Future hardware compatibility of current formats

[nikthebak]

Greetings,

There has been some discussion about MPEG standards, esp. with the new XviD and AAC codecs.

So, currently is known that XviD produces fully MPEG-4 compliant video streams, but I would like to know whether this MPEG compliance shall remain as a mere gimmick or not. Hardware vendors are currently rushing into MPEG-4 with new standalone players and some have suggested that perhaps some day our XviD rips would be playable through a standalone. I know it might be too early to even speculate future hardware compatibility with current technologies, but I will give it a try anyway.

The question is that if future hardware can play MPEG-4 video, what audio will they play and in which container format? Or is there even an "ultimate commercial, supported and general MPEG-4 container format" in existence? We can make AAC audio streams easily with i.e. PsyTEL AAC encoder but to what shall we mux that audio and video into? I'm a bit sceptical about whether the current XVid + Vorbis in OGG streams will ever be playable through a standalone. And XViD + MP3 in AVI? Pull another one! :D

In my knowledge Apple is currently hogging licences to use MPEG-4 in their Quicktime format but, as usual, the licensing conditions seem pretty grim. As MPEG-4 in general, not for the end-user. So, is Quicktime the most probable future or will we have more reasonable alternatives?

I'm sorry if this post might seem a little futile but at least for me it would be pretty important to get even a slightest clue about future encoding. Opinions, anyone?

[-h]

So, currently is known that XviD produces fully MPEG-4 compliant video streams, but I would like to know whether this MPEG compliance shall remain as a mere gimmick or not. Hardware vendors are currently rushing into MPEG-4 with new standalone players and some have suggested that perhaps some day our XviD rips would be playable through a standalone. I know it might be too early to even speculate future hardware compatibility with current technologies, but I will give it a try anyway.

Standalone units seem a ways off (nothing to play on them yet). MPEG4 hardware devices seem more likely to be bunched into:

- mobile phones
- digital video cameras (advanced simple profile - b-frames, interlacing, etc.)
- computers
- etc.

There's not really any great push for a standalone decoding box, until there's something to actually play on it. Whatever the devices will end up being, XviD will work on them ;)

The question is that if future hardware can play MPEG-4 video, what audio will they play and in which container format? Or is there even an "ultimate commercial, supported and general MPEG-4 container format" in existence? We can make AAC audio streams easily with i.e. PsyTEL AAC encoder but to what shall we mux that audio and video into? I'm a bit sceptical about whether the current XVid + Vorbis in OGG streams will ever be playable through a standalone. And XViD + MP3 in AVI? Pull another one! :D

There is such a container - the MP4 format itself (see MPEG4IP (http://mpeg4ip.sf.net)). It is "supposed" to contain AAC audio, but from memory MP3 and MP2 are also spec-supported. I should read into this more, as I'm mostly ignorant about the MP4 file format itself.

In my knowledge Apple is currently hogging licences to use MPEG-4 in their Quicktime format but, as usual, the licensing conditions seem pretty grim. As MPEG-4 in general, not for the end-user. So, is Quicktime the most probable future or will we have more reasonable alternatives?

DivX 5.0 will supposedly ship with a modified build of VDub, which will support MP4 file loading/editing/saving. Apart from that (and the few open source tools), I have heard little.

MPEG4 will get bigger and bigger, that I guarantee.

-h

[Nic]

MPEG-4 does have its own container format (mp4 files) :)
The folks at mpeg4ip have used MP3 as the audio in there MP4 files, but I don't think MP3 is part of the standard....Only AAC (and parts of CELP & TwinVQ) are "official" MP4 audio formats. (Therefore Vorbis is also very unlikely)

(The MP4 container format is based on the Quicktime one, but I dont think Quicktime have any sort of exclusive use over it)

-Nic

[ChristianHJW]

Ivan Dimkovic from hydrgogenaudio.org is the expert here. He was registered at PowerDivX.com and posting a few very interesting posts about the MPEG4 container ..... they all were lost with the database crash :( ...