Open source HEVC analyzer for rapid prototyping (HARP)

The design of new HEVC extensions comes with the need for careful analysis of internal HEVC codec decisions. Several bitstream analyzers have evolved for this purpose and provide a visualization of encoder decisions as seen from a decoder viewpoint. None of the existing solutions is able to provide actual insight into the encoder and its RDO decision process. With one exception, all solutions are closed source and make adaption of their code to specific implementation needs impossible. Overall, development with the HM code base remains a time-consuming task. Here, we present the HEVC Analyzer for Rapid Prototyping (HARP), which directly addresses the above issues and is freely available under www.lms.lnt.de/HARP.