Software-based transcoding will operate on any hardware configuration supported by the Zixi Broadcaster, including on-premise hardware and cloud-based hardware. Although software-based encoding offers the lowest performance of all three codec options, it is the most flexible from a hardware compatibility perspective.
Software-based transcoding offers the following features:
| Format | Chroma Subsampling | Color Depth | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Video Decode | MPEG-2 | 4:2:0 | 8-bit |
| H.264/AVC | 4:2:0 | 8-bit, 10-bit | |
Video Encode | H.264/AVC | 4:2:0 | 8-bit, 10-bit* |
* Input stream must be 10-bit
- Video Decoding:
- Scan Style: Interlaced (for MPEG2 only) and Progressive
- Codec: MPEG2, H.264/AVC
- Frame Size: SD, HD (720p), Full HD (1080p), 4K (2160p)
- Frame Rate: 24fps, 25fps, 29.97fps, 30fps, 59.94fps, 60fps
- Chroma Subsampling: 4:2:0
- Bit Depth: 8-bit (MPEG2, H.264/AVC), 10-bit (H.264/AVC)
- Video Encoding:
- Codec: H.264, MPEG2
- Frame Size: SD, HD (720p), Full HD (1080p)
- Frame Rate: 24fps, 25fps, 29.97fps, 30fps, 59.94fps, 60fps
- Chroma Subsampling: 4:2:0
- Bit Depth: 8-bit (MPEG2, H.264/AVC), 10-bit (H.264/AVC) for 10-bit input streams
- Scan Style: Interlaced (for MPEG2 only) and Progressive
- Audio Decoding:
- Codec: AAC, MPEG-1 Audio Layer I / II / III, MPEG-2 Audio Layer I / II / III, AC-3 (Dolby Digital), Opus (For AC-3, which can contain up to six discrete channels of sound, the transcoder only supports the left and right channels and will ignore the other channels).
- Audio Encoding:
- Codec: AAC, AAC-HE (High Efficiency) and AAC-HEv2; Pass-through (no encoding) – any audio codec (MPEG1/2 / AAC / AC-3, E-AC-3 (Dolby Digital Plus), Opus (AAC-HE and AAC-HEv2 are only supported for Zixi Broadcasters, v13 and up).
- Framerate Conversion: supported with frame duplication/removal
- De-interlacing: supported except for 60i/59.94i to 24p
- Preserve Aspect Ratio: supported with black bar insertion