On2 brags about their encoder vs x264..

[Sagittaire]

Sagittaire, I think it's you who's trolling here and this is not the first time you do so.

Seriousely ... you certainenly don't read some thread from Dark Shikari here ... speak about that with modo if you want ... lol



Looking at the above pictures, I prefer the H.264 one instead of the smeared, almost out of focus blurred VP8 one. When it comes to blocking + detail retention and blurring + no blocking, I'll virtually always pick the former one unless it is really extreme in blocking.

Seriousely ... ???
Poll in progress ... I want see if my eyes are good or not!



which x264 never does that with sound settings, no matter your claims. The eye is very sensitive to detail and prefers it so when you show someone a blurred pic or video and one that has all the details there but blocks not too strongly, it'll virtually always prefer the latter one. Ringing? I don't mind a bit of ringing but since I've never experienced in normal x264 encodes any ringing so far (at least if it was there, I couldn't notice it), the point your trying to make here is non-existent and most of the things you say border on trolling and bogus claims.

Well x264 always make massive blocking and ringing at high level quantisation like all other codec in the area I think ... no ... ???

[ajp_anton]

I also prefer the h264 image. Note that I do not think it looks good in any way. I just think it looks "less bad" than the VP8 one.

[microchip8]

Seriousely ... you certainenly don't read some thread from Dark Shikari here ... speak about that with modo if you want ... lol

Yes, seriously. I've read many threads by Dark and in not one of them I've seen him claim things which he can't back up





Seriousely ... ???
Poll in progress ... I want see if my eyes are good or not!

Yes seriously. The blurred one is so bad to my eyes that I wouldn't stand watching it for a minute. The guy's head has almost merged with the head of the woman behind him, which if it was a bit more blurred, it'll give the impression as if he surgically did something to his head or is carrying his baby twin on the back of his head. And since there's no detail that separates them apart, I wouldn't tell which one it is. His twin or the surgery he had :p





Well x264 always make massive blocking and ringing at high level quantisation like all other codec in the area I think ... no ... ???

All block and ring at high quantization levels but do you really always encode normal DVDs or Blurays at such high levels? No, unless you're an insane person who for some reason loves such things. CRF 20 has yet to produce here any noticeable and disturbing blocking or ringing, And that's what I use to encode. Not some absurdly high CRF value with high quants

[Sagittaire]

Yes, seriously. I've read many threads by Dark and in not one of them I've seen him claim things which he can't back up

Well you don't read the good thread ...


Yes seriously. The blurred one is so bad to my eyes that I wouldn't stand watching it for a minute. The guy's head has almost merged with the head of the woman behind him, which if it was a bit more blurred, it'll give the impression as if he surgically did something to his head or is carrying his baby twin on the back of his head. And since there's no detail that separates them apart, I wouldn't tell which one it is. His twin or the surgery he had :p

You have the complete demo video here:
http://www.on2.com/index.php?599

You prefer always the block+ring scenario vs blur scenario ... ???
No seriousely ... come on?


All block and ring at high quantization levels but do you really always encode normal DVDs or Blurays at such high levels? No, unless you're an insane person who for some reason loves such things. CRF 20 has yet to produce here any noticeable and disturbing blocking or ringing, And that's what I use to encode. Not some absurdly high CRF value with high quant

There are not only DVD and Bluray ripp scenario in the encoding area. This demo is clearly a low bitrate streaming scenario (for Youtube, Dailymotion for example).

[Chengbin]

This thread will get closed down if we don't stop attacking.

Sagittaire, you are entitled to your own opinion, but you have no right to force your view to someone.

Dark Shikari may "talk" as if he is a troll, but as froggy1 said, I've never seen him claim things that he can't back up.

This blur vs block argument is really based on personal perference. One thing people didn't mention is DISTANCE. When I'm reading this thread, I prefer the VP8 image, but when I sit back a meter or 2, I prefer the H.264 (I can't see blocking, but only detail)

Try to be nice to each other :)

[Atak_Snajpera]

Here is perfect example where so called blocking is alot better vs bluring!
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=1314161#post1314161
Would you still prefer blured grass?

[microchip8]

Well you don't read the good thread ...

Trust me, I read the "good threads" and I'm sure people will agree that you're the one pushing your own view and are incapable of accepting others. The h264 one just looks better to me... period. If you call me biased or something, then we all are biased including you.




You have the complete demo video here:
http://www.on2.com/index.php?599

You prefer always the block+ring scenario vs blur scenario ... ???
No seriousely ... come on?

Come on what? Because the h264 looks better *to me* you can't accept that? I can say the same thing... Come on you preferring the blurred one...

I just don't like such an amount of blur. It's just too much, IMO




There are not only DVD and Bluray ripp scenario in the encoding area. This demo is clearly a low bitrate streaming scenario (for Youtube, Dailymotion for example).

Yeah I know that, but even here x264 can stand its man and is definitely better at low bitrates/high quants than anything I've seen so far from On2. Again, this is how I prefer things (more ringing/blocking but with detail preservation than no ringing/blocking but with massive blurring)

[Chengbin]

Here is perfect example where so called blocking is alot better vs bluring!
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=1314161#post1314161
Would you still prefer blured grass?

The problem with that comparison is there is no blocks! It is a comparison of blur vs detail, which, of course we all like the more detailed encode.

[Atak_Snajpera]

The problem with that comparison is there is no blocks! It is a comparison of blur vs detail, which, of course we all like the more detailed encode.
Blocks are there but well hidden in grass :) You must watch whole sample.

[CruNcher]

Er, are you trying to prove my point or what?

Fine detail, like the woman's sunglasses and collar, are completely gone in the VP8 version. And the human eye is better able to perform temporal interpolation through artifacts than it is through blur (the latter is actually impossible), so in motion the win by x264 will be even larger.

And this is despite the fact that On2 was able to cheat in that test all they wanted (pick bad settings for x264, pick best possible test clip for VP8, cherry-pick the best possible frame, etc).

Arguing with you is hopeless; no matter what the facts say, you will instantly take a contrary opinion solely because you are paid to hate x264 and promote inferior competitors. There is no point in taking this further.

Sure the detail preservation is much better but in motion x264 fails here, because of the extreme "i-frame pulsing" that is non existent in the unified blurred VP8 example, because their is no extreme detail change @ all.
And i guess that was On2's Demo Point here (restricted low bitrate situations).Though as i said previously x264 was enhanced since that time and the boarder @ which this happens is higher now (Dark also fixed some Chroma bug and others).

So this comparison is really outdated for both x264 and On2 and can't be taken visually seriously anymore.

And yes im also one of those who prefers sharpness over blurring since the dawn of time, but i also prefer in special situations stability over detail preservation and that i was reading out of this Demo from On2 so in this very special case i would agree that On2 did a better job, but as Dark Shikari said it was a very special case that should show the weakness of x264 and some old bugs played into the hands of On2 here too.
Of course the other issue is AQ seems to backfire in such situations here as it compensates the inloop deblocking strength and becomes especially visually problematic in motion (ask the Joost Engineers they know what i mean) and that way "i-frame pulsing" "keyframe strobing" "keyframe pumping" call it however you want is going to show up heavily, personally i know this problem since a while and i can definitely say this only happens if you try to go insanely low bitrate for the given resolution as some of the psy enhancing stuff starts to backfire and also the default settings brake apart.

But most of the normal x264 users wont ever reach that especially with the default settings it's impossible (unrestricted).

[nakTT]

Blocks are there but well hidden in grass :) You must watch whole sample.
Agree, you must watch the clip before passing judgement.

[IgorC]

It's not directly blocking/blur comparison but still relevant to it. Dark Shikari has already performed the test for different values of psy at low bitrates. http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=146507

Final results (WARNING! It's low bitrate. At higher bitrates higher values of PSY are more preferble)
1. 40% of people prefered PSY 0.
2. 34% - PSY 0.2
3. 15% - PSY 0.4
4. 11% - PSY 1.0

As everybody can see there is no absolute best. Personally I think that PSY 0.1 will be more optimal (higher percentage of people's preferement) for those conditios of test.

Gentelmen, let's be more logical. That VP8 and H.264 screen has nothing to do with _particular_ deblocking or bluring filters at all. And there is no even original source image. Nothing to talk about.

[Dark Shikari]

It's not directly blocking/blur comparison but still relevant to it. Dark Shikari has already performed the test for different values of psy at low bitrates. http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=146507

Final results (WARNING! It's low bitrate. At higher bitrates higher values of PSY are more preferble)
1. 40% of people prefered PSY 0.
2. 34% - PSY 0.2
3. 15% - PSY 0.4
4. 11% - PSY 1.0That test was with QNS, which utterly changes the results. They're not at all comparable to what you would get with normal x264. I completely agree that QNS + high psy screwed things up hardcore ;)

[Biggiesized]

Can I push here? Both have tradeoffs when it comes to artifacts. What I'd like to see is an "in-between" encode. This static shot isn't a compelling case for either camp, I'm sorry.

[Revgen]

Whether On2 or X264 is better is irrelevant when it comes to the sample clip.

I can just insert blur().blur().blur() in my avisynth script and feed it to x264 if I want a result like On2 gives. Which I don't.

Like DS said, blurring is a lazy way to compress. It's easier to do than maintaining detail.

[Ajax_Undone]

Agreed!!!

+1 for Schrodinger's Cat ;-)

[bvc2068]

Just to add another users opinion on "blurring vs. blocking": I cannot see the relevance of comparisons where either effect is as clearly visible as in the two On2 sample pictures posted above.

When I compare encoded material with the original (in motion, not as still frames, of course), and there's either a clearly visible blurring or a clearly visible blocking/ringing, then the only answer for me is to increase the bitrate.

What I consider a well-working encoder is one where I don't have to increase the bitrate to achieve visual encoding transparency in just a few scenes while the rest of the material looked fine already with a much lower bitrate. x264 does a very good job on this, the only scenes where I still see some room for improvements are very dark ones where sometimes color gradients around lights become visible at (average, 2-pass) bitrates higher than those where I could not distinguish the rest of the material from the original.

I wonder whether "youtube" has altered the perception of the younger generation such that they "expect" to see encoding artefacts, that would explain the ridiculously low bitrates used with some of todays digital media. Even what e.g. youtube calls "HD" is so much below the quality that I am willing to watch that I really suspect people must have forgotten what material without encoding artefacts looks like.

Bottom line: In my opinion the criterion for encoder comparisons should be "bitrate at which visual transparency is achieved for >50% of the people". Unlike other values, this one is even easy to measure: Just don't tell the test watchers whether they are seeing encoded or original material, let them guess for a number of scenes which ones where compressed, and increase the "visually transparent" counter for the tester if his guesses did no significantly exceed random choice probability.

[Revgen]

I wonder whether "youtube" has altered the perception of the younger generation such that they "expect" to see encoding artefacts

The "younger generation" watch Blu-Rays and DVD's too. They know the difference between youtube and the higher bitrate formats.

They also know that youtube is free and DVD's at the local electronics store are not.

[bvc2068]

They also know that youtube is free and DVD's at the local electronics store are not.Well, following that logic they would also happily feed from garbage cans and dress in rags, because those are free sources for food and clothing. But especially with non-essential goods like entertainment there usually is another choice: Instead of lowering the price by lowering the quality, you can also lower the quantity (amount of video footage that you offer or consume) and keep the quality constant.

And by the way, for music compression formats it has always been a widely accepted goal to keep the compression losses below what most people are able to perceive.

I wonder why this should be different with video compression, in a time where storage space, bandwidths and computing power are quickly getting cheaper.

[Revgen]

^No. Eating out of garbage cans and watching youtube have nothing in common. You're trying too hard with that one.

Free is free. So far youtube and youtube clones are the best quality available for free. For awhile DIVX had a site called Stage 6 that was way superior, but they shut it down. Until another company offers streaming video at superior quality like Stage 6 did for awhile, youtube is here to stay.

[Dark Shikari]

Free is free. So far youtube and youtube clones are the best quality available for free. For awhile DIVX had a site called Stage 6 that was way superior, but they shut it down. Until another company offers streaming video at superior quality like Stage 6 did for awhile, youtube is here to stay.There are thousands of Youtube clones, many of which have superior quality.

[Comatose]

From this i can deduce that their potetial customers are at least sort of gullible, since they fall for this kind of misleading marketing.
Like most authoring studios?

Anyway, x264 wins that comparison simply because their motto is "big videos, small files", but blurred that much it might as well be low res...

And DS... you're always so aggressive, even if the other person is apologetic (not as in this case)... reading your posts is kinda eek.

[MisterH]

I wonder whether "youtube" has altered the perception of the younger generation such that they "expect" to see encoding artefacts, that would explain the ridiculously low bitrates used with some of todays digital media. Even what e.g. youtube calls "HD" is so much below the quality that I am willing to watch that I really suspect people must have forgotten what material without encoding artefacts looks like.

Although the US is basically the center of the internet and generates much of it's content, many international consumers of such content don't have a wondrous fiber connection straight to the home, some countries even have download caps.

As you've said, you value compression.
I doubt just throwing more bitrate at everything and calling it a day is going to motivate many people to improve compression technology. The more demand there is for providing high quality at lower bitrates, the better. (Video conferencing started all this, right?)

Besides that, unless google plastered ads everywhere, the bandwidth cost of youtube providing proper HD would be unsustainable. There are plenty of clones out there, but I doubt they have millions of people watching and uploading videos everyday.

[Sagittaire]

And DS... you're always so aggressive, even if the other person is apologetic (not as in this case)... reading your posts is kinda eek.

It's true ... :devil:

[Atak_Snajpera]

Youtube's HD quality is not that bad
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUxz11PsCnM&

[Dark Shikari]

Youtube's HD quality is not that bad
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUxz11PsCnM&That's because they use x264 :p

[Chengbin]

Youtube's HD quality is not that bad
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUxz11PsCnM&

Wow, that's very good quality @ 2mbps.

I never knew YouTube used x264!

[JEEB]

Just on the topic of Youtube 'clones' that convey better quality and that have at least some number of users:

Nicovideo (http://www.nicovideo.jp/)
Zoome (http://www.zoome.jp)

Both services take user-encoded files as well as let you upload videos and have them encoded on the server-side. Nicovideo goes up to 600/1000kbps and has certainly millions of users. Maximum resolution is around 800x600 or so, bigger resolutions were banned because of Flash's well-known "speediness" with such.

Nicovideo restricts viewing to people having an account and to certain sites that have been given rights to use the external player (even with the account restrictions nicovideo has been quite popular - mostly in Japan, but also abroad - mainly because of the amount of original content etc. spawning from the site).

Zoome, on the other hand, is smaller than nicovideo, but lets you have up to 1500kbps videos that are under 720p and up to 3000kbps videos for 720p or further (file limit is 200MB or so). Their recent partnership with Yahoo! Japan tells me they have gotten the interest of some companies, and, although they surely have less users than nicovideo, they still are not the smallest fish in the pond. Mostly known as the place where the higher quality versions of videos get put, both abroad as well as in the video-watching Japanese communities.

Zoome has no restrictions on viewing as per accounts go, but they have now started enforcing a rule of using a bittorrent framework to deliver the high-def content.

Of course, worldwide usage of these sites is smaller than Youtube's, but Nicovideo was actually fighting with Youtube for the title of the most used flash-using video site in Japan back in 2008 (interwebs should find anyone interested the needed figures).

There you have it, based on what kind of things you want to see you have the option to watch something or upload something with much better quality than Youtube allows you to. It's just that those services are not always known in your neighborhood.

And on the topic of what started this thread, I guess On2's decision is just to think that a more "stable" picture is better than having details "stand out" - although that just means you're having less details and more blur(). No matter how hard to believe, I also actually prefer the x264 picture in that certain set of pictures provided by them.

This was my bit of tl;dr.

[Atak_Snajpera]

That's because they use x264
I'm not surprised.I knew that it looks way too good :) Only x264 can preserve details and grain at such low rates (<2 Mbps) . What settings did they use. Default medium?

Is this also a x264
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQ7R_buZPSo

[Astrophizz]

Youtube starting using x264 for all encoding (even SD) this year I believe, so yes that's x264. I think they use an old revision though - older than presets.

[akupenguin]

Is this also a x264
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQ7R_buZPSo
Yes, but for some reason they patched it to increment POC by 1 instead of 2 (and no, there wasn't ever an old version of x264 that did that.)

[creamyhorror]

Youtube starting using x264 for all encoding (even SD) this year I believe, so yes that's x264. I think they use an old revision though - older than presets.
I've been wondering what revision of x264 theirs is based on and what encoding settings they use. Anyone know? (You'd probably need Streameye and a lot of experience to tell, I'm guessing...)