[HD-DVD Challenge] MPEG2, VC-1 and H264 with real uncompressed source movie

[zambelli]

OK, that didn't come as I ment it. I wasn't saying ISVs didn't get support. I wanted to point out the support bias towards big business. They got PEP, SDKs and ES specs for instance and all under NDA.
The expectation is that the end users will be served by the ISVs making products which will integrate our VC-1 SDK. Many companies in the codec business operate in this way (MainConcept comes to mind).

As for independent developers not getting support... Take the DMO codecs that shipped in WMP11 and Vista for example. They are fully documented on MSDN (http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb288690.aspx). Those video and audio codecs can actually be used independent of ASF and WMF SDK. One could use the MSDN documentation to write an encoder app that produces VC-1 ES streams or muxes them into MPEG-TS, MP4, AVI, etc. The free stuff is certainly out there but it does indeed take work on both sides to create good tools and applications.

[Golgot13]

Hello all!

we can restart this thread. Ben will give (after 7month) the video.
We need to change the name (not HDDVD but BD today :( ).

About video restriction, I'm sure some people will give BD specification of all codec.

Sagitaire, do you have the last version of PeP core?



Regards,


Golgot13

[Sagittaire]

Hello all!

we can restart this thread. Ben will give (after 7month) the video.
We need to change the name (not HDDVD but BD today :( ).


I will change specification: BD9, BD25 and BD50 ...
Where is the source from ben ... ???


About video restriction, I'm sure some people will give BD specification of all codec.

I will change that too


Sagittaire, do you have the last version of PeP core?

Yes ... VC1 core from CinevisionPSE and VC1 core from SDK. VC1 core from CinevisionPSE is by far better at low bitrate than VC1 core from SDK. Anyway it's not the same price ... ;-)

[Inventive Software]

Um, Golgot? You seen this, right? http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=135938

You even posted in this thread! He has other deadlines, so give him a break! He doesn't get paid to provide us with source material. ;)

And Sagittaire: before you change this thread's original post, may I suggest you add BluRay to the bottom of it, still keeping the HD-DVD encoding specs please?

[Sharktooth]

since this thread is already 21 pages long i suggest to start a new one or ppl will get lost reading it...

[Sagittaire]

Well where is the 1080p source ... ???

[benwaggoner]

Well where is the 1080p source ... ???
I'll get back to it again after NAB, but I'm looking for feedback on the content I presented and suggestions on how it can be further tuned to be a useful test for this organization.

[Golgot13]

Hi Ben,

If you want to show at all studio that VC1 is good codec, you must to ask MS
to participate at "Annual MSU Codec Comparison". You can see at NAB one company,
Mainconcept, say they win the last codec comparison.

Ben, you can resume me what you will say at your DVDA presentation ?

I hope to be at this NAB, but my company must to finish some BD project
(in VC1 :(... from HDDVD product made by another company).


But I have some friends who will go.

[benwaggoner]

Hi Ben,

If you want to show at all studio that VC1 is good codec, you must to ask MS to participate at "Annual MSU Codec Comparison". You can see at NAB one company, Mainconcept, say they win the last codec comparison.
Is the MSU test that relevant? Last I looked at their methodology, it was on an older single-core P4 with some pretty tight encoding-time requirements. It seemed much more of a test of optimizing quality/encode time than visual quality in a more typical workflow. And by using such an old processor, they're missing the benefit of most recent performance optimization, like spatial multithreading and SSE3/4.

No argument that speed is one factor in comparing codec implementations, but it seems to me any speed test should at least run on typical compression workstations. I doubt anyone is using less than Core 2 Duo these days, and I don't think I've seen a new machine with less than four cores in the last couple of years. I've got 8-core on both by main encoding boxes.

Ben, you can resume me what you will say at your DVDA presentation ?
I'm not quite parsing your question here.

I hope to be at this NAB, but my company must to finish some BD project (in VC1 :(... from HDDVD product made by another company).

But I have some friends who will go.
Yeah? Here's my NAB schedule if anyone wants to attend one of my sessions or drop by the Microsoft booth when I'm there.

http://www.on10.net/blogs/benwagg/21804/

Anyone around on Tuesday night is welcome to come to the "Compressionist's Party" - just let me know you're coming so I can track snack requirements.

[Dark Shikari]

I listen many news from you at NAB from my contact...
You're a liar? :rolleyes:
VC1 give better quality than H264 at same bitrate (more detail) !!!!Its called marketing. Everyone wants to be able to claim they're the best, so they use contrived tests to prove their superiority. This is how VC-1 can claim to be "superior" to H.264 when it actually ends up being drastically worse in basically every situation. They probably compared against the JM, or compared against some of the terrible encoders available back in 2004 when they first marketed it as an H.264 competitor.

Other companies do the same; this isn't unique. Though unlike most others at least VC-1 has some advantage (faster playback).

Real claims their RV30/RV40, which are basically direct ripoffs of H.264 (x264 can be modified to output RV30), are superior to H.264. Of course, maybe they're superior to the JM, but I have never actually seen a test where they remotely came close to any competent encoder.

Same with On2, who make similar claims about VP7: its both faster and better quality than H.264. Of course, in reality, encoding is slow, playback is slower than ffh264, and quality is worse; but that doesn't stop marketing, does it? ;)

[benwaggoner]

I listen many news from you at NAB from my contact...
You're a liar? :rolleyes:
VC1 give better quality than H264 at same bitrate (more detail) !!!!
If I'm parsing you right, are you talking about the DVDA event on Saturday? What your contact may be thinking of is my discussion of PEP's VC-1 implementation as doing a better job of maintaining the texture of film grain compared to competing proudcts. For this, I'm quoting recent feedback from the compressionists at major studios who are evaluating the various professional encoder products.

Now that the format war is over, a number of BD-only studios are adopting VC-1. At this point there is only a single studio not actively working on VC-1 encoded Blu-ray titles.

I know you disagree with this, but the growing consensus among the Hollywood compressionists I get reports from is that PEP provides better overall quality and workfow at BD data rates than the H.264 encoders targeting the same market that they're evaluating.

And remember, this isn't a comparison of codec standards in this case, but implementations in particular products for particular workflows.

[benwaggoner]

Its called marketing. Everyone wants to be able to claim they're the best, so they use contrived tests to prove their superiority. This is how VC-1 can claim to be "superior" to H.264 when it actually ends up being drastically worse in basically every situation. They probably compared against the JM, or compared against some of the terrible encoders available back in 2004 when they first marketed it as an H.264 competitor.
Well, I don't know that we're doing any VC-1 marketing right now at all, so I don't even know what Microsoft's official opnion on the topic could be said to be :).

I'll get my presentations from NAB posted in the next few days for everyone to check out, but I'm talking about a particular case where feedback from professionals is that the output of our VC-1 tool outperforms the output of competing H.264 tools.

There's lots of scenarios where VC-1 can outperform H.264 for particular goals, but the converse is certainly true as well. It all depends on what you're trying to do and what you're trying to do it with, and to.

[Dark Shikari]

I have noticed a number of unbelievably badly encoded Blu-ray discs lately. This is probably for the same marketing reasons as previously mentioned; many companies are still marketing really bad encoders. Its ironic to see that real-time broadcast encoders can do better jobs than Blu-ray encoders

One particularly bad one I saw had the following properties:
1. No P or B subpartitions.
2. 8x8dct only.
3. i8x8 only; no other block types.
4. Ridiculously long motion vectors throughout the frame in nearly static scenes.

[benwaggoner]

I have noticed a number of unbelievably badly encoded Blu-ray discs lately. This is probably for the same marketing reasons as previously mentioned; many companies are still marketing really bad encoders. Its ironic to see that real-time broadcast encoders can do better jobs than Blu-ray encoders!
Yeah, I'm a judge for the DVDA Excellence Awards, and just got done judging a number of DVD and BD discs. I was really surprised how problematic many of the BD discs were, particularly in dark areas. Tons of blocking in black and other problems.

Keeping low-luma looking good was a major focus of all our work in PEP for VC-1, and one of the reasons why many compressionists prefer it over the H.264 products. Apropos of what what I was saying above, I don't think there's anything particular about VC-1 that made it easeir to do this; it was a matter of hearing the feedback that this had become a big problem due to all the consumer displays with non-perceptually-uniform gamma an elevated blacks, and then our spending a ton of time tweaking the encoder to do well in that case.

One particularly bad one I saw had the following properties:
1. No P or B subpartitions.
2. 8x8dct only.
3. i8x8 only; no other block types.
4. Ridiculously long motion vectors throughout the frame in nearly static scenes.
Wow. Can you share what title that was?

I'm not aware of any commercial BD encoders that are THAT bad, although I haven't done stream analysis of the output of all of them by any means. Being all 8x8 seems particularly odd.

[Dark Shikari]

Wow. Can you share what title that was?Cowboy Bebop: The Movie. An Ateme employee (bobobolo) suggested to me that it might be using the Vegas encoder. And a correction: it didn't only use 8x8dct, it almost only used 8x8dct. There are some very few choice blocks where it doesn't use 8x8dct (but intra is all 8x8dct). For AQ it used what appeared to be some sort of lumimasking.

I have found it quite odd that the Blu-ray encoders are so drastically behind the times; its as if everyone has leapfrogged them in the past 4 years.

[CruNcher]

Last edited by benwaggoner : Today at 02:06. Reason: Sorry, accidental edit due to still learning mod interface :)


Huh did i miss something, congratz to the mod position :D


it was a matter of hearing the feedback that this had become a big problem due to all the consumer displays with non-perceptually-uniform gamma an elevated blacks, and then our spending a ton of time tweaking the encoder to do well in that case.


Yep and this is indeed a big problem and the high quantization behavior of H.264 does indeed really bad @ those cases visually , and for sure Microsoft put allot off effort in this especially tweaking all the bells and whistles out of the encoder "visually" to win the Race @ the Studios.
And they succeeded with this because most of the H.264 codec implementer are still concentrating more on mathematical efficiency then finding solutions for certain visual problems (speaking of HVS) and unfortunately that is still the case, there seem to be only a few companies that really put allot of research into this area of improvement (and of course X264 slow but steadily).
My visual experience from what i saw so far is also that the Adaptive behavior (in all ranges Scenecut,B-frame placement decision,Adaptive Deadzones,Partition decisions) of the VC-1 encoder is much better refined @ the moment then for example it is in case of X264 (X264s Adaptive behavior even seems to hurt in some cases more than it helps visually) and that allot of tweaking effort was put into this by Microsoft over the years of development and research ahead of the others, because they knew it's not only about efficiency alone but about a good balance for a given target which in that case would be HD Film Content and they really did there work.
Dark Shikari sure the DVD Forum tests where long ago but it doesn't change the fact that the visual results @ that time where already more pleasing for VC-1 and that this started the existence of FRExt on H.264's side, and this tells already allot imho FRExt seems just like a workaround of a Problem that Microsoft solved before H.264 even realized it is existing (would High Profile even exist without the DVD Forum test results vs VC-1?) ;).
Tough what i don't understand is why FGM isn't still used for this Problem, modeling Grain instead of Preserving it and keeping the bandwidth free for more detail seems a much better solution then FreXt or Microsoft's internal changing partition approaches that try to preserve it @ all costs which results in a heavy encoding speed and bandwidth lose, but it doesn't seem to be used yet by the Studios, they rather still like to compress the Grain than to model it?.


At this point there is only a single studio not actively working on VC-1 encoded Blu-ray titles.

Disney?

[Sagittaire]

There's lots of scenarios where VC-1 can outperform H.264 for particular goals, but the converse is certainly true as well. It all depends on what you're trying to do and what you're trying to do it with, and to.

Well H264 outperform VC1 at high quantisation encoding (aka "low bitrate"). For low quantisation all the advanced fonctionality from H264 (adaptative partition, inloop, multiref, wpred, cabac) became useless and HVS fonctionaly are more and more important. In this case It's possible that good VC1 implementation outperform H264 implementation not specifiquely optimised for low quantizer encoding.


Yeah, I'm a judge for the DVDA Excellence Awards, and just got done judging a number of DVD and BD discs. I was really surprised how problematic many of the BD discs were, particularly in dark areas. Tons of blocking in black and other problems.

Well it's not a VC1 particularity. VC1 implementation (PEP or CinevisionPSE) from MS use particular HVS tweak for DarK Area
- Internal Dark Noise Filtering (pre-process with 3D filtering with luma masking)
- Adaptative Dead Zone (certainely with luma masking too)
- Adaptative Qunatisation (certainely with luma masking too)

All these HVS tweak can be used for H264 (easy for Dark Shikari to implement that with x264 I think). Anyway you can make that too with actual commercial H264 implementation like Cinevision 2.5 with Mainconcept/elecard implementation:
- Internal Dark Noise Filtering (call "black normalisation level")
- Adaptative Quantisation (call "AQ with luma masking")

[CruNcher]

Yes and that's also why the PEP Encoder is not 100% the same like the consumer encoder it is especialy tuned for Film Content the same for Cinevision and Cinemacrafts Encoder and in those regards X264 is still @ the start it is more tuned for Anime then anything else tough it's high bitrate visual results with Film Content improving constantly since some time now (and also it's very flexible due to it's wide variety of settings that can be adapted for certain source encoding scenarios) :)

[Inventive Software]

I must admit, since VAQ made it into x264's trunk, I've noticed encodes not only needing less bitrate, but also looking better(?) than without it! However VC-1 still wins in the high bitrate (20+ Mbits) scenario, since it doesn't throw away detail when quantisers are lowered like MPEG-2 and H.264.

[Golgot13]

Ben,

you can go to see Sony or Thomson on NAB, they show their H264 encoder and you will understand what can do
a H264 encoder (better than the software that you used for DVDA session)....

If you, Ben, can put some video we will show you (same that DVDA session or other in Full HD)
I can use some H264 studio encoder if you want...


About evolution of encoding process in H264 encoder, I understand that KDDI make a good demo
about better quantizer use when their many informations on picture: so if somebody can go to see
the demo to report all information.
NHK do a demo about broadcast UHD (Ultra HD: 8K !!!) in H264 at 128Mbps in realtime encoding and decoding.
NHK use only H264 solution (no VC1, it's really strange...) for HD and 3D HD (3D video in HD format)...
I understand there is only MS which show VC1 solution (except some transcoder solution for SD size).

Last, we will have soon more HD channel in H264 because many companies show
H264 HD statistic encoder and broadcasted multiplexer.

[benwaggoner]

Yes and that's also why the PEP Encoder is not 100% the same like the consumer encoder it is especialy tuned for Film Content the same for Cinevision and Cinemacrafts Encoder and in those regards X264 is still @ the start it is more tuned for Anime then anything else tough it's high bitrate visual results with Film Content improving constantly since some time now (and also it's very flexible due to it's wide variety of settings that can be adapted for certain source encoding scenarios) :)
Actually, the VC-1 Encoder SDK is a pretty close derivative of PEP (although it was forked before the most recent PEP release). There's a lot of the film-tuned quality improvements in there, even if not all apps chose to expose them. But even a prosumer-esque app like Expression Encoder 2 exposes the PEP-derived features like Adaptive Deadzone, Differential Quantization, and our noise reduction filter.

VC-1 Encoder SDK is absolutely meant to enable consumer/professional apps to provide VC-1 Blu-ray encoding quality like using PEP in 2-pass mode.

[Sagittaire]

Actually, the VC-1 Encoder SDK is a pretty close derivative of PEP (although it was forked before the most recent PEP release). There's a lot of the film-tuned quality improvements in there, even if not all apps chose to expose them. But even a prosumer-esque app like Expression Encoder 2 exposes the PEP-derived features like Adaptive Deadzone, Differential Quantization, and our noise reduction filter.

VC-1 Encoder SDK is absolutely meant to enable consumer/professional apps to provide VC-1 Blu-ray encoding quality like using PEP in 2-pass mode.

Well I have big difference at low bitrate between VC1 from SDK and VC1 from PEP. I use this command line with VC1 SDK:

@REM -----------------------------------------------------------
@REM
@REM Profil BluRay 1080p23.976 2 passes extra high quality
@REM
@REM -----------------------------------------------------------


@REM Source file name (suffit de mettre la source ici)
set E_SRC=Encodage_HD_NTSC_1080p.avs

@REM Set of bitrates (ici le bitrate)
set E_BR=10000

@REM Set of max bitrates (ici le bitrate max)
set MAX_BR=24000

@REM Set of Buffer (ici le buffer)
set BUF_BR=3750000

@REM Profil (ici le nom des fichiers de sortie)
AVS2ASF.exe -i %E_SRC% -o azerty.vc1 -rate %E_BR% -peakrate %MAX_BR% -vbv %BUF_BR%
-framerate 23.976 -ratecontrol 3 -profiletype 2 -maxkeydist 24 -bframes 1 -bdeltaqp 1 -adaptiveGOP
-keyPop 2 -inloop 1 -overlap 1 -complexity 5 -motionsearchlevel 2 -mesearchmethod 1 -mbcost 1
-mvcost 1 -mvrange 4 -adaptivequant 1 -dquantoption 1

pause

and equivalent setting for pep/pse. Bug in avs2asf.exe ... ?

[Golgot13]

Hi Ben,

NAB is finish, so don't forget us we wait the video.
About LV, the Wynn hotel is very nice and there is a golf !!! :cool:
I hope you tested it.

About H264 encoder, did you see the new Sony and Thomson encoder ?
My contact said me this encoder are good, so better than PeP/PSE,
because he use it but not for long time now...

[benwaggoner]

Speaking of which, here's my presentations from NAB:

http://www.on10.net/blogs/benwagg/22040/

[benwaggoner]

...and here's a torrent of an ATSC-compliant encode of the 1080i source, for a better example of what a final clip looks like.

http://216.99.212.233:6969/torrents/TallShip_1080i_ATSC.zip.torrent?9BA0395FC0E7B5D2203F9BEF4CB3AB54B0B8D367

[Sagittaire]

Speaking of which, here's my presentations from NAB:

http://www.on10.net/blogs/benwagg/22040/

Well my 2 cents:

MPEG-2
• Standard for HD broadcast for 10+ years
• Well understood
• Mature tools
• Approaching limit of compression efficiency
• Transparent compression requires much higher data
rates than other codecs
• Needs 50-100% more bitrate than VC-1 or H.264
• Limits quality for longer titles on SL discs
• But MPEG-2 can look great @ BD‟s 40 Mbps peak
• Remains useful for transcoding consumer content
• From HDV or ATSC without recompression

In fact with good encoder MPEG2 at HD resolution/bitrate never needs 100% more bitrate. MPEG2 is a really good codec for BD50 encoding. Can be a really good codec for BD25 encoding with medium/short movie.


VC-1
• VC-1 is SMPTE designation (SMPTE 421M-2006)
• Licensing handled by MPEG-LA
• Standardization of Windows Media Video 9
• Microsoft works closely with major studios to support
VC-1 encoding within their workflow
• Best codec for preserving texture detail at lower bitrates
• We expect wide support in HD authoring tools
• VC-1 Encoder SDK free for license
• Used on most HD DVD titles, roughly 1/3rd of Blu-ray
• Can make single VC-1 encode for both HD DVD and BD
• Warner VC-1 BD titles use same encode as HD DVD

I have Rate Control problem with VC1 SDK. VC1 from pep/pse produce by far better quality with equivalent setting.

H264 is by far the best codec in high quantisation encoding scenario. Cabac, more powerfull inloop, wpred, multiref produce are big advantage in this case.

You can use the same encoding for VC1, MPEG2 and H264 for HDDVD and BD.


AVC/H.264
• AVC, H.264, MPEG-4 Part just different names
• Defined by MPEG and ITU
• High 4:2:0 profile supported in BD/HD DVD
• Adds 8x8 blocks to Main Profile‟s 4x4 blocks
• Improves ability to handle textures
• Main Profile behind VC-1/MPEG-2 in DVD Forum tests
• Deliver low artifacts, but may lose texture detail
• Highest processing requirement for decoding
• A concern for software players, not CE devices
• BD spec requires at least 3 “slices” be used to ease
CABAC decode

H264 preserve texture and detail even at low bitrate. H264 can use low deadzone or adaptative threshold exactly like VC1.

At this time the best software decoding use less CPU for H264 than for VC1 (coreavc decoder outperform MS VC1 DMO decoder). VC1, MPEG2 or H264 decoding are not a problem with actual GPU generation.


My opinion, for 24p film content
• 480p: 1.5 Mbps
• 720p: 4 Mbps
• 1080p: 8 Mbps

For the same quantisation level (aka quality by pixel) there are a simple and empirical equation for that:

bitrate / ( H * W * Fps ) ^ N with N ~ 0.75

For the same source with the same average quantizer value:
• 480p: 1.5 Mbps
• 720p: 3.1 Mbps
• 1080p: 5.8 Mbps

And compression artefact for 1080p are less noticable simply because the relative size of artefact are less important for 1080p. 8x8 structure for all codec imply same absolute artefact size for 1080p or 480p. That's mean that equivalent subjective quality bitrate are even more close. For equivalent subjective quality IMO N ~ 0.6 is a good value for the previous empirical formulation.

Well now the bitrate equivalence for MPEG2 if my reference is 480p at 6 Mbps:
• 480p: 6.0 Mbps
• 720p: 12.5 Mbps
• 1080p: 23.0 Mbps


Nice things about encoding for download
• Don‟t have to worry about optical limits
• Can use longer GOPs for more efficient encoding
• Less risk of keyframe popping
• Average to Peak bitrate ratios often much higher
• Reduces segment reencoding needs

Optical limit for BluRay are really not a problem for ~ 8 Mbps "download encoding"
- GOP at 1 sec is not a really short gop. infinite GOP (keyframe only for scenecut) imply not a big improvement. It's easy to fight keyframe popping if you use really low ratio between intra-inter frames.
- Average bitrate at 8 Mbps with max at 40 Mbps with buffer at 30 Mbits is in practice unconstrained rate control encoding.

[MarcioAB]

Adding a BPP perspective:

Benwaggoner
480p: 1.5 Mbps = 0.15 BPP
720p: 4 Mbps = 0.18 BPP
1080p: 8 Mbps = 0.16 BPP
(hum...)

Mpeg4 (empirical equation)
480p: 1.5 Mbps = 0.15 BPP
720p: 3.1 Mbps = 0.14 BPP
1080p: 5.8 Mbps = 0.12 BPP
These are almost the BPP numbers I normally see.
I work with 0.01 BPP above those.

Mpeg2
480p: 6.0 Mbps = 0.61 BPP
720p: 12.5 Mbps = 0.57 BPP
1080p: 23.0 Mbps = 0.46 BPP
(obs: a well encoded Mpeg2)

[benwaggoner]

Adding a BPP perspective:

Benwaggoner
480p: 1.5 Mbps = 0.15 BPP
720p: 4 Mbps = 0.18 BPP
1080p: 8 Mbps = 0.16 BPP
(hum...)

Mpeg4 (empirical equation)
480p: 1.5 Mbps = 0.15 BPP
720p: 3.1 Mbps = 0.14 BPP
1080p: 5.8 Mbps = 0.12 BPP
These are almost the BPP numbers I normally see.
I work with 0.01 BPP above those.

Mpeg2
480p: 6.0 Mbps = 0.61 BPP
720p: 12.5 Mbps = 0.57 BPP
1080p: 23.0 Mbps = 0.46 BPP
(obs: a well encoded Mpeg2)
Okay, I can't claim I did a whole lot of emperical testing on those. The numbers I provided conflated a number of things.

Video and audio data rates
Assumptions of audience quality expectations for each tier
Content with film grain, where bpp doesn't seem to scale to 0.75 as closely as for cleaner content

[IgorC]

Sorry for offtopic.

benwaggoner
WMA Pro 10 outperforms AC-3 2-3x at low rates
Since when VC1 is optimizied for low rates to be used with audio multichannel tracks at low rates?

Is there any public test that shows it?
there is only one http://www.ebu.ch/CMSimages/en/tec_doc_t3324-2007_tcm6-53801.pdf

And there is no proof for such statement.

There is no 2x improvement even over MP3 at some usefull range of bitrate. Compare state of art HE-AAC 64 kbit/s vs LAME 128 kbit/s.

[benwaggoner]

Sorry for offtopic.

benwaggoner

Since when VC1 is optimizied for low rates to be used with audio multichannel tracks at low rates?

Is there any public test that shows it?
there is only one http://www.ebu.ch/CMSimages/en/tec_doc_t3324-2007_tcm6-53801.pdf

And there is no proof for such statement.

There is no 2x improvement even over MP3 at some usefull range of bitrate. Compare state of art HE-AAC 64 kbit/s vs LAME 128 kbit/s.
VBR WMA Pro 10 stereo @ 48 Kbps outperforms AC-3 stereo at CR 160 Kbps. Part of the practical advantage for WMA Pro for VOD is that we've got 2-pass VBR implementations, while AC-3 is almost always implemented as CBR. Rate-controlled VBR audio can be a big with with soundtracks, since they vary so much in complexity.

[Dark Shikari]

VBR WMA Pro 10 stereo @ 48 Kbps outperforms AC-3 stereo at CR 160 Kbps.I find this highly doubtful, given that 160kbps AC-3 is basically transparent, while 64kbps WMA sounds atrocious.

Then again, this is yet another case of "ours is better than everyone else's despite all indicators to the contrary" syndrome, a marketing concept that has persisted for decades despite the fact that almost nobody falls for it. Of course, the mere fact that VC-1, VP7, and RV30/40 exist as marketable products shows that a fool and their money are indeed soon parted.

[benwaggoner]

Is there any public test that shows it?
there is only one http://www.ebu.ch/CMSimages/en/tec_doc_t3324-2007_tcm6-53801.pdf
Also, I note that only tested WMA 10 Pro at 192+ Kbps. That excludes the frequency synthesis modes used in the 32-96 Kbps range where the biggest efficiency improvements come.

But even still, WMA 10 Pro's 128 Kbps VBR with 5.1 can produce quite good quality with soundtracks, at a bitrate AC- struggles at with stereo and can't reach with 5.1.

[IgorC]

VBR WMA Pro 10 stereo @ 48 Kbps outperforms AC-3 stereo at CR 160 Kbps.
Really? Link to public test?

[benwaggoner]

I find this highly doubtful, given that 160kbps AC-3 is basically transparent, while 64kbps WMA sounds atrocious.
That doesn't match my experience, but this is an emperical question. Can you share what source you're thinking of, and what settings you used?

Note I'm speaking of 48 Kbps 2-pass VBR WMA 10 Pro, and with soundtrack content. Both CBR encoding and test clips of more consistant complexity would be less advantageous to WMA 10 Pro.

[benwaggoner]

Really? Link to public test?
No, that's data coming internally, and my own anecdotal experience.

I would like to see a new hydrogen audio test for low bitrates soon. Their last round that included WMA 10 Pro wasn't a full apples to apples, as it compared CBR WMA 10 Pro to fixed-quality modes in the other codecs. I'd love to see the results of an independent double-blind test using either all CBR or all VBR for the advanced codecs. I think we'd do well, but it's always good to have community validation.

[IgorC]

No, that's data coming internally, and my own anecdotal experience.

Internally? hm....

Thank you for information.
Good bye.

[Dark Shikari]

That doesn't match my experience, but this is an emperical question. Can you share what source you're thinking of, and what settings you used?OK, I just did a quick test. Since I don't have an AC-3 encoder handy, I compared AAC-HE 2pass 48kbps to WMA Pro 2pass 48kbps in a blind test using Winamp (put both in playlist, randomely skip a few dozen times so I don't know which is which, and then listen to the two in order).

WMA sounded atrocious. It was literally painful to listen to. Nero AAC sounded just fine, very few noticeable issues with the sound.. LAME MP3 128kbps sounded just fine too, and I suspect that is similar to 160kbps AC-3.

Source was "Jupiter", from Gustav Holst's "The Planets."

[IgorC]

I open this topic in HA forum. Let's see what audio professionals say.
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=62889

[Golgot13]

@ Dark Shikari, @ IgorC and at all,


After many request, from this forum and thread, they changed many information on MS VC1 website
like "VC1 is much better than MPEG2/H264" (and they updated last year, 2007, with new from 2004-2005)....
Don't forget MS prefer to say like "internally test" because "external re-test" could not prouve it...


If MS or Ben want to prouve officially someting about VC1 (best codec for... make presentation or may be make bretzel ;) )
you can participate at MSU annual comparison codec (MS don't want since comparison between MS Photo and JPEG2000 ?).


Ben, what it's the low bitrate for VC1 ("best to preserve detail texture....) for you.
Can you explain the internally test to compare H264 (from Mainconcept you said) and VC1?
- VC1 file made exactly with VC1 core encoder only or core encoder + video preprocessing
- H264 file made only with H264 encoder (no preprocessing ?)
- Preset of H264
...

[benwaggoner]

OK, I just did a quick test. Since I don't have an AC-3 encoder handy, I compared AAC-HE 2pass 48kbps to WMA Pro 2pass 48kbps in a blind test using Winamp (put both in playlist, randomely skip a few dozen times so I don't know which is which, and then listen to the two in order).[QUOTE]
CBR or VBR?

[QUOTE]WMA sounded atrocious. It was literally painful to listen to. Nero AAC sounded just fine, very few noticeable issues with the sound.. LAME MP3 128kbps sounded just fine too, and I suspect that is similar to 160kbps AC-3.
Atrocious? I wonder if something else went on there. Did you use WME for rate conversion perhaps?

Also, note I was talking about movie soundtrack encoding above, not orchestral music. Orchestral music, which is more consistent than a soundtrack, would have less advantage for WMA Pro's VBR mode versus CBR codecs.

[Golgot13]

Also, note I was talking about movie soundtrack encoding above, not orchestral music. Orchestral music, which is more consistent than a soundtrack, would have less advantage for WMA Pro's VBR mode versus CBR codecs.

So the soundtrack must be specific: movie not orchestral music
But what sort of movie you talked to have a better detail texture with VC1 than H264 ?

[Dark Shikari]

CBR or VBR?VBR unless otherwise specified.

Atrocious? I wonder if something else went on there. Did you use WME for rate conversion perhaps?No, no rate conversion, its just that WMA sounds terrible at low bitrates. This isn't surprising; most audio formats do.

Also, note I was talking about movie soundtrack encoding above, not orchestral music. Orchestral music, which is more consistent than a soundtrack, would have less advantage for WMA Pro's VBR mode versus CBR codecs.Aren't movie soundtracks almost exclusively orchestral music?

[benwaggoner]

Aren't movie soundtracks almost exclusively orchestral music?
Ah, I think I see our confusion. I meant soundtrack in the sense of the actual final mixed audio for a movie. So music, voice, SFX, etcetera. In a typical soundtrack, there's a fair amount of silence and dialog that's easy to encode, allowing the more complex parts (like orchestral music) get substantially more bits than the straight ABR would allow.

Might be interesting to use something like the Elephant's Dream 2-channel mix for this comparison. IIRC that's a pretty typical mix of elements.

[Inventive Software]

I do find WMA quite good at 5.1 audio. I did an encode of Elephants Dream with 6 WAVs (from the FLACs), and the encoder was set in WME to 192 Kbps 5.1. (Most AC-3 audio at that bitrate is 2 channel. ;)) It was very good, I couldn't tell much difference between this and the original.

[benwaggoner]

I do find WMA quite good at 5.1 audio. I did an encode of Elephants Dream with 6 WAVs (from the FLACs), and the encoder was set in WME to 192 Kbps 5.1. (Most AC-3 audio at that bitrate is 2 channel. ;)) It was very good, I couldn't tell much difference between this and the original.
Yeah, I found VBR 128 5.1 fine for ED as a soundtrack (didn't try headphone audio-only listening, which is a lot pickier).

Note that, from an efficiency perspective, the WMA 10 Pro multichannel encoder doesn't implement the low bitrate frequency synthesis modes, so <128 Kbps is almost twice as efficient as the higher bitrates.

[benwaggoner]

But what sort of movie you talked to have a better detail texture with VC1 than H264 ?
That's a quote from the director of a recent Oscar winning film when a neutral studio showed him encodes of that film produced by PEP and several Blu-ray H.264 encoders. After the demo, he mandated that all his films be encoded with VC-1 for Blu-ray.

I'll see if I can get permission to share the director's name; no promises there.

It's also the broad consensus of Hollywood compressionists, which is why we're seeing the use of VC-1 on Blu-ray going up substantially now that the format war is over. There's only one studio left who doesn't have a substantial number of VC-1 titles in production right now.

[smok3]

Yeah, I found VBR 128 5.1 fine for ED as a soundtrack (didn't try headphone audio-only listening, which is a lot pickier).
yeah, and you would need 6 ears as well, hard one.

After the demo, he mandated that all his films be encoded with VC-1 for Blu-ray.
was that Ed Wood or somebody else?

[Dark Shikari]

After the demo, he mandated that all his films be encoded with VC-1 for Blu-ray.Odd, I would think he could get the same effect simply by using Avisynth's Blur() command.

[benwaggoner]

Odd, I would think he could get the same effect simply by using Avisynth's Blur() command.
That was his complaint; the H.264 encodes he was shown lost detail he wished to preserve, and which the VC-1 encode did a better job of retaining.

[Manao]

Dark Shikari : quiet down. Read benwaggoner carefully before answering. He said PEP was compared to "several Blu-ray H.264 encoders", and that it was deemed better than those encoders.

Never did he say VC1 > H264. He says PEP > professionnal Bluray encoders, which wouldn't surprise me at all.