Recently H.264 and Microsoft Windows Media Series 9 (WM9), a variation of H.264, have been adopted in the next generation DVD format - HD-DVD. WM9 was claimed to have better image quality than JM (Joint Model) H.264. According to TI 600 MHz DM642 demo, encoder speeds of TI implementation for both H.264 and WM9 were 30 fps for D1 resolution.

Step Digital's H.264 codec is one of the fastest H.264 CODECs in the world. During the following demo,  comparisons between Step H.264 and WM9 are preformed.

Please follow instructions to see the demo:

1. Download the Step H.264 Encoder with avi output.
2. Unzip the file set on your computer, which should be a Pentium 4 or Celeron PC.
3. If need a test clip, download the following Foreman clip or the News clip to the same directory as the encoder.
4. Click test.bat, and then output files shown in the following table Medium Bit Rate Demo are generated. If like to see encoder speed, run other three .bat files respectively.
5. Please install ffdshow (20050105)  for "Windows Media Player" in order to play h.264 files.
6. Click items in the table Medium Bit Rate Demo to view clips. If the "Open With" dialogue box pops up, please pick "Windows Media Player" to open clip files and play.

Foreman CIF YUV clip	News CIF YUV clip

Medium Bit Rate Demo