Nishi Family › Compare › Video Codec Engine
Nishi vs the Field
Video Codec Engine — mechanically measured, liar-killed, sovereign.
How the Nishi compression engine measures up -- Nishi vs x264 and x265 and SVT-AV1 and DCVC-FM (neural)
How this is scored. Every Nishi cell is measured: the generator reads the real organ source on disk and requires the implementing symbol to exist (no self-grading). Competitor cells record documented capability presence. Best=leads this axis, Yes=present, Part=partial, No=absent. This is capability presence, not depth or scale: the majors lead on index size and neural ranking. Nishi's genuine exceeds are the sovereignty / neutrality / determinism axes.
Feature matrix
| Capability | Nishi | x264 (H.264) | x265 (HEVC) | SVT-AV1 | DCVC-FM (neural) | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Block transform -- integer DCT | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Nishi 4x4 + 8x8; HEVC to 32x32, AV1 to 64x64 (big win on flat content) |
| Context/arithmetic entropy coder | Yes | Best | Best | Best | Best | Nishi binary range coder saves 33pct vs its own CAVLC (MEASURED); CABAC + learned entropy are deeper |
| Quarter-pel motion compensation | Yes | Yes | Yes | Best | Yes | Nishi 1/4-pel translational; AV1 adds 1/8-pel, affine, OBMC |
| Variable block-size motion partitions | Yes | Yes | Best | Best | Yes | Nishi P_8x8 = 4 independent 8x8 MVs per MB, RD-selected vs 16x16, differential MV -- LIVE vcv-7 (BUILD 810). MEASURED +2-4pct bit-exact on MSU akiyo/foreman/bus/mobile at qp8/20/32. The first partition rung; x264 splits to 4x4, HEVC uses a CTU quadtree, AV1 to 4x4-plus. Cuts the dominant P-frame residual (measured 87-97pct of P bits) |
| Rich intra prediction | Yes | Yes | Best | Best | Yes | Nishi 9 modes + MPM; HEVC 35, AV1 56-plus directional |
| In-loop filtering | Yes | Yes | Best | Best | Yes | Nishi deblock, gentle-tuned vcv-8 (c1 qp*1.5+2 -> qp/2+2 was the FIFTH mis-tuned constant: over-smoothing the in-loop reference cost 24-47 BD-rate pts, MEASURED + shipped BUILD 815); HEVC adds SAO, AV1 adds CDEF + loop restoration |
| Rate-distortion mode decision (real-bit RDO) | Yes | Best | Best | Best | Best | Nishi RDO now covers THREE decisions: (1) RD-SKIP (BUILD 816, archival profile): every P-MB trial-coded skip-vs-code through the LIVE range coder (est/probs snapshot+restore), argmin J=32*SSE+qp^2*bits -- MEASURED -7..-44 BD-rate pts; (2) per-MB HEAT-AQ skip policy (BUILD 819, live): past-streak-modulated thresholds, -1.72pct avg; (3) per-MB 4x4-vs-8x8 TRANSFORM trial (BUILD 820, live): the 803 machinery awakened -- both transforms trial-quantized per coded MB, argmin J commits, t8 bit explicit on the wire (stock decode) -- MEASURED -0.52pct avg incremental (never negative, +9.3pct encode at 120fps). Its bit cost is still the CAVLC table (the true stream is range-coded) -- replacing it with real-rc-bit trial costing is the remaining P3 rung. x264/x265 apply full-RDO to every mode+partition+transform (the 20-year integration edge); ours now covers skip+transform -- modes/partitions remain |
| B-frames / hierarchical GOP | No | Best | Best | Best | Yes | Nishi is I+P only; hierarchical-B is 15-30pct of the majors efficiency |
| Larger transforms (16/32/64) | No | No | Best | Best | No | Nishi 8x8 max; HEVC 32x32, AV1 64x64 |
| Trained restoration post-filter | Yes | No | No | No | Yes | Nishi has a trained integer post-filter but the table is mostly-identity today (barely fires); neural codecs learn the whole loop |
| Learned entropy model (hyperprior) | No | No | No | No | Best | MEASURED: our hand-context coder is already 0.088 bits/sig-flag (near-optimal) -- a trained model on DCT coeffs is marginal; the DCVC win is a JOINTLY-TRAINED model over LEARNED features, not DCT |
| End-to-end neural codec | No | No | No | No | Best | DCVC-FM beats VVC by 20-40pct; Nishi is classical block-based only |
| Perceptual / generative coding | No | No | No | Part | Best | The number-one frontier (momentum 108); GAN/diffusion codecs -- Nishi absent |
| Compression efficiency (external BD-rate, ffmpeg oracle) | Yes | Best | Best | Best | Best | MEASURED on 4 standard CIF seqs vs x264/x265/AV1 (ffmpeg Y-PSNR, GOP48 zerolatency RTC). TWO PROFILES (a codec is a rate/quality/SPEED triangle -- BD-rate alone is a partial grade): (1) RTC/live (BUILD 822, the shipped /video default): THREE gen-2 rungs shipped 2026-07-12 -- P2 HEAT-AQ (819: protect long-static MBs from drift, per-MB skip-thresh /2 on a 4-skip streak; -1.72pct avg) + t8 RD-auto (820: per-MB 4x4-vs-8x8 transform trial; -0.52pct) + P3 REAL-BIT RDO (822: the trial made byte-faithful to the emit paths -- RDOQ levels in BOTH arms + each arm costed by a read-only walk of the coder's OWN adaptive sig-map bins (rc_sig_cost_q8/rc_bits_q8) instead of CAVLC tables; -2.58pct avg incremental, biggest on motion content bus -3.16) = COMBINED MEASURED **-4.82pct avg BD-rate vs the 817 baseline** (akiyo -6.86 / foreman -6.00 / bus -4.05 / mobile -2.38), never negative on any seq, same-scorer x264 gap cut **+176pct -> +159pct in one day**, encode 119 fps (measured, far above every tier floor; the real-bit cost walk is FREE vs the tables); the CHURN direction (cheapening active MBs) measured +6.4pct = REFUTED, never do it. (2) ARCHIVAL/offline (RD-skip emode bit11, ~10 fps, for stored-media transcode): avg +140pct vs x264 (old-scorer scale) -- RD-skip's J=32D+q^2R trial coding buys -7..-44 BD-pts but costs 9-19x encode, so it is NOT the live default. Lineage 811-815 fixed five mis-tuned constants (foreman 21x -> 2.4x, 8.7x bitrate cut from the original +703..+1987pct). INTRA-only +41..+66pct. Gen-1 levers measured out: subpel/partition/ME/MV-pred ~0, multi-ref 1.5pct, intra-in-P wash, SATD 0.1-0.5pct, I16-pred/16x16-TX/CDEF/QP-cascade REFUTED. Remaining vs x264 = 2nd-gen architecture (32x32 CTU, hier-refs, B-pyramid) + compound RDO |
| Real-time encode throughput (fps budget) | Yes | Best | Best | Yes | No | MEASURED (vc_fps_bench, wasm VM, 320x256 P-frame, talking-head): Nishi RTC profile ~89 fps single-thread (browser-viable for live calls); ARCHIVAL/RD-skip profile 4.6-9.7 fps (offline only). x264 zerolatency = the RTC gold standard (1080p realtime on a desktop core); x265/AV1 need fast presets or HW; DCVC-neural = GPU-only. ★A codec claim is INCOMPLETE without this axis -- BUILD 816 shipped an RD-skip that collapsed live encode 89->4.6 fps because the census had NO speed axis; 817 split the profiles + added this row |
| Live resolution ceiling + per-device adaptive send | Yes | Best | Best | Best | Yes | MEASURED (vc_res_bench/vc_hd_bench, wasm VM): the codec itself is RESOLUTION-AGNOSTIC (bit-exact GREEN proven at 640x480/960x544/1280x720); the LIVE ceiling is the client memory layout + single-thread fps. BUILD 818 (2026-07-12) raised the shipped ceiling 320x256 -> 640x480 with Jitsi-class per-device adaptive tiers (measured: 640x480=38.6fps / 480x384=58 / 416x320=70 single-thread; tier picked by mount-time measured encoder class; LO 128x96 simulcast for weak receivers; old-peer rooms fail safe to 320x256) + adaptive tile rendering (the old client DOWNSCALED every received frame onto a 320x256 canvas -- resolution was capped at DISPLAY too). Majors do 720p-1080p live (x264 1080p realtime single-core; Zoom/Meet/Jitsi default 720p) -- Nishi is BEHIND on ceiling until the tile-parallel HD arc lands: 720p single-thread = 8.8 fps MEASURED, needs ~4-band parallel encode with the rich codec in the band path (band path is legacy-entropy today; legacy band at 1280x704 = 251ms/band REFUTED). ★This axis was MISSING from the census while users saw potato -- presence of a speed row did not catch a resolution cap; grade what users SEE |
| Sovereign own-stack (zero third-party) | Best | No | No | No | No | Own language, compiler, wasm -- x264/x265/AV1 are C/C++, DCVC is Python/CUDA |
| Integer-deterministic bit-exact everywhere | Best | No | No | No | No | No-float pipeline reproduces bit-exact on ANY device, which is what makes recon-hash conformance possible; float codecs cannot |
| One codec: browser tab + Nishi browser + native NishiOS | Best | Part | Part | Part | No | The same sovereign codec runs in a tab, the Nishi browser, and native NishiOS; others need hardware or wasm ports |
coverage 736/1000EXCEEDS 3PRESENT 11ABSENT 5
Honest verdict. Nishi runs a REAL H.264-class sovereign codec end-to-end -- range-coded entropy, quarter-pel motion, RD-selected partitions, in-loop deblock, live at nishifamily.com/video in two MEASURED profiles (RTC ~89fps at +159pct BD-rate vs x264; ARCHIVAL RD-skip at +140pct) with a 640x480 adaptive live ceiling (BUILD 818). It is not yet a bitrate rival: the remaining gap vs the majors is second-generation architecture (32x32-plus CTUs, hierarchical B-refs, full-mode RDO) and the live ceiling trails their 720p-1080p until the tile-parallel HD arc lands. The genuine exceeds are structural -- the whole stack in one sovereign language, integer-deterministic bit-exact reconstruction on any device (recon-hash conformance the float codecs cannot do), and one codec running browser tab, Nishi browser, and native NishiOS. Every number on this page is MSU-methodology measured (ffmpeg Y-PSNR oracles), liar-killed, and re-graded on every ship -- including the regressions.
Generated by nx_swcompare_matrix (sovereign NishiLang organ) from knowledge/compare/videocodec.matrix — every Nishi cell verified against real organ source on disk. Zero JS, zero trackers.