What is the ZPEG Engine?
The ZPEG Engine is an upgrade to the compression technology you are already using. For example, if you’re using FFmpeg today, you’ll replace the FFmpeg executable with the ZPEG Engine for FFmpeg.
The ZPEG Engine embeds an entirely new model of human vision. This model incorporates such variables as pixel resolution, line resolution, frame rate and viewing distance in order to make motion estimation compression algorithms more efficient. The resulting processed video is far more compressible than is the unprocessed video without introducing a single visible defect. The resulting compressor improvement is comparable to that of a compression technology upgrade at a fraction of the cost.
How hard is it to upgrade my compressor to the ZPEG Engine version?
In most cases, all that is needed is a simple upgrade of the software running on your compression machines. This process can take as little as 30 seconds on many systems.
Do I have to change the arguments to use with the ZPEG Engine?
For the upgrade to the ZPEG Engine versions of x264, x265 or AV1, you may use the same command line arguments you are using now. For FFmpeg, you will have to add a filter specification to put the ZPEG processing in-line to your compression (we can help!).
What optional controls can I tweak when using ZPEG Engine?
ZPEG engine adds two optional command line variables; visibel, and frameRate. Visibel specifies the strength of the ZPEG Engine pre-processing of the video before it enters the compressor. We find a value of -12 is ideal for normal HD and UHD viewing, and a value of -18 is best for UHD immersive viewing.
The variable frameRate determines the temporal ZPEG Engine pre-processing strength, and defaults to the frameRate of the video being compressed. It may be adjusted to decrease of increase the removal of flicker.
How can I test ZPEG?
The most important point is – do not rely on PSNR as a metric to evaluate savings! The ZPEG Engine works by removing the imperceptible.The problem from a metrics point of view is that removing the content you can’t see creates a large difference between the reference and processed frames, making PSNR a poor metric for evaluation of ZPEG.
How we test the ZPEG Engine is we determine how much bandwidth will be saved, then validate that number by measuring the subjective quality using more advanced metrics (SSIM and VMAF). We provide a demonstration script to show how this kind testing can be performed.
What types of Video Compression are Available?
There are many competing compression technologies available. The three most popular standards are:
– MPEG-2 (H.262). An early compression standard which is used for television transmission.
– AVC (MPEG-4 Part 10, H.264). The most popular compression standard in use today, AVC gives a typical 50% reduction over MPEG-2.
– HEVC (H.265). The next-generation algorithm, HEVC gives about a 8% reduction over AVC for HD video, and perhaps a 50% reduction for UHD/4K.
– AV1. The algorithm proposed to supplant HEVC is AV1. Av1 is expected to give a 30% advantage over HEVC for UHD/4K content.
How much does it Cost to Upgrade a Compressor?
Each compression standard is incompatible to the one before. New encoders must be deployed to compress the video to the new standard, but this cost is but the tip of the iceberg. A staggering investment must be made in the upgrade of TV set hardware, set-top firmware, and computer browser software in order to support the new standard, and it is this cost that slows the adoption of new and better compression technology.
What makes the ZPEG Engine upgrade to a compressor attractive is it saves over 20% for HD content and 30% for UHD content – without a change to the standards compliance, and, in many cases, without a change to the existing workflow.
I know about this stuff. I want to see for myself!

Just ask us for a trial version! Reach out to [email protected], and we’ll get right back to you…