WMV9 / VC1-- good codec for low bitrates?

[disgust]

I'm about to engage on a pretty big project and I'm wondering what codec would be good.

I recently saw a low bitrate rmvb / realmedia encode at a low bitrate that really blew me away-- ~300kbps at 640x480 and it looked incredible.

can wmv9 compete with that? I'd definitely prefer wmv over realmedia, for obvious reasons.

[diogen]

This - high quality at low bitrates - is certainly their claim to fame.
Whether you will be satisfied with the outcome depends on many factors - quality of the source and experience in setting its miriad variables would be two of the more important ones, IMHO.

Diogen.

[disgust]

if realmedia is the "best" for this sort of thing, when, if ever, do you think other codecs would be able to compete?

[Mug Funky]

there's always h.264...

it's got more features than VC-1 (in fact VC-1 could be considered a "subset" of h.264, though that's a glaring generalization).

i'd also rate it higher than realvideo, though i've not played with it much.

give 2-pass x264 a shot. try megui.

[foxyshadis]

AVC, VC-1, RM10, and VP6/7 all compete in that same space, yes. AVC has the capability of being the most efficient, but 300kbps anime probably isn't stressful enough to show big differences between them.

What 'obvious reasons' though? WMP11 is only available by default on Vista, and if you hope to pop it into HD-DVD/Bluray players you have to create it in very specific ways, that aren't playable on a PC without buying WinDVD/PowerDVD HD plugins.

[disgust]

VC1 plays in WMP9 and can also be played via ffdshow unless I'm seriously misunderstanding something?

I'm not aiming at being able to play in hd-dvd/blu-ray players really. I'd like, if possible, to use a codec that can give me "competitive" quality at low bitrates (200-500kbps or so) and also be playable for the majority of users without needing additional software

from what I've seen, RM10 seems better than VC-1 so far. I want to avoid the format because so many users have horrible associations with realplayer from what it's been like in the past... requires a horrible player, bad quality, etc.

[foxyshadis]

Not Advanced Profile WVC1, which is what's more interesting for really low-bitrate encodings. Main Profile, eh, it's better than Xvid but not that much, but at least it's definitely better than WMV7/8.

VP6.2 in flash is quite widely compatible in browsers, if not so easy to play in directshow by default. ;)

[disgust]

Not Advanced Profile WVC1, which is what's more interesting for really low-bitrate encodings. Main Profile, eh, it's better than Xvid but not that much, but at least it's definitely better than WMV7/8.

VP6.2 in flash is quite widely compatible in browsers, if not so easy to play in directshow by default. ;)

er?

from the stickied topic:

Q: So what's the advantage of Advanced over Main Profile?
A: Take a look the feature tables at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VC-1 and the one below. AP's most important features are:

* Interlaced encoding support
* Chroma and luma range reduction
* Encoding at resolutions different than decode resolutions
* Bitstream encapsulated metadata

For most part, none of that really affects quality if you're encoding progressive content. Microsoft's latest version of the WMV9 (WMV3/WVC1) encoder is v11, now available for download with the v11 Player and WMF SDK. If you use this encoder to encode to either Main Profile or Advanced Profile, you ought to be able to get the same quality for both because most of the quality-related optimizations (i.e. B-frames, inloop filtering, perceptual optimization, etc.) apply to both MP and AP.

[bond]

i would also assume that vc-1, vp7 and rv10 are a subset of h.264, meaning h.264 offers more powerful encoding tools (like cabac) and therefore *might* give better quality. still i dont think that there have been any independent codec comparisons done at low bitrate so i say we simply dont know which codec is "best".
apart from that there is never a "best" video codec, as the quality of a codec can differ a lot depending on the sources encoded and for example the price for a format is also important for commercial applications (vc-1 for example is slightly more expensive than h.264...)

i consider vp6 to not be able to keep up with the mentioned codecs, it is more on a level with mpeg-4 asp

h.264 is playable in quicktime by default.

[foxyshadis]

Ah, you got me, I confused it (probably with AVC's AP). Hate when I do that. In that case, you're probably right that it's the highest quality widely compatible codec available.

[zambelli]

Not Advanced Profile WVC1, which is what's more interesting for really low-bitrate encodings. Main Profile, eh, it's better than Xvid but not that much, but at least it's definitely better than WMV7/8.
Actually, you can probably get the same level of quality with MP as you can with AP when you're dealing with progressive content. What matters is the version of the encoder. If you've got v11, MP and AP use most of the same codebase - the biggest difference is which features get enabled for which. Current versions disable Dquant for MP, and that's about the only feature that might make a difference with quality. I doubt interlaced encoding and range reduction, the other two AP features, would be suited for this content anyway. Check out the features table at the end of the FAQ in http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=112634.

It's Simple Profile where most of the very useful features get disabled (following the VC-1 spec), but it doesn't sound like Disgust is looking to encode for low-powered devices, so SP is probably not necessary.

Back to the original question... I find it that when doing very low-bitrate encodes (i.e. 640x480 at 500kbps), what matters most is your pre-processing. The more you can simplify the codec's job with filters that take out "unnecessary" details (i.e. grain, chroma noise, etc), the better your low bitrate encode will look - regardless of codec. There's only so much magic you can do with 640x480 at 500 kbps.

[Sharktooth]

I have good 640 toons encodes at 300kbps with x264...

[disgust]

any specific suggestions for the preprocessing?

I honestly figured I'd just convert directly, but I'm definitely open to suggestions

[benwaggoner]

any specific suggestions for the preprocessing?

I honestly figured I'd just convert directly, but I'm definitely open to suggestions
The first step of preprocessing is to make the video look like it should. So high quality scaling and other video processing, removal of inappropriate grain (but not appropriate grain), getting black levels that should be flat Y'=16 to Y'=16, correct inverse telecine or deinterlacing, etcetera.

I find that getting preprocessing wrong is about 75% of what goes wrong with encodes on the web. I spend probably 80% of my own operator time (as opposed to rendering time) on prepreocessing instead of encoding for projects, since it's the most subjective part of the process. Once you know your target specs, the encoding settings pretty much write themselves