AVC vs VC-1 comparison?

[zambelli]

i lol'd a little at that. segment re-encoding in particular is a massive, gigantic time saver.
think of all those threads in avisynth usage about certain artefacts that only occur sometimes, and stuff like that. with segment re-encoding you can get most of the movie right, and fix the niggling bits later.
Depends on the movie and the quality of the 2-pass rate control. The better the rate control, the less need for a 3rd (4th, 6th, 17th) pass. And then, there are some movies where you're limited by bitrate but are required to pull off miracles in image quality (try getting black surfaces to look good at QP=13 :) ) so it often does require many, many attempts to get a movie to look good. High def discs are still aimed at a niche market so, amazingly enough, there's still quite a lot of effort put into getting the image quality right.

When you compare 1st generation HD-DVDs to 1st generation DVDs, it is amazing how much the focus has now shifted to videophile image quality. They're actually aiming at nearly archival quality now, whereas back in those dark 1990s years they were often happy with VHS quality. ;)

and in a field where 1 place could be getting through 60 or more titles a month, speed is much more important than it is in DVD backup.
This is very true. It also highlights another advantage of the Microsoft VC-1 encoder, which is distributed encoding. Most of the studios using it employ 16 or 32 blade servers for encoding.

[Morte66]

i lol'd a little at that. segment re-encoding in particular is a massive, gigantic time saver.

Compared to doing per-segment tweaking with megui/x264, yes. Compared to not doing it at all (like your average megui/x264 user), it's extra user time.

A GUI/encoder/muxer combination that did slick segment reencoding for AVC would certainly let AVC users get better results, just as it lets VC-1 users get better results, but I think most people around here wouldn't use it. Most of us want to batch encode DVD and TV rips with fairly standard settings and as little intervention as possible.

though i think you'll find (at least for the DVD industry... i don't know about HD-DVD)

They appear to be different worlds at the moment. DVD is pretty much "stick the tapes in and push a button" apart from a few prestige titles. HD is like fine craftsmanship. I wonder how long this will last if HD takes off and the volume shoots up, and I wonder how well the various encoders out there in HD-land will perform without some tender loving care. SD DVD quality went up over the years, but I'm not 100% sure that the HD formats will.

actual quality rather than a "Sony super high definition" brand-led marketing drive. HD DVD forced them to buck up their ideas on the technical side. The one good thing about the format war is that they're keeping each other honest.]

[unmei]

When you compare 1st generation HD-DVDs to 1st generation DVDs, it is amazing how much the focus has now shifted to videophile image quality. They're actually aiming at nearly archival quality now, whereas back in those dark 1990s years they were often happy with VHS quality.

Sure hope so, because back then DVD was a lot different to VHS (multiple audio streams, softsubs, no tape rewinding..) while today better video quality is the only argument they have to trick you from DVD into HDDVD/BD.

[R3Z]

Sure hope so, because back then DVD was a lot different to VHS (multiple audio streams, softsubs, no tape rewinding..) while today better video quality is the only argument they have to trick you from DVD into HDDVD/BD.

Space is a nice addition too !

[2439rf8hasjdert4]

You guys are missing the point. The percieved quality has nothing to do with the codec -- it's all about the bitrate. A 12,000 bitrate VC-1 is comparable to a 500 bitrate H.264.

[Mug Funky]

@ 2439rf8hasjdert4:

way to contradict yourself.

[DewAsmara]

You guys are missing the point. The percieved quality has nothing to do with the codec -- it's all about the bitrate. A 12,000 bitrate VC-1 is comparable to a 500 bitrate H.264.

I am sorry,
In what theory your argue based on? Both codec is MPEG4 family, they have similarity in bitrate and size. A 12000 bitrate VC1 cannot same with 4000 bitrate for example DivX or even H264.

[Theliel]

AVC are more powerfull and better technologicaly and in compensation VC-1 are more faster.

I think that AVC will be the winner. Studios can spend money in a decent encoder. AVC is a little boy yet. Server for network rendering, more sophisticated tecniques... VC1 in really are a old encodec. It can be usefull for some situations, but in the future i think AVC will be default encoder for HD.

[mdoubledragon]

I am glad after reading all these posts the conclusion is that AVC is the winner (in compression, I dont care about speed). I was worried that with only one MS implementation of VC-1 currently available, and no open source tools providing encoding support for it, how would I encode my videos to VC-1. Now I can rest assured that I am using the best codec there is.:thanks:

[Sharktooth]

I am sorry,
In what theory your argue based on? Both codec is MPEG4 family, they have similarity in bitrate and size. A 12000 bitrate VC1 cannot same with 4000 bitrate for example DivX or even H264.
VC-1 is not MPEG4 and it diverges from AVC for many many things.
the 2 codecs are completely different....

AVC are more powerfull and better technologicaly and in compensation VC-1 are more faster.
VC-1 is not faster in both encoding and decoding than AVC. At least this is true for the M$ implementation in comparison to the major AVC implementations.
What you say is theoretically true though.

[Ranguvar]

AVC and VC-1 are very similar performance/quality/compression-wise. They are of course TOTALLY different from a technical aspect.

At the bitrates HD-DVD and Blu-Ray are at, there is no way you'd be able to tell a difference. MPEG-2 was obvious, but you could put MPEG-4 ASP video at that bitrate it it would most likely look the same, or very close to it.

I'd always go with AVC, just because it's an open standard, is much more configurable, has tons more tools for encoding, is more supported, etc.

[Dark Shikari]

AVC and VC-1 are very similar performance/quality/compression-wise.
At extremely high bitrates, yes, perhaps.

But do you think this (http://rapidshare.com/files/54237006/Elephants_Dream_500_Kbit_1_B_Frame.wmv) and this (http://www.mediafire.com/?fj2chyednxo) are similar quality-wise? (same bitrate, differing file size is due to differing audio format).

[Sharktooth]

@Ranguvar: h.264 is more efficient than VC-1. the difference is more visible at low bitrates but there's still a difference at high bitrates.
VC-1 is an open standard too and the configurability depends on the implementation.
however you're right on the remaining points.

[InorganicMatter]

At lower bitrates (think DVD5/9), AVC will crush VC1, especially x264 encoded stuff.

At higher bitrates (20mbps+), I almost prefer VC1. They will look the same given decent encoders are used, and VC1 decodes much faster.

[Sharktooth]

VC-1 decodes faster than AVC? with what decoder?
No, sorry, on my windows box (athlon xp 3200+ with gf6600) VC-1 @ 1920x1080 is unplayable. Even @ 1280x720 there are problems while AVC plays flawlessly.
So, maybe M$ decided to piss the non SSE2 users with their crap WMV decoder but my experience tells me AVC is faster than VC-1 not only when encoding but even at decoding.

[Dark Shikari]

VC-1 decodes faster than AVC? with what decoder?
No, sorry, on my windows box (athlon xp 3200+ with gf6600) VC-1 @ 1920x1080 is unplayable. Even @ 1280x720 there are problems while AVC plays flawlessly.
So, maybe M$ decided to piss the non SSE2 users with their crap WMV decoder but my experience tells me AVC is faster than VC-1 not only when encoding but even at decoding.VC-1 is faster at decoding ideally due to its reduced complexity overall. As compared to libavcodec, it is definitely faster IIRC. CoreAVC however is incredibly fast, to the point where it definitely outpaces VC-1.

[InorganicMatter]

VC-1 decodes faster than AVC? with what decoder?
No, sorry, on my windows box (athlon xp 3200+ with gf6600) VC-1 @ 1920x1080 is unplayable. Even @ 1280x720 there are problems while AVC plays flawlessly.
So, maybe M$ decided to piss the non SSE2 users with their crap WMV decoder but my experience tells me AVC is faster than VC-1 not only when encoding but even at decoding.

Hmm...wonder what the problem here could be.... :rolleyes:

VC1 material at 720p played back flawlessly on my old 2GHz Pentium 4. Try to get AVC to decode with that dinosaur. ;)

And I dunno what AVC you are talking about, but there's no way that a half-decent AVC stream would play back decently on a Barton (a Quicktime stream or CoreAVC with lots of optimizations, maybe). Any real medium or high complexity AVC stream would crush that CPU.

[scharfis_brain]

I can playback 8 mbps 720p AVC on my Athlon xp 2800+ (barton)...

[Sharktooth]

InorganicMatter, maybe you should get informed on AVC decoders performance... expecially coreavc.

[Schrade]

Hmm...wonder what the problem here could be.... :rolleyes:

VC1 material at 720p played back flawlessly on my old 2GHz Pentium 4. Try to get AVC to decode with that dinosaur. ;)

And I dunno what AVC you are talking about, but there's no way that a half-decent AVC stream would play back decently on a Barton (a Quicktime stream or CoreAVC with lots of optimizations, maybe). Any real medium or high complexity AVC stream would crush that CPU.
I have no difficulties playing back 720p AVC encodes on my Barton-cored AMD Athlon XP 2400+. My friend's CPU is an Athlon XP 2200+ and she can playback 720p video just fine too.

Of course trying to play back 60fps high bitrate video at 720p will not work very well but 30fps 720p video plays back tremendously well with CPU to spare.

[Ranguvar]

I can playback 8 mbps 720p AVC on my Athlon xp 2800+ (barton)...

Athlon XP 2800+ ~= Pentium 4 2.8GHz...
He has a 2.0.

[scharfis_brain]

@Ranguvar:

And I dunno what AVC you are talking about, but there's no way that a half-decent AVC stream would play back decently on a Barton (a Quicktime stream or CoreAVC with lots of optimizations, maybe). Any real medium or high complexity AVC stream would crush that CPU.

[Ranguvar]

@scharfis_brain: I'll wait until someone does a comparison on that CPU. AVC isn't that much more complex than VC-1 at Medium profile, IMO, but we'll see.

[Sharktooth]

what's the problem with Barton and AVC? i have a Barton too and im perfectly able to play Hi-def AVC @ 30FPS.
P4 should be even faster due to the SSE2.
the problem is it cant fluently playback VC-1 at the same res...

[R3Z]

what's the problem with Barton and AVC? i have a Barton too and im perfectly able to play Hi-def AVC @ 30FPS.
P4 should be even faster due to the SSE2.
the problem is it cant fluently playback VC-1 at the same res...

What are you using to play it back Sharktooth? Is it Windows Media Player 10 ?

[Revgen]

H.264 is technically superior to VC-1. But VC-1 has better video support packages thanks to M$. However, H.264 packages should be getting better in the future.

[Sharktooth]

R3Z: MPC, Mplayer, WMP11 decoding with both libav and M$ decoders

@Revgen: what you mean with "packages"? and btw h.264 is superior in practice too as it was been proved in comparisons

[zambelli]

@scharfis_brain: I'll wait until someone does a comparison on that CPU. AVC isn't that much more complex than VC-1 at Medium profile, IMO, but we'll see.
Depends on which decoder you're using. Try Ffdshow or MainConcept and you're unlikely to reach WMV9 Advanced Profile decoder performance even with H.264 Baseline content.
Try CoreAVC, on the other hand, and you can probably get similar or better perf with Baseline and Main (CAVLC), but not High (CABAC).

Though there are several variables in the equation, I'd say WMV9 decoder's perf is still 1.5x-3x better than most H.264 decoders, with the honorable exception of CoreAVC which gets pretty close on multicore systems.

[cannuck]

It's going to be interesting to see the impact of the European Union Court 2nd decision against Microsoft. As Sean Daley says, one of the four who took Microsoft to Court (and won):"it's really the streaming media market that was killed off by Microsoft with Windows Media Player".

Will H.264 bring the streaming media industry back to life?

There's a full online interview with the four who took on Microsoft and won: Georg Greve of FSFE, Jeremy Allison and Volker Lendecke of Samba, and Carlo Piana.

http://www.groklaw.net/pdf/Samba-FSFE.ogg

Or you can check out the transcript:

http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20070919214307459

[cannuck]

Ooops. Sean Daley is conducting the interview! Here's the exchange:

Sean Daly: It's important to say "streaming media", because in Microsoft's communications, they like to talk about all media players together such as iTunes, QuickTime, whereas it's really the streaming media market that was killed off by Microsoft with Windows Media Player.

Jeremy Allison: Yes. So market definitions have been a really interesting part of the case. So if anyone is interested in looking at the documents, some of the biggest arguments in the case have been about "what is the definition of the market?"

[Valeron]

@zambelli:
my Brisbane core Athlon X2 4000+(em...even OC to 2.4GHz) can't play Elephant's Dream(10Mbps average, 25Mbps peak encoded by ben) flawless with Microsoft's VC-1 decoder(version within WMFSDK 11).....
afaik，Cyberlink's VC-1 decoder can handle HD DVD(generally bitrate higher than ED's encode, right?) decoding while with very acceptable CPU load...
maybe Cyberlink's VC-1 decoder is by far superior to MS's one? roughly 3~4x faster? it's a shame i don't know how to connect their decoder to decode VC-1 stream in WMV, otherwise the guess will be proved to be either correct or wrong.

btw，with CoreAVC my old Barton 2500+ could handle 720p AVC flawless, some low bitrate 1080p is ok too

[zambelli]

[quote]Or you can check out the transcript:
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20070919214307459
I particularly like this grand opening:
This is living history. I wanted you and your children and your grandchildren to know some of those they can thank...
:rolleyes: Could he be any more pompous? You'd think he was thanking World War II veterans...

[zambelli]

@zambelli:
my Brisbane core Athlon X2 4000+(em...even OC to 2.4GHz) can't play Elephant's Dream(10Mbps average, 25Mbps peak encoded by ben) flawless with Microsoft's VC-1 decoder(version within WMFSDK 11).....

Which video card do you have? Are you using DXVA for VC-1 decoding?
maybe Cyberlink's VC-1 decoder is by far superior to MS's one? roughly 3~4x faster?
Cyberlink's decoder is able to offload all of the VC-1 decoding to the GPU. This is known as Profile D (or VLD) DXVA decoding.

it's a shame i don't know how to connect their decoder to decode VC-1 stream in WMV, otherwise the guess will be proved to be either correct or wrong.
Cyberlink's decoders are restricted to their player. You can't use it outside their player in a DShow graph.

[R3Z]

[QUOTE=cannuck;1047001]
I particularly like this grand opening:

:rolleyes: Could he be any more pompous? You'd think he was thanking World War II veterans...

If the silly euro lawyers and moronic FOSS geeks have their way we will have to pay for IE and Windows Media Player.

I could say so much more, but i will just state that i like value for money - since i actually buy software.

[KoD]

This EU bashing is something I see more and more recently. I'll leave it be that most users nowaday who benefit from interoperability (as much as it is) between Microsoft file formats and technologies and other platforms due it to past court orders that forced Microsoft to do this, and to reverse engineering which the same people who say "I actually pay for software" seem to be blind at and is otherwise illegal in their own countries.

Just to put things into perspective and leave the national rhetoric and pride aside, the much acclaimed "European Committee for Interoperable Systems" (ECIS) has as driving forces behind it IBM, Sun, Oracle... in other words many US companies that brought their fight against Microsoft from their own turf to european law courts. Self-righteous nationalistic ego maniacs and money incentives did the rest, but that doesn't mean those decisions for increased interoperability and standards compliance (as opposed to "let's make our own standard so we'll have negotiating power in the future against other companies") are not necessary.

[R3Z]

This EU bashing is something I see more and more recently. I'll leave it be that most users nowaday who benefit from interoperability (as much as it is) between Microsoft file formats and technologies and other platforms due it to past court orders that forced Microsoft to do this, and to reverse engineering which the same people who say "I actually pay for software" seem to be blind at and is otherwise illegal in their own countries.

Just to put things into perspective and leave the national rhetoric and pride aside, the much acclaimed "European Committee for Interoperable Systems" (ECIS) has as driving forces behind it IBM, Sun, Oracle... in other words many US companies that brought their fight against Microsoft from their own turf to european law courts. Self-righteous nationalistic ego maniacs and money incentives did the rest, but that doesn't mean those decisions for increased interoperability and standards compliance (as opposed to "let's make our own standard so we'll have negotiating power in the future against other companies") are not necessary.

Leave it be that consumers should make their own choices, not be dictated to by courts who choose what is value and what is not.

Thats my complaint here, if i am paying then i expect to get maximum value.

[Sharktooth]

Wanna sell products in europe? then respect the EU laws.
Microsoft operated in violation of the EU antritrust law.
If you go against the law, you will be condamned.
'nuff said.

[R3Z]

Wanna sell products in europe? then respect the EU laws.
Microsoft operated in violation of the EU antritrust law.
If you go against the law, you will be condamned.
'nuff said.

Such a simplistic view of the situation. I guess when it suits you, you quiet down.

[Sharktooth]

i guess you dont do what you want in a house that's not yours...
radically simple.

[R3Z]

i guess you dont do what you want in a house that's not yours...
radically simple.

Glossing over the real issue again ?

[Sharktooth]

there's no issue. no longer...

[R3Z]

there's no issue. no longer...

I would wait for the appeals process and the other anti-trust cases to be passed the appeals process before i proclaimed that with such ....

[Sharktooth]

yeah yeah... sure...

[Mutant_Fruit]

[QUOTE=zambelli;1047298]

blah blah blah... silly euro lawyers and moronic FOSS geeks. blah blah blah... pay for IE and Windows Media Player.

blah blah... value for money

You do realise that those very same silly lawyers are what allow the moronic FOSS geeks to force the big companies to actually innovate* and put more features in their products. Those very same FOSS geeks are what allow you to have *choice* in the software you use. I'm glad you prefer WMP and IE. I'm sure you realise that they are bug free and if ever a bug is found, it's fixed within a matter of hours (http://www.techweb.com/wire/security/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=193005335) Do you actually understand the term 'foreclosing the market (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&postid=463819)'. Might be worth reading up about.

I'm sure you're delighted with the short development time that was needed for IE 7, just a few days shy of 5 years. Most of those 'new features' were found in other browser years before though. I wonder if that was what pushed MS out of their stagnation...

So before you bash Europe for actually caring about the consumer, think of that.

EDIT: And i in no way claim to fully understand the issues involved in any of the MS lawsuits. I just know MS is a convicted monopoly and so *are not* the same as a regular company regardless of how you love or hate them as a company. They have plenty of illegal practices, and using a monopoly to create a new monopoly is illegal.

[Valeron]

Which video card do you have? Are you using DXVA for VC-1 decoding?

ATI onboard X1250 which is part of 690G chipset, WMV DXVA is turned off in the video card driver's control panel IIRC.
I haven't check if it's still enabled via WMV Power Toy...

Cyberlink's decoder is able to offload all of the VC-1 decoding to the GPU. This is known as Profile D (or VLD) DXVA decoding.

yes, i know Cyberlink's decoder will offload all decoding process to GPU, but since i can't get it to work for me, and I don't have a UVD built-in card, i simply disable DXVA(if i'm not wrong in disable it), so it's not a problem too.

actually i refer the performance of Cyberlink's VC-1 decoder here (http://www.hardspell.com/doc/hard/3376.htm).
they claim they've completely disabled hardware acceleration by GPU, purely software decoding comparison. Cyberlink's VC-1 decoder outperformance CoreAVC in HD DVD and BD movie decoding(yep, probably not an fair enough comparison to come to the conclusion VC-1 is easier decode than AVC, different source,different bitrate...etc). but why the hell i can't watch Elephant's Dream without frame drop and both core was heavily pushed to near 100% load... isn't this clip suppose to be less complex than general HD DVD encode?
umm.... since this article is in Chinese, most pp here can't draw the conclusion, to clarify more details of the comparison, they've got dual channel 512M DDR800 ram(total 1G) to work, i i've got single channel 1G on board. they've got stand-alone 8600(yes, DXVA Disabled) in PCIE slot but i'm driving onboard X1250 which share 128M memory. the HD DVD sample they used can be decode with about 50% CPU load.
whether these two factors r so important for HD VC-1/AVC decoding? or Cyberlink has implemented far superior VC-1 software decoder?

[Trahald]

Please keep the thread on topic. Im sure there is a EU lawsuit thread in the general forum to discuss that topic on.

[zambelli]

You do realise that those very same silly lawyers are what allow the moronic FOSS geeks to force the big companies to actually innovate* and put more features in their products.
Probably a typo, but I would like to point out for the record that the quote attributed to me in your post was not actually written by me.

[olivierdb]

It would seem that VC-1 today is more widely spread in both HD-DVDs and BR-Discs than H.264 AVC.

Personally, I'd prefer to have my HD movies in MKV (with H.264 AVC and HE-AAC) and be able to stream them to my HDTV. (I don't think Adobe have adopted AVC & HE-AAC by chance.) Unfortunately, finding a piece of hardware that will support playing back that specific configuration is a nightmare! I have therefore regretably substituted MKV(AVC,HE-AAC) with MKV(VC-1,Flac) which happens to play fine with VLC. I must add, Madshi has made it quite easy for us to do that and deserves tons of credit!:thanks:
This way, I also avoid having to transcode from VC-1 to AVC. I'm just waiting for that piece of hardware that will play back my MKVs on my HDTV. (By the way, is MKV a standard?!?)

Although I think its important to have alternatives to Microsoft, I wouldn't be watching any HD movies if it had been left to SONY!:eek: I believe Microsoft actually made HD more affordable! Naturally, large companies :devil: will always try to make our lives more difficult though by locking us up into their technologies and solutions. It's not just MS... Apple are no different!

A part from that, there is an interesting comparison of H.264 Codecs here (http://www.compression.ru/video/codec_comparison/mpeg-4_avc_h264_2006_en.html), but I'm afraid it dates back to December 2006 and therefore doesn't include CoreAVC. December 2007 results should be expected soon.:rolleyes:

[Dark Shikari]

here (http://www.compression.ru/video/codec_comparison/mpeg-4_avc_h264_2006_en.html), but I'm afraid it dates back to December 2006 and therefore doesn't include CoreAVC. December 2007 results should be expected soon.:rolleyes:CoreAVC isn't an encoder...

[drmpeg]

It would seem that VC-1 today is more widely spread in both HD-DVDs and BR-Discs than H.264 AVC.

VC-1 is not so prevalent on Blu-ray. This website has the tally at only 28.14% (with 35.35% for AVC and 36.51% for MPEG-2).

http://www.blu-raystats.com/

On HD DVD, VC-1 is definitely in favor (at 86.67%).

http://www.hddvdstats.com/

Ron