Windows Media Encoder Studio Edition

[benwaggoner]

Although you reiterated on more than one occasion that Studio
is for professionals to create transparent to movie streams,
I think the absolute majority that will try this tool does not
have access to 250Mbps D5's. It will be more like DVD-level MPEG's to TS and equivalents: let say 8 to 18 Mbps.
The fact that these streams a compressed already shouldn't make that much of a difference: the encode has to be transparent to a less perfect original, not unlike encoding some old movies.
I'm sure folks will experiment with it for, but it's not what we're building for. Not to say that there's not an important market for recompression, but we're really aiming for HD DVD authoring as the #1 feature for 1.0. We certainly will be supporting other scenarios, but there's a lot of stuff that works in WME today that we're likely not to get to post 1.0 for Studio Edition. We're a much deeper product, but much less broad.

I'm pretty sure there won't be any way to use .ts files as source in the iniital beta, FWIW. Hopefully in a later version.


Absolutely. Again, not in the beta, but we're looking at the right way to provide groups of settings for particular uses, and making it easy to manage those for the overall project, and different segments. And we're hoping on feedback from the community on the best way to implement that.

Can you provide the parameter set your team used (not counting the hand-tunung part) to encode a particular movie? That would be a good start.

Agreed. Although the codec version being used for HD DVD is a little different from what's in the new beta DMO, and is in very active development. One great thing to do (which has already been happening to some degree) is to share settings and result, and let us all collaborate on figuring out the right settings. With segment reencoding there will be almost infinite variations on how a particular source can be encoded - I could see some fun threads trying to find the best optimizations for a particular clip.

[diogen]

Thanks, Ben.
I'm looking forward to the release of the Studio beta.

Out of curiousity, how large in your estimate is the crowd that
1. has D5's that need to be compressed, and
2. hasn't contacted you yet to get their hands on the tools you are providing to the post houses?
My first guess would be this crowd is non-existent.
But you offer a _free_professional_ tool that has D5 owners as primary target.
Or is this for those few that have but wouldn't want to advertise their interest in VC-1?

Thanks again.
Diogen.

[benwaggoner]

Thanks, Ben.
I'm looking forward to the release of the Studio beta.

Out of curiousity, how large in your estimate is the crowd that
1. has D5's that need to be compressed, and
2. hasn't contacted you yet to get their hands on the tools you are providing to the post houses?
My first guess would be this crowd is non-existent.
The tools we're providing are to a handful of Tier 1 post houses supporting HD DVD that have the resources to have a multi-person full-time team on VC-1 encoding. Way more raw XML file editing than a typical compressionist is used to :).

Basically, Studio Edition is intended to be a productized GUI version of the above in the 1.0 time frame. It'll do other stuff as well, certainly.

[pwimmer]

And when will the Studio Edition Encoder be released? The web site says "coming soon" for quite a long time... What is the reason the Studio Edition Encoder has been delayed, will there be improvments in the codec (compared to the codec which ships with WMP 11)?

[diogen]

Today is not a good day for a release: 6/6/6.
Not sure today is a good day to even ask this question. :)

Diogen.

[benwaggoner]

And when will the Studio Edition Encoder be released? The web site says "coming soon" for quite a long time... What is the reason the Studio Edition Encoder has been delayed, will there be improvments in the codec (compared to the codec which ships with WMP 11)?
I don't think the codec will be much different from the WMP 11version in Studio Edition beta, although it'll certianly be improved by 1.0.

The delay was due to a glitch in our release process, which hopefully has been resolved. The good news is we forked the beta again due to the delay, so we've got a lot of enhancements in what's coming out compared to what would hace originally been the beta.

I don't have a confirmed date yet, but it's soon.

[toke]

I don't have a confirmed date yet, but it's soon.
For beta release: within this year?
For official release: within this decade?

[benwaggoner]

For beta release: within this year?
For official release: within this decade?
We've committed to have several features avaiable in 2006 that aren't in the beta, FWIW.

[mpgxsvcd]

Are we going to see WME9 pro this week? Just thought I would ask. It looks like people are already loosing interest in WMV9 advanced profile. Most of the threads are barely getting one response every day.

[acidsex]

I have to agree. I think MS seriously dropped the ball on the Studio release. We are going on almost 2 months after the announced beta. Studio is quickly turning into Vista.

Still, I am not as jacked to test it as I once was because as we have found out we cant even create streams to be used for HD DVD which is what I thought the whole point of the beta was.


Ill probably buy Pegasys Xpress 4.0 tomorrow and use the H.264 AVc functions (Mainconcept) and see if Xpress 4.0 does any better at encding WMV HD. My point is if Xpress 4.0 can do the same thing that Studio does even with reg hacks, I might as well buy it instead of waiting for some free beta that cant even produce something that I can easily use in HD DVD later.

[benwaggoner]

Ill probably buy Pegasys Xpress 4.0 tomorrow and use the H.264 AVc functions (Mainconcept) and see if Xpress 4.0 does any better at encding WMV HD. My point is if Xpress 4.0 can do the same thing that Studio does even with reg hacks, I might as well buy it instead of waiting for some free beta that cant even produce something that I can easily use in HD DVD later.
Do you want to make WMV HD or HD DVD? Two different formats, and Studio Edition will handle the former.

The point of the beta is really to validate the new UI and pipeline for studio encoding. I know a lot of folks around here would like to use it for other stuff, but let me be upfront and say there's a lot of stuff the Doom9 community won't care about, and other stuff not in there that they'll miss.

[acidsex]

Ben,

Thanks for taking the time to reply. I dont mean give you or MS any grief but could you explain what benefits Studio will actually provide? If it doesnt produce HD DVD compatible streams, then seriously why even bother? If all Studio can produce is WMV HD, then it is a waste on MS' part as WME9 already does this.

Again, not trying to dump on MS but seriously, announcements of betas to consumption seriously needs some work. Vista has been pushed back and now the same with Studio. Hell, even the announcement at NAB2005 with Gridiron Software to use grid computing with encoding HD VC1 files has turned out to be nothing more than vaporware.

MS is seriously missing the opportunity for further market penetration and share here by the delays of VC1 authoring. As some have already said that the daily interest is dying down. Frankly, I dont even see the HD DVD/BD market taking off until users can author their own content.

Now if would be useful if Studio would produce streams that could be muxed and authored to HD DVD when auhtoring tools become avaiable. However, I will not hold my breath on waiting for MS to provide such tools and I use the MCE 2003 as an example and the lack of ability to convert MS-DVR recordings. At the time, MS' stance was the tools are there for third parties to do it. And what did we end up with? Sonic's crap that took over six months to get it right. I fear this will happen again with VC1 and HD DVD authoring.

[InsulinJunkie]

MS is seriously missing the opportunity for further market penetration and share here by the delays of VC1 authoring.


On the other hand, I don't think there's been an AVC-compressed title released yet in the U.S. on HD-DVD - just VC-1 (and Sony's early Blu-Ray discs are MPEG2).

[acidsex]

And once that happens, MS will have lost the chance to get a bigger head start. You know that Nero is cooking up HD DVD authoring with their line that will use AVC. Seriously, my point is why not be the first to market with the capabilities and then let third parties fine tune and tweak for the niche groups?

[InsulinJunkie]

And once that happens, MS will have lost the chance to get a bigger head start. You know that Nero is cooking up HD DVD authoring with their line that will use AVC. Seriously, my point is why not be the first to market with the capabilities and then let third parties fine tune and tweak for the niche groups?

It might be a resource issue.

Compared to getting the major players using VC-1 and working with them (which is what has happened thus far), home authoring would be small potatoes by comparison, and probably not going to command the same resources at the moment.

If Nero using AVC in their authoring program is the price to pay for say, Warner Bros., using VC-1 on their HD-DVD and Blu-Ray products, that's a pretty good tradeoff for Microsoft, I would think.

[benwaggoner]

And once that happens, MS will have lost the chance to get a bigger head start. You know that Nero is cooking up HD DVD authoring with their line that will use AVC. Seriously, my point is why not be the first to market with the capabilities and then let third parties fine tune and tweak for the niche groups?
Working with third parties like Nero to get VC-1 support into their HD DVD authoring tools is definitely something we're working on. We don't see our own products as beeing the only way to use VC-1 for authoring. Most prosumer encoding is done integrated into the authoring tool, like in Ulead and Encore.

Getting the spit-n-bailing-wire encoders working for the HD DVD launch was a huge, huge effort. It'll take a little big longer to get all that development properly packaged.

Bear in mind that there aren't any commercially available HD DVD muxers that support VC-1 just yet, so we've got a little time yet :).

[CruNcher]

Bear in mind that there aren't any commercially available HD DVD muxers that support VC-1 just yet, so we've got a little time yet :).

Scenarist 4 ?
Avid DVD by Sonic ?

aren't those able to Mux .evo (programm streams) with VC-1 and H.264 inside ?

[broadband155]

Any further updates on when Studio Edition is coming out? I would really like to be able to encode eight audio channels in WME and was told by an MVP that it would be possible 'shortly' when this comes out but still no sign of it.
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/community/newsgroups/WindowsMedia/default.mspx?dg=microsoft.public.windowsmedia.encoder&mid=60e95643-bb61-4a42-970c-d19716cecbb0
If this isn't going to be out in the next few weeks, does anyone have any idea what else I could use in the meantime? I need to have eight different languages playing out of the eight channels on the same movie and at present, WME can do six with the right settings but not eight until the new one comes along.
It doesn't have to be a windows media movie but I opted for it as I (rightly or wrongly) assumed thatit would be reliable. All I really need is for this movie to play reliably over and over. I am wide open to suggestion in general. It works using the command line combiner 'wavavimux' but this is uncompressed, so the pc has a hard time keeping up with the playback and the file sizes are huge. When I compress this using WME, it 'folds down' the audio to stereo which of course isn't suitable.

[CruNcher]

@broadband155
Matroska should handle what you wan't easily
www.matroska.org

[zambelli]

If this isn't going to be out in the next few weeks, does anyone have any idea what else I could use in the meantime? I need to have eight different languages playing out of the eight channels on the same movie and at present, WME can do six with the right settings but not eight until the new one comes along.
It doesn't have to be a windows media movie but I opted for it as I (rightly or wrongly) assumed thatit would be reliable. All I really need is for this movie to play reliably over and over. I am wide open to suggestion in general. It works using the command line combiner 'wavavimux' but this is uncompressed, so the pc has a hard time keeping up with the playback and the file sizes are huge. When I compress this using WME, it 'folds down' the audio to stereo which of course isn't suitable.
I think you might've misunderstood something. WME9 can handle encoding 8 channel WMA Pro. The wavavimux tool (http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/forpros/encoder/utilities.aspx) is a preprocessing tool for WME. You need to use it to combine 8 mono WAV files into a single multichannel AVI, and then feed that AVI to WME9 and encode to 7.1 WMA Pro.

Multichannel WMA playback works only on XP and will always get folded down to stereo if you only have stereo speakers configured on your system.

I'm curious why you're trying to produce a soundtrack with 8 different languages coming out of each channel, but I can only assume you have a good reason for it. :)

[broadband155]

Thanks for the replies. I am looking at metroska but it will take me a while to understand exactly what it is so that I can really use it. Hopefully it will work.
I use the output from wavavimux as a source of audio for my encode in WME and I do have a PC running XP with 7.1 sound as standard. It is an M Audio revolution 7.1 PCI card. With some help from a Microsoft MVP, I got to the point of being able to get 5.1 discrete channels out but he says that to get 7.1 I will need to wait for the new codecs.
By the way, the application is to be able to have many people watch the video in several languages at once. They use headphones and a selector switch to pick their language.

[zambelli]

With some help from a Microsoft MVP, I got to the point of being able to get 5.1 discrete channels out but he says that to get 7.1 I will need to wait for the new codecs.
I don't think that's correct though. WMA9 Pro already supports 7.1 channels. Could it be a M Audio driver issue?

[vsv]

Windows Media Encoder Studio Edition can produce fully compliant
HD-DVD vc-1 elementary stream for authoring iHD?
Possible use WMA multichannel audio for HD-DVD?

[zambelli]

Windows Media Encoder Studio Edition can produce fully compliant
HD-DVD vc-1 elementary stream for authoring iHD?
Not in Beta1.
Possible use WMA multichannel audio for HD-DVD?
No, that's not a part of the HD-DVD spec.

[acidsex]

zambelli, I asked before and perhaps you did reply or Ben did but if I may ask again, what is the purpose of Studio then if it will not produce VC1 HD DVD streams? Will those streams created with Studio be useable in HD DVD later on through some utility or will they be incompatible?

I hate to keep asking the same line of questions but I am just trying to figure out just use Studio is going to be over what we can do now with Encoder 9 with media player 11 installed minus the segment re-encoding.

If this beta is aimed more towards the professional studios, one would think that they want to be creating compliant HD DVD streams as opposed to testing VC1 for local playback.

Maybe Ben can jump in here and detail it a bit more about the different scenarios for use with Studio and what we can expect of the beta especially since its taking so long to get the gree light.

Thanks and my apologies for being a pain in the ass.

[benwaggoner]

zambelli, I asked before and perhaps you did reply or Ben did but if I may ask again, what is the purpose of Studio then if it will not produce VC1 HD DVD streams? Will those streams created with Studio be useable in HD DVD later on through some utility or will they be incompatible?

I hate to keep asking the same line of questions but I am just trying to figure out just use Studio is going to be over what we can do now with Encoder 9 with media player 11 installed minus the segment re-encoding.

If this beta is aimed more towards the professional studios, one would think that they want to be creating compliant HD DVD streams as opposed to testing VC1 for local playback.

Maybe Ben can jump in here and detail it a bit more about the different scenarios for use with Studio and what we can expect of the beta especially since its taking so long to get the gree light.

Thanks and my apologies for being a pain in the ass.
The main goals of Studio Edition Beta 1 are for us to get feedaback on the user interface, and to demonstrate a UI for setting the advanced interface. There will definitely be limitations in the initiial release, and we'll be up-front that it's not 100% ready for production work in the initial release.

Rest assured that this isn't our only effort to get VC-1 HD DVD encoding out to the masses.

[diogen]

The main goals of Studio Edition Beta 1 are for us to get feedaback on the user interface, and to demonstrate a UI for setting the advanced interface.
We've committed to have several features avaiable in 2006 that aren't in the beta...
The point of the beta is really to validate the new UI and pipeline for studio encoding...
...There will definitely be limitations in the initiial release...
...Rest assured that this isn't our only effort to get VC-1 HD DVD encoding out to the masses
Ben, I have to admit that the evasiveness of your posts has gone through the roof since you joined MS.
I guess this comes with the territory :p

Diogen.

[DarkNite]

I was interested as to whether or not we'll finally be able to use something more than stereo as input for audio without unnecessarily adding steps to the workflow like making and muxing seperate wav channels into an avi. That ridiculous limitation always got on my nerves with WME9, and I'll be happy even if that's the only functional difference I notice in Studio Edition beta 1.

Oh, and I'm sure everyone would love a new GUI. How about a few hints as to what is different, or what format changes to expect in the new GUI?

[broadband155]

I don't think that's correct though. WMA9 Pro already supports 7.1 channels. Could it be a M Audio driver issue?

zambelli, I am open to correction as I am really not very familiar but even when I select multi channel wav source under inputs, it only offers me six channels.
When I try to do 7.1 by using a previously muxed 8 channel audio file, it folds down to six channels automatically. I guess this could be an M audio driver issue but it does play eight discrete channels if I play the uncompressed but muxed 8 channel file from wavavimux.

[diogen]

I was interested as to whether or not we'll finally be able to use something more than stereo as input for audio without unnecessarily adding steps to the workflow like making and muxing seperate wav channels into an avi?Using AC3Filters it was possible to use DD 5.1 in WME since day one.

Diogen.

[mpgxsvcd]

Using AC3Filters it was possible to use DD 5.1 in WME since day one.

Diogen.

Care to elaborate on how to do this?

[mpgxsvcd]

I am starting to think that WME9 Pro is not actually coming out “Soon”. Just let us know if it is coming out this month or not. I doubt they would release it the week of the 4th. Then again maybe not?

[acidsex]

I am starting to think that WME9 Pro is not actually coming out “Soon”. Just let us know if it is coming out this month or not. I doubt they would release it the week of the 4th. Then again maybe not?


Well, we are past two months so soon was over a long time ago. Without bashing MS only, companies like them and Nero certainly have disappointed their customers time and again and it will eventually bite them in their asses. I give MS a bit more slack because after all, its beta and its free whereas Nero's customers pay for it and end up screwed either way.

Personally I dont care anymore. VC1 may be great but its slow to encode and theres no way to author for playback on next gen DVDs. Between Studio delay and Vista delays and losing features, MS is quickly going down the vaporware road on features.

[mrcorbo]

Care to elaborate on how to do this?

AC3filter and the Intervideo Audio filters have enabled processing AC3 for quite a while. However, I have found that WME9 is flaky and what works today for encoding may inexplicably and irreparrably stop working tomorrow with even a slight change in the codecs you have installed, with some vague error message that completely fails to explain why. But enough editorializing...

The short of it is that with one of these 2 codecs installed and set for 6 channel output and the speaker settings in Windows set to 5.1 speakers you should be able to process AC3 audio transparently.

[diogen]

Care to elaborate on how to do this?Using AC3Filter as the audio decoder will make DD 5.1 compatible with WMA Pro 9/10.
WME proceeds to encode in multichannel WMA Pro. I don't use Intervideo or any other additional audio filters.

I had my share of WME problems but never with AC3.
(Most of my encoding is satellite hidef with AC3).

Diogen.

[benwaggoner]

I am starting to think that WME9 Pro is not actually coming out “Soon”. Just let us know if it is coming out this month or not. I doubt they would release it the week of the 4th. Then again maybe not?
It's so close I can taste it. It should be Really Soon Now. However, since we have a quality-driven release process, until the bits are actually up on a server, I don't want to promise a particular date, since something can always be found that'd cause a delay (which is how we got here in the first place).

Fingers crossed, I'm running the final bits on my laptop right now.

[acidsex]

It's so close I can taste it. It should be Really Soon Now. However, since we have a quality-driven release process, until the bits are actually up on a server, I don't want to promise a particular date, since something can always be found that'd cause a delay (which is how we got here in the first place).

Fingers crossed, I'm running the final bits on my laptop right now.

Is it safe to say the final bits will be put on the server by the end of the week?

[benwaggoner]

Is it safe to say the final bits will be put on the server by the end of the week?
Like I said, we won't know for sure when the bits go up until they're up. There's always the risk that something will turn up in final testing that'll cause a delay.

I'm flattered by your interest - I'm sure you'll have a lot of great feedback for us on the beta as we start the push for 1.0.

[sisman2000]

CCAAAAANNNN"TTTT WWWWAAAIIIITTTTT...

i just encoded a few HD home video files with WM9 codec just because at full rez (WMV HD basically) and they looked awsome, so can't wait for studio to come out n try everything with VC1...

[benwaggoner]

CCAAAAANNNN"TTTT WWWWAAAIIIITTTTT...

i just encoded a few HD home video files with WM9 codec just because at full rez (WMV HD basically) and they looked awsome, so can't wait for studio to come out n try everything with VC1...
Bear in mind that Studio Edition uses the same DMO as in the beta VC-1 codec. So you can already start experimenting with the new settings. The unique feature that Studio Edition adds is segment reencoding.

[diogen]

I have two quick questions before Studio beta is released and takes over the conversations:

1. Is it (will it be) possible for 2-pass encoding to save the first pass results and reuse them while changing the parameters?
Since the first pass takes about as much time as the second, this would reduce total encoding time if done more than once.

2. When starting with 720/60p material (movie), what happens when 24fps is requested as output? Or 30fps? Is this just a bad idea?
Assuming everything is correctly flagged, will WME/Studio(beta) do the conversion based on frame analysis or just "mechanically"?

Sorry if those are stupid questions or have been answered before (couldn't find it).

Diogen.

[benwaggoner]

I have two quick questions before Studio beta is released and takes over the conversations:

1. Is it (will it be) possible for 2-pass encoding to save the first pass results and reuse them while changing the parameters?
Since the first pass takes about as much time as the second, this would reduce total encoding time if done more than once.
Changing the pass parameters can make rate control different enough that it'd invalidate the first pass results. However, we've solved your problem in a different way by having the first pass use a higher performance mode. In my typical use, I find the first pass is about 4x faster than the seceond pass.

2. When starting with 720/60p material (movie), what happens when 24fps is requested as output? Or 30fps? Is this just a bad idea?
Assuming everything is correctly flagged, will WME/Studio(beta) do the conversion based on frame analysis or just "mechanically"?
It'll just do it via frame duplication.You definitely want to use the same frame rate output as input. Frame rate isn't even an encoding setting - it's a timeline setting.
Sorry if those are stupid questions or have been answered before (couldn't find it).
Not stupid at all! And I'm glad you're so excited about the tool. I just hope you won't be too disappointed when you get it - it really is a beta, not a 1.0 grade release.

[Latexxx]

Does it support Avisynth? I mean good support. Not like in WMEncoder 9 where I have to select file+device input or something.

[diogen]

Thanks, Ben.
I always thought 60p->30p is safe, and 24fps is not.
By "frame duplication" do you mean the encoder won't encode the same frame twice?
It'll figure out they are the same in the source and just double the one encoded?
I had some significant diffrences in encoding times between 30p and 60p (satellite hidef, 720/60p, ~12Mbps).

...In my typical use, I find the first pass is about 4x faster than the seceond pass.
You mentioned Studio uses the same DMO.
Does the first pass have nothing to do with it?
How else could you accelerate the 1 pass that much?

Diogen.

EDIT: Could it be that the 4:1 ratio between passes is because of a slow (maxed out quality settings) second pass?
Or are Studio and WME different in this regard?

[DarkNite]

@diogen:

Thank you for your input, but that does not answer my question.

I was speaking as a content creator. AC3Filter is of no use to me as it only pertains to AC3 (which is not what my source would be), and falls under the unnecessary steps portion of my question even if it were. Encoding to AC3 just to be able to feed my audio into Studio Edition would be a less than optimal workflow ultimately resulting in inferior quality.

What I was asking is: Will Studio Edition (now, or later) natively accept LPCM tracks containing more than 2 channels without external applications or preprocessing?

[diogen]

Sorry, DarkNite, misunderstood your question.
Don't know the answer for that.

Diogen.

[broadband155]

I wonder if anyone can help with something specific. I really did want to get 7.1 encoding but as it isn't available yet, I am trying to manage with 5.1. When I encode the six audio streams using WME9, the sub channel is automatically reduced to the low frequencies only. I know it isn't the player that is doing it as I can play a muxed but uncompressed file and it isn't reduced. Is there any way to stop the encoder from automatically doing this? I need all six channels if possible to put out different languages on the video.
Thanks, Neil.

[Legend_Wolf]

It seems that Studio Edition will be postponed again, and we wait for it from April to Now. What's the meaning of "coming soon".

[crypto]

@broadband155
You are completely off track. Multi-channel encoding relies on the correlation between the channels and the .1 LFE is not a fully functional channel. You cannot encode totally different signals and expect good compression quality.

You can however encode multiple audio tracks for different languages and each language track itself can be multi-channel.

To do so there is no need to wait for Studio edition, WME9 can already do it all.

[crypto]

It seems that Studio Edition will be postponed again...

Legend_Wolf:
What makes you think like that? Is there an official statement?