H.264 status and definition

[ToiletDuck]

I was reading through some of the threads to find out more about this codec however most of the discussions were either A: by a group of people that already knew what they were talking about, or B: People who didnt seem to know anything. I would be in the later group but after reading the threads I still don't fully understand.
After looking around I am gathering that H.264 or H.26L as it was once called is a new form of codec that will allow MPEG 1/2 to be encoded up to 1/4 it's original size without loss of quality? I'm a little shaddy there. Also from what I'm gathering is that it is completely unstable and very slow? I would like to know who came up with the idea for this codec and what potential it has. Also I looked at the moonlight clips and wasn't impressed at all. If that is what the codec has to ofer I'd rather stick with xvid and RV10. Seemed like A) Blockiness everywhere, B) Choppy, and C)The color of the clips was completely off. Skin looked red and greens and blues faded out. Any comments?

[Tommy Carrot]

H.264 is the successor of the current mpeg4 standard, and otherwise known as mpeg4 AVC profile. It's technically superior, so theoretically it would bring the same quality at significantly smaller bitrate (30-50% less), but the current implementations are far from perfect (to say the least), they are very slow, unoptimized and untuned.

[ToiletDuck]

so is this being developed on a volunteer developer level like Keopi and xvid or is it more or less being pushed by the media industry?

[Tommy Carrot]

Xvid is a bad example, it's an implementation of mpeg4 advanced simple profile, so it's not a private experiment either. The same is the case with H.264: it's an industry standard, but anyone can make an implementation of it (but unfortunately noone did that so far...).

[bond]

h.264 (officially called AVC (Advanced Video Coding) in MPEG-4) is not the successor of MPEG-4, its part of it!

h.264 is not 1 codec, its an open codec standard
the difference is that other formats, like RV9/10, VP6, WMV9 are closed formats, meaning only one firm releases only 1 codec and this firm has pretty much all rights on this codec
an open standard is as the name says a standard, which everyone can follow it when creating a h.264 codec, which means there are many different h.264 codecs (there is for example also an opensource h.264 project running, but has been very quiet lately)

the big advantage of an open standard is that it leads to a strong competition, which means the codec developers always have to look to offer high quality otherwise people will simply use another h.264 codec, what is very good for us, the customers

back to MPEG-4:
more or less you can say the MPEG-4 standard defines two video encoding standards:
1) MPEG-4 part2: which we all now as DivX5, XviD, 3ivx aso...
2) MPEG-4 part10 (also called AVC|h.264), which is a superiour coding technology than "normal" mpeg-4

the h.264 technology is pretty new and therefore only a few h.264 codecs exist, which are not really tuned and very slow and dont offer the maximum quality they could (simply imagine how divx5 and xvid performed some years ago)

[temporance]

Originally posted by Tommy Carrot
H.264 is the successor of the current mpeg4 standard, and otherwise known as mpeg4 AVC profile. It's technically superior, so theoretically it would bring the same quality at significantly smaller bitrate (30-50% less), but the current implementations are far from perfect (to say the least), they are very slow, unoptimized and untuned.

I wouldn't say the current optimizations are untuned. Slow and unoptimized yes, but they are pretty well tuned, having the same type of RD opts as xvid's VHQ mode. I'm talking about the JVT encoder which is what most people have used to benchmark the standard.

Personally, I expect this standard to require in the region of 0-30% less bitrate than regular MPEG-4 (DivX or xvid). In other words, for some clips, there will be no advantage, but for others there might be a noticeable quality improvement at the same bitrate. This improvement will come at the cost of increased encoding times and high decoder CPU load (esp. at resolutions > 320x240).

Industry is very excited about this codec: IMHO it will not trounce MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 in the way that people expect it to.

[MfA]

Partly for PR reasons and partly because they will use it in the MPEG-4 container format MPEG has declared it as part of MPEG-4, but the text of the standard shares diddly squat with the old MPEG-4 visual standard. As far as the coding goes it is a defacto successor.

Please, credit where credit's due ... let's keep calling H.264 by that name

[P0l1m0rph1c]

Originally posted by Tommy Carrot
Xvid is a bad example, it's an implementation of mpeg4 advanced simple profile, so it's not a private experiment either. The same is the case with H.264: it's an industry standard, but anyone can make an implementation of it (but unfortunately noone did that so far...).

Ever heard of the x264 project?

[bond]

there are two opensource h.264 projects (next to the reference sources) available already:

fenrir's x264 (as P0l1m0rph1c wrote)
hdot264 by charact3r (does anyone know if openhdot264 is closely related to hdot264 or more a different project?)

skal is also working on a h.264 encoder, but hasnt released any sources till now

[Tommy Carrot]

Originally posted by P0l1m0rph1c
Ever heard of the x264 project?

No.

Seriously, it has the illness of all h.264 projects: it's very sporadically developed, inactive, i just don't have too much faith in it. And i cannot compile anything usable from it!!

[thegeby]

The European broadcasters in EBU seem to be rather miffed by the proposed MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 licencing deal. EBU Press release
Their point is that the terms do not fit channels that broadcast to a narrow audience but that cover a large footprint. This may be an early salvo in a negotiation strategy, but is a pity anyway as there has been clear interest on the technical side to use this codec in DVB high definition broadcasts.

EBU tech people seems to prefer 720p as a future standard claiming that it can display standard signals better than interlaced HD. If Europe wants to avoid wasting bandwidth US style, this means one of the "new" codecs: H.264, WMV9, RV"X", VP6, DIVX. Could be interesting....

[bill_baroud]

i compiled ffmpeg some days ago (to have a new lib for ffdshow :whistle: )

and noticed a nice "h264" in the list of output format .... what does it mean ??
i didn't test it, but there is an h264 encoder in ffmpeg ?

[d'Oursse]

according to the doc, ffmpeg decode h264, but did not encode (see TODO in the doc directory, for example)

[el divx]

skal is also working on a h.264 encoder, but hasnt released any sources till now [/B]

Can then smeone from this forum/thread compile a version usable in vfw programms such as VD? Sources and documentation are available in skal's website. I'd do it myself, but I don't know anything about progrmming

[MfA]

I didnt even know about the 2010 thing ... personally I cant see anyone investing in H.264 with that kind of hostage situation looming. I foresee it languishing in the same patent limbo as MPEG-4 did if they cannot get agreements from all parties on a usefull license. If they dont m$ or on2 could have a field day if they play their cards right.

Glad to see the EBU agrees with me on interlacing at least

[el divx]

Shouldn't then the developers in this forum help people like fenrir and skal evolve what they already have started?!? I think that we just have to develop an h.264 codec that will create mpeg-4 avc(h.264)-compliant content without using reference code so that those jackoffs at M.P.E.G. won't be able to argue about using their patented code and develop it while they will still be trying to figure out the license to put on h.264.

[MfA]

That is not how patents work.

If Skal wanted help Im sure he would have asked for it ... hell, he never said he would open source it even.

[shlezman]

http://www.dvdforum.org/25scmtg-resolution.htm

"Provisional approval of MPEG2, WM9 (VC-9) and MPEG4 AVC(H.264) Video CODECs as mandatory for the HD DVD Video specification for playback devices, subject to (a) an update in 60 days regarding licensing terms and conditions, (b) a presentation by each of the respective licensing bodies at the next SC meeting and (c) possible elimination of any of the above CODECs at the next SC meeting. "

It seems that the DVD-Forum has chosen (for the moment) WM9 and H.264 as mandatory codecs for the upcomming HD DVD format.
Very strange decision, considering how much $ the customers will have to play for royalties and that over-compatibility .I womder how much time it will take for the industry to fully support all these formats (except MPEG2).

[MfA]

AFAIK there isnt even a single licensing body for H.264 at the moment, both vialicensing and the mpegla have their own licensing pool.

[justin]

okie, for status of the open source implementations:

skal is already finished his H264 codec. He is not sure if it will be made open source because there are other companies interested in using it commercially. It may become open source, but he's not sure yet

Hdot264 is not currently not being worked on at this moment and Fenrir's x264 is being worked on by him and I am trying to join in and help him with his codec