video-compare

Split-screen video comparison tool written in C++14, utilizing FFmpeg libraries and SDL2. It provides interactive navigation and playback controls, along with various analysis tools and customizable display options.

video-compare can be used to visually compare the impact of codecs, resizing algorithms, and other modifications on two video files played in sync. The tool is versatile, allowing videos of differing resolutions, frame rates, scanning methods, color formats, dynamic ranges, input protocols, container formats, codecs, or durations.

Thanks to FFmpeg's flexibility, video-compare is also capable of comparing images or image sequences.

Installation

Arch Linux

Install via AUR:

git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/video-compare.git
cd video-compare
makepkg -sic

Homebrew

Install via Homebrew:

brew install video-compare

Pre-compiled Windows 10 binaries

Pre-built Windows 10 x86 64-bit releases are available from this page. Download and extract the .zip-archive on your system, then run video-compare.exe from a command prompt.

Compile from source

Build it yourself.

Screenshots

Visual compare mode:

Subtraction mode (plus time-shift, 200% zoom, and magnification):

Vertically stacked mode:

Credits

video-compare was created by Jon Frydensbjerg (email: jon@pixop.com). The code is mainly based on the excellent video player GitHub project: https://github.com/pockethook/player

Many thanks to the FFmpeg, SDL2 and stb authors.

Usage

Launch using the operating system's DPI setting. Video pixels are doubled on devices like a Retina 5K display; therefore, it is the preferred option for displaying HD 1080p videos on such screens:

video-compare video1.mp4 video2.mp4

Allow high DPI mode on systems which supports that. Video pixels are displayed "1-to-1". Useful for e.g. displaying UHD 4K video on a Retina 5K display:

video-compare -d video1.mp4 video2.mp4

Increase bit depth to 10 bits per color component (8 bits is the default). Fidelity is increased while performance takes a hit. Significantly reduces visible banding on systems with a higher grade display and driver support for 30-bit color:

video-compare -b video1.mp4 video2.mp4

Use a specific window size instead of deriving the window size from the video dimensions. The video frame will be scaled to fit. If either width or height is left out, the missing value will be calculated from the other specified dimension so that aspect ratio is maintained. Useful for downscaling high resolution video onto a low resolution display:

video-compare -w 1280x720 video1.mp4 video2.mp4

Size the window to fit the usable display bounds while maintaining the video’s aspect ratio. This option adjusts for elements like taskbars or OS menus. Ideal for maximizing the viewing area while keeping the video dimensions proportional to the screen:

video-compare -W video1.mp4 video2.mp4

Automatic in-buffer loop playback, triggered when the buffer fills or end-of-file is reached, streamlines video analysis by eliminating the need for manual replay initiation (bidirectional "ping-pong" mode, pp, is also available):

video-compare -a on video1.mp4 video2.mp4

Shift the presentation time stamps of the right video instead of assuming the videos are aligned. A positive amount has the effect of delaying the left video while negative values conversely delays the right video. Useful when videos are slightly out of sync:

video-compare -t 0.080 video1.mp4 video2.mp4

Display videos stacked vertically at full size without a slider (hstack for horizontal stacking is also supported):

video-compare -m vstack video1.mp4 video2.mp4

Preprocess one or both inputs via a list of FFmpeg video filters specified on the command line (see FFmpeg's video filters documentation). The Swiss Army knife for cropping/padding (comparing videos with different aspect ratios), adjusting colors, deinterlacing, denoising, speeding up/slowing down, etc.:

video-compare -l crop=iw:ih-240 -r format=gray,pad=iw+320:ih:160:0 video1.mp4 video2.mp4

Select a demuxer that cannot be auto-detected (such as VapourSynth):

video-compare --left-demuxer vapoursynth script.vpy video.mp4

Explicit decoder selection for the right video:

video-compare --right-decoder h264_cuvid video1.mp4 video2.mp4

Set the same hardware acceleration type for both videos:

video-compare --hwaccel cuda video1.mp4 video2.mp4

Set the hardware acceleration type for the left video only:

video-compare --left-hwaccel videotoolbox video1.mp4 video2.mp4

By default, HDR videos are automatically color space converted to sRGB with an initial 500-nit peak light level. This default can be overridden with a custom peak light level, such as 850 nits. The specified peak light level is then dynamically adjusted during decoding based on any MaxCLL metadata:

video-compare -R 850 sdr_video.mp4 hdr_video.mp4

Map a 500-nit peak light level HDR video for an sRGB SDR display, and adjust the tone of the SDR video to simulate the relative light level difference between the two videos on an actual HDR display:

video-compare -T rel -L 500 hdr_video.mp4 sdr_video.mp4

Perform simpler comparison of a video with itself using double underscore (__) as a placeholder. This enables tasks such as comparing the video with a time-shifted version of itself or testing various sets of filters, without the need to enter the same, potentially long path twice:

video-compare some/very/long/and/complicated/video/path.mp4 __

Apply common filters to both videos and extend them with additional side-specific filters using the placeholder resolution functionality. This structure also works for demuxer, decoder, and hardware acceleration settings:

video-compare -i yadif,hqdn3d -l setfield=bff,__ -r __,scale=iw/2:ih/2 video1.mp4 video2.mp4

Compare a reference (left) video against multiple renditions (right) by specifying more than two input paths. Useful for comparing a reference encode to multiple renditions (e.g. different bitrates or encoder settings), or for comparing ground truth, input, and model output in one session. Command-line settings are shared for all right videos, and the active right video can be switched within the UI:

video-compare reference.mp4 rendition1.mp4 rendition2.mp4

Override any command-line option for individual right videos using the :: separator. Global settings apply to all right videos by default, but can be overridden per-video:

video-compare -r yadif input.mp4 output1.mp4 \
    output2.mp4::filters=__,scale=1920:-1 \
    output3.mp4::filters=::hwaccel=videotoolbox

The above features can be combined in any order, of course. Launch video-compare without any arguments to see all supported options.

Controls

Basic

• H: Toggle on-screen help text for controls
• V: Toggle video info overlay
• Space: Toggle play/pause
• ,: Toggle bidirectional in-buffer loop/pause
• .: Toggle forward-only in-buffer loop/pause
• Escape: Quit
• Left arrow: Seek 1 second backward
• Right arrow: Seek 1 second forward
• Up arrow: Seek 15 seconds forward
• Down arrow: Seek 15 seconds backward
• Page up: Seek 600 seconds forward
• Page down: Seek 600 seconds backward
• Z: Magnify area around cursor (shown in lower-left corner)
• C: Magnify area around cursor (shown in lower-right corner)
• J: Reduce playback speed
• L: Increase playback speed
• A: Move to the previous frame in the buffer
• D: Move to the next frame in the buffer
• E: Re-center view around mouse position
• R: Global re-center and reset zoom to 100% (x1)
• S: Swap left and right video
• Tab: Cycle through right videos
• 1: Toggle hide/show left video
• 2: Toggle hide/show right video
• 3: Toggle hide/show HUD
• 4: Zoom to 1:1 pixels
• 5: Zoom 50% (x0.5)
• 6: Zoom 100% (x1)
• 7: Zoom 200% (x2)
• 8: Zoom 400% (x4)
• 9: Zoom 800% (x8)
• 0: Toggle video/subtraction mode
• +: Time-shift right video 1 frame forward
• -: Time-shift right video 1 frame backward

Advanced

• P: Print mouse position and pixel value under cursor to console
• M: Print image similarity metrics to console
• F: Save both frames and the on-screen content as PNG images
• I: Toggle fast/high-quality resizing for input alignment
• T: Toggle nearest-neighbor/bilinear video texture filtering
• Y: Cycle through subtraction modes
• U: Toggle luminance-only subtraction mode
• X: Show the current video frame and UI update rates (FPS)
• F1: Toggle Histogram window
• F2: Toggle Vectorscope window
• F3: Toggle Waveform window
• Backspace: Clear crop(s)
• Shift+L: Crop left video interactively
• Shift+R: Crop right video interactively
• Shift+B: Crop both videos to the same area
• Shift+D: Decode and advance one frame
• Shift+A: Seek to the previous frame (best with intra-frame formats)
• Shift+F: Select a region and save cutouts as PNGs
• Shift+W: Restore saved window size
• Ctrl+W: Restore startup window size
• Ctrl+Shift+W: Save current window size
• Ctrl+Shift+1..0: Switch directly to right video 1–10
• Ctrl+C / Cmd+C: Copy the current timestamp of the left video to the clipboard
• Ctrl+V / Cmd+V: Paste a timestamp from the clipboard and seek to that position
• Ctrl + +/-: Time-shift right video by 10 frames
• Alt + +/-: Time-shift right video by 100 frames

Mouse Controls

Move the mouse horizontally to adjust the movable slider position.

Use the mouse wheel to zoom in/out on the pixel under the cursor. Pan the view by moving the mouse while holding down the right button.

Left-click the mouse to perform a time seek based on the horizontal position of the mouse cursor relative to the window width (the target position is shown in the lower right corner).

Other

Hold Ctrl or Shift for smaller relative seek, playback-speed, and zoom adjustments where available. Availability may depend on conflicts with application shortcuts or operating system bindings.

Build

Requirements

Requires FFmpeg headers and development libraries to be installed, along with SDL2 and its TrueType font rendering add on (libsdl2_ttf). SDL2 version 2.0.10 or later is now specifically required for subpixel accuracy rendering capabilities. Users may need to upgrade their existing SDL2 installation before compiling.

On Debian GNU/Linux the required development packages can be installed via apt:

apt install build-essential libavformat-dev libavcodec-dev libavfilter-dev libavutil-dev libswscale-dev libswresample-dev libsdl2-dev libsdl2-ttf-dev

On Fedora Linux the required development packages can be installed via dnf:

dnf install make gcc-c++ ffmpeg-devel SDL2-devel SDL2_ttf-devel

Instructions

Compile the source code via GNU Make:

make

The linked video-compare executable will be created in the source code directory. To perform a system wide installation:

make install

Note that root privileges are required to perform this operation in most environments (hint: use e.g. sudo).

Notes

1. Audio playback is not supported.

2. Keep time-shifts below a few seconds for the best experience.

3. Seeks require re-synchronization on the closest keyframe (i.e., I-frame).

Practical tips

Send To integration in Windows File Explorer

You can fire up the tool directly from the File Explorer when you don't need to specify any other arguments than the inputs via Right click -> Send To -> video-compare.

Here is how this integration works:

tg6c1m.mp4

You can do that quickly by selecting two files, then right clicking any of them, pressing N (focuses send to), then V (selects video-compare).

To get video-compare to appear in the Send To field you will need to open the send to folder, which you can access by typing shell:sendto in Run (Windows + R), then simply make a shortcut to video-compare.exe.

Thanks to couleurm for the sharing this tip and creating the screen recording above.

More frontend options for Windows users

For Windows users, the community has shared several frontend options to complement the command-line functionality:

1. Beyond Compare integration: Launch video-compare directly from the interface.

2. Total Commander integration: Add a toolbar button to open selected videos.

3. VideoCompareGUI: A standalone graphical utility that simplifies launching video-compare.

For details, check out the open GitHub issue thread.

Contributing

We're always looking for ways to improve and expand the tool. Your feedback and contributions are appreciated.