RealVideo 10 'Elysian'

[MictXP]

Two Towers, not the extended. Time is 2:59:21
I think it's something like 504x278. I used 633 kbs for overall bitrate, with 96 kbs for audio. I'm not so concerned with quality right now -- I have real DVDs for that. I'm very concerned with size, though, which is why I'm doing these at 500-550 kbs for video. I tried Divx -- sometimes it would work (with Animation usually), while LOTR looked worse than crap. But Real works beautifully for what I'm doing.

Switching racp to raac didn't work :-( And I don't think OSX can read the DLL files too well...If Media Player Classic can play Real content, does that mean I could install some filter codec (possibly ffdshow) to get the Mac player (VLC or Quicktime) to play the RV10 content?

[damrod]

633kbits for video... i bet you get a very good quality no?

[MictXP]

It's 633 overall bitrate. Video is 537 I think, audio is 96.
The video is still really good -- much more than I was hoping for. ffdshow didn't work because it's a directshow filter. VLC didn't work either -- not for 10 or 9 contect. Hmm...I don't think Real has released a beta 10 player for OSX either...

So I can encode in RV10 and get the quality but piss of my very few Mac friends, or encode in RV9 and lose a little quality. Or, if anyone else has a fix, I'll try it. Any suggestions?

[damrod]

make sure you encode in rv9-ehq... maybe its the rv10 tag that cause problems...

[Sirber]

Use RV9 @ 85 with the RC, nothing else.

[hellfred]

MPlayer might help, or not. Latest CVS can handel AAC and HE-AAC in the rm container, but on the not x86 processors, the real codecs dlls will not work. I do not know if there is a way to make mplayer use the codecs that come together with the OSX version of the realplayer.
(http://www.real.com/freeplayer/?rppr=d9)
The linux compile of mplayer can make use of both the win32 dlls and the libraries of the linux version of realplayer.

hellfred

[karl_lillevold]

MictXP (and damrod and Sirber): There is no difference in the bitstream format, whether you choose RV9 or RV10. The Mac player will be able to decode both, but it does not know about our 'rv10 tag', it will simply ignore it, and the video will show as RV9. I suspect there is a problem with the audio track (RealAudio 10). I am not sure about the status of playing back AAC (raac) and HE-AAC (racp) on the Mac. I will ask. Thanks for bringing this up.

[Sirber]

Never heard Mac could play video with audio at the same time

[karl_lillevold]

I was told there should be an updated OSX player with AAC and HE-AAC playback support very very soon.

[damrod]

so MictXP must try with a file encoded with cook audio codec

[MictXP]

My mac receives the same error as on a PC without the fixed DLLs -- the racp error. I think it will play content encoded with the Helix Producer as long as I use AutoRV9 and not AutoRV10. I tried that a while ago, though, so maybe producer has changed.

If an updated OSX player is coming out very soon, that's good enough for me. I don't think I have too many friends that use Mac, but it still is something that I think about.

[damrod]

use cook codec instead of aac ;-)
and you will have normal rv9 files...

[MictXP]

How do I use the cook codec?

[karl_lillevold]

MictXP: AutoRV10 has switched to raac and racp "under the hood", i.e. you can not see the name of the codec being used. AutoRV9 uses cook instead. Perhaps it would be nice for AutoRV10 to include the actual codec being used in the drop-down box. I would have certainly liked to see AAC and HE-AAC, these by many recognized as the most efficient codecs today.

GUI developers: I just finished adding three new options to the rate control:

<rcKeyFrameBoost type="uint">0</rcKeyFrameBoost>
<rcHighBitrateReduce type="uint">0</rcHighBitrateReduce>
<rcLowBitrateBoost type="uint">0</rcLowBitrateBoost>

Each parameter takes a number from 0-100. Send me a note if you would like a pre-prelease to help you include these new options. In a few days after I have done some more testing, I should be able to update the publicly available preview with these options as well. We already know this, but I have verified that reducing high bitrate scenes somewhat is good for average PSNR for a clip where some scenes take a large amount of available bits.

[MictXP]

Is there a way to use RV10 with the cook codec?
I'm thinking that using AutoRV9 with the RV10 producer would work. Would that take advantage of the Elysian features though?

I sound like I know nothing except easy to use GUIs...I'm very familiar with doing a lot of grunt work with Divx and Xvid, but I'm new to the Real platform. I can do grunt work here too, though. I just like GUIs better

[damrod]

not sure since there are three codecs rv9, rv9-ehq and rv10...

rv10 is rv9-ehq + aac but the value-settings for the ehq are different ...

if you have autorv9 with ehq support you will have same quality as rv10
but not elysium feature sorry...

[damrod]

use last version of autorv9 it has rv9-ehq support and cook codec...

[hellfred]

@MictXP:
First, MPlayer is not yet able to play back RV10 content on MaxOSX. Booting a linux port on the Mac and then play the RV10 content is no alternative.
Second, AutoRV10 v1.0b1 used to automatically select cook for stereo audio. I have not tested v1.0b1.1 yet. But nevertheless, you can use both of them and easily make sure that cook is bein used. Just choose your source and run through all tabs swithching the parameters as usual. But after adding the job and before starting to encode check the jobfile that was created by AutoRV10. It usually is c:\AutoRV_Movie.rpjf. This is a ascii file and have a look at the last lines

</stream>
<stream xsi:type="audioStream">
<pluginName type="string">rn-audiocodec-realaudio</pluginName>
<codecName type="string">cook</codecName>
<codecFlavor type="uint">23</codecFlavor>
<streamContext type="bag">
<presentationType type="string">audio-video</presentationType>
<audioMode type="string">music</audioMode>
</streamContext>
</stream>
</streams>
</audience>
</audiences>
</job>

See the codecName line already contains cook, and codecFlavor 23 means stereo@44Kbps. stereo@96Kbps would need a codecFlavor 25
Have a look at the documentation of helixcommunity.org for a full list. (AudienceFile.htm#Audio_Codec_Tables)
I hope that for the second pass, no hew joblile is being created or at least that the audiostream part is not being edited. You can try to use the edit audience button, too, which will be available when adding a job. But always keep in mind, that it is still beta.

hellfred

[MictXP]

That worked great. I first tried to edit the file through the Audience button, but that didn't change the .rpjf file at all.
I changed the movie and credit .rpjf to cook and changed the codecflavor to 25 (it was 0). Now the movie is playable on Mac and PC. Thank you!

I encoded Gattaca @ 550 kbs, with 544x280 resolution. Turned out great. I'm very surprised at the quality of this codec vs. divx.

[Griniaris]

What are the recommended settings for the keyframe and low motion boosts and high motion reduce? Anyone did any tests? What ranges give the best results? I know it is a bit subjective but I would like to have something like a default value and then the user can change it if he likes to...