codec challenge for website

[Gunnar]

Hi,

I work as webmaster for a website which
will start offering free online race videos soon.

I hope that some of the experts here can help
us in choosing the right video codec so that
the video can be provided at best quality.


About our content:
We want to offer several thousand videos for free download.
Each video will show a greyhound races.
Each video is about 32-45 second long.
Our source material is full PAL, interlaced.
Greyhound race is very dynamic (fast motion)
because of this I believe that we can only use halve frames.
(deinterlacing should be impossible)

I assume that the best online size will be halve pal 320x256 with 25 frames.
Maybe a strange size like 2/3 PAL with something
like 420x340 and 25 frames will also be possible?


We want to provide the best quality but of course
the user should not need to wait to long for each race to download.

Do you think that an encoding with 1 Mbit/sec would be possible?

In addition we want to recommend to our user a player
which can play the videos in normal speed but also in slow motion.
As over 90 percent of our users use windows, we need
a good player for windows of course. Having a nice player for
MAC and Linux would be very nice too.


For those of you which want to see how
a greyhound can look like here is a link:
http://www.greyhound-data.com/d?r=449371
(The video is in window media 9)

Please mind that the above video is just an example
and that the upcoming new races will have a much better source quality.
Our sources for the new races are TV quality in fact.


I very much hope that some of you can help us
to find the perfect codec for this kind of material

Many thanks in advance

Gunnar
webmaster www.greyhound-data.com

[peteag]

Just look okay for me, so here's my opinion for codecs you can use:

Do you want that everyone who's not that expert in codec-installation and comparison, you can go with windows media 9. So, this codec is streamable and standardized in the world-wide-web so that any kind of user can play this via media player. The quality is also good enough.

If you want the best possible quality at the moment, you have to wait. H.264 is the major impact of this year and you should wait some months before encoding your content to it. Because not every person, who just want to look a greyhound-race, want's to download the whole nero-package (~50MB).

My personal: Every codec want's to be the best. Some codecs have good features and others didn't. But stay easy for your visitors. Take wmv9 for good standardized playback without any more software-requirements (WinME/2000/XP should be enough) and take H.264 for best quality playback - but wait until the codec has finaly implemented by some companies.

[Sirber]

RealMedia, Quicktime or Windows Media. I'm sure web users don't want to install 45000 codecs to watch the videos :)

[bond]

Originally posted by Sirber
RealMedia, Quicktime or Windows Media. I'm sure web users don't want to install 45000 codecs to watch the videos :) its a mythos that only the proprietary formats offer easy handling:
the most interoperable format is still .mp4, with aac and mpeg-4 simple profile video

it can be played by default in quicktime and realplayer (without the user having to do anything) and in wmp10 by installing 3ivx

no other format offers this with that quality (mpeg-1 - "mpg" maybe, but the quality is worse)...
neither wm9, nor realmedia, nor quicktime are supported that widely

[peteag]

Yes, mp4 is also a solution but I would wait for h.264 to come. At the time codecs like xvid, wmv, divx, vp6 a.s.o. are not that heavy different in quality so I would use a standardised and easy format at the moment.

So, wmv is my favourite at the moment because I don't want to switch every time a codec is better - next time another is it, too. This is to hectically for me and for your visitors, too. I don't wanna talk bad about greyhound-races but I claim, that also older (or even inexperienced in codecs) people want to watch those movies so they have to install even the newest and best codec at the time, because it's picture-quality is 3% better than the older one. Wait for the revolution or a real jump of 25% in quality (not these silly promises from the developers) than switch.

Quicktime is also good, Realvideo I dislike somewhat.
But, I don't know, quicktime-files are only creatable when you pay 30$ for the quicktime-pro component.

[bond]

i think there is a little bit of a confusion: when using the .mp4 container the user doesnt need to install different codecs "every time a better codec comes out" on the playback side!

[peteag]

I didn't mean it in connection with the mp4-container. I meant VP6 and other non-mpeg4-related codecs. The Mpeg-4 asp standard is still in heavey development but I hadn't seen any streamable solution at the moment. But I know that h.264 will have one. I'am a great fan of XviD and I use it a lot. When you want to download movies in good quality, XviD is also a solution but in my opinion the quality differences between XviD and WMV are not that big and at the time I use more WMV because XviD is 1.1beta. When it's final I will use it again for projects, but before it's to risk for me.

Before you link to the codec-comparison of doom9: I cannot realy agree with the conclusion about WMV, because settings weren't exhausted (I know MS told to). 1 week ago, I've been encoded "The Village" to wmv9 and the quality looks realy great. But it's not my website and you have to make your choice for yourself.

MP4, WMV, QuickTime, Realmedia, On2, H.264 ...
Everything is good - the differences are not that great!

[bond]

Originally posted by peteag
[B]I didn't mean it in connection with the mp4-container. I meant VP6 and other non-mpeg4-related codecs.xvid and divx5 are mpeg-4 codecs, which you could use in .mp4 for example, and play in quicktime without having to install anything extra!

The Mpeg-4 asp standard is still in heavey developmentnope its not, its finalized for years and the available codecs are all spec compliant and useable as they are

but I hadn't seen any streamable solution at the momentthere are lots of solutions, maybe the most popular one is using the (free) apple darwin streaming server

XviD is 1.1beta. When it's final I will use it again for projects, but before it's to risk for mewell xvid development will not stop after 1.1 is released, so it will never be "final"
just use the latest 1.0 version if you have any fears, it already provides excelent quality and is mpeg-4 compliant