Xvid to use in future makes still sense?

[DualCode]

Hello,

I have a more common question. I have Nero7 AVC codec here and Xvid 1.2 SMP (ASP) here for encoding my video material. I wonder what makes more sense for the future to use?!?

From visual behaviour, both are more or less equal to me. I can live with both of them well. But will it be a disadvantage to keep on stying with Xvid-AVI? Are there already Standalone DVD Players, that can play AVC/MP4 files produced by NERO7 or x264?

Thanks for your suggestions & Bye :thanks:

[Revgen]

AVI by it's very nature is a dinosaur. I'd try sticking to .mp4 and H264/AVC.

[Jay Bee]

ATM both aren't that great for STB compatibility. Personally I use either MPEG-2 (for interlaced sources) or Xvid (less CPU power needed, no risk of playback being hampered by decoders that ignore deblocking, a problem of both AVC and VC-1).

The future is probably either HD-DVD or BD compliant video but the software for creating these is not very widespread or mature yet.

[FishTank]

i stick with xvid for as long as i can ,,,^..^,,,

[PuzZLeR]

I will STRONGLY say that to "future-proof" your videos, choose an implementation from the H.264/AVC standard such as Nero Digital AVC or x264.

1) H.264/AVC is to replace MPEG-2 as we know it. That's saying something when ASP-based codecs such as DivX/Xvid only served as a compressed alternative, never as a direct substitute. H.264/AVC is the future for sure.

2) The quality is much better with AVC. That alone should be enough to win better support than Xvid in the future.

3) Yes, there is currently more stand-alone support for DivX/Xvid, that's also very affordable as well. But that's only because it's been around a while. Support is coming for AVC too. Video game systems, portable players and network devices already support it. Many, many more are on their way even as early as this fall.

4) Yes, it's quicker to encode/decode Xvid. But hardware/chipsets are going to be better suited for AVC in the future. They already are on their way.

5) The AVI container that wraps Xvid is well over 10 years old and the law of diminishing returns has applied to it. It was never designed for anamorphic encoding, has limited range with advanced codecs as AVC and only has a 4GB storage limit - unacceptable for HD. MP4 and MKV that contain AVC are better designed. Sure there are such things as an "enhanced AVI" container, but these are considered "dirty hacks" IMO and others.

6) The future disc formats BD and HD-DvD have included AVC as one of its standards. Xvid is not there. Yes, authoring for these formats is currently mostly Hollywood domain as of this writing, but if you encode your video to AVC today, you SHOULD find it easier to later migrate to these disc formats than Xvid in terms of more compatible decoding (such as data format) and easier transcoding (such as video format). I don't see why not.

Summary: There are more advantages to using Xvid today, and in the short-term. However, you were wondering "what makes more sense for the future to use", so I HEAVILY recommend the advantages of AVC for the long-term. I would bet everything I have on this.

[R3Z]

Honestly, dont encode things in AVC now expecting them to play on standalones later. If they do, thats a bonus.

[weaver4]

I think there are two different answers.

If you are only going to watch your movies on a computer I think it is safe to make the transition to H264/AVC.

But if you want portability, and be able to use Stand-Alone-Players you probably want to stay with XviD/DivX for a while.

I would disagree with R3Z slightly. If you encode (in AVC) so that it will play on the AppleTV you probably will have a pretty good shot of it playing on SAPs in the Future. The problem with this is that AVC on the AppleTV is so weak that you might as well use DivX.

Personally I feel that I get as good a picture using DivX as H264/AVC if I encode DivX at 20% to 25% higher data rate than H264/AVC. After-all: Hard-Drive storage space is only roughly $0.75 a movie. This web site, which did a double-blind MOS comparison confirms my belief.
http://www.compression.ru/video/codec_comparison/subjective_codecs_comparison_en.html

[Schmendrick]

AVI, MP4, MKV, TS are all just containers for elementary streams. As long as you are able to mux streams synchronously into a container and are also able to demux them again unchanged out of a container the only reason to prefer one container over the other is ease of use.

I am recording H.264/AVC-AC3-5.1-channel transmissions from TV-satellites and I like to edit them to cut out the commercials and then put them into a container which is easy to use. I am using the dinosaur-AVI container as I was unwilling to reencode the AC3-audio track to AAC so that I can use the MP4-container (I know you can mux AC3 into MP4 as private streams, but I have not found out how to do it and how to properly playback such a MP4-file). I have not found a proper way to remux them back into a TS-file which I can playback synchronously. Finally I rather perfer VirtualDubMod as video-editor which can handle AVI-files larger than 4 GB as so far I have not found a video-editor which handles MKV-files with the same ease.

For playback I am using CoreAVC Version 1.1 which is sufficient on my Core 2 Duo T5600 Laptop with 45-65 % processor load for a stutter free smooth playback and AC3-Filer for the audio track. I am not reencoding the satellite recordings but just editing and repackaging them. If I have synch issues I can use Belight for decoding the AC3-Audio into 6 mono waves, fix the audio synch issue and reencode them back into AC3. If I manually do this the synchronity is not 100% perfect but acceptable. This is only required if there are problems with the satellite reception due to too poor signal e.g. due to heavy rain.

[PuzZLeR]

Although some previous posts were very knowledgeable and well written, the author of this thread wanted to know which is better for the future, not what makes a better encode.

Xvid or DivX is certainly the choice for today, for more playback options and especially since HD space is so cheap as Weaver4 mentioned. Even DVD-R today is priced at similar rates to loose-leaf paper per volume.

However, like the author, I'm more interested in the future.

Now alot here depends on whether the author is keeping the original source after encoding.

If the author is keeping the source, such as his/her DvD collection, and wishes to view them today more conveniently in a compressed format and in aggregate, then by all means go Xvid all the way. You can always go AVC later if/when the time is right.

If, for example, the author has family videos, stuff from Tv, clips, etc and wishes to delete the source for a smaller sized encoded version, and even wants to archive, then I would VERY highly recommend H.264/AVC to have better "future-proofing". You will retain more quality per file size and have tons of hardware choices to play it on. Yes, they're here, and more are coming.

Weaver4, yes the H.264 specs for @Tv currently suck. So do iPod's. But if one knows anything about tech marketing, what this stuff is really doing is skimming the market, even creating a buffer, until the "real" hardware catches up in the near future.

Even if the technology has fully adapted to the mobile or network movement, the initial offerings are just a "tease" for the stuff later. Yes, H.264 is very resource intensive, and may need more from hardware development but the products they're selling today are only there to generate a cash flow for the future development and higher profits later. They want to sell you again and again. It would be a big mistake to interpret the current stuff as the future of video when what's really happening is marketing science in its most traditional form.

I remember when my first PDA that I bought in 1999 played an mp3 file. Back then it was like "Wow!, this thing rocks!" I remember my second one in 2002 was able to play crappy MPEG-1 files. Even with all the jitter, crashes and slow-down it was still "amazing" back then. Hey, if you bought an optional storage card, you could take with you 10 more minutes of this crappy video! (Ughhhh!)

I think we've come a long way since. I am not worried one bit about AVC's future, even with demanding specs (although I would stay away from MRFs of >3 for a while).

Keep in mind too that BD and HD-DvD players already have built-in decoders for some of the highest features of H.264. It won't be long before they start accepting H.264 clips as data, more likely than having to accept DivX/Xvid with a new set of chips.

So if your encodes are your main archives and masters, and want to "future-proof" I heavily recommend H.264/AVC.

[weaver4]

So if your encodes are your main archives and masters, and want to "future-proof" I heavily recommend H.264/AVC.

Agreed, but if you are encoding for portability I would recommend DivX right now. Wait until the H.264/AVC "profiles" firm up for SAP before you make the plunge. Most of the H.264 profiles out there for the major tools will probably never play on a SAPs. Like you said mp3 came out 10 years ago, but even the latest IPODs still supports it.

I have reason to believe that there are going to be a few surprises in VC-1 land as well.

[PuzZLeR]

Agreed.

If you plan to use the clips you encode as "archives" for the long-term, then it's quite obvious H.264/AVC is a good choice.

But if you are encoding for portability I would recommend DivX right now.

I agree 100+%, especially truer still if you're encoding from a source you will keep instead of delete.

Wait until the H.264/AVC "profiles" firm up for SAP before you make the plunge.
I've already dove right in head-first, smack-dab, full force. However, yes, I understand if someone wants to keep a defensive posture in the interim. This indeed is the time for patience as we are awaiting to determine if this transistion is for real. I say it is, and even though I'm not betting on a crazy race-horse but a reasonable hunch in the video ecosystem's evolution, I still have to admit that we never really know what's really going to happen 1, 5 or even 10 years from now...

Most of the H.264 profiles out there for the major tools will probably never play on a SAPs.
You got a point there. This is why I referred to MRFs in my last post. Some of the profiles have things like B-pyramids, mixed refs, even MRFs as high as 16. Although this stuff is compliant within the H.264 standard, it may be stranded forever on a PC like I believe Snow, VP-7 or even Real will in my opinion.

I do however believe in higher features like CABAC and B-frames although current portables whine about them today.

I encode from personal content that I will delete afterwards for the smaller files of H.264 (even with a bit of lossiness) so "future-proofing" is important to me. My rule of thumb is it has to be QT compatible, and even Nero compatible, to feel comfortable deleting the source.

Nero Recode and HandBrake fully comply to this, even with their higher features, and I'm very confident in the long-term value, and the SAP potential of their output. (Although I'm still a bit iffy when it comes to square pixels vs. anamorphic encoding. I'm still not sure where to bet on this one.)

Like you said mp3 came out 10 years ago, but even the latest IPODs still supports it.
And mp3 will continue to get support for a long time yet. So will DivX and Xvid too, but would you rather have a better format if, let's say, you knew for sure it would get just as much support in the future, if not more? Keep in mind, BD and HD-DvD have the decoders already in place for H.264. I have a nagging suspicion that maybe, either short-term, or even long-term, it may be more expensive to decode a lesser format like Xvid because it may require new chips in its motherboard so therefore the future of ASP based codecs could be in doubt. It's not as easy as mp3. As well, audio migrates much better to newer formats with re-encoding than video ever will. These are also concerns that I have about what to encode with today.


I have reason to believe that there are going to be a few surprises in VC-1 land as well.

Well since it's a joint venture headed by M$, I don't doubt it. They always seem to stick their nose into something so they can say "me too!".

However, there doesn't seem to be much support for it like there certainly is for H.264. M$ will certainly give it a push, especially since their Zune is really a decoy to promote VC-1 since I believe the codec is losing momentum, but look at how big their older WMV formats got. They never really got to prime-time.

In order to replace one format for another you need a significant advantage IMO. CDs did that over records. DvD did that for VHS. MP3's portability will do that for CDs, etc. and I believe H.264's better compression will do that for MPEG-2.

However, what will VC-1 do better than H.264? They are both arguably identical in quality. Yes, VC-1 "decodes faster", but this will be a frivolous issue with the future hardware.

VC-1, I believe, was only accepted by the future disc formats as a token acceptance because it's the Big M. This seems to be a conditioned response from many that M$ seemingly imposes with their .... (never mind that's another subject).

My prediction? VC-1 support will be a very distant second place to H.264 support. And even if VC-1 wins some acceptance out there in a given environment, it will be an environment that also has accepted H.264 as well, but not necessarily in reverse. Sorry M$ fans. I do see this as my opinion.

[weaver4]

Puzzler: boy when you write you write.

VC-1 certification on devices may be what Microsoft needs. H.264 is such a roll of the dice between encoding and playback that I would say that H.264 is not portable. That has to be fixed! So imagine you are generic customer at major retailer and they say you can get this set top box that is Microsoft VC-1 Home Theater Profile Certified or you can get this OpenSource H.264 SAP that will play videos correctly if you encode with X264 as long as you have the following features turned off..... The sales man says the picture quality is equal; which one would your wife/grandmother/uncle/sister buy?

IMHO H.264 is not close to hitting critical mass yet.

[Mutant_Fruit]

But what if the OpenSource H.264 SAP was certified as being capable of High Profile level 4.2 encodes, which has been shortnamed to "Home Theatre Profile". Would you go for it then?

H.264 playback devices can be certified for specific levels just like VC-1 can.

[Jay Bee]

It can be. But ATM moment we are still at the level where HD-DVD authoring software refuses streams that an encoding software declares as HD-DVD compliant.

If you're looking for future proofing and portability the only way to go is DVD/MPEG-2, at least until the HD-DVD/BD war is over and the software for it's creation is available, affordable and usable.

[Mutant_Fruit]

ATM moment we are still at the level where HD-DVD authoring software refuses streams that an encoding software declares as HD-DVD compliant.
Does the HD-DVD software claim compliance to the same level that your input steam is compliant to?

H.264 editing software isn't mature yet, and probably won't be for quite a while. But that doesn't affect the fact that if you encode a stream to a specific level now it *will* be decodable in the future. The only thing you need to check is that your encoder is producing a valid compliant stream.

EDIT: Just for reference, i believe all home theatre systems will have to support (at the very least) High Profile - Level 4.

[PuzZLeR]

Puzzler: boy when you write you write.


I use to be a columnist for a tabloid. Habits die hard. Then again, if you include my typos, I'm going near 100wpm. Believe it or not, most of my posts take about 5 mins max. :p


VC-1 certification on devices may be what Microsoft needs. H.264 is such a roll of the dice between encoding and playback that I would say that H.264 is not portable. That has to be fixed! So imagine you are generic customer at major retailer and they say you can get this set top box that is Microsoft VC-1 Home Theater Profile Certified or you can get this OpenSource H.264 SAP that will play videos correctly if you encode with X264 as long as you have the following features turned off..... The sales man says the picture quality is equal; which one would your wife/grandmother/uncle/sister buy?

IMHO H.264 is not close to hitting critical mass yet.

VC-1 is almost as split up as H.264 is! They have several profiles and levels too, and its implementations are even more confusing then ever such as WMVA and WMV3 and WMVC1 and WMblahblahblah, and each does either this song or that dance or whistles here or there. Even its implementations each perform a completely different gig, for a different show, and all are from the same company! (Guess which?)

Nice start, for you-know-who, I say...

Naw, I'm still betting on the horse with the "H" on it's colors.

As well, keep in mind when thinking about MPEG-2. Do we care anymore which implementations it's from? Sure, some are better than others, such as TMPGEnc or ConvertXtoDvD, but there are HUNDREDS more, and virtually ALL of them are compatible with each other, regardless of features. This wasn't the case several years ago.

This will also be true for H.264. All profiles, levels and implementations will be compatible with each other like previous standards in the MPEG realm. The only issue in the future may be container (as AVI is with Xvid/DivX), and it can be fixed with muxing.

Sure there are some very advanced features and profiles with H.264, such as 4:4:4, etc, but they are way in the future and are only experimental research and development. This only implies that the codec is expanding ever more, instead of screwing us up with another codec - and what this means for H.264 implies a FUTURE.

[PuzZLeR]

If you're looking for future proofing and portability the only way to go is DVD/MPEG-2, at least until the HD-DVD/BD war is over and the software for it's creation is available, affordable and usable.

I agree fully. If you have the space for MPEG-2, your best strategy is to hold and wait before converting. MPEG-2 will be supported for alot longer and will be very convertable when the times comes. I would have recommended it too if "future proofing" is priority.

HOWEVER....

This thread was about the choice between an H.264/AVC implementation and an ASP one, not MPEG-2.

You know what? MPEG-2 does have great quality and compatibility and fast decoding. If it wasn't for the awkward size of MPEG-2, especially when you have thousands of short clips too awkward to manage on a normal VOB DvD, I would have never switched or encoded it to anything. At least not for a long time.

[bond]

imho mpeg-4 asp (as used in xvid) will be superseded by mpeg-4 avc (as used in x264) in the long run
avc is yet already used in hdtv and hddvd, which asp never managed to reach
i fear asp was just a step in the middle between the big standards mpeg-2 and avc

edit: howto encode with avc today, so it will be supported in hardware players in the future? i would encode the stream to be hddvd compliant, but the problem is i dont yet know how the hddvd specs look like

[Jay Bee]

imho mpeg-4 asp (as used in xvid) will be superseded by mpeg-4 avc (as used in x264) in the long run
avc is yet already used in hdtv and hddvd, which asp never managed to reach
i fear asp was just a step in the middle between the big standards mpeg-2 and avc

edit: howto encode with avc today, so it will be supported in hardware players in the future? i would encode the stream to be hddvd compliant, but the problem is i dont yet know how the hddvd specs look like

Fully agree.

What's the exact problem with the specs? Industry secret? Surprised they wouldn't be leaked sooner or later. And what's the point of them not being public in the first place?

[PuzZLeR]

I too agree fully with Bond.

AVC/H.264 will (I believe "will" not "may") replace MPEG-2 in the future formats, something ASP never did. ASP was always just a nice little "side-thing" in case you wanted a smaller file size. That's all. And yes, sadly for DivX/Xvid and other ASP based codecs, they were only a stepping stone in this transition. Good point.

This is especially true when AVC is a standard in the future disc formats. No ASP codec is there.

And yes, I too am interested in encoding now to these specs for BD/HD-DvD with AVC and it sucks that they are not available.

Here is the best info regarding this that I have found:

http://www.videohelp.com/hd

So in the meantime, your best bet is to encode at the closest to these specs to have less lossiness later when/if transcoding.

Encode at these resolutions, anamorphic, Main and High at level 4.1 max, etc. I'm sure the lower bitrates of 1500-2000 kbps will be acceptable as well.

This is the way I'm encoding now and I believe it will be easier to transcode later, hence "future-proofing" my video.

[gronne]

Someone saw it as a bonus if future standalones support xvid. I'd say they'll stick with it for a very long time to go. There are so incredibly many xvid-, divx- and whatever-file out there that people still want to be able to play back even in five years from now. Since it's most likely very easy to implement the feature, why would they disappoint their consumers?

However for very many reasons I'd personally say go with h264, technology should always be pushed in order to advance.

[foxyshadis]

Sigma, mediatek, and the rest will probably just package ASP/AVC combo chipsets as optional parts. (Licensing fees probably dominate the cost anyway, so they wouldn't just fold them together.) They aren't completely different, perhaps even similar enough that they can reuse logic parts.

[PuzZLeR]

Sigma, mediatek, and the rest will probably just package ASP/AVC combo chipsets as optional parts.

Optional? If you're talking regular DvD players of the future, sure. However, if you're talking future formats like BD/HD-DvD, then the ASP part of the chipset will be optional not AVC.

I'm not saying they won't package ASP decoders. I'm just saying that AVC will be mandatory for these future formats, not optional.

[foxyshadis]

That's what I mean. Chipsets that incorporate the logic for both, but may have one or the other disabled for a cheaper price. (Of course in the new age ASP only will be only for the cheapest cut-rate sets.)

[PuzZLeR]

I see what you mean now. Yes, agree. I too could see them manufacturing chipsets in the future that decode both (as an option and/or as a standard), and it would be the player's/manufacturer's choice whether or not to disable ASP decoding for whatever reason.

But, just to talk theoretically for a moment, I would think in this new age an ASP option may be more expensive to implement. Not impossible, just more costs involved, and not only licensing.

Obviously chipsets will change and get more efficient, and will be developed for AVC. As the tech and learning curve develops, and as quantity increases, economies of scale will make them cheaper per unit.

In other words, in the future, an AVC decoding chipset will be "normal" and "standard" and rather cheap to make. Having an option such as ASP decoding would be added costs for sure in that case.

But then again, that's just theory. In practice, I don't see why there wouldn't be an ASP decoding option.

[ronnylov]

Maybe it will be like VCD. Most DVD players still supports MPEG1 playback on VideoCD but almost nobody play these discs anymore. Maybe they will drop MPEG-1 support in the future but MPEG-2 will be there because of all the DVD's. However MPEG-1 is a part of the DVD specification so they probably must have it implemented if they claim DVD support.

MPEG-4 ASP is a part of MPEG-4 specification. Maybe they need to have it supported to say it is MP4 compatible? But the difference here is that no official disc format ever supported MPEG-4 ASP so it is more likely to be dropped in future. I don't know, just guessing here.

I mostly put everything I want to keep in standard DVD format. The problem is what I should do with my HDTV recordings, they are in h.264 TS format but I have no player that supports it and my PC is a little bit too slow for fluid playback so I reencode it to 720P XviD that my TviX 4000 hardware player supports. If it is important for me to keep in future I probably just make a standard DVD but then I loose the HD resolution. I don't think it is worth keeping the original H.264 files because with a bitrate of 16 mbit/s they are huge and must be splitted on serveral DVD's...

[PuzZLeR]

MPEG-4 ASP is a part of MPEG-4 specification. Maybe they need to have it supported to say it is MP4 compatible?

I agree that this could be very confusing for Average Joe Consumer in the future, and it may have some impact on the marketplace. I personally never liked the fact that both ASP and AVC have "MPEG-4" as part of their ISO specifications. Only people such as us in these forums/industry really distinguish between Part 2 and Part 10 (at least today). Also, just try explaining to them that "MPEG-4" and "MP4" are completely different things, yet "H.264" and "AVC" are the exact same thing. Yeah, right.

Educating the consumer isn't the real issue. It's just that until the majority market truly grasps the fundamentals many companies will sell inferior products in the meantime advertising such as "A high-tech HD player that plays MP4" when it plays no AVC and no rez above 480p. Maybe even the companies themselves may not understand it either.

Yes, people have caught on to "MP3", but "MP4" is just going to create havoc for a while. Average Joe wouldn't know the difference between ASP and AVC. He would just read MPEG-4/MP4 as this "new stuff" and say, "Yeah, it's a new music or video thingy continuing MP3 or sumthin'." or "It's that compressed stuff." This is true of many people I know outside of these forums and industry.

No, not insulting good ol' Joe. I'd probably be just like him if I were selecting renovating tools, fishing gear, crochet products or anything else I have no clue about.

And then one day, when we all understand the tech, and have one common format of H.264, and all have BD players that share this content is everything going to be Ok?

No, we'll be back here discussing this new Violet-Blaster player and this new super-duper H.269 codec.

[SealTooGreat]

The SMP8630 (http://www.sigmadesigns.com/public/Products/SMP8630/pdf_files/SMP8634_br.pdf) family provides highly-integrated solutions
for products requiring high-definition MPEG-4.10 (H.264),
SMPTE 421M (VC-1), WMV9, MPEG-4.2 and MPEG-2 decoding.

...taken from here (http://www.sigmadesigns.com/public/Products/SMP8630/SMP8630_series.html). See also Nero Announces Sigma Designs is First Partner to Receive Nero Digital™ AVC High Profile Certification (http://www.nero.com/enu/showpress.php?id=1022)

...So I assume that only MPEG-4.2 ASP@L5(720p, 1-point GMC) should be possible to play one future standalone (with SMP8630 chipset)