NeroDigital H.264 (AVC) Announcement [Archive]

SeeMoreDigital

17th March 2004, 18:21

On Doom9.org I read with great interest, the following: -

"Ahead, maker of the popular Nero Burning ROM burning (and much more) suite, has announced to add AVC/H.264 and parametric audio coding to their NeroDigital offering. For those who don't know, AVC is an addition to the MPEG-4 specs, designed to make MPEG-4 compression even more efficient. Parametric audio coding should allow for even lower AAC bitrates."

Can anybody else provide more info?

Cheers

acidsex

17th March 2004, 19:23

I am definitely interested in more information especially when we can expect implementation to start.

bond

17th March 2004, 20:58

you can find more info here (http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/040316/165802_1.html)

its great to see that ahead shows interest in avc|h.264 cause this will mean that it will finally find its way into consumer focused products :)

P0l1m0rph1c

17th March 2004, 21:10

It's great to see companies starting to offer h.264 solutions to end users :D Soon, we will be encoding with h.264 thanks to these efforts.

Anyway, regarding Ahead's Annoucement, we shouldn't really expect a h.264 encoder very soon. I mean, MPEG4 v2 solution came out ~3 months ago. H.264 (MPEG4 v10) is still very young, and imho, we should expect some release of this at least some months later.

About PS, good to know that Ahead is always developing new technologies to make us have the best quality possible.

Way to go!

Soulhunter

17th March 2004, 21:26

Originally posted by P0l1m0rph1c
Anyway, regarding Ahead's Annoucement, we shouldn't really expect a h.264 encoder very soon... Maybe @ Nero7 release... :rolleyes:

Bye

SeeMoreDigital

17th March 2004, 21:57

Yes, you've got to give Ahead praise, where praise is due!

I've never been mad keen on their products (too buggy) but they are not affraid to 'kick start' an product!

Where would AAC-HE and Mpeg4 .MP4 be without them. They certainly seem to have generated more interest and as a result of their input!

Cheers

Manao

18th March 2004, 01:07

Ahead is using a french firm ( Ateme ) to develop their video codecs. I've met with one of their developper, and they really expect to provide an encoder / decoder for the beginning of july.

They were in fact developping both MPEG-4 / H264 in the same time, so even if they released only 3 months ago their MPEG-4 codec, they should be able to release ans H264 one for july.

Oh, and it's much more faster to develop something when you're working on it 40 hours a week, in the same room than the others that are working with you, so 3 months is a rather long time.

Latexxx

18th March 2004, 06:53

Originally posted by Soulhunter
Maybe @ Nero7 release... :rolleyes:
At lest their audio guy claimed at Hydrogenaudio that we'll get parametric stereo as free upgrade. I don't know about H.264 but it woyuld be logical if it would also be free upgrade.

bond

18th March 2004, 09:19

Originally posted by Latexxx
At lest their audio guy claimed at Hydrogenaudio that we'll get parametric stereo as free upgrade. I don't know about H.264 but it woyuld be logical if it would also be free upgrade.well you have to note that neros products are not available for free at alll (there are only 30days demos)
so i assume that h.264 will be a free update to a non-free product

Latexxx

18th March 2004, 19:21

Originally posted by bond
(there are only 30days demos)
And you can download a new demo version, which will work for 30 days, in the beginning of every month. :D

SeeMoreDigital

18th March 2004, 19:43

Talking about Nero demo's.....

Their 'new free' demo version has been 'available soon' for nearly three weeks now!

Bummer :(

celtic_druid

18th March 2004, 20:24

If it were released as part of Nero 7 then anyone who currently owns Nero would at least have to pay for some kind of upgrade to update. Where as if it is part of 6.x then it is a free update.

temporance

19th March 2004, 09:38

I don't mean to be facetious, but it would have been nice if Ahead had finished work on it's MPEG-4 product line before starting on something new. The quality from Nero Digital is, IMHO, very disappointing when compared to the leaders in MPEG-4: DivX and xvid.

So, if and when there is a "Nero H.264" and if it doesn't blow you away, don't assume that H.264 sucks.

Come on Nero, let's have some real competition for xvid/DivX first!!!

Doom9

19th March 2004, 10:12

well.. there's a reason why ND isn't as good as XviD in terms of quality (and I'm sure this post will trigger one or two ND addicts to post their viewpoint which is the inverse of mine): ND is geared for hardware compatibility. I think it has been mentioned before so it's safe to say now that Ahead is trying to get CE manufacturers to make DVD recorders that support ND ENcoding. And since encoding takes a lot of computing power, you have to compromise somewhere or you'll have to put a 3 GHz P4 into your standalone, which is going to make it expensive, bulky and noisy.

Their H.264 won't suffer from the same constraints as you need specialized hardware for H.264 decoding already (and to my knowledge there's no useful hardware solution, not even for H.264 decoding yet, which means ND H.264 will be geared towards PC hardware and can burn as many CPU cycles as necessary to make it as good looking as possible). Obviously, other H.264 codec makers will try that as well so it'll be interesting.

But forget about ND MPEG-4 non AVC ever being on par with features (and in my eyes quality as well) with XviD... they're not made for the same hardware. Just consider that ND is roughly twice as fast as the 2nd fastest codec (assuming the same MPEG-4 ASP features have been used)... now there are quite a few players in the MPEG-4 market so something should be seriously wrong if one codec was twice as fast as everything else, but still look as good. It is theoretically possible, but with several serious players in the market this is a highly unlikely scenario.

Manao

19th March 2004, 12:01

and I'm sure this post will trigger one or two ND addicts to post their viewpoint which is the inverse of mineEven the developpers agree with you :)

However, they intend to release a new version of the MPEG-4 codec before releasing their H264 codec. This new version should partly fill the quality gap, without harming the speed which is still ahead's first concern.

temporance : you can't blame them for developping their H264 codec : in three or four months, commercial H264 codec will begin to appear, and they don't want to be as late as they were with MPEG4.

bond

19th March 2004, 12:46

my point on this issue is that it is VERY smart of ahead to invest in h.264 because:

1) i am 99% sure that h.264 will be used in HD-DVD. HD-DVD is THE upcoming standard and will be surely much more successfull than what happened with mpeg-4 part2
2) every company tries to exclude competition. now ahead has many competitors: the direct ones are divx5, xvid, 3ivx aso... (the indirect are the non compatible ones: rv9, vp6 aso...)
now with h.264 a codec is coming up which maybe has the potential to blow all exisiting ones away qualitywise (or at least be on par with them in the beginning)
now if you provide superior quality you can get rid of your competitors very fast (quality is THE argument imo, and the community is already good/organised enough in finding out what a codec is worth) of course this will change with the time when other h.264 codec providers come up (hopefully also a gpl one) but till there you can cash in heavily

on their mpeg-4 part2 codec:
i dont want to bring this discussion up again (its a h.264 thread :) ) but i think ND isnt that bad at all like some people write
i would compare it with divx5 at medium bitrates (not to speak of the speed)
well thats what my short 7000 frames test brought :rolleyes:

temporance

19th March 2004, 14:06

Originally posted by Doom9
well.. there's a reason why ND isn't as good as XviD in terms of quality (and I'm sure this post will trigger one or two ND addicts to post their viewpoint which is the inverse of mine): ND is geared for hardware compatibility. I think it has been mentioned before so it's safe to say now that Ahead is trying to get CE manufacturers to make DVD recorders that support ND ENcoding. And since encoding takes a lot of computing power, you have to compromise somewhere or you'll have to put a 3 GHz P4 into your standalone, which is going to make it expensive, bulky and noisy.
Hi Doom9,

I beg to disagree: the reason why the quality of ND is not so good as some of its competitors is that Ahead have designed their codec for PC encoding speed, not quality. I believe they may have pulled some old transcoding tricks out of the bag to recycle MPEG-2 motion vectors (which can have very variable results).

DivX have beaten Nero to CE devices with DivX 5 hardware profiles. I would think it is very unlikely that these devices contain the exact same DivX 5 codec that resides as divx.dll on your PC. Any company wanting an embedded codec is going to have to shoehorn its algorithms into whatever embedded platform is suitable in terms of performance and pricepoint. Of course encoding MPEG-4 on an embedded device is difficult, but that's no reason to make one's PC products inferior. IMHO.

Back on the subject of H.264, my feel is that it will be a very long time before we see this standard overtake, or even rival MPEG-4 pt.2. The simple reason is CPU load. You can chose to implement only the most basic tools of H.264, but then you have a codec with no quality improvement over pt.2. So we'll likely see some exciting new products out this year, but we won't all be making fresh backups of our DVD collections in 2004.

SeeMoreDigital

19th March 2004, 14:17

Originally posted by bond
On their mpeg-4 part2 codec:
i dont want to bring this discussion up again (its a h.264 thread :) ) but i think ND isnt that bad at all like some people write. I would compare it with divx5 at medium bitrates (not to speak of the speed)... Agreed.

When considering ND's '2pass' speed against quality, it's very good. Quality and speed wise it reminds me of one of DivX's beta's (Kaukura I think). When set to fastest mode with MV it was very fast indeed. In fact the second pass was quite a bit faster than the first!

Anyway back to ND H.264. Anything that can push the technology forward is fine by me. I just hope it will use the .MP4 container - as it should be.

We definately don't need another new container, or H.264 to appear in AVI (God forbid) or MPG (MainConcept) or H264 (Moonlight).

Cheers

Sagittaire

19th March 2004, 14:21

do not forget the WM9 ...

1) video codec WMV9
- Profil [SP, MP or HP]@[SL, ML or HL] for harware decoding
- Very good quality for all profil

2) Audio Codec WMA9
- 1.0 -> 7.1
- 8 KHz -> 96 KHz
- 16 or 24 bits

3) Container WMV
- Digital Right Management

bond

19th March 2004, 14:27

sagittaire, i begin to wonder whether your are paid by m$? ;)

how does windows media stuff belong to a discussion focused on nero digital and its way from mpeg-4 asp to h.264...? :rolleyes:
reminds me of chris' best days :D

SeeMoreDigital

19th March 2004, 14:44

Eeeh gods. what a cheek!

Much as I enjoy reading Sagittaire's posts. If I was a mod. I would have no compulsion but to delete this one :D

Cheers

bobololo

19th March 2004, 18:58

It's really interesting to see all your reactions following the announce :) For those who are interested, here are a few clarifications about ND video codecs :

- Doom9 is completely right concerning ND mpeg-4 codec. It was at least in the first releases very tainted by its "embedded" constrains (ie: designed for realtime encoding). However, we're continuously improving this codec and some work has been done more specifically in the offline encoding area. In the next release, ND will show significant increases in term of quality (and speed again ;).

- Beside H.264 developments are also on the way and this time they are designed for PC encoding, this is a secret for nobody. I can't say anything about the availability. But be sure, when released, it will show much higher coding efficiency compared to MPEG-4 ASP. And BTW the H.264 stream will be carried in MP4 file.

@temporance:
Sorry but I think your interpretation regarding ND target/strategy is slightly wrong. The main reason why there was no distinction between embedded and PC version is related to time-to-market issues. We couldn't redesign a new version dedicated to PC in a such short time.
So we had to make some compromises and accept to provide the codec you know. These choices were finally not so bad, ND is a very usable codec and most of its targeted users (I mean not those doom9 readers ;) will be very pleased with its quality. And now it's out, we can still continue to work on improvements as you'll see very soon and I hope you'll enjoy the progress :)

-- bobololo

SeeMoreDigital

19th March 2004, 19:26

Thanks for the clarification bobololo.

It's good to know you are here to clarify (as much as you are allowed) Aheads stratagy with regard to both H.264 and the existing ND Mpeg4 pt.2 codec.

If you need any beta testers both myself and bond will be more than happy to help out....

Well, if you don't ask... you don't get!

Cheers

Sagittaire

19th March 2004, 19:33

Originally posted by bond
my point on this issue is that it is VERY smart of ahead to invest in h.264 because:

1) i am 99% sure that h.264 will be used in HD-DVD. HD-DVD is THE upcoming standard and will be surely much more successfull than what happened with mpeg-4 part2
2) every company tries to exclude competition. now ahead has many competitors: the direct ones are divx5, xvid, 3ivx aso... (the indirect are the non compatible ones: rv9, vp6 aso...)
now with h.264 a codec is coming up which maybe has the potential to blow all exisiting ones away qualitywise (or at least be on par with them in the beginning)
now if you provide superior quality you can get rid of your competitors very fast (quality is THE argument imo, and the community is already good/organised enough in finding out what a codec is worth) of course this will change with the time when other h.264 codec providers come up (hopefully also a gpl one) but till there you can cash in heavily

Re: don't forget WM9 ... :devil:

No I'am not paid by micro$oft but H264 for HD-DVD isn't a very good solution for me. The power for the coding/decoding is considerable. No PC will be able to do it in 720p or 1080p before a very long time. And H264 quality for the moment is worse than others codecs ...

bond

19th March 2004, 19:46

Originally posted by Sagittaire
Re: don't forget WM9 ... nah i didnt forget it, it was included in "aso..." ;)

The power for the coding/decoding is considerable. No PC will be able to do it in 720p or 1080p before a very long timewell the same goes for hd wmv9 content for me atm (and i am surely not the only one)
i also wonder if i am ever going to back up hd content as hd on 1 cdr :D
and i am also sure that the nero guys will care/know how to avoid a "speed problem" ;)

Originally posted by SeeMoreDigital
If you need any beta testers both myself and bond will be more than happy to help out.... gimme gimme ;)

Manao

19th March 2004, 19:48

WMV9 isn't a better solution either, because it still a proprietary format.

Moreover, H264 decoders can already decode 720*384 on a 2000+ at 60% of cpu charge.

SeeMoreDigital

19th March 2004, 20:01

Originally posted by Sagittaire
No I'am not paid by micro$oft but H264 for HD-DVD isn't a very good solution for me. The power for the coding/decoding is considerable. No PC will be able to do it in 720p or 1080p before a very long time. And H264 quality for the moment is worse than others codecs ... It should be quite possible to encode real time HD material, it all depends how the signal is handled prior to encoding.

Take the tiny portable Archos AV300 for example. This device can already encode Mpeg4 in real time. OK the picture quality is not anything like good enough for HD. But just imagine having six or more of these little chipsets working together encoding say, different fields or frames or even the R-G-B signals separately... a bit like hyper-threading.

Encoding 720p video should be possible, but whether it will use a true 16:9 frame (1280wide pixels) might be debatable. The developers might cop out and do what they did with DVD and use an anamorphic frame to save pixels.

EDIT: I forgot to mention. It's should already be possible to generate real-time Mpeg4 captures at 720 high. However the image width would have to be 576 pixels... ie: anamorphic. I've already posted some examples for download.

1080p, now that would be nice. Only M$ have demonstrated this, but even they don't use 1920x1080 (2,073,600 total) pixels. They cheat and do it anamorphicly by using 1440x1080 (1,555,200 total) pixels. But current 1080 broadcast material is not progressive anyway, it's interlaced.

Cheers

Sagittaire

19th March 2004, 20:02

Nero recode isn't a freeware and directshow filter for coding are blocked ... :devil:

Ahead = miro$oft

bond

19th March 2004, 20:10

Originally posted by Sagittaire
Nero recode isn't a freeware and directshow filter for coding are blocked ...well i think its not a secret anymore as it was posted already, but if you rename graphedit.exe to recode.exe you can use the filter as you want for encoding (which means you can use avisynth and one of the nice containers available directly)

and about recode2 not being freeware... what do you expect? that a company can afford giving gifts?
do you think m$ is offering their codecs for free because they love the users that much? do you think they will do this forever? they need to do it atm cause otherwise noone would even think about caring about their codec...

Ahead = miro$ofthaha thats why the european comission (one of the highest institution of the european union) now punished m$ to pay some 100 million €/$ penalty for abusing their monopoly power :D
m$ is a bad company, with maybe the worst business policy imaginable, believe it or not...
but at least you also use "$" instead of "s" when writing micro$oft ;)

SeeMoreDigital

19th March 2004, 20:13

I would rather give my money to Ahead rather than M$ any day of the week!

BoNz1

20th March 2004, 05:17

Originally posted by Sagittaire
No PC will be able to do it in 720p or 1080p before a very long time. And H264 quality for the moment is worse than others codecs ...

If you encode without CABAC and some other things there is absolutely no way a modern PC like faster than 1.5Ghz wouldn't be able to decode 1080p; with CABAC maybe 720p. As for the quality you must be either joking or you have no clue what you are talking about. The reference encoders have nice quality. Certainly nothing compared to WMV9, quite frankly in terms of quality I have seen nothing that compares... Ahead knows what is good :).

SeeMoreDigital

20th March 2004, 11:43

Originally posted by BoNz1
If you encode without CABAC and some other things there is absolutely no way a modern PC like faster than 1.5Ghz wouldn't be able to decode 1080p; with CABAC maybe 720p. As I mentioned before, there's currently no such thing as a TV 1080p! All 1080 TV material is currently interlaced.

EDIT: And I totally agree with you, the H.263 encodes I've been able to make have looked really good when compared to the current crop of Mpeg4 codecs. And this is using much lower bitrates too.

Cheers

shlezman

21st March 2004, 08:59

@M$ lovers
The WM9 codec isnt "lighter" then H.264, on the contrary it uses much more memory (assuming one reference frame is used is h.264) and more CPU.
The development of H.264 is much more advanced then the WM9 since it's open and many firms are working on it for almost a year, while any implementation of WM9 is (and probably will be) based on Micro$oft's, which is probably not too hardware oriented :).

From my tests the H.264 baseline can provide the same quality of MPEG-4 ASP and consume 20% more CPU.Using CABAC consumes about 10% more CPU.

I hope that ND will make a good and fast decoder for playback, hadrware oriented (as with MPEG4) and capture a part of the market. As for encoding, much research and algorithmic work is ahead :) since much of the H.264 is new in concept, some assumptions used in MPEG2/4 are not valid and making a good encoder that can encode in real-time is a hard task. Hope that ND are up-to-it.

Sagittaire

21st March 2004, 11:43

The WM9 codec isnt "lighter" then H.264, on the contrary it uses much more memory (assuming one reference frame is used is h.264) and more CPU.
The development of H.264 is much more advanced then the WM9 since it's open and many firms are working on it for almost a year, while any implementation of WM9 is (and probably will be) based on Micro$oft's, which is probably not too hardware oriented :).

WMV9 use Post-Process "Smoother". WMV9 Without PP does not use more resource than MPEG4 ASP without PP. The Next Kiss Chip will decode WMV9 MP@HL 720p and WMA9. WM9 and H264 are in competition for next standart HD-DVD.

From my tests the H.264 baseline can provide the same quality of MPEG-4 ASP and consume 20% more CPU.Using CABAC consumes about 10% more CPU.

All codec H264 that I used coded with less than 1 fps and was unable to decode in 640*272 on a celeron 1500. All other codec with less than 50% on a celeron 1500

I am not in love with gro$oft but it is the only one which presents a complete platform. The advantage which the WM9 has is that it is already near and since a long time: Video codec WMV9, Audio codec WMA9, container WMV with DRM, WM9Encodeur and WM9Player.

Manao

21st March 2004, 11:50

Why are you forgetting VP6.2, whereas it seems to be your favourite video codec ? It doesn't give an all in one solution, but as a video codec, it mustn't be forgotten.

And for H264, I saw a 720*384 matrix trailer running at 50 % cpu charge on a PIV 2000 Ghz.

SeeMoreDigital

21st March 2004, 11:58

Originally posted by Sagittaire
I am not in love with gro$oft but it is the only one which presents a complete platform. The advantage which the WM9 has is that it is already near and since a long time: Video codec WMV9, Audio codec WMA9, container WMV with DRM, WM9Encodeur and WM9Player. Yes, I guess this is true. I've made this point myself on other threads... But please, I don't want this thread getting bogged down with the same old 'codec comparison' arguments.

If Nero's H.264 codec was available for everyone to generate encodes, it would be a different matter.... But it's not, and you guys are!

Cheers

bobololo

21st March 2004, 14:51

I forgot to mention, for readers who will attend CeBIT 2004, I suggest you to visit Ahead booth, you may find interesting things to see ;)

SeeMoreDigital

21st March 2004, 18:42

Originally posted by bobololo
I forgot to mention, for readers who will attend CeBIT 2004, I suggest you to visit Ahead booth, you may find interesting things to see ;) Will there be any samples for us to download soon?

Cheers

ChristianHJW

22nd March 2004, 13:04

Originally posted by SeeMoreDigital We definately don't need another new container, or H.264 to appear in AVI (God forbid) or MPG (MainConcept) or H264 (Moonlight).

ACK, especially the statement about AVI. Problem will be, who is going to make a free video editor which is comparable with Virtualdub, to be able to edit the new files .....

SeeMoreDigital

22nd March 2004, 13:42

Originally posted by ChristianHJW
ACK, especially the statement about AVI. Problem will be, who is going to make a free video editor which is comparable with Virtualdub, to be able to edit the new files ..... Yep, this is a good point. And one that has been raised many times not only by your good self but by Doom9 as well.

There's no way I'm able to provide an answer. I would not know where to start.

All I can say is I hope such technology arrives soon. Whether it be PC 'software' based. Or stand-alone 'hardware' based.

After all, if Mpeg4 AVC ever makes it into stand-alone equipment. I, like most users, would like an easy way of editing out all those nasty commercials from our HiDef TV captures.

Cheers

bond

22nd March 2004, 16:32

Originally posted by ChristianHJW
Problem will be, who is going to make a free video editor which is comparable with Virtualdub, to be able to edit the new files ...tcme?

SeeMoreDigital

12th May 2004, 11:09

Can anybody confirm whether or not Nero/Ahead included Parametric audio coding' (Audio AVC) in its current: April 30th - May 31st, 2004 release!

Cheers

bond

12th May 2004, 11:24

nope its not

SeeMoreDigital

12th May 2004, 11:32

Originally posted by bond
nope its not A short but sweet reply.

There does not appear to be any new info regarding Nero/Ahead's AVC codec!

Cheers

bond

12th May 2004, 11:44

Originally posted by SeeMoreDigital
A short but sweet reply.from what i heard the updated codec will also get a new gui, so it should be easy to recognize when its here

There does not appear to be any new info regarding Nero/Ahead's AVC codec!nope but they are working on it behind the scenes :)

SeeMoreDigital

12th May 2004, 11:58

I wonder if bobololo, our resident Ateme guy can provide some snip-bits of new info?

Cheers

BoNz1

12th May 2004, 22:17

Originally posted by SeeMoreDigital
I wonder if bobololo, our resident Ateme guy can provide some snip-bits of new info?

Come on IRC #mpeg. He hangs out there. Last time it was brought up he wasn't that optimistic about it, but I think he might have been joking and didn't want to give anything away 8D (he said it was years and years away IIRC). So I sort of doubt you will get any inside info from him.

lexor

13th May 2004, 18:00

Originally posted by SeeMoreDigital
After all, if Mpeg4 AVC ever makes it into stand-alone equipment. I, like most users, would like an easy way of editing out all those nasty commercials from our HiDef TV captures.
[/B]

you would, wouldn't you? but you forgetting/ignoring Doom9's rants about DRM & Co. on the main page :) , granted they are mostly paranoid and in case of AMD's EX flag plain uneducated, 'couse it will actually help prevent DRM'ing everything but the content that was design to be DRM'ed by MS/Apple/etc. he really should praise it

I give you an example from Japan (just in case it didn't get around to be discussed around here) HDTV signal was always freely available and usable to any one with enough hardware at their disposal, but earlier this year they flipped on a switch in encoding software that brought up an interesting point, every piece of hardware shipped had a special decoder chip (which before hand did nothing) but now everything that comes broadcasted to you is coded so only the hardware with proper decoder can will play-back/reconrd/or do anyting else. The fact that they using a different format for broadcast (as explained by Doom9 in his guide) makes other capture devices not usable, and everything that is compatible, is sold with that chip. Now even capture to PC with TV capture card is impossible in Japan (most channels, not 100%)

When and if HDTV comes full force in US/Europe I'm pretty sure they'll put something of the sort in every device as well. So forget about capturing using anything but "allowed" stand alones, and don't even think of editing, trust me the loss won't feel that bad if you don't get used to it.