VC-1 and H264 [Archive] - Page 2

Sagittaire

1st August 2007, 00:38

Okay, challenge accepted :). Make a "massively" better clip with the same parameters as the 2 Mbps 720p clip on my blog:

http://on10.net/Blogs/benwagg/elephants-dream-720p--2-mbps/

Let me know when your comparative clip is avaliable.

Well I can make that quickly with x264 at 720p. But you don't use the best possible VC1 implementation here.

- Your encoding have major blocking problem in high motion part.
- Your encoding have major problem with fade scene because WMV9 AP don't use adaptative bframe and bframe in fade scene produce bad result.

I think that VC1 can produce very better result at 2 Mbps.

Tack

1st August 2007, 02:02

Let me know when your comparative clip is avaliable.From which version of Elephant's Dream did you create your encode? So that people are working from the same source.

Also, aside from peak bitrate which has some rationale, why should the same settings (e.g. number of B-frames) be used?

Sagittaire

1st August 2007, 08:43

From which version of Elephant's Dream did you create your encode? So that people are working from the same source.

Source is the 1080p RGB uncompressed Master with YV12 (rec 709?) color matrix convertion

Also, aside from peak bitrate which has some rationale, why should the same settings (e.g. number of B-frames) be used?

Average bitrate at 1863 Kbps for video. Peak bitrate at 8000 Kbps with large buffer. Well I think that here Rate Control is unrestricted with these parameters.

Here the AVC/AAC/MP4 encoding (http://jfl1974.free.fr/HDDVD/Elephant's%20Dream%20720p%202M.mp4)
1280x720x24 AVC at 1863 Kbps
5.1, 48 Khz, 16 bits AAC at 128 Kbps

For example no problem for the first scene (fade scene). Less blocking for high motion. More Sharp too I think. It's really quick encoding with x264 with classic profil and without particular optimisation.

Tack

1st August 2007, 13:12

Source is the 1080p RGB uncompressed Master with YV12 (rec 709?) color matrix convertion
Where can I download that? The only thing I've been able to find is 22G worth of individual png files. Which would clearly be the highest quality source to work from, but 22G is a large chunk of my monthly bandwidth quota to use up. :)

... looking at the "HD 1080p24 Challenge" thread I see this is indeed the source you worked from. :)

Sagittaire

1st August 2007, 13:22

Where can I download that? The only thing I've been able to find is 22G worth of individual png files. Which would clearly be the highest quality source to work from, but 22G is a large chunk of my monthly bandwidth quota to use up. :)

PNG source is the good source ...

benwaggoner

1st August 2007, 16:04

Well I can make that quickly with x264 at 720p. But you don't use the best possible VC1 implementation here.

- Your encoding have major blocking problem in high motion part.
- Your encoding have major problem with fade scene because WMV9 AP don't use adaptative bframe and bframe in fade scene produce bad result.

I think that VC1 can produce very better result at 2 Mbps.
Yeah, I just used the released codec since it was mainly as a tutorial about using the registry keys with it.

Assuming some good H.264 versions pop up, I'll go back and do a new one with the new codec.

benwaggoner

1st August 2007, 16:06

From which version of Elephant's Dream did you create your encode? So that people are working from the same source.
I started from the PNG sequence,and converted to a Lagarith YV12 AVI in 709 using After Effects in 32-bit floating point.

Also, aside from peak bitrate which has some rationale, why should the same settings (e.g. number of B-frames) be used?
Oh, use your optimal B-frames and everything else, I just want the same average/peak.

Sagittaire

1st August 2007, 16:16

Assuming some good H.264 versions pop up, I'll go back and do a new one with the new codec.

Better to make that for my challenge at 1080p ... ???

DeathTheSheep

1st August 2007, 16:20

I'll go back and do a new one with the new codec.
Again with this new codec no one can use? How is it a fair testing environment without all candidates available? How do we even know the results aren't "doctored" or specifically tailored to this source clip?

Provide the codec you used please, benwaggoner.

benwaggoner

1st August 2007, 16:28

Better to make that for my challenge at 1080p ... ???
Sorry, just reading through posts backwards in my hotel room :).

I'm travelling today, but I'll download it tomorrow

benwaggoner

1st August 2007, 16:38

Again with this new codec no one can use? How is it a fair testing environment without all candidates available? How do we even know the results aren't "doctored" or specifically tailored to this source clip?

Provide the codec you used please, benwaggoner.
I obviously can't release an in-progress binary if that's what you're asking :).

The codec will be included in commercial products before long, so you'll be able to get your hands on it.

Also, for codecs, the real conformance point is the bitstream, right? Even if it isn't clear how a clip was made, it's still a valid test.

But I understand your concern, and will provide as many details as I can. And you can feel free to ignore it if you wish :).

Golgot13

1st August 2007, 17:12

Assuming some good H.264 versions pop up, I'll go back and do a new one with the new codec.

Hi Ben,

are you sure you can do better with VC1 ?

I read your weblink, you're " an expert in video compression ".
If you read the H264 specification, you would understand that H264 with CABAC
(and specific quantize matrix for High Profil) is really better codec than VC1.

All TV will use (and use) H264 codec to braodcast HD channel.
I don't see any TV (for HD) which broadcast or broadcasted in VC1
(except Swisscom which use VC1 for SD IPTV, alone ?).
In USA: there are Echostar, Direct TV, Voom; in Europe: Sky, CanalSatellite,...
which use H264 codec. And the last H264 codec implementation challenge during
"le Tour de France" in France (DVB-T broadcast, in some cities, by France Television)
showed that the Harmonic encoder is the better (1920x1088 50i at 7-9Mbps !!!).
Lot of (I think all) professional broadcast manufacturer make H264 HD encoder
and someone have VC1 encoder (to show or start at NAB2005).

H264 is more efficient than VC1.

Golgot13

PuzZLeR

6th August 2007, 20:45

:)BUMP!:)

Yup. Can't let this thread die just yet. Too important! I have a question for the two reps from Microsoft.

First of all:
@Puzzler:
You seem like a smart guy who can make valid arguments so I'm finding it really puzzling that you insist on using that ridiculous "M$" acronym in your references to Microsoft. I hate to nitpick but it really makes it hard to take your arguments as unbiased. It gives the whole thing a bit of a playground namecalling flavor.Agreed. Furthermore it was childish, stupid and unprofessional of me. My apologies.

However, even though you and Ben are perfect gentlemen, and I've been very impressed, unfortunately that's the only thing I agree with you.

I still say that VC-1 is not beneficial at all to the industry - basically there for Microsoft's profitable objectives. Yes, it's an "open standard" but it was initially implemented for competitive reasons, not to improve upon an existing standard. Even as an "open standard" Microsoft still stands to gain through branding, positioning and leverage with VC-1. It's not hard to see this as a marketer.

No, there's no room for VC-1 and H.264, only for headaches. Yes, there's multiformats of others, but for a reason - called progress. VC-1 is NOT progress - it's fragmentation. AAC is progress over MP3, MP3 was progress over huge CD file sizes, MPEG-2 was progress over MPEG-1, etc.

But I have one question if you can answer it. If VC-1 is truly an "open standard" that MS has "no control" over, can you at least convince me that they are not biased towards it?

Never mind what they package with Windows for now, but if Microsoft is truly respectful of standards, truly being a good sumaritan out there, then why don't they also create an implementation for H.264 and package that too with Windows?

Is there any reason why they are not going to go ahead with "WMV-AVC"? It is, after all, a standard, something that should be ingrained in an operating system at least, and would redeem them somewhat if they truly don't have profitable intentions, or market leverage, with VC-1.

How about their version of H.264 for Zune? I still say Zune's position is for "format" - an indirectly profitable strategy for MS, much more so than "selling portables"...

So, if they have the right intentions with respect to standards, and the "MS MO" isn't stealing, or anything else untoward, and according to you apparently have the capabilities of making great codecs, what's stopping Microsoft from embracing this wonderful standard of H.264/AVC, maybe even creating a wonderful version of it as well, and packaging that too with VC-1 in Windows?

You say there's a place for both of them right?

Prove it.

benwaggoner

6th August 2007, 23:53

But I have one question if you can answer it. If VC-1 is truly an "open standard" that MS has "no control" over, can you at least convince me that they are not biased towards it?
Which they? Of course we're biased towards it :). But not in any way that would preclude emperical analysis.

Never mind what they package with Windows for now, but if Microsoft is truly respectful of standards, truly being a good sumaritan out there, then why don't they also create an implementation for H.264 and package that too with Windows?
We do have H.264 included for products like Zune and Xbox 360. But there's a really high bar to include anything in Windows, especially due to test cost (that's a WHOLE lot of fuzz testing, performance tuning, etcetera).

Is there any reason why they are not going to go ahead with "WMV-AVC"? It is, after all, a standard, something that should be ingrained in an operating system at least, and would redeem them somewhat if they truly don't have profitable intentions, or market leverage, with VC-1.
VC-1 was designed to be the codec we wanted for the PC ecosystem. Still, consumers who want to play back H.264 content in a myriad of profiles and file formats seem to have no trouble doing so on Windows.

Also, we certainly would like to have our VC-1 efforts be profitable. But that's true for everyone selling H.264 solutions as well.

How about their version of H.264 for Zune? I still say Zune's position is for "format" - an indirectly profitable strategy for MS, much more so than "selling portables"...
You overestimate how importing digital media formats themselves are to Microsoft if you think we'd engage on something as big as the Zune with THAT as the primary goal!

foxyshadis

7th August 2007, 00:14

I don't see why the two split apart instead of merging into AVC HP. I realize that back when MS went back to the drawing board to hash out VC-1, H.264 hadn't yet settled on a high profile, but once it did it incorporated most aspects of VC-1. The main things it didn't were 2-tap chroma & 4-tap luma qpel and 1-pixel inloop. By combining 8x8 dct, lowered inloop strength, encoder-side grain retention tweaks (such as deadzone in x264), and CAVLC, H.264 can become nearly identical to VC-1 - and, despite the performance claims, actually perform significantly better on existing encoders & decoders. The existing WMV9 implementation might competely blow the reference JM software out of the water, and optimized VC-1 implementations might exist someday, but compared to all of the existing commercial implementations of H.264, it remains second-best on both quality and speed.

Licensing costs seem to trump hardware encoding and decoding costs, anyway, making dual formats a very unattractive proposition. Although the standard is here to stay, it seems like you've entrenched into a position that will leave you permanently playing runner-up, outside of initial successes of pushing it for HD-DVD clients. You probably would have had even greater success building an advanced H.264 encoding system instead. But I guess you have your investments sunk and can't very well pull out now, which is understandable. It just sucks that the market will be more fragmented now.

akupenguin

7th August 2007, 02:49

The main things it didn't were 2-tap chroma
H264 and VC1 have identical chroma mc, except that VC1's mvs are rounded to qpel while H264 uses 8thpel.

PuzZLeR

8th August 2007, 23:36

Thanks for your response Ben.

It’s a shame really. I think the industry would have been very welcoming of an MS version of H.264/AVC. All current implementations of H.264, whether professional, consumer or OSS, such as Ateme, MC or x264, as good as they are today, could only benefit with something like "WMV-AVC"…

In fact, the whole industry could have benefited…

Sure they can do their own thing if they want, such as Apple does with "QT compatibility", Nero does with "Nero Digital", etc., even maybe create a special ASF container for it, whatever, but as long as they embrace an existing standard, it's all good...

Instead, Microsoft decides to create an outwardly different vector space entirely, one maybe only they could compete in probably, and henceforth segregate the talent pool, instead of using their position in O/S to ensure one combined powerhouse of referencing, and consolidated, resources.

Shame. All in the name of greed...

benwaggoner

9th August 2007, 00:13

It’s a shame really. I think the industry would have been very welcoming of an MS version of H.264/AVC. All current implementations of H.264, whether professional, consumer or OSS, such as Ateme, MC or x264, as good as they are today, could only benefit with something like "WMV-AVC"…

In fact, the whole industry could have benefited…

Sure they can do their own thing if they want, such as Apple does with "QT compatibility", Nero does with "Nero Digital", etc., even maybe create a special ASF container for it, whatever, but as long as they embrace an existing standard, it's all good...

Instead, Microsoft decides to create an outwardly different vector space entirely, one maybe only they could compete in probably, and henceforth segregate the talent pool, instead of using their position in O/S to ensure one combined powerhouse of referencing, and consolidated, resources.

Shame. All in the name of greed...
It's hardly greed (codec licensing is a rounding error at best for revenue for a compay like Microsoft).

We've had our Windows Media stategy for years, and a big installed base of players to support. Introducing a new codec implementation would force another, painful, multi-year cycle of upgrades to get everyone up to speed. At best, it'd take a year or two before we could have more customers using a new codec, meaning we'd have to split our development and test resources during that period. And H.264 in ASF is a whole new format with 0 installed base to support for authoring, hosting, and playback.

Given VC-1 and H.264 are roughly in parity right now, it seems like we'd wind up hurting our customer more than helping them but adopting a whole new codec.

Plus we promised when WM9 was released that we'd stick with those core codecs for at least five years.

Golgot13

9th August 2007, 00:31

Plus we promised when WM9 was released that we'd stick with those core codecs for at least five years.

Nice so the codec will finish soon ;) (WMV9 release 2003).

To my mind, VC1 (and WM9) is a codec transition because it can play on "old" PC
(less than 3.4Ghz or Dual Core CPU).
I know Wm9 is not only VC1, but when I studied I worked on MPEG format (MPEG4 part2).
But there were and are nice developement and base to futur use :
MPEG7 (= index and tag data) and MPEG21 ( = "open" DRM).
And it is not finish for video codec, I have some friend who work on MPEG4 SVC
(there is nothing like SVC from MS today).

Golgot13

benwaggoner

9th August 2007, 01:30

Nice so the codec will finish soon ;) (WMV9 release 2003).
"At least" :). There's plenty of room for improvements within VC-1 still.

To my mind, VC1 (and WM9) is a codec transition because it can play on "old" PC (less than 3.4Ghz or Dual Core CPU). I know Wm9 is not only VC1, but when I studied I worked on MPEG format (MPEG4 part2). But there were and are nice developement and base to futur use: MPEG7 (= index and tag data) and MPEG21 ( = "open" DRM).
And it is not finish for video codec, I have some friend who work on MPEG4 SVC (there is nothing like SVC from MS today).
Ah, scalable codecs. So entrancing, but somehow always ~3 years out from being really competitive.

I imagine we could have something great there in ~3 years as well :).

As for MPEG-7, that's pretty agnostic about format, despite the name. We could certianly get VC-1 and WMV working with it if useful. Note there's already a VC-1 in MPEG-4 spec.

PuzZLeR

9th August 2007, 02:55

"At least" :). There's plenty of room for improvements within VC-1 still.AGREED!Note there's already a VC-1 in MPEG-4 spec.MPEG-4 ASP? (Along with DivX, Xvid, ffmpeg, Nero Digital (ASP), QT6, ...).

benwaggoner

9th August 2007, 03:22

MPEG-4 ASP? (Along with DivX, Xvid, ffmpeg, Nero Digital (ASP), QT6, ...).
I mean MPEG-4 systems. So the VC-1 codec in a .mp4 file.

Of course, it wouldn't be compatible with any existing players, and it's not like any of the innovative things around the MPEG-4 file format (e.g. BIFS) ever came to fruitiion.

Golgot13

9th August 2007, 15:41

I mean MPEG-4 systems. So the VC-1 codec in a .mp4 file.

Nice :)
I will try to play VC1 on MP4 file on some STB.
But I don't know any tool which can mux VC1 on MP4
(and VC1 on other container, except one professional for TS...)

May be Kurtnoise can change YAMB to accept VC1.

Of course, it wouldn't be compatible with any existing players.

Not sure, some hardware players may play it.

Golgot13

benwaggoner

9th August 2007, 18:56

Nice :)
I will try to play VC1 on MP4 file on some STB.
But I don't know any tool which can mux VC1 on MP4
(and VC1 on other container, except one professional for TS...)

May be Kurtnoise can change YAMB to accept VC1.

Not sure, some hardware players may play it.

Let me know what you find out. The spec is only a few months old, so I'm not sure if there are shipping products using it yet. But some software that can do VC-1 and demux MPEG-4 might just work.

Golgot13

9th August 2007, 20:39

Let me know what you find out.

I try to find a way to test VC1 HD DVD stream (quality) on HD TV
(without mux a HD DVD...).
And I can test the VC1 quality display on different hardware chipset familly
(because we will have HD DVD player with other chipset than Broadcom familly)

Golgot13

bobololo

9th August 2007, 20:48

And the last H264 codec implementation challenge during "le Tour de France" in France (DVB-T broadcast, in some cities, by France Television) showed that the Harmonic encoder is the better (1920x1088 50i at 7-9Mbps !!!).

Hin Hin, you should check at this (http://www.ateme.com/press/pr_Tour_de_France_2007_07.htm) (English (http://www.ateme.com/press/pr_Tour_de_France_en_2007_07.htm)).

:)

Beside I would agree with you regarding the actual fact that H.264 offers more features than VC-1 and therefore implies theorically more efficiency. However the lack of industry support for VC-1 isn't only caused by technical reasons in my opinion. If the whole TV industry would have adopted VC-1 instead of H.264, I'm pretty sure that we could have now pretty decent implementation of VC-1 encoders.

Now comparing H.264 vs VC-1 isn't really revelant. The real point is to compare implementations. As an example I can say that some broadcast MPEG-2 encoders can outperform x264 at TV contents encoding. Does that mean that MPEG-2 is better than H.264 ? Absolutely not of course :) And I don't even mention that implementations are improving with time.

Finally all can be said is that at the present time the best implementation of standard "A" is better than the best implementation of standard "B" for the application "C".

Make you own choice for "A", "B" and "C" ;)

Golgot13

9th August 2007, 23:05

Hin Hin, you should check at this (http://www.ateme.com/press/pr_Tour_de_France_2007_07.htm) (English (http://www.ateme.com/press/pr_Tour_de_France_en_2007_07.htm)).

:)

:D, I recorded some stream at this test, I understood there were 3 differents encoders.
How I can find the stream from Kyrion ? (except with quality display, ?).

Beside I would agree with you regarding the actual fact that H.264 offers more features than VC-1 and therefore implies theorically more efficiency. However the lack of industry support for VC-1 isn't only caused by technical reasons in my opinion.

I'm not agree because at NAB2004-NAB2005, lot of company would to support VC1.
And we can see the implementation of some big one (eg TandBerg ). Between NAB2005-NAB2006,
lot of companies stop development and choose to continue with H264 standard
(TV, IPTV ISP, mobile providers, ...). I think it was when the industry tested this two codec.
I know there were some test of DVB VC1 broadcasting with Fathom card (by TPS in 2005-2006).

If the whole TV industry would have adopted VC-1 instead of H.264, I'm pretty sure that we could have now pretty decent implementation of VC-1 encoders.

Remember that some H264 DVB were afraid some TV broadcaster: eg Canalsat in France.
Industry choose H264 when they saw only a part (old H264 encoder support up MP@L4)
You work on company which know this (we see only some broadcasting test
not a true broadcasting offer; Hello at Mr Castaing, thank at him about explain of H264 market).

Now comparing H.264 vs VC-1 isn't really revelant. The real point is to compare implementations. As an example I can say that some broadcast MPEG-2 encoders can outperform x264 at TV contents encoding. Does that mean that MPEG-2 is better than H.264 ? Absolutely not of course :) And I don't even mention that implementations are improving with time.

You are right about "a implementation" of one standard A is better than another implementation of standard B
don't mean that A is better than B. But some company use this to said his standard is better.
And to my mind the "best" implementation of one standard can reveal if it is better
when it compare with the "best" implementation of another one, after some year of maturity (2-3 years)

And some option of H264 are really the best (CABAC, specific matrix of quantifizer in HP, size of block,...).

bobololo

10th August 2007, 00:05

:D, I recorded some stream at this test, I understood there were 3 differents encoders.
How I can find the stream from Kyrion ? (except with quality display, ?).

Absolutly, there were 3 encoders participating to the test as explained here (http://www.tdf.fr/tv/tvhd/le-tour-de-france-en-hd-sur-la-tnt/). Basically the setup was HD 1 = Ateme (8 mbps), and HD 2/3 = Tandberg / SA at higher bitrate. But to be honest, the contribution signal was far from perfect. The feeds from the motorcycles had a really limited bandwidth hence a big part of the artefacts you can see on HD 1/2/3 came from the contribution feed signal unfortunately. Though helicopter and arrival views were way better.

I'm not agree because at NAB2004-NAB2005, lot of company would to support VC1.
And we can see the implementation of some big one (eg TandBerg ). Between NAB2005-NAB2006,
lot of companies stop development and choose to continue with H264 standard
(TV, IPTV ISP, mobile providers, ...). I think it was when the industry tested this two codec.
I know there were some test of DVB VC1 broadcasting with Fathom card (by TPS in 2005-2006).

What is wonderful with show like NAB or IBC is that you can demonstrate anything and especially things you don't have ;) Actually by the time were VC-1 had still an opportunity to be adopted by the broadcast industry, it was mandatory for all manufacturers to insure the broadcasters that they were ready to provide VC-1 capable equipments. Even if encoder developers certainly made some VC-1 vs H.264 evaluation, I really doubt they pushed the work on VC-1 implementation very far to get a relevant idea of the standard performance against H.264. Bear in mind that it takes really long time to exploit all the subtleties of a standard. As an example, we've still a lot to do with H.264 before having the feeling that we can't improve significantly :)
Btw we hadn't developed a VC-1 encoder to compare it against our H.264 implementation ;). We moved to H.264 because it was a global "agreement" of the industry for this standard which was probably the best choice since H.264 has a higher potential than VC-1.

zachdms

10th August 2007, 00:13

I of course work for Microsoft too, and always only speak for myself.

Certainly if you confine yourself to MS-blessed codecs (WMV, WMA) it's great. MP3 is supported, but only because of the sheer volume and demand. Microsoft missed the boat on MP3's popularity explosionThat's not particularly true. Microsoft worked with FHG to get everyone an ACM-compatible implementation, and the popular-back-then (pre-LAME) "Radium" version was in fact that very Microsoft-packaged-via-the-NetShow-project FhG MP3 Pro ACM encoder. NetShow 2.0 (now known as the Windows Media project) was one of the first mainstream applications to have pretty full support for MP3, and for years (remember this is back in 1997 or earlier) it was actually recommended by numerous sites that you download the NetShow encoder simply to get the ACM/VFW FhG codec it included.

So: refer to the Wikipedia article on MP3 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mp3#Internet) for dates and "rise to popularity" of MP3. (I'd done internal searches for MP3 popularity/usage about that time, which about match those results.) MP3 wasn't really very popular at that time - it simply provided for the NetShow team a better encoding solution than MSNAudio, Voxware, and some of the other current better solutions. But dealing with third party vendors isn't particularly awesome all the time (refer to Zambelli's comments on Voxware, with the note that I loved everyone I worked with from FhG), and early WMA codecs were already showing demonstrably better quality versus then-current MP3 implementations, so -- Microsoft largely moved forward to WMA from MP3 back in 1997-98 or so. And FhG was on campus way way previous to WinAMP 1.0 -the finalization date for the codec in RTM NetShow 2 is 06/11/1997 .

So: Microsoft (via NetShow) actually helped drive MP3's popularity explosion. Since NetShow 2.0 / FHG ACM predates LAME (http://www.rjamorim.com/rrw/lame.html), and
I don't recall if WinAMP even included an encoder at that point - if they didn't, then the options for MP3 fans were likely either the Microsoft-derived MP3 codec (available via purchase or via "Radium") or l3enc.

So I don't know. I'm pretty firmly of the belief that Microsoft's foray here pretty directly laid the groundwork for popularization of MP3. :)

you are confronted with the ever-helpful dialog that consults MS's servers to download the codec, which I have never once seen actually work.Zambelli covered this already. Rather a nightmare. http://wmplugins.com is kind of the new better solution in that space, but it's still a murky dangerous area. It actually worked pretty well before AVI fragmented, but was initially scoped as solely being for Windows Media (nee NetShow) codecs anyways.

foxyshadis

10th August 2007, 05:47

Winamp didn't package an encoder for years, but its first 3rd party plugin was an l3enc wrapper, like most software (aside from the payware Xing) until mpegEnc, a recompile of the ISO reference code. Its descendants BladeEnc and early Lame, as well as Xing, had quite horrible quality compared to FhG, so it's a good thing Microsoft had the foresight to give us that. Particularly since hardly anything else supplied the codec. At least until Radium got to it. Likely FhG would have had the higher quality of lame if they hadn't taken research toward mp3pro/aac+, but they went in a direction better for their industry as a whole. :p

Golgot13

10th August 2007, 08:19

Even if encoder developers certainly made some VC-1 vs H.264 evaluation, I really doubt they pushed the work on VC-1 implementation very far to get a relevant idea of the standard performance against H.264. Bear in mind that it takes really long time to exploit all the subtleties of a standard. As an example, we've still a lot to do with H.264 before having the feeling that we can't improve significantly :)
Btw we hadn't developed a VC-1 encoder to compare it against our H.264 implementation ;). We moved to H.264 because it was a global "agreement" of the industry for this standard which was probably the best choice since H.264 has a higher potential than VC-1.

:eek::eek:
We will see, if it true we will have more VC1 broadcast system next year because MS have lot of developper
to show the capability of VC1. And the industry will change of way to develop more VC1 encoder.
Sure at next IBC there will be nothing, but in 2008 at NAB or IBC there will be,may be, something ?
(sure I will ask Ben and MS team about it on NAB :D).

Sharktooth

10th August 2007, 12:53

Dark Shikari

10th August 2007, 13:18

I cant understand all this. VC-1 is good but it's late. I mean h.264 is clearly a better choice. MS just missed the train when they had the opportunity to have a better codec than DXN. Now they still claim VC-1 is comparable to h.264 and we all know it isnt true. Even if it was true why should anyone use VC-1 when there are already strong h.264 implementations (encoders, hardware, etc.)?
They're both part of the BD and HDDVD specs too... so, I cant undestand the whole VC-1 thing...
Its simple: Microsoft always needs to get their dirty hands in anything. Their method:

1. Create new standard or extend existing standard. The new Microsoft standard need not be any better. It might be, but it usually isn't.

2. Promote new standard at the expense of the more popular, possibly better one.

3. ???

4. Profit!

microchip8

10th August 2007, 13:26

1. Create new "standard" or extend existing standard. The new Microsoft standard need not be any better. It might be, but it usually isn't.

there, corrected that one for you ;)

Golgot13

10th August 2007, 13:35

I cant understand all this. VC-1 is good but it's late. I mean h.264 is clearly a better choice. MS just missed the train when they had the opportunity to have a better codec than DXN. Now they still claim VC-1 is comparable to h.264 and we all know it isnt true. Even if it was true why should anyone use VC-1 when there are already strong h.264 implementations (encoders, hardware, etc.)?
They're both part of the BD and HDDVD specs too... so, I cant undestand the whole VC-1 thing...

I agree with you, H264 is the better choice (after lot of my "professional" tests...).

microchip8

10th August 2007, 13:49

3. ???

3. kill competition

second correction :D

Golgot13

10th August 2007, 13:54

@ Dark Shikari

This thread is to discuss about the video quality between H264 and VC1.
I prefer to see some metric result and to have some comment of it that
to have some speculation about the MS politic on market.

MS, now, develop some new technology and it is good to have more competitor
to have the best standard and best tool to use it.

Some people can think that I don't like MS: it is not true, I don't like to listen:
"VC1 is the better than H264" or "VC1 is the best codec for High Definition video".
In 2003-2004, MS introduce the WMVHD on market and I was surprice by the video quality
which can play on lot of PC (don't need to buy a Cray calculator to play it). :p

Today, I only want that MS show us that VC1 is better than H264.
Because the first and last test of Sagitaire show that H264 win.

Dark Shikari

10th August 2007, 14:02

Today, I only want that MS show us that VC1 is better than H264.
Because the first and last test of Sagitaire show that H264 win.
Microsoft can't. Because by definition, VC-1 is inferior to H.264.

Simply looking at the specs of each shows that VC-1 offers inferior compression, independent of any implementations.

That VC-1 is inferior to H.264 on raw compression capability is not disputed by anyone reputable, as far as I know.

Golgot13

10th August 2007, 14:20

Simply looking at the specs of each shows that VC-1 offers inferior compression, independent of any implementations.

I agree.

That VC-1 is inferior to H.264 on raw compression capability is not disputed by anyone reputable, as far as I know.

Be carefull see the post of "Bobololo" (I like this name, it is same that gologolo...dans la case).
If you compare last development MPEG2 encoder at the first MPEG2 encoder (at the end of
1990's or beginning of 2000's), you will understand that it is "possible" to have a "nice" result
in VC1 than in H264.

The challenge is to compare "today" (after post of bolobolo) the quality of VC1 and H264
for HD DVD and BD use (and more).

To my mind, I sure H264 is better in all configuration of video than VC1.
But if MS can prouve that VC1 is better, I could say that I'm mistaken.

Sharktooth

10th August 2007, 14:24

Golgot13

10th August 2007, 15:25

If we compare the standards, h.264 is superior.

You know that I agree with this point. I want to see the result of encoded file
from MS to say H264, x264 implementation, need to be optimized. Remember
that MS sometime (when they buy some company or not ;) ) do good implementation.

But when I see that MS need more than one week to make a encoding,
"I sure the challenge is finished" : H264 is the best codec, and VC1 (from PEP) is little better
than MPEG2 from best encoder.

Only wait a file reponse of MS (or a challenge with another source to show same result).

CruNcher

10th August 2007, 23:07

As bobololo said, it's a matter of implementations.
If we compare the standards, h.264 is superior.
If we compare implementations, things could change depending on the encoders used. Exploiting the potentials of a standard isnt an easy task and VC-1 is loosing even more ground since it's newer than h.264 and it has actually less support.

Ehh nothing is proven about what Microsoft Claims are and those are superior Visual Quality (HVS) over H.264 for Real Film Source with a much better Grain Preservation and less Energy need (Decoding) then H.264 with FreXt.
Nothing of this has been Proven here on the side of H.264 (x.264) just that SSIM and PSNR are better nothing more.
FreXt came because Hollywood didn't liked the Artificial look of the Codec (in their StEM HD-DVD,Blu-Ray tests) and later Thomson came up with FGT/FGM so the question is did FreXt also failed in the Studios Visual tests against VC-1 and the compensation for that was to create another way to preserve Grain and so FGM/FGT was born ? the history and development let it look like this in my eyes.
For me X.264 doesn't seem to be optimized HVS wise but more on Metrics SSIM/PSNR as aku works alot with those i remember when i saw a visual glitch in x.264 in 2006 and later Alex implemented Deadzones @ this time Atemes implementation didn't had those flickering blocks problem so this makes me think about if X.264 is really (mature enough) the right implementation to test Visual Quality agains't VC-1 also aku said it was never his intention to create a high quality source encoder just one that's nicely for backup purposes.
The Scene i tested back @ that time was sky with moving noise (that coused block flickering even with the lossless mode) so deadzones fixed that when setting it low enough (for high bitrates) VC-1 uses an adaptive deadzone approach, wouldn't it be possible to use it also for X.264 instead of the manual deadzone setting i mean we could scale it with the bitrate we just had todo some Visual tests and find out how it scales best (to preserve as much detail noise/grain as possible) i think ?.

foxyshadis

11th August 2007, 00:11

@ Dark Shikari

This thread is to discuss about the video quality between H264 and VC1.
I prefer to see some metric result and to have some comment of it that
to have some speculation about the MS politic on market.

Let's just have this be the rant thread, since obviously there's a deep-seated need for one, and hopefully keep the challenge threads cleaner for it.

1. Create new standard or extend existing standard. The new Microsoft standard need not be any better. It might be, but it usually isn't.

I don't know. WMA was irrefutably better than MP3 below 192, though just as good at half the bitrate was quite an... enthusiastic claim to make. It was better than realaudio and all of the other competing formats, Vorbis was years from coming into its own, and mp3pro had serious licensing issues preventing widespread adoption until it became HE-AAC. And they actually did get quite a bit of support for the format, even if PlaysForSure has just been a perpetual disaster.

So besides WMV (a small evolution of mpeg-4 asp, rather than a revolution) and WMV3 (a tangent off mpeg-4 avc) are there any formats they try to muscle onto us when the existing formats were good enough for everyone?

(Active Directory and PKI don't count here, but even so most server components follow standards - to some degree - or have been around before there were standards in the domain.)

Dark Shikari

11th August 2007, 00:36

Let's just have this be the rant thread, since obviously there's a deep-seated need for one, and hopefully keep the challenge threads cleaner for it.

I don't know. WMA was irrefutably better than MP3 below 192, though just as good at half the bitrate was quite an... enthusiastic claim to make. It was better than realaudio and all of the other competing formats, Vorbis was years from coming into its own, and mp3pro had serious licensing issues preventing widespread adoption until it became HE-AAC. And they actually did get quite a bit of support for the format, even if PlaysForSure has just been a perpetual disaster.

So besides WMV (a small evolution of mpeg-4 asp, rather than a revolution) and WMV3 (a tangent off mpeg-4 avc) are there any formats they try to muscle onto us when the existing formats were good enough for everyone?

(Active Directory and PKI don't count here, but even so most server components follow standards - to some degree - or have been around before there were standards in the domain.)
OpenXML (which is not really open at all)
Internet Explorer's proprietary HTML extensions and incompatibilities
ActiveX
and basically any other Microsoft format or API that you can think of was originally an attempt to create a new standard when one wasn't needed.

Microsoft's attitude towards competing formats is to rip them off and/or "improve" them, copyright/patent the improvements, and then force the old version out of use.

Read up on "Embrace, extend, and extinguish" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace%2C_extend_and_extinguish):

Embrace, extend and extinguish, also known as "Embrace, extend, and exterminate," is a phrase that the U.S. Department of Justice alleged was used internally by Microsoft to describe their strategy for entering product categories involving widely used standards, extending those standards with proprietary capabilities, and then using those differences to disadvantage its competitors.

Golgot13

11th August 2007, 11:00

@Dark Shikari

You're right for some informations that some (I hope lot of) people know.
But this thread is to compare HD DVD and BD codec. We want to know
(or we want to show) which codec is the better "today" (I sure tomorrow too).

I listen that some journalists read this forum (I know that lot of HD authorers and compressionists
read this forum ;) ), I hope they will write the true about video codec...

I hope to see HD DVD in H264 in title market. But the video studio
(like Warner, Universal or Studio Canal) must to open eyes, brain....

Golgot13

CruNcher

11th August 2007, 12:12

@Golgot13
How often again Hollywood Studios rated on Visual Quality and the H.264 implementation they chose @ the time of their STEm tests wasn't tweaked for that (and sadly to say X.264 isn't tweaked for it either really yet) and so the first impression for them was VC-1 does better fit their Visual needs (it was allready tweaked for the HD-DVD purpose and preserving Film Grain by Microsoft Engineers), now we have to prof that a H.264 encoder can be tweaked for optimum Grain Preservation and not SSIM/PSNR results are important Visual (Blind tests) are more. S
ince i did XviD PSNR Lab and all the Visual tests with it (long time ago) i lost my interest in Metrics they aren't efficient enough in such fine Scenarios as HVS tweaking they can give you a clue about the overal quality and are nice to find bugs sure (Rate Controll) but they never gona replace blind tests and also SSIM is far from being perfect on the Motion Aspect your SSIM results are nice but they don't say much in numbers about the look and feel of the final encode (actually it does currently SSIM prefers the blurry look over the sharp detailed one you can clearly see this with inloop deblocking it gets more artificial the higher an SSIM likes it ;) ), and with this Source (as good as i find that it's openly available) we can't proof much. I would even go so far and say a Grainy Blu-Ray Mpeg-2 Source would be better for this then this Animation Source (and i also have allready 1 Source in target but i still need to test some stuff) :P