mpeg/video encoding reading recommendations

[canadian_fbi]

does anyone have any recommendations for some good reading in the area of video encoding, most specifically mpeg? i suppose i'm looking for a good intermediate level book or online document... something above the level of explaining the difference between i-frames and p-frames, but below the level of a highly technical description of the mpeg-4 spec or something. trbarry mentioned a book called "video compression demystified", which made me think of this topic, but i'd like to hear any and all material that people found useful on the subject.

[dragoman]

Hi,

Quite a bit of useful knowledge is right here on doom9's site. I've learned more reading the guides and doing things than I would have by reading a book or a pdf about video encoding.

Just search for stuff you want to know more about, then post your findings in the forum. I for one love reading and learning about new things....(I try to post stuff once in a while like this).

dragoman

[canadian_fbi]

i have learned a great deal from this site and these forums obviously, and that's what got me interested. but i guess i'm looking for something a bit more formal and laid out than information scattered about the forums. for instance, when someone talks about motion vectors in xvid... well, i have a general idea of the concept behind them just by their name and the conversation regarding them, but without getting too specific, i'd like to know more about how they work as well as some of the other internals of mpeg-4 and whatnot. i suppose this is where i get a bit contradictory by saying i don't want something overly technical. i'm sure it's hard to strike a good balance.

[-h]

I've picked up everything I know from reading forums such as this, then looking at documents like the mpeg4 spec or just source code itself. I don't know of any good resources on the net, but then I haven't really looked.

If you'd like to know more about some technical nuance, just post the question in the thread that reminded you of it and I'll try to cook up some off-track answer :)

-h

[ChristianHJW]

http://www.m4if.org/
http://www.mpeg.org/MPEG/
http://mpeg.telecomitalialab.com/standards/mpeg-4/mpeg-4.htm

Sorry, i hope you find what you are looking for. I remember i have seen a great link from -h here and in the videocoding.de forums pointing to the site of a guy explaining the basics of video compression, but i fear i didnt save the link.

[Ookami]

On my programmers corner you'll find many links to sites about video and similar...

http://ookami.iwebland.com

I remember that at http://www.ligos.com there were some book recommandations. Don't know if it's still there...

I think that Christian means this site (also listed in the programmers corner):


http://www.cs.cf.ac.uk/Dave/Multimedia/node200.html

At http://www.xvid.org you'll find many more links and materials to read (more than you'll ever want to know ;) ) .

Now you should have enough to read for the next few years :D .

Cheers,

Mijo.

[trbarry]

For some reason I seem to be buying unrelated "Demystified" books, all recommended:

DVD Demystified
Video Demystified
Video Compression Demystified

But I think there are various versions and revisions of these so do a web search first.

Jim Taylor, the author of DVD Demystified, also maintains a very good DVD Faq (http://dvddemystified.com/dvdfaq.html).

- Tom

[canadian_fbi]

that should be a nice start. :) thanks a bunch guys.