{"paper":{"title":"Kelvin v1.0: A Neural Pre-Encoder for H.264: A standards-compliant learned preprocessor with -27.62% BD-VMAF on UVG","license":"http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/","headline":"","cross_cats":["cs.CV","cs.DC","cs.LG","cs.MM"],"primary_cat":"eess.IV","authors_text":"Marco Graziano","submitted_at":"2026-05-10T22:05:24Z","abstract_excerpt":"Kelvin is a lightweight learned pre-encoder that sits in front of an unmodified libx264 encoder. It applies content-adaptive pixel adjustments, bounded at +/-1/255 per channel, so that the encoder allocates bits where they matter most perceptually, while emitting a standard H.264 bitstream compatible with every existing decoder, player, and CDN. On the seven-sequence 1080p UVG benchmark, Kelvin v1.0 achieves a mean BD-VMAF of -27.62% (7 of 7 wins) and BD-VMAF-NEG of -5.18% (6 of 7 wins) relative to baseline libx264 at preset medium. On the 30-sequence MCL-JCV public set (28 unseen by training)"},"claims":{"count":0,"items":[],"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"source":{"id":"2605.16376","kind":"arxiv","version":1},"verdict":{"id":null,"model_set":{},"created_at":null,"strongest_claim":"","one_line_summary":"","pipeline_version":null,"weakest_assumption":"","pith_extraction_headline":""},"integrity":{"clean":true,"summary":{"advisory":0,"critical":0,"by_detector":{},"informational":0},"endpoint":"/pith/2605.16376/integrity.json","findings":[],"available":true,"detectors_run":[{"name":"ai_meta_artifact","ran_at":"2026-05-19T19:34:36.616862Z","status":"skipped","version":"1.0.0","findings_count":0}],"snapshot_sha256":"637fcb1b0aac0c41367bd113b3e01c31c425b356e4407dd6356e7002eb8419fc"},"references":{"count":0,"sample":[],"resolved_work":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57","internal_anchors":0},"formal_canon":{"evidence_count":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"author_claims":{"count":0,"strong_count":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"builder_version":"pith-number-builder-2026-05-17-v1"}