder. For this reason, it is strongly recommended to retrieve the actual working parameters using the MFXVideoENCODE_GetVideoParam() function before making any changes to bitrate settings.

In all modes, oneVPL encoders will respond to the bitrate changes as quickly as the underlying algorithm allows, without breaking other encoding restrictions such as HRD compliance if it is enabled. How quickly the actual bitrate can catch up with the specified bitrate is implementation dependent.

Alternatively, the application may use the CQP encoding mode to perform customized bitrate adjustment on a per-frame base. The application may use any of the encoded or display order modes to use per-frame CQP.

Dynamic Resolution Change#

The oneVPL encoder supports dynamic resolution change in all bitrate control modes. The application may change resolution by calling the MFXVideoENCODE_Reset() function. The application may decrease or increase resolution up to the size specified during encoder initialization.

Resolution change always results in the insertion of a key IDR frame and a new sequence parameter set in the header. The only exception is the oneVPL VP9 encoder (see section for Dynamic reference frame scaling). The oneVPL encoder does not guarantee HRD conformance across the resolution change point.

The oneVPL encoder may change some initialization parameters provided by the application during initialization. That in turn may lead to incompatibility of parameters provide by the application during reset and working set of parameters used by the encoder. Due to this potential incompatibility, it is strongly recommended to retrieve the actual working parameters set by MFXVideoENCODE_GetVideoParam() function before making any resolution change.

Dynamic Reference Frame Scaling#

The VP9 standard allows changing the resolution without the insertion of a keyframe. This is possible because the VP9 encoder has the built-in capability to upscale and downscale reference frames to match the resolution of the frame being encoded. By default the oneVPL VP9 encoder inserts a keyframe when the application does Dynamic Resolution Change. In this case, the first frame with a new resolution is encoded using inter prediction from the scaled reference frame of the previous resolution. Dynamic scaling has the following limitations, described in the VP9 specification:

  • The resolution of any active reference frame cannot exceed 2x the resolution of the current frame.

  • The resolution of any active reference frame cannot be smaller than 1/16 of the current frame resolution.

In the case of dynamic scaling, the oneVPL VP9 encoder always uses a single active reference frame for the first frame after a resolution change. The VP9 encoder has the following limitations for dynamic resolution change:

  • The new resolution should not exceed 16x the resolution of the current frame.

  • The new resolution should be less than 1/2 of current frame resolution.

The application may force insertion of a keyframe at the point of resolution change by invoking encoder reset with mfxExtEncoderResetOption::StartNewSequence set to MFX_CODINGOPTION_ON. If a keyframe is inserted, the dynamic resolution limitations are not enforced.

Note that resolution change with dynamic reference scaling is compatible with multiref (mfxInfoMFX::NumRefFrame > 1). For multiref configuration, the oneVPL VP9 encoder uses multiple references within stream pieces of the same resolution and uses a single reference at the place of resolution change.

Forced Keyframe Generation#

oneVPL supports forced keyframe generation during encoding. The application can set the FrameType parameter of the mfxEncodeCtrl structure to control how the current frame is encoded, as follows:

  • If the oneVPL encoder works in the display order, the application can enforce any current frame to be a keyframe. The application cannot change the frame type of already buffered frames inside the encoder.

  • If the oneVPL encoder works in the encoded order, the application must specify exact frame type for every frame. In this way, the application can enforce the current frame to have any frame type that the particular coding standard allows.

Reference List Selection#

During streaming or video conferencing, if the application can obtain feedback about how well the client receives certain frames, the application may need to adjust the encoding process to use or not use certain frames as reference. This section describes how to fine-tune the encoding process based on client feedback.

The application can specify the reference window size by specifying the mfxInfoMFX::NumRefFrame parameter during encoding initialization. Certain platforms may have limits on the the size of the reference window. Use the MFXVideoENCODE_GetVideoParam() function to retrieve the current working set of parameters.

During encoding, the application can specify the actual reference list lengths by attaching the mfxExtAVCRefListCtrl structure to the MFXVideoENCODE_EncodeFrameAsync() function. NumRefIdxL0Active specifies the length of the reference list L0 and NumRefIdxL1Active specifies the length of the reference list L1. These two numbers must be less than or equal to the mfxInfoMFX::NumRefFrame parameter during encoding initialization.

The application can instruct the oneVPL encoder to use or not use certain reference frames. To do this, there is a prerequisite that the application uniquely identify each input frame by setting the mfxFrameData::FrameOrder parameter. The application then specifies the preferred reference frame list PreferredRefList and/or the rejected frame list RejectedRefList, and attaches the mfxExtAVCRefListCtrl structure to the MFXVideoENCODE_EncodeFrameAsync() function. The two lists fine-tune how the encoder chooses the reference frames for the current frame. The encoder does not keep PreferredRefList and the application must send it for each frame if necessary. There are limitations as follows:

  • The frames in the lists are ignored if they are out of the reference window.

  • If by going through the lists, the oneVPL encoder cannot find a reference frame for the current frame, the encoder will encode the current frame without using any reference frames.

  • If the GOP pattern contains B-frames, the oneVPL encoder may not be able to follow the mfxExtAVCRefListCtrl instructions.

Low Latency Encoding and Decoding#

The application can set mfxVideoParam::AsyncDepth = 1 to disable any decoder buffering of output frames, which is aimed to improve the transcoding throughput. With mfxVideoParam::AsyncDepth = 1, the application must synchronize after the decoding or transcoding operation of each frame.

The application can adjust mfxExtCodingOption::MaxDecFrameBuffering during encoding initialization to improve decoding latency. It is recommended to set this value equal to the number of reference frames.

Reference Picture Marking Repetition SEI Message#

The application can request writing the reference picture marking repetition SEI message during encoding initialization by setting RefPicMarkRep of the mfxExtCodingOption structure. The reference picture marking repetition SEI message repeats certain reference frame information in the output bitstream for robust streaming.

The oneVPL decoder will respond to the reference picture marking repetition SEI message if the message exists in the bitstream and compare it to the reference list information specified in the sequence/picture headers. The decoder will report any mismatch of the SEI message with the reference list information in the mfxFrameData::Corrupted field.

Long Term Reference Frame#

The application may use long term reference frames to improve coding efficiency or robustness for video conferencing applications. The application controls the long term frame marking process by attaching the mfxExtAVCRefListCtrl extended buffer during encoding. The oneVPL encoder itself never marks a frame as long term.

There are two control lists in the mfxExtAVCRefListCtrl extended buffer. The LongTermRefList list contains the frame orders (the FrameOrder value in the mfxFrameData structure) of the frames that should be marked as long term frames. The RejectedRefList list contains the frame order of the frames that should be unmarked as long term frames. The application can only mark or unmark the frames that are buffered inside the encoder. Because of this, it is recommended that the application marks a frame when it is submitted for encoding. The application can either explicitly unmark long term reference frames or wait for the IDR frame. When the IDR frame is reached, all long term reference frames will be unmarked.

The oneVPL encoder puts all long term reference frames at the end of a reference frame list. If the number of active reference frames (the NumRefIdxL0Active and NumRefIdxL1Active values in the mfxExtAVCRefListCtrl extended buffer) is less than than the total reference frame number (the NumRefFrame value in the mfxInfoMFX structure during the encoding initialization), the encoder may ignore some or all long term reference frames. The application may avoid this by providing a list of preferred reference frames in the PreferredRefList list in the mfxExtAVCRefListCtrl extended buffer. In this case, the encoder reorders the reference list based on the specified list.

Temporal Scalability#

The application may specify the temporal hierarchy of frames by using the mfxExtAvcTemporalLayers extended buffer during the encoder initialization in the display order encoding mode. oneVPL inserts the prefix NAL unit before each slice with a unique temporal and priority ID. The temporal ID starts from zero and the priority ID starts from the BaseLayerPID value. oneVPL increases the temporal ID and priority ID value by one for each consecutive layer.

If the application needs to specify a unique sequence or picture parameter set ID, the application must use the mfxExtCodingOptionSPSPPS extended buffer, with all pointers and sizes set to zero and valid SPSId and PPSId fields. The same SPS and PPS ID will be used for all temporal layers.

Each temporal layer is a set of frames with the same temporal ID. Each layer is defined by the Scale value. The scale for layer N is equal to the ratio between the frame rate of subsequent temporal layers with a temporal ID less than or equal to N and the frame rate of the base temporal layer. The application may skip some temporal layers by specifying the Scale value as zero. The application should use an integer ratio of the frame rates for two consecutive temporal layers.

For example, a video sequence with 30 frames/second is typically separated by three temporal layers that can be decoded as 7.5 fps (base layer), 15 fps (base and first temporal layer) and 30 fps (all three layers). In this scenario, Scale should have the values {1,2,4,0,0,0,0,0}.