AbstractJPEG2000 and H.264 are the latest image and video coding standards respectively. Digital cinema is a new kind of

application for super high definition video. The DCI (Digital Cinema Initiative) specification published in 2005 has selected

JPEG2000 instead of H.264 as the video coding standard for digital cinema. In this paper, based on JPEG2000, H.264

intra and inter-frame coding, we compare the coding efficiency and subjective image quality on multiple series of test

sequences from low to super high resolutions. The experiment results demonstrate some regularity for JPEG2000 and

H.264 video coding, and reveal JPEG2000 is more suitable for digital cinema.

Boxin Shi, Lin Liu, Chao Xu

Key Laboratory of Machine Perception (Ministry of Education), Peking UniversityBeijing, 100871, China

Email: {shiboxin, liulin, xuchao}@cis.pku.edu.cn

Comparison Between JPEG2000

and H.264 for Digital Cinema

1. Motivation

• H.264 is an excellent standard for video

compression even for HD-resolution

• DCI has selected JPEG2000 – a standard for

still image, to compress motion pictures for

super high resolution movie

• Few published works focused on the

comparison under super high resolutions

2. Experiments

• Comparison criteria: PSNR & subjective visual effects

• Evaluation tools

• JM FRext v2.2 for H.264 intra-frame coding• X264+megui for H.264 inter-frame coding• Kakadu v5.2.5 for JPEG2000

• Test sequences

• Standard sequences: 176×144, 352×240, 720×576

• DCI StEM MMR3: 512×256, 1024×512, 2048×1024, 4096×2048

3. Results

Fig. 1. Test for lower resolution sequences

Fig. 2. Test for DCI evaluation sequences

Fig. 3. Further test for super high resolution sequences

Fig. 4. Visual effect of 4096×2048 image (0.39bit/pixel)Left: H.264intra, Middle: H.264inter, Right: JPEG2000

Conclusion

• PSNR on lower resolutions

• Inter-frame coding greatly enhances the gain of PSNR

• PSNR on super high definition video

• Inter-frame coding does rarely improvement

• At higher bit rates, H.264 inter and intra-frame are better

• At lower bit rates, JPEG2000 is better and best on 4K

• Subjective test at lower bit rates

• On lower resolutions, H.264 intra and inter-frame perform better

• On super high resolutions, JPEG2000 and H.264 are better