x264 "product positioning" (warning : this post containt rant!)

[audyovydeo]

About twice a year I check the Microsoft website for service packs / updates. Just now I connected, and was made a proposal :

" Install Microsoft Silverlight now for a better Web experience"

Now I am NOT installing this thingi, but I went to its page to check the blah blah. I found 0 (zero) tech documents, and this crap :


"2. Download Silverlight
...
See a video of the installation experience"

...

4. Verify
Verify your installation by experiencing the Silverlight site."



am I the only one with a sudden urge to strangle the Microsoft crowd ?

More to the point :

- it seems to me x264 encoder has a certain degree of maturity

- "someone" (ie us, the community) ought to start thinking about its marketability / positioning / diffusion / scalability / ease of use.

Otherwise, 4/5 years from now, when pengvado and dark shikari will be Peoplesoft consultants, we're all going to be using (sorry : experiencing) Microsoft Expression videos through Silverlight version 19.4 SP5


whatcha think ?

cheers
audyovydeo

[cogman]

Im going to take it that english isn't your native language. The microsoft use of the word experience doesn't have anything to do with technical ability, though I am finding it hard to think of a good description of what experience means in this context (without using the word experience)

X264's marketing comes from how good it is, nothing more. We aren't (as far as I can tell) trying to get throngs of the general population here, only the people that really want to learn or get the best results. And, since x264 is under the gpl and free, I don't see marketing ever being feasible. What would it accomplish?

[audyovydeo]

Im going to take it that english isn't your native language.

Indeed it isn't. As far as MS marketing is concerned, what I find irritating is the hyjacking of common words ("experience" now, "windows" then). Besides the fact that they make visiting a website sound like a quasi-mystical (here we go, damn !) experience.
Much like those TV ads for toilet-paper, where it seems that if you buy & sweep with Biffo-Liffo (name just invented) you're going to levitate to the sky...


X264's marketing comes from how good it is, nothing more.

A purist approach, to which my heart identifies, but not my reason.
How many great products or ideas were shelved because they didn't go beyond a circle of enthusiasts ?

Marketing need't go much beyond a logo and a "Made with x264", just like "Made with The Gimp".
Just think : walk into a shop and look at the DVD/BluRay players.
They *all* sport DivX playback capability. That's what I'm aiming at.

Another example : turn the DXVA thread into a brief, clean-cut sticky, so that anyone new to x264 reads it & starts encoding according to those specs.

right now, I am ready to bet that any newcomer to x264 takes months before producing a DXVA-compliant stream

etcetera.

cheers
audyovydeo

[unskinnyboy]

audyovydeo, what's the real issue here? Are you just peeved that Silverlight doesn't support x264 (or any implementations of H.264, for that matter)?

[audyovydeo]

audyovydeo, what's the real issue here? Are you just peeved that Silverlight doesn't support x264 (or any implementations of H.264, for that matter)?

I haven't made it clear enough how little I care for Microsoft products.
But the real issue is that I am investing considerable amount of time & resources in encoding my videos to H.264 via x264. I want to maximise :

- their portability
- their lifetime


cheers
a/v

[unskinnyboy]

OK, then use Adobe Flash instead, don't use Silverlight. Flash supports H.264. I don't see what's the problem if you do that. Microsoft has every right to push their technologies (Silverlight, VC-1 et al), but doesn't mean you have to adopt them.

[Doom9]

They *all* sport DivX playback capability. That's what I'm aiming atYou might want to scratch because with Blu-ray we're back to the basics.. you normally don't even get region free, let alone playing something out of spec. It'll take years and the Chinese to get Blu-ray where DVD is today.

Anyway - the DivX certification is a massive undertaking.. not something an open source project can muster. You need to put down serious money for starters, then get the appropriate industry contacts. But look at XviD.. it didn't take all that and there are even XviD logos on various players. XviD, much like MP3, was demand driven - with AVC gaining popularity in online video, the same is bound to happen with x264 seeing as it's the only open source variety and that it leads in the AVC area much like XviD lead and still leads the ASP area.

[audyovydeo]

Glad someone understood my rant.

I never was a user of DivX nor Xvid. If Xvid truly landed where it has thanks merely to merit, then hats off, and let's cross fingers for x264.



cheers
a/v

[celtic_druid]

The 720/1080p x264 mkv scene releases will do the same for x264 that all the Xvid avi releases did for Xvid.

At least I don't think that DivX players would have taken off the way they did if it weren't for scene releases.

Another thing that Xvid and x264 have in common is that they are both standards compliant. As said you can use x264 in Flash. The simple fact that they are standards based ensures your portability and lifetime.

[unskinnyboy]

The 720/1080p x264 mkv scene releases will do the same for x264 that all the Xvid avi releases did for Xvid.

At least I don't think that DivX players would have taken off the way they did if it weren't for scene releases.Fully agreed.

@audyovydeo, on hind-sight, I understand your rant. What got confused me initially was how you seemed to compare x264 to Silverlight, which is like comparing apples and oranges. What you should have really done was to compare x264 to VC-1 (which Microsoft is pushing through Silverlight).

So to add to what Doom9 and celtic_druid already said, x264 will survive on it's strict merit, rest assured - same way Xvid did. When people use x264 more and more, Microsoft would have no option but to add H.264 support to Silverlight or risk losing their customers to Flash. Or even if they don't, there's always Flash, Moonlight or whatever else time may bring.

[smok3]

'demand driven' is the clue, like firefox was demand driven to make a cute lil browser out of the mozilla monstrosity (when started), now there will soon be a demand to do Firefox-lite.

Anyway cute logos 'get firefox' had little to do with popularity is my guess.

[audyovydeo]

mmmmyeah.

still, I think this thread should be renamed & stuck :
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=132924

cheers
a/v

[unskinnyboy]

mmmmyeah.

still, I think this thread should be renamed & stuck :
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=132924
What's that thread got to do with this thread?

[kosmonaut]

You might want to scratch because with Blu-ray we're back to the basics.. you normally don't even get region free, let alone playing something out of spec. It'll take years and the Chinese to get Blu-ray where DVD is today.

Anyway - the DivX certification is a massive undertaking.. not something an open source project can muster. You need to put down serious money for starters, then get the appropriate industry contacts. But look at XviD.. it didn't take all that and there are even XviD logos on various players. XviD, much like MP3, was demand driven - with AVC gaining popularity in online video, the same is bound to happen with x264 seeing as it's the only open source variety and that it leads in the AVC area much like XviD lead and still leads the ASP area.

I just wanted to follow up on this a bit, because it deserves emphasis. DivX Certification is actually quite a big undertaking, as the dozens of engineers sitting around me can attest. :p

When DivX Certification adds h.264 (sooner than you might think!), it will likely help to spread high quality, community driven h.264 decoding in the hardware world quickly. After all, this time we already have the relationships with the CE manufacturers and know how to do it from the ASP experience.

If anybody is interested in participating in some beta programs around DivX and h.264, definitely drop by the DivX Labs (http://labs.divx.com/) site in the near future. We'll be looking for volunteers!

[Manao]

When DivX Certification adds h.264 (sooner than you might think!), it will likely help to spread high quality, community driven h.264 decoding in the hardware world quickly. After all, this time we already have the relationships with the CE manufacturers and know how to do it from the ASP experience.I wonder how much DivX will help improve h264 hardware decoding, since bluray makes proper h264 decoding mandatory.

It's not quite the same story as for ASP, since at that time DVDs were mpeg2, not mpeg4.

DivX may have an impact on h264 in mp4/avi/mkv/divx container support (more generally, offline containers), but imho not on actual h264 decoding support.

[Shinigami-Sama]

well at least with ACV they can't break the spec like they did with the divx decoders(GMC anyone?)

and heres hoping we see more container support too...

[Manao]

If I had been in their shoes, I would have dropped GMC too. At that time, asking hardware to do GMC 3 points was just the sure way not to have any hardware able to decode ASP. And GMC had the worst complexity/quality tradeoff of ASP's features.

Imho, packed bframes were much more subject to caution.

[kosmonaut]

I wonder how much DivX will help improve h264 hardware decoding, since bluray makes proper h264 decoding mandatory.

It's not quite the same story as for ASP, since at that time DVDs were mpeg2, not mpeg4.

DivX may have an impact on h264 in mp4/avi/mkv/divx container support (more generally, offline containers), but imho not on actual h264 decoding support.

Those are very valid points, and the analogy to ASP certification is not an exact one. That said, blue laser devices are not the only place we'll see h264 certification and we are also definitely of the opinion that container support needs to be expanded beyond the Blu-Ray spec.

[Neillithan]

Marketing need't go much beyond a logo and a "Made with x264", just like "Made with The Gimp".
Just think : walk into a shop and look at the DVD/BluRay players.
They *all* sport DivX playback capability. That's what I'm aiming at.

I've done my fair share of research on players that support h.264 decoding. As far as I know, if they support it, they support it only partially. For instance, Divx playback may be referred to as Mpeg4 ASP. H264 is usually referred to as Mpeg4 AVC. If they support Mpeg4 AVC, it might only support a limited range of h264 abilities. Also, there's the matter of what container format it supports. Whether it's avi, mkv, mp4... there are countless containers. I would ignore --ALL-- players that do not support the MKV container. Last but not least, audio. With H264 and MKV, people simply cannot make up their minds which audio format they should use. AAC, AC3, MP3, DTS? There are too many to count. With that said, there are too many factors when it comes to finding a DVD player that 100% works with h.264.

Of course I'm probably way off topic. lol

[burfadel]

Check out:
http://silverlight.net

I think people are confused as to what exactly this plugin is.

[smok3]

burfadel: it is exactly a try at flash replacement, so i think people are on the right track.

[burfadel]

I agree that its designed as an alternative to flash and extend on the capabilities of Flash, I was referring to its use of video compression.

Silverlight will only succeed if it brings something quite new, and not a complete rehash of Flash. There's no reason why people would use silverlight to power their sites other than it provides features more atoned to what they want for their site.

If the non-use of h264 were a concern to website there's nothing stopping them using Flash over Silverlight, unless the site requires capabilities provided by silverlight and not by flash.

Thats the point I was trying to make earlier :)

[Inventive Software]

Silverlight = VC-1 multi-platform. Flash = Sorenson / H.263 / VP6 / H.264 multi-platform. For consistency, at this albeit early stage, I know which I'd rather have. ;)

[Shinigami-Sama]

if MS got off their high horse and made AVC part of the spec they'd get a lot more people on board...
oh and make it not use 100% of the CPU for a basic click and go game

[Neillithan]

Silverlight = VC-1 multi-platform. Flash = Sorenson / H.263 / VP6 / H.264 multi-platform. For consistency, at this albeit early stage, I know which I'd rather have. ;)

I'm pretty sure you prefer Flash, but for the sake of pointing out the obvious, flash still sucks as a video player. I don't mean to start trouble but it's obvious flash, (even with hardware acceleration) is not meant for playing high def media. I can't expect more from Silverlight either. If only Stage6 was still around. :(

[burfadel]

Isn't the idea of flash etc not to be a video player but a compact cross platform interactive player? Video player is just a feature that they've included...?

[smok3]

burfadel; sure, but obviously on this board one would expect the interest mostly for the video part.
Neillithan; why do you think it sucks?

[Shinigami-Sama]

I'm pretty sure you prefer Flash, but for the sake of pointing out the obvious, flash still sucks as a video player. I don't mean to start trouble but it's obvious flash, (even with hardware acceleration) is not meant for playing high def media. I can't expect more from Silverlight either. If only Stage6 was still around. :(

didn't stage6 use some sort of flash player as well?
:rolleyes:

[Dark Shikari]

didn't stage6 use some sort of flash player as well?No, they used their own proprietary player which was a whole order of magnitude worse than Flash. It was a rare day when it didn't crash Firefox.

[Shinigami-Sama]

No, they used their own proprietary player which was a whole order of magnitude worse than Flash. It was a rare day when it didn't crash Firefox.

well these days firefox crashes it self due to memory leaks and such...

[Dark Shikari]

well these days firefox crashes it self due to memory leaks and such...I've never actually seen Firefox crash any time recently except due to bugs in extensions and plugins. Pretty much all media player plugins seem to be really bad in this regard.

And IE7 memory leaks quite a bit worse than FF2, and FF3 has no leak :p

[Neillithan]

No, they used their own proprietary player which was a whole order of magnitude worse than Flash. It was a rare day when it didn't crash Firefox.

Whether or not the Divx web player was crash happy is not the question. It was a matter of being a fully functioning web player that supported multiple audio streams, custom resolution, bitrate, quality settings, framerate, and a decent resampling function so that huge videos don't look pixilated hell when downsampled to fit inside of the small player, which was still greater than the dimensions of any youtube video. Not to mention, it was hardware accelerated making it able to stream 1920x1080@60fps high bitrate videos at a great framerate... something flash has yet to prove and I doubt it will.

Having said that, I could care less about the stability of the player. I was eagerly awaiting h.264 support, which it very well may have implemented before Flash.

[Dark Shikari]

Not to mention, it was hardware accelerated making it able to stream 1920x1080@60fps high bitrate videos at a great framerate
Wait, what?

PC-based MPEG-4 ASP hardware acceleration doesn't exist.

[smok3]

probably hardware scaling/deblocking is what he meant, (which does sucks in flash), all the rest is not true thought.

[foxyshadis]

Flash formats all also support any resolution, bitrate, framerate, and encoder quality levels. The fact that youtube videos suck has nothing to do with flash video's suck or lack thereof.

[Dark Shikari]

Flash formats all also support any resolution, bitrate, framerate, and encoder quality levels. The fact that youtube videos suck has nothing to do with flash video's suck or lack thereof.Definitely. And see here (http://mirror05.x264.nl/Dark/Flash/) for a great example of what one can do in Flash now that there's H.264 support... :cool: