RealVideo 9 Information Thread Discussion

[atracus]

@karl,

my 2 cents for thanking you for your tenacity and for the politness of your above-enclosed remark in this forum.

My personal standpoint is that RV9 is by far the best format for movies' backup presently available on the net, both in terms of envisable lifespan for the future and of perceivable video'n'sound quality.

I'm glad to keep on reading you here, please take into account that your effort is precious and valuable for some of us - for me, at least ;)

sincerely,

[atx]

[midiguy]

from my experience, RV9 does too much pre-processing and can often remove many details in your movie. This may be ideal for lower bitrate encodes but for stuff with higher bitrates it may not be the best. but I guess if you are encoding something like, say, A Simpsons episode, yes, RV9 probably would be very good for something like that. Unless there is a way to disable its pre-processing?

[karl_lillevold]

atracus, thanks for your feedback!

midiguy:
Originally posted by midiguy
from my experience, RV9 does too much pre-processing and can often remove many details in your movie. This may be ideal for lower bitrate encodes but for stuff with higher bitrates it may not be the best. but I guess if you are encoding something like, say, A Simpsons episode, yes, RV9 probably would be very good for something like that. Unless there is a way to disable its pre-processing?
Alas, like I posted in another thread, there is no pre-processing in RV9 unless you choose the Low or High noise filters. As opposed to MPEG-4 based methods, RV9 has no ringing and mosquito noise - that's sometimes perceived as lack of detail. Still, I am very interested in the settings you used when you observed this, source material, encoder version, and how you play back the resulting file (OS, player, video card), LCD, TV out?. Maybe there's a problem with one or more of these that we need to fix. Certain older video cards (Matrox G200 in particular) does not know how to interpolate with high quality.

In fact, let me ask everybody for feedback on how to reproduce RV9 lack of detail and perceived softness for higher bitrates.

It's just not something I see myself and I have plenty of high bitrate demos that look awesome with every single detail visible. I usually play back on a computer CRT at 1400x1050 with an ATI or nVidia card, or a 15" Eizo LCD, no sharpening, or color adjustments in RealOne.

For encoding, I rarely use any pre-filters, unless the source is grainy, and I use VBR 2-pass with a max bitrate set at about 2.1 times the average bitrate, and a 25 second buffer. This prevents too many bits from being spent in the very high action scenes, where you can't see all the details anyway, and lets you spend more bits in slow scenes, where you need them more.

So please provide details, so I can investigate. Then again, I have a preference for no ringing around edges, so that may be part of it, but based on some reports, I think there must be more to it.

[^^-+I4004+-^^]

>from my experience, RV9 does too much pre-processing and can often remove many details in your movie.


i too disagree there:rv9 has the best overall quality on
lower bitrate ( i used rv9 on cca 450kbit and get some awesome
results ! )

as i'm a guy that like my videos sharp i can tell ya that rv9 at
such bitrates is THE BEST i've seen so far!
even subtitles and station logo's look mighty sharp
rumours that xvid will give sharper image are false if you ask me!
also xvid (same as divx) don't have ANY place in such lo-bitrate
environment!

it's PLAIN FUNNY(!) when i read marcfd's "xvid
is the best codec from 250kbit upwards....."
xvid(same as divx) looks like SH*T on that bitrate and rm9 is much better there.....
he obviously didn't tried rm9

BUT,enough of praise of rv9,i have playback
problem:on monitor everything is OK,but on tv-out
i get framedrops (jerky playback)
(cel600+tnt2card&bt869 tv-out chip)

so i was wondering,karl,if this issue can be adressed?

even on lores it's poor performance on tv-out...
( i'm using tv-tool as a tv-out software, and all other .avi stuff
works nice..even much higher res' )

cheers

Ivo

[polle]

strange those playback problems with RV9, I work also with Tv-tool and nvidia tnt2 32mb (on XP with athlon 600Mhz and 512 Mb of RAM).
Also movies with higher bitrate in RV9 play well.

[atracus]

RV9 makes good movies, too, not just anime.

I encoded LotR1 on 3 CD's, audio was atrac@176K Surround, video bitrate was .... just use your math to get the number, let's say in the range of 1500-1600 Kbps, what I call "high bitrate".

Well, quality was awesome (no jerky noise / ringing / shadow effects on pans, and all the nicies we've got used to see with MPEG4 derivatives, including XviD, Qt/Sorenson3Pro, DivX, WMV9), and audio was absolutely flawless as well.

I played it all for just 2 times, once on my monitor and the second time on TV-out; no pb at all on my "old" ATI-AIW Radeon (800x600 TV-out). For those interested, CPU is Amd 1GHz on VIA Chipset - I should get it changed soon (3GHz's call for action!).

If you are still doubtful / skeptical, just do your personal tests and compare; there's always something yet to be discovered, and I'm pretty sure there are hidden pro's and con's still to be explored and pointed out.


have fun

[atx]

[Ramirez]

Originally posted by ^^-+I4004+-^^
>

BUT,enough of praise of rv9,i have playback
problem:on monitor everything is OK,but on tv-out
i get framedrops (jerky playback)
(cel600+tnt2card&bt869 tv-out chip)

so i was wondering,karl,if this issue can be adressed?


Its sounds like you need ReClock (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=39887&highlight=reclock)

[karl_lillevold]

Originally posted by ^^-+I4004+-^^
as i'm a guy that like my videos sharp i can tell ya that rv9 at
such bitrates is THE BEST i've seen so far!

problem:on monitor everything is OK,but on tv-out
i get framedrops (jerky playback)
(cel600+tnt2card&bt869 tv-out chip)
so i was wondering,karl,if this issue can be adressed?

Thanks for your RV9 feedback! I am sorry, but I don't know what this TV out problem could be. It sounds like the video card goes out of overlay mode for TV out. Then you would experience the problem you mention. I am sure you have the latest nVidia drivers installed. I will ask our renderer guy, but can not promise an answer.

[midiguy]

One time, I encoded the first episode of cowboy bebop. One of the scenes, when a character uses the eye drops, the screen turns red, and there is a noise effect (there is suppose to be this noise effect, it is a special effect). But qwhen I play back that scene, the noise looks really smooth and blurry and soft and overall pretty ugly. now, if you say there is no pre-processing with RV9, then it must be realone player's post-processing detecting this special effect as video noise and blurring it to hell. I can't show a sample of what I Am talking aboutr though (no longer have the source or the copy). but is there a way to disable real player's post-processing? or atleast control its post-processing level? (much like you can with mpeg-4 directshow decodecs such as ffdshow or DivX). That would be a really good feature, and that may be responsible for the perceived softness and lack of detail that people are getting.

sorry about my spelling/grammar, I'm tired :o


*edit* forgot to mention, Cowboy Bebop is an anime that uses a lot of CG

*edit* one more question. what is the best tool right now to use to encode Realmedia 9 content? AutoRV9? Helix Producer Pro?

[Dark-Cracker]

objectively, autorv9 :D :D :D

[^^-+I4004+-^^]

@Ramirez

"ReClock is a DirectShow filter that will help to get rid of most causes of jerky DIVX/MPEG playback"


_where did i said that i have avi/mpeg plb problems?


@karl

i have dual-boot win98/2k so i'll check if win98 will play it
better ( it's different tv-out program there.ie. not tvtool )
i think you might be right that overlay doesn't kick in for some
reason....
[ if i see improvement then i'll report here...if not,then i'm not saying anythng.that way you'll know problem still exists...i'll test it by tomorrow..i'll also check ROne settings concerning playback.. ]

cheers_

[^^-+I4004+-^^]

Originally posted by Dark-Cracker
objectively, autorv9 :D :D :D

DC,you didn't paid any attention to the people that deal with
.avi files.....why is this so?

[although i won't complain: avs,helix basic & xml notepad get me where
i wan't.......]

[31 Flavas]

Originally posted by midiguy
I can't show a sample of what I Am talking aboutr though (no longer have the source or the copy). but is there a way to disable real player's post-processing? or atleast control its post-processing level? Hm... I own the cb bebop dvds. I'll encoded this episode and see what I get.

[karl_lillevold]

Originally posted by midiguy
One time, I encoded the first episode of cowboy bebop. One of the scenes, when a character uses the eye drops, the screen turns red, and there is a noise effect (there is suppose to be this noise effect, it is a special effect). But qwhen I play back that scene, the noise looks really smooth and blurry and soft and overall pretty ugly. now, if you say there is no pre-processing with RV9, then it must be realone player's post-processing detecting this special effect as video noise and blurring it to hell.

Noise is almost impossible to compress, so I think what happened was that the bitrate spiked so much during this scene, that it blew the bit reservoir, causing the encoder to increase quantization so much it blurred the video too much. For typical bitrates, when I use VBR with max bitrate a little over 2X average bitrate, and 25 second buffer, I have not really seen this happen, but can't remember any scenes like this either. There is no adjustable post-processing in RV9, so I think the problem occured on the encoder side.
With regards to encoding tools, AutoRV9 uses Helix Producer as its back-end, but it is a great help in automating the process.

[karl_lillevold]

Originally posted by Dark-Cracker
objectively, autorv9 :D :D :D
Great tool, but just one feature I'd wish for (actually, four, but three of them can be done if the first feature is added.

After all options and files saved, create batch file (.bat) that can be edited before starting the process.

With this feature one could do the following by editing the command line parameters in the batch file and possibly AVS scripts.

Run Besweet with 48kHz output, and possibly skip besweet 2-pass normalization and use producer's audio gain feature instead. This would speed it up the audio conversion process. Producer accepts 48 kHZ input.
Anamorphic encoding (see separate thread - requires producer pro feature)
YV12 / AVISynth 2.5. AutoRV9 requires AVISynth 2.0x. but with the feature above, one could use 2.0x for the setup, then switch to 2.5 before running the batch file.

[midiguy]

Originally posted by karl_lillevold
Noise is almost impossible to compress, so I think what happened was that the bitrate spiked so much during this scene, that it blew the bit reservoir, causing the encoder to increase quantization so much it blurred the video too much. For typical bitrates, when I use VBR with max bitrate a little over 2X average bitrate, and 25 second buffer, I have not really seen this happen, but can't remember any scenes like this either. There is no adjustable post-processing in RV9, so I think the problem occured on the encoder side.
With regards to encoding tools, AutoRV9 uses Helix Producer as its back-end, but it is a great help in automating the process.

will do, thanks. I'll have to get a good source to test with.

also, in autoRV9, it has options for "normal video" "smooth video" and "sharpest video".. I always use sharpest, but what exactly does puitting it on normal or smooth do? does it pre-process the source?

[Ramirez]

Originally posted by ^^-+I4004+-^^
@Ramirez
_where did i said that i have avi/mpeg plb problems?

Obviously --<<NOWHERE! >>--
I've simply overlooked that part of you post.
No need to put me in a front of the fireing squad though.

[karl_lillevold]

Originally posted by midiguy
also, in autoRV9, it has options for "normal video" "smooth video" and "sharpest video".. I always use sharpest, but what exactly does puitting it on normal or smooth do? does it pre-process the source?
Glad you asked. That's always been a confusing option, because it affects a few non-documented internal parameters. It was designed mainly for low bitrates, and is the trade-off in the encoder between frame rate and quality/sharpness. So 'sharpest' would be better quality/sharper but skip more frames. There is no pre-filtering. For VBR and higher bitrates, the 'normal' vs 'sharpest' will have very little effect, if any. However, the 'smooth' setting has the following effect: If you choose 'smooth', the encoder will operate in HHR mode (half-horizontal resolution) for video sizes larger than 640x320. HHR means to resample and encode at half the width, and have the player scale back on playback. This looks very smooth, but is a good trade-off for very low bitrates, relative to video size. I rarely use it though. HHR in RealVideo was more common in the past, when 'normal' would use HHR the way 'smooth' does now. We probably should make HHR a separate option.

[midiguy]

hi. I just encoded a quick clip from some footage from a DVD camcorder that I filmed with. Settings were:

Resolution: 320 x 240
framerate: 30 fps
buffer: 25
other thing: 10


resized from 704 x 480 (4:3 aspect) to 320 x 240 using neutral bicubic resize filter.

average bitrate: 400
max bitrate: 800

look at his face in the video, has the nasty blur effect. and look at those bricks!
I also tested it by cutting the framerate in half to 15 fps, and using the same settings for the bitrate and the rest. even though each frame got double the bits (cause of 1/2 frame rate), the blurring was still just as much there. that is why I think it has to be the realone player's postprocessing.. what could be responsible for this?

clip here:

http://home.primus.ca/~shanecaplan/test.rar

download link above.

*edit* the above clip is @ 30 fps, but I did the 15 fps version so I could see if it was a bitrate problem (each frame gets double the bits). the 15 fps is not included in the archivem but I can assure you that it was JUST as blurry.

[karl_lillevold]

nice test clip. and very hard. the detailed noise like texture and camera motion make this clip very hard. Also, since the clip is so short (27 seconds), VBR won't help much, since our rate control will set the quantizer fairly high to achieve 400 kbps average. In fact, the codec uses only 2 seconds of the 25 second buffer. Perhaps you could argue that it should have used more, but the over-riding parameter is the average bitrate. And, since the filtering is tied to the quantizer, there will be blurring. Without filtering there would have been blocking artifacts. It's a trade-off.

I don't have the source, so I can't compare to other codecs, but I would imagine they would have tough time as well -- just make sure they don't overspend bits, and the resulting filesize is equal or close to equal. Anything else would not be fair..

[midiguy]

so from what you have seen, is there any way to make this test clip not look so blurry and spongey?

[midiguy]

Originally posted by karl_lillevold
Without filtering there would have been blocking artifacts. It's a trade-off.
so then you are saying it does filter if it needs to? is "filtering" the same as pre-processing?

[karl_lillevold]

Originally posted by midiguy
so from what you have seen, is there any way to make this test clip not look so blurry and spongey?
No, I am sorry, not until the next version of RealVideo. The way the post-filtering is designed makes it non-adjustable. This design is part of why RV9 works so well, but a dis-advantage is that it's non-adjustable. We spent a lot of time tuning it, and doing taste tests, to avoid any more blurriness than needed, but at the same time have no blockiness. Users really don't like blockiness.

Note that if this difficult clip had been part of a longer sequence, with both easier and harder sections, the VBR would have made this hard section look better.

Originally posted by midiguy
so then you are saying it does filter if it needs to? is "filtering" the same as pre-processing?
no, there's no pre-processing.

[RadicalEd]

so its true that the post processing is indeed built into the codec and not just the doings of the RealOne player?

[midiguy]

Originally posted by RadicalEd
so its true that the post processing is indeed built into the codec and not just the doings of the RealOne player?

The way I see it, it has to be one of two possibilities:

1) Post-processing is built into the codec and has nothing to do with the actual Realone Player

2) Post-processing is not built into the codec and is the doing of the Realone Player --- it just can't be adjusted or tuned at all.

:sly:

[midiguy]

by the way: good to hear that it is just the post-processing. It would be really awesome if you could change the levels of post-processing, perhaps have 6 or so levels, and the lowest level would turn off post-processing. maybe something like how ffdshow's post-processing format is set up? maybe have the 6 levels as presets for beginners, and then have an "advanced" button or whatever where people that want to go further into it can fine tune the post-processing from all angles... and maybe have an "auto detect" mode or whatever, where the player will try detecting the *best* level of post-processing for a particular clip (kinda like how it is now?)

[^^-+I4004+-^^]

so it looks like it's tvtool (and/or win2k) issue.....

[midiguy]

Originally posted by karl_lillevold
No, I am sorry, not until the next version of RealVideo. The way the post-filtering is designed makes it non-adjustable. This design is part of why RV9 works so well, but a dis-advantage is that it's non-adjustable. We spent a lot of time tuning it, and doing taste tests, to avoid any more blurriness than needed, but at the same time have no blockiness. Users really don't like blockiness.
are you saying that the next version of the RealOne Player will allow you to change the post-processing level??? I missed that little tidbit earlier. could there also be a setting to turn it off completely? that would be awesome!

also, the post-processing for that little test clip I encoded is WAY too much for my tastes.. I would rather see a few blocks and maybe some noise than anything that blurry and soft. Sometimes there are clips like that that need to be encoded, and that do not have the benefit of "easy" parts to the sequence. that is why I tihnk makign the post-processing configurable would really make a big difference and really start shit up in the video compression community :sly: :cool: :cool:

[karl_lillevold]

I will be far away from Seattle until Dec 30th. I will be online once in a while, but can't promise any long and detailed posts. Happy Holidays to everyone!

[Dark-Cracker]

hi,

i will try to add the support of the .avi file for input. :)
it normaly will add the joblist on the v1.3 :)
for anamorphic and besweet i am not sure , i must find documentation.

and for the yv12 input i will wait producer add the support because for the moment only yuy2 was supported.

normaly added in v1.3 :

- compressibility test
- besweet more options.
- job list.
- internal subtitle
(perhaps yv12 support)
-fix bug : italic in subtitle, 4/3 smil file) .

Bye

[midiguy]

dark-cracker, your tool rules!! keep up the good work!

only one thing:

auto-crop never works for me.. it always cuts out too much into the picture, or completely misses the black bars. but I can just do a manual crop and be okay.

[Valky]

Same thing here. Great tool and only thing that doesn't work flawlessly is this auto-crop.

For me it leaves those black-bars, but that isn't so big issue.

[Dark-Cracker]

hi,

yes the autocrop seems not always work i think this problem will be solve in the next version :) thank u for the bug report.

Bye, and mery chrismas, and happy new year :) .

[baddbill]

Dark Cracker any idea when AutoRV9 v1.3 will be ready? The comp test seams to be almost a neccessity. I'm really looking forward to encoding with RV9.

Thanks,
Bill

[Dark-Cracker]

hi,

i must first finish the autodub version 1.7 before working on the next release of autorv9, i think perhaps in 3 or 4 week, a beta of the 1.3 will be publish.

Bye.

[Sgt_Strider]

I'm a noob to encoding and while browsing realnetwork's home page about real video 9, I came upon a very important info; "Same quality at half the bitrate of mpeg-4". When using gknot, there is an option displaying your average bitrate when you select either the divx3 or divx5 codec in the codec area. For example, let's say my average bitrate is 1608 kbit/s, does that mean when entering my average bitrate into the helix producer 804kbit/s and I'll still get the same quality?????

[31 Flavas]

Originally posted by Sgt_Strider

For example, let's say my average bitrate is 1608 kbit/s, does that mean when entering my average bitrate into the helix producer 804kbit/s and I'll still get the same quality????? Do your own tests and get your own opinion on it.

But, i've done encoding myself and have seen compairison clips of xvid vs rv9 (both at same bitrate) and the rv9 clip was very obviously the better clip.

Edit: Oh yea, don't forget, at the present time rv9 is the only one that can do anamorphic encoding. hehe :)

[Tommy Carrot]

Originally posted by Sgt_Strider
I'm a noob to encoding and while browsing realnetwork's home page about real video 9, I came upon a very important info; "Same quality at half the bitrate of mpeg-4". When using gknot, there is an option displaying your average bitrate when you select either the divx3 or divx5 codec in the codec area. For example, let's say my average bitrate is 1608 kbit/s, does that mean when entering my average bitrate into the helix producer 804kbit/s and I'll still get the same quality?????

I would't say that.

The fact is, RV9 is definetaly better at low bitrates, but it is incapable to give dvd quality. It smooths out the details even in 2cd rips.

[^^-+I4004+-^^]

and mpeg2 doesn't smooth?
have you ever compared nice clean PAL
tv signal with mpeg2 as seen in dvd player?
and you still take mpeg2 as a reference?
i regard dvd (mpeg2 stream) as less sharp than analog
PAL.......(yes i have seen quite a few decent dvd players in action...)
EVERY and ANY codec smooths.......that's why it's called
lossy compression.....(mpeg1,2,4 or rm...)
(sure,i would love to burn and watch my huff capturings...but..)

at the bitrate,rm9 is THE BEST,ie. try to make decent(!)
mpeg2 on 2 cdr's for 2h movie.......

[Tommy Carrot]

Originally posted by ^^-+I4004+-^^
and mpeg2 doesn't smooth?
have you ever compared nice clean PAL
tv signal with mpeg2 as seen in dvd player?
and you still take mpeg2 as a reference?
i regard dvd (mpeg2 stream) as less sharp than analog
PAL.......(yes i have seen quite a few decent dvd players in action...)
EVERY and ANY codec smooths.......that's why it's called
lossy compression.....(mpeg1,2,4 or rm...)
(sure,i would love to burn and watch my huff capturings...but..)

at the bitrate,rm9 is THE BEST,ie. try to make decent(!)
mpeg2 on 2 cdr's for 2h movie.......

No! I'm talking about Mpeg4 Advanced simple profile ofkoz. With about 1500 kbit, it's quite often gives at first sight identical result to the original. (Not always ofkoz, but often). RV9 blurs the picture at all bitrates. There is no 'same as the original' feeling.

This is all about target audiences. Realvideo has been created for streaming. Why would anybody want to stream at 1500-2000 kbit? It was optimized to <500-600 kbit, and it is very good at there.

[midiguy]

the blurring that you are seeing with real media clips is done by the built in post-processing of the REALPLAYER. the "blurryness" is not actually in the video file. Apparently, in the next version of the Realone player, it will allow us to configure the post-processing. also, the realone player, as it is now, tries to automatically detect a good post-processing level, so I would have to disagrtee with that even at very high bitrates RV9 is "blurry". try encoding a clip at, say, 2500 kbps. it will be a very sharp image. the realone player only post-processes like crazy when it detects too much video noise or pixelation, or not even. yes, it is WAY too harsh, but that is only because the real PLAYER was designed too play STREAMING media where more post-processing might be needed to clean up the clip. real networks is starting to understand that they could also support high quality high bitrate video, so future improvments in their player is inevitable the way I see it.

sorry about spelling/grammatical errors, I'm tired.

p.s.: what the hell is "ofkoz"? does it mean "of coarse"?

[iwod]

I know MPC could play RM.. but does MPC has post processing build in as well??

[baddbill]

Hi guys, I'm a somewhat newbie so take my opinion with a grain of salt. I've made about 40 or 50 encodes with Gordian Knot and divx5 and just made my first two encodes with AutoRV9. All I can say is wow! The AutoRV9 encodes in my opinion are far superior to anything I have been able to get with divx. The colors are closer to the original, the lighting is more natural and the detail is higher.

My first two encodes with AutoRV9 were The Waterboy and Can't Hardly Wait. I encoded both movies so each would fit on a 900 meg CD. This turned out to be 1280 bits for Can't Hardly Wait and 1500 bits for The Waterboy. I chose these two movies because they are at opposite extremes for compressability.

Can't Hardly Wait compresses very easily so it is easy to get a good encode of it with divx. The divx encode was with pro features of B frames and Psy. enhancements to normal. This resulted in a 76% comp test result at 576x320 with a sharp resize filter. I encoded the AutoRV9 copy at the same resolution. The divx encode looked good but suffered from the regular divx drawbacks. Edges where fuzzy and there was a general lack of detail. The RV9 encode looks wonderful. In almost every scene there is more detail in faces, clothes and background. The lighting is closer to the original and the colors are what they should be. When comparing the two encodes next to eachother I noticed that the divx encode had a greenish tint to it that wasn't in the original. Because the divx encode was of such high quality the comparison was close but the RV9 encode was clearly better.

The Waterboy is very difficult to compress and therefor it was very difficult for me to get a good encode of it with divx. I tried different resolutions with different resize filters and finally decided on a comp test of 67% at 512x272 with a neutral resize filter. The results were OK but not great. The RV9 encode at the same resolution was far superior. Once again colors where closer to the original without a greenish tint to them. Lighting was more natural and detail was obviously superior. There is one scene in the movie where The Waterboy walks into his mother house. It is a very difficult scene because of the detail in the livingroom. With divx this scene looked horrible. With RV9 this scene looks very nice, not perfect, but far superior to divx.

I hope this helps people. In my opinion RV9 is the way to go.

Bill

[midiguy]

yes, unfortuantely, MPC has the post-processing built in as well. to make a correction to my earlier post, I beleive that it is the real video DECODER doing the post-processing, and not the real player. I think the post-processing is built into the decoder itself. I know that the actual file has NO pre-processing built into it, so the blrryness you see has to be coming from the decoder or player. I tihnk it would be coming from the decoder because the blurryness even exists when you play your file with MPC (so that counts real player out). but I think that the post-processing is disabled or is very light if your clip was encoded at a high bitrate. I've only seen this "blurryness" only SOMETIMES with low bitrate encodes usually less than 600 kbits. and once again, I've heard that in the next version, you will be able to control the post-processing,. and not only that, the API is coming out soon I beleive. once it is out, developers should esaily be able to make something to control the post-processing levels of the decoder. other things that could be possible would be to be able to import real media files in, say, virtualdub, or possibly even encode right out of virtualdub or a similar editor. good things are coming!

[Rash]

Karl, I'm sorry what I'm saying may sound stupid but why don't you guys distribute the Helix Producer for free?

You know you have a lot of good competitors which are free (even WM9!). I'm not saying open source, just a "non-basic" version for free.

I got really interested in Helix Technology, but I'd still rather use free ones. :(

[karl_lillevold]

Originally posted by Rash
Karl, I'm sorry what I'm saying may sound stupid but why don't you guys distribute the Helix Producer for free
That's a good idea, and exactly what the price is right now (free). Go to https://helix-producer.helixcommunity.org/. Pre-compiled binaries are now available as well, so you no longer have to build it from source/binary codecs.

Sign up, agree to the license, and the binary EULA, and get 9.1 Milestone 1 (2002-Dec-16), command line app. This has the exact same features as the GUI. You can use AutoRV9 as a GUI front-end if you like. There may be other GUI front-ends as well. I know at least one was created when RV9 was first released in alpha release, as a command line encoder only.

[Latexxx]

Talking about my gui?
I tested it. it also works with new Helix Producer. One question: Does the binary version support yv12 encoding or do have to build it by myself to get it working?

[karl_lillevold]

Originally posted by Latexxx
Talking about my gui?
I tested it. it also works with new Helix Producer. One question: Does the binary version support yv12 encoding or do have to build it by myself to get it working?
Ah, yes. Excellent! I have added your tool to the first post (RV9 Info) in this thread.

The Helix Producer M1 build works fine with YV12, but there may be a ~20% loss in encoding speed unless you convert to YUY2 as the last step in the AVS script. With YUY2 conversion, the loss is ~5%.
I think they plan on building M2 (Milestone 2) this Friday, with YV12 no-extra-color-conversion support *)

*) Still has to swap chroma planes (U and V) to get from YV12 to I420. I would like to remove even this step and swap pointers inside the codec instead, but have not had time. I measured the potential speed improvement though, and it's really really minor.

[Rash]

Originally posted by karl_lillevold
That's a good idea, and exactly what the price is right now (free). Go to https://helix-producer.helixcommunity.org/. Pre-compiled binaries are now available as well, so you no longer have to build it from source/binary codecs.

Thanks Karl ;)

[Wilbert]

Sign up, agree to the license, and the binary EULA, and get 9.1 Milestone 1 (2002-Dec-16), command line app. This has the exact same features as the GUI. You can use AutoRV9 as a GUI front-end if you like. There may be other GUI front-ends as well. I know at least one was created when RV9 was first released in alpha release, as a command line encoder only.
I've done this. I have a login and a password, but if I click on "binaries" I got the message "Your account does not have the "Project Document - View" permission needed for you to access the page you requested in the distribution project (...)"

How do I get the binaries?

[Rash]

Try agreeing with more licences. I did what Karl told me and I got the binaries. ;)

[Wilbert]

I give up. I already agreed to the Binary EULA lincense, I still can't download the binaries. If I try to agree with the RPSL or RCSL I got the same message "Your account does not have the "Project Document - View" permission needed for you to access (...)". I don't know what to do ...

[karl_lillevold]

For some reason it sounds like the automatic setting of permissions when you have agreed to a license is not working for your username.

If you initially signed up a while back, I would suggest you sign up again with a different name, and try again. If this does not work, please send me a pm with your username and I will forward the problem or You can also sign on to the Helix IRC channel and ask there. Most of the time there is someone there who can help, at least during west coast working hours.

[Wilbert]

Thanks! It's working now after using a different name.

[IBJr]

Karl, do you have any suggestions for encoding w/ RV9 for playback on Plam's Tungsten T? I would expermement but the player isn’t released yet.

I’ve been on many of the handheld sites defending real, but the Palm users are upset the player didn’t ship in 2002 and anachronistically complaining about RealPlayer 8. If you can reply, hopefully they will experiment w/ Real and see it isn't the scourge of the earth.

My apologies to the moderators, I know the form isn’t for this, but w/o the last paragraph I would be flamed. (well i may be anyway)

Ibjr

[karl_lillevold]

Oh, I wish I had one of those.

I am afraid the first version of the tungsten player will be audio only. It will be very different from any RealPlayer 8. Why it takes so long - I am not sure, but it's not only development at RealNetworks. There's been bug fixes even in PalmOS to get it to work right.

[karl_lillevold]

I just added this to the first info post:

Supported input formats to producer
It may not be well known, but on Windows, producer can transcode any format you can play back with a DirectShow player (like Media Player Classic). This means you can directly encode .MPG, .WMV, .ASF, .D2V, .AC3, .AVI (uncompressed, compressed, XviD, DivX), .AVS (of course), and even .VOB files, as long as you have the DirectShow filters installed such that the files are playable in your DS media player of choice.

Of course, be aware that if your source has low enough bitrate to have compression artifacts, these are faithfully re-compressed. For instance, I transcoded a certain 1280x720p HDTV demo, which has plenty of blockiness and ringing problems, especially during scene transitions, all of it which was reproduced on playback of the RV9 clip:(

[Dark-Cracker]

hi,

does rv9 with smil launcher can read .rmvb and .ac3 or .ogg or .aac ?

[karl_lillevold]

With smil you can mix any format that can be played with RealOne. So currently, you can mix RV9 and WAV. I tried to create a WAV file containing AC3 using headac3he, and mplayerc/AC3Filter showed that the file indeed contained 5.1 AC3 channels, but sounded like random noise, so clearly my AC3-WAV creation did not work correctly.

Still, with the SMIL code at the bottom, I could play back this RV9/AC3-WAV combination in RealOne on Windows (but still sounded like random noise). I'll post an update if I can figure out the proper AC3-WAV creation method.

With regards to other formats than WAV you will need a file format plugin and renderer plugin for RealOne to be able to read them. For instance, if you try .ac3, RealOne will phone home and try to find a file format plugin (unsuccessfully). Such plugins should not be terribly hard to write -- perhaps a nice challenge for someone in the Helix Community? It would be nice to play back .ogg / .ac3 / .aac files in RealOne.

More challenging, but technically possible given Helix source code, one could imagine an .ogg file writer in producer, writing out RV9 + Vorbis audio, and the matching Ogg file format plugin and Vorbis audio renderer for playback in RealOne. I won't speak for what the Helix licenses say about this possibility, just that it is technically possible.

Example SMIL code:
<smil>
<head>
<layout>
<region id="VideoChannel1" left="0" top="0" height="304" width="720"/>
</layout>
</head>
<body>
<par title="audio video mixer test">
<video src = "stream2.rmvb" region="VideoChannel1"/>
<audio src = "stream2.wav"/>
</par>
</body>
</smil>

[ReTroAcTive]

i downloaded autorv9 and used it on a few clips. it seems to do quite well, im surprised. its much better then anything i have seen in the rv format sense they started streaming audio. ide say the rv format is almost perfected with rv9, i only say almost because you cant tune the post-processing of the player. im going to try a full movie, maybe a 2 disc so i can try that (split total file after) option.

[Sirber]

I did Lord of the Ring, Extended Edition on 2 CD. Quality is better than XviD. The only problem is the post-processing... a little too much.

[midiguy]

yeah, I wish we had control of the PP. it would be soooo sweet having an RV9 direct show codec, where you can fine tune the post-processing, use any contain you want (AVI, OGG, etc.), and any audio format you want. and last, but DEFINATELY not least, you can avoid using the dreaded real one player.

[pkstomak]

Hi,

I also encoded a clip from Lord Of the Rings with RV9,DivX5.02 and Xvid.I choosed a very bright and colored scene from the beginning. And...I'm impressed!...and disappointed too! On the "plus" side :The quality/size ratio is incredible and the picture is much more detailled than DivX/Xvid BUT I don't know if it's the post processing or the way the picture is encoded but there are portions of the screen that are(randomly?)blurred.And this is disturbing: you have on the same picture very detailled areas and very blurry areas.

From now on, I don't know wich one to use... DivX5.02 or RV9? Sure, RV9 looks better on a monitor, but on a TV (Sony Wega Trinitron), the difference is minimal. Is Realplayer with a manual post processing setting the answer? (AC3 support would be nice too!).
I also did some anamorphic encoding in Pal (988/420) and while the quality was a tad better, the processing power increased too (more than 40% on a XP1800).Again, on a TV, a bit useless...

[karl_lillevold]

Thanks for your reports! I am glad you like the quality, and we do take your comments about post-processing seriously. In some cases ringing artifacts look like actual details from the original (like texture in forest, film grain, or even rain or snow). It is not as easy as the suggested pp adjustment in the player, but tuning for high bitrates and HDTV is definitely possible, and with Helix we can give you access to improvements much quicker than before.

[pkstomak]

Wow!! A quality codec, with competent and kind peoples listening to what the users say... I'm gonna wake up, yeah...:D

PS: RV9 should have its own forum.

[ReTroAcTive]

Originally posted by midiguy
and last, but DEFINATELY not least, you can avoid using the dreaded real one player.

ive played rv9 in real player basic 8 after it downloads the codecs for it but it says it cant play rv9. but if you drag and drop the rv9 file onto the real player basic 8 after it installs the codecs it will play it, however the quality is not as good as you get with real one.
im still not sure if being able to watch rv9 files is worth the monster install, and the other things that real one does, like taking over playing dvds even after i told it not to do so on the install and that messenger thing that you cant keep from downloading new message, the best you can do is tell it to only check once or twice a month, and it pops up when your playing a game in full screen and when you go to close the messenger it minimizes your game and you lose the sound thus making you shut down the game to restart it so you can have sound.
i used real player from the beginning till the real one player. i would install the older basics to watch anything i wanted to see on the web and if the basic player wouldnt work i wouldnt watch it. with rv9 you have a chance to win me over once again but, it will all depend on the next version of your real one player.

[karl_lillevold]

I am sorry you had these problems with RealOne. It sounds like you tried v.1, which clearly had some issues.

RealOne v.2 as it is available now can be configured to not display these messages at all, unless you have the player open, which you probably will not have while playing a game.

Follow the instructions in the first post in this thread : go to tools->preferences->Automatic Services, disable everything. Same with the one check box in Autoupdate, just to be sure. When you have done this, the message box will open only when you have RealOne open, and then once per month (if you have set it to once per month).

With regards to taking over DVD playback, this may have happened for RealOne v.1, but this bug has been fixed in v.2. Again, following my instructions, the dialog box during install for Maintain Media Preferences should already be unchecked by default, but just make sure it is. And, you need to uncheck the box for DVD in the list of Media types.

That's all.

So I think your main complaints have been addressed, one through a bug fix, and the other through disabling the automatic services features.
In v.3, all of these will automatically be set to what most users would like, and not what RealNetworks would like :)

[karl_lillevold]

just to make sure you have disabled everything:

If you open Task Manager, normally, there is a 156K process running called realsched.exe (RealNetworks Scheduler). Unless you disable the options I mentioned in my previous post, this will run all the time.

With the options unchecked, this process should automatically be killed once RealOne exits.

[Sirber]

@karl

That's great news :)

If a VFW comes out, will we be able to ajust PP?

[ReTroAcTive]

RealOnePlayerV2GOLD.exe is the file i downloaded and installed but i missed the part of your message about the automatic services.
thanks man, looks like your on top of things. i still however am fighting with real player about the dvd playback thing, im hopen after i reboot it will be taken care of.
thanks Karl
i think rv is close to getting their own forum around here, or atleast i hope.

l8r, after the reboot.....
everytime i reboot it takes dvd playback over again. its not selected in media types and i go to file types under folder option and change it, but everytime i do and reboot it takes dvds back over. so when is v3 going to be out? :)

[Benholio]

To get rid of the damn messages do a custom install and deselect as much of the intergration BS as you can. Next find the file RNDAL.EXE and rename it and or remove any mention of it from your registry. I have done this and my player functions just like winamp. I get no annoying messages or popups and the only time Real one hits the net is on startup to access real.com.


Ben

btw, I believe that RNDAL = Real Network Dynamic Application Launcher

[WorldBook]

Alternatively, if you have a firewall such as Zonealarm you can disable Realplayer from accesing the internet.

[ohliuv]

Yesterday I did a long test capture from PAL TV at 384x288 using vfw drivers and frankly speaking I'm happy with the result.

Anyone did some extensive testing with the Helix video capture?

[ReTroAcTive]

i used divx to compress lost in space, then used rv9.
the divx did a good job, but sense it should have been a 2cd rip i had to drop the resolution down to 416 x 176 to get it up to 58%. very hard to compress this movie cause of the film stock they used that shows everything even if its in shadow. i was as happy with it as i could be with a 1 cd rip that should have been a 2.
however the rv9 rip i did was much better. i raised the resolution up to 576x208 because rv9 is suppose to be better at lower bit rates and i wanted to see just how it would do. it really surprised me, i was very happy with it, though it did go over 700mbs a little after it was all said and done. the picture was cleaner, and because of the high resolution, more detailed also.
so in short, i think the divx5.02 codec is the way to go right now for your movies that you want to encoded at a high bit rate or are very compressible. however, movies that are very hard to compress, or if you have a movie that need 2 cds and you would like to have it on 1, rv9 is the way to go.

[Sirber]

RV9 is good for high-bitrate too, with sharp and clean picture. It can also be played on low-end hardware (like a P2 with a crappy videocard).

[Sirber]

Hi

I don't know why but now when I open a AVI in Helix Producer, it says "Audio only" and in source propertises, "Uncompressed audio". What's the problem?

[karl_lillevold]

usually if producer can not read the video in an AVI file, it is because the appropriate DirectShow or VfW codec is missing. Can you play the AVI file in a media player? What is the 4cc code of the format inside the AVI file?

[Sirber]

I had XviD and ffdshow installed. I flushed ffdshow and the problem is gone.

[kilg0r3]

Does anyone of nice doom9-like guide for dvd backup on the basis of rv9?

[31 Flavas]

Originally posted by kilg0r3
Does anyone of nice doom9-like guide for dvd backup on the basis of rv9? I'm confused by this, do you mean has anyone made a nice guide on how to backup using rv9?

[nFury8]

Looks like that's what he meant.

@kilg0r3:
Somebody posted a link to a guide using Real's Helix Producer in this thread:

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?threadid=42889 (http://)

Maybe you'll find that useful.

[kilg0r3]

tanks guys. sorry for my crappy syntax.

[Sirber]

AutoRV9 is THE tool for DVD-Rip. Give it a try. :)

**

When RealOne v3 will come out? And what about post-processing?

[wing1]

Very nice codec and a nice player to boot. Much better then old time. The only problem is editing: Not as friendly as Vdub.

The resize function can actually be achieved using ffdshow resize function; However, rv9 has built-in flag to activate the resizing property automatically to any size: This is a nice option indeed. I do believe divx 5.02 has that functionality built-in as well in their encoder. Perhaps someday xvid dev team will have that option as well in their encoder.

Most private development GUI's for RV9 currently only support DVD->RM, which does not leave much for this AVI capture enthusiast; Notepad and batch file will have to do for now, until I break down and re-install c++ builder :D

I am very impress with the encoder quality and the playback capabilities of realone. I have major decoding issues with my old laptop (K6-2 433Mhz) when using divx/xvid. However, Realone plays back the encoded 624x432->aRS->704x480 flawlessly, and at full screen to boot. Details do tend to smear a bit but not that critical. I rather see a little smear than macroblocks.

[TSO COBOL]

There is another french tool (is RV9 french ? :D) that is very interesting. You can find it on www.lalternative.org, his name is x2real 0.3

It supports avi.

I think the avi supports will come in Autorv9 1.3.

@31 Flavas

We have maid french guide of Autorv9 and italian, on www.formidable.fr.st, there is an english guide for Autorv9 on http://www.eclipsedvd.firstream.net/autodub/Guide/AutoRV9.htm

If someone wants to make a traduction, it will be a pleasure to share with you. :)

@kilg0r3

There is a way for playing RV9 on mediaplayer classic of gabest (6.4.2.0)on http://vobsub.edensrising.com/ without installing Realone player and all these spyware. On my website you can find at http://www.formidable.firstream.net/modules.php?op=modload&name=Downloads&file=index&req=viewdownload&cid=1&min=20&orderby=titleA&show=10 named "pack damrod" that only install dll necessary for playing RV9 without installing realone.

Sorry for my bad english :(

[wing1]

What version of xreal2 support avi? xReal2 build 3022 expected d2v project files only :(

[movmasty]

Originally posted by karl_lillevold
Get the source code for these now and build it yourself, all features included. For convenience, fully pre-compiled binary releases are available for Linux and Win32
i wasnt able to find those binaries.

[karl_lillevold]

Hi there,
After you are logged in, there's a link on the front page, upper left corner, called "Binaries". This will take you to the list of available pre-built binaries. You have to agree to one of the Helix licenses and the binary EULA to get access.

[movmasty]

ok, thanks, another comunity to log in....

[Sirber]

Hi

I've just reinstalled Windows 2000 SP3, DirectX 9, ATI Radeon 8500LE, and on realmedia clips there is green stuff moving on the overlay area. I have no problem with DivX or XviD encode.

Any idea?

[edit]

Also, with RealVideo 8, there is no such problem... strange!

[edit2]

When I use Accelerated Video + no overlay, it's ok. But, with Acc. Video and overlay, it's green. :(

I have catalyst 3.0 :'(

[karl_lillevold]

i am not sure, but i have seen the latest ATI drivers (catalyst 3.0) having some similar sounding problems playing back RealVideo. It goes away if I Stop and Play again, or if I change overlay type (which you unfortunately can not do). If so, this is an ATI driver problem, and I will report it through the right channels.

[Rash]

Karl, I have exactely the same problem and I'm using exactely the same video drivers as Sirber.

But I just don't mind not pushing the video accel bar to the right. ;) Still, it would be great if you guys or ATI solved this problem.

[TSO COBOL]

Originally posted by wing1
What version of xreal2 support avi? xReal2 build 3022 expected d2v project files only :(

x2real 0.3 (build 3025/release)

I have seen on Akabob website that he has create a package with RV9 dll and mediaplayer classic, I give the description

MPC 6.4.02 (feat.RV9 codec) by akab0b more
#full RealPlayer 9 replacement
#featuring latest RV9 codecs (v2.0)
#2.5 MB download only
#latest MPC release available @ http://vobsub.edensrising.com
#RealPlayer 9 available @


We are doing an english translation of autorv9 guide, it can be interesting for you. :)

[31 Flavas]

Originally posted by karl_lillevold
i am not sure, but i have seen the latest ATI drivers (catalyst 3.0) having some similar sounding problems playing back RealVideo. It goes away if I Stop and Play again, or if I change overlay type (which you unfortunately can not do). If so, this is an ATI driver problem, and I will report it through the right channels. I didn't know if it was just something with my computer or the drivers or RealPlayer until you posted this.

I have a similar problem, I have a radeon 9700 and am using cat 3.0 drivers. Overlay realtext subtitles won't display when used with .rmvb files, but will work with .rm files. These subtitles worked (displayed) with prior drivers though.

[karl_lillevold]

i don't know which other problems the catalyst 3.0 drivers might have, but they certainly don't work for regular playback where the frame buffers being displayed contain the wrong data, i.e. garbage or previous frames (unless you Stop and Play, which should not really be necessary).

I have started the process of escalating the problem, and ATI should know about it by the end of the day.

Until ATI can fix their drivers, there's not much else we can do, than to suggest you downgrade ATI drivers, and/or contact ATI. (I have verified that Catalyst 2.3 works fine). ATI's release cycle is much faster than ours. For reasons I am sure you understand, we do not want to auto-update more than absolutely necessary.

[karl_lillevold]

@kilg0r3:

1: I believe rmeditor (as done by AutoRV9) is the standard, and probably also the only way to split RM files.

2: turn off overlay, just like you have to do in all players using optimized video playback. This, however, makes playback more CPU intensive, and the decoder might go into CPU scalability mode, where it will introduce some shortcuts to speed up decoding, which may affect video quality. So, for both RealVideo, and other formats, you are not guaranteed to get a true representation of the actual video quality, but if you have a fast enough system, it should be pretty close.

3: ffdshow, no.

4: probably already answered (Media Player Classic)

5: not sure about this one - what is your video card and screen refresh rate?

6: again, not sure, but it could be the rate control and all those black frames. Why don't you instead 'trim' the video such that the black frames are not included in the encode?

Hope this helps.

[Sirber]

The Media Player Classic with RV9 codec is doing a great job for playing RMVB. It has no post-processing, which makes the video less blurry.

[iwod]

Originally posted by Sirber
The Media Player Classic with RV9 codec is doing a great job for playing RMVB. It has no post-processing, which makes the video less blurry.

no post processing?? I thought the post processing is done inside the decoder rather then the player in real one....

[karl_lillevold]

Latest news on the ATI driver bug:

ATI has isolated the problem in their drivers and is working on a fix.
I will let you know as soon they provide a public release timeframe for an updated driver; they typically run a three week update cycle, so hopefully this fix will get into the very next update.

Thanks for alerting us to this problem, so we could get in touch with ATI.

[31 Flavas]

Originally posted by karl_lillevold

Thanks for alerting us to this problem, so we could get in touch with ATI. Thank you for just being here. You're a great help to all of us.

[kilg0r3]

Originally posted by karl_lillevold


1: (how to split at xxx mb) (how to split at xxx mb) I believe rmeditor (as done by AutoRV9) is the standard, and probably also the only way to split RM files.

hm, how does autorv9 do the split at a specified size? so far, i only found the options to indicate a time code for splitting.


5: (slightly jerky video)not sure about this one - what is your video card and screen refresh rate?

I am using a Matrox g400 16mb DH @ 1280*1028*32bit@85Hz

6: (undersized file)Why don't you instead 'trim' the video such that the black frames are not included in the encode?
i like to keep the music, and, my reasoning was that it might be possible to keep the music for the start credits with a monster delay but wasn't sure about the credits at the end of the movie. in ogm e.g., the file stops playing when the video stream is over; at least for me.

thank you very much for your patience

[31 Flavas]

Originally posted by kilg0r3
i like to keep the music, and, my reasoning was that it might be possible to keep the music for the start credits with a monster delay but wasn't sure about the credits at the end of the movie. in ogm e.g., the file stops playing when the video stream is over; at least for me.Er.. The movie starts out with nothing but music? Seems strange...

Regardless, you could treat them as three seperate jobs then link them toghter with smil. You may already be doing this with if you are encoding the audio and video seperatly.

Granted it wont give you one single cohesive file, but one click on the .smil file will link all three parts (and their audio if you do it seperatly).

[Pirks]

Originally posted by karl_lillevold
usually if producer can not read the video in an AVI file, it is because the appropriate DirectShow or VfW codec is missing. Can you play the AVI file in a media player? What is the 4cc code of the format inside the AVI file?

Hello Karl!

Or maybe someone else here can help..

Where can I find RealAudio codec API docs? I found out that in Windows codec DLL cook3260.dll function raInitDecoder() has only one parameter while Linux codec lib version of the same function has two parameters. I'm stuck, somebody please help! Is there some SDK available online? Do I have to pay for it?

[karl_lillevold]

Originally posted by Sirber
The Media Player Classic with RV9 codec is doing a great job for playing RMVB. It has no post-processing, which makes the video less blurry.

I copied this from another thread, just to make sure this mis-understanding is cleared up:

There is no more post-processing in RealOne playing RV9 than in MPC playing RV9. MPC uses the exact same DLLs as RealOne, and the same decoding process takes place.

That said, we are looking into improvements in this area, and how to make it adjustable. The post processing in RV9 does not work like the post processing in ffdshow, and can not be separated from the decoding, or adjusted by itself without potentially affecting the video quality negatively. It can still be made adjustable, but it would be adjusted on the encoder side, with the setting transmitted in the bitstream.

[TSO COBOL]

We have made an english traduction of my autorv9 help guide (one of two official guide).This guide is for newbie, in fact I think that autorv9 is simple for expiremented people.

you can find it at http://www.formidable.firstream.net/modules.php?op=modload&name=Sections&file=index&req=viewarticle&artid=43&page=1

were all come from France or Belgium and it's our first english translation (but I don't think the last) so if someone see something strange in the text don't hesitate to contact us at

warzat@swing.be
TSO.COBOL@tsocobol.com

thanks :)

[midiguy]

I just encoded The Matrix trailer with RV9 @ 650 kbps (448 x 336 resolution) and it looks reallly good. the only thing stopping me from using RV9 is that we can't control the post-processing (whether it be in the encoder or decoder) as of yet. that would be sooo sweet!

[Valky]

hmm.. I wonder why you people need post-processing if your encodings look really good.. :)

But my real question was to karl_lillevold:

What is your or helix-comminications opinion about sharing these dll-files only so that people can watch some RV9 stuff with MPC, but they don't have to download that RealOne etc?
My guess is that you dont like the idea too much, cause the dll-files can't be downloaded separately from your site?

Cause I know people who are too scared to try this new codec just because of those horrible players in the past. And even if I know there isn't really nothing wrong with this product nowadays it isn't easy to convince them. Althought I also hate that damn MessageCenter that opens every time with the player.

So is it okay them to try with these dll-files and MPC that somebody on this thread suggested?

[ReTroAcTive]

Originally posted by Valky
hmm.. I wonder why you people need post-processing if your encodings look really good.. :)


the point is, we neither want nor need the post-processing, its built into the player when you click use optimized video display under the performance tab in the players properties. wmc also plays the same way if this option is clicked. you can uncheck this option but youll need more cpu and video mem in order to play it smooth. i must say the video looks much better when its unchecked.

i found out that i could use mpc to play my rmvb files from one of karls posts here on this forum.

[karl_lillevold]

Originally posted by Valky
What is your or helix-comminications opinion about sharing these dll-files only so that people can watch some RV9 stuff with MPC, but they don't have to download that RealOne etc?
My guess is that you dont like the idea too much, cause the dll-files can't be downloaded separately from your site?

Cause I know people who are too scared to try this new codec just because of those horrible players in the past. And even if I know there isn't really nothing wrong with this product nowadays it isn't easy to convince them. Althought I also hate that damn MessageCenter that opens every time with the player.

So is it okay them to try with these dll-files and MPC that somebody on this thread suggested?
Well, when you install RealOne, you agree to what's called a EULA (End User License Agreement). Almost the first sentence reads as follows:
"REDISTRIBUTION NOT PERMITTED" ...and it goes on to discuss details. This restriction is very common and I am sure is included in all commercial software these days.

Note that if you install RealOne and follow the tips I give in the first post, the Message Center that most users find very annoying, will not pop up unless you run RealOne. And you don't have to run it if you use the original MPC instead, as distributed by Gabest as a stand-alone executable.

[kilg0r3]

@ karl_lillevold

i am still experiencing jerky playback. i treid out different resolutions down to 800*600 to no avail. do you have any idea?

i have uploaded a small (3mb) clip gone now
the sound in thei clip is completely off for another reason

[karl_lillevold]

No, sorry, I am not sure what the problem could be. Due to your computer screen refresh rate not being a multiple of the video frame rate (85 Hz refresh, 25 fps video), the display time accuracy will always be limited by that difference. This may be visible if you are very sensitive to jitter, but should be more or less the same for all media players and formats. If you see more than this, and more jitter in RealVideo that other content, there could be another problem. I don't have much experience with the Matrox G400; have mostly been using ATI and nVidia, where playback is very smooth. I will ask our renderer expert if he knows of any differences in timing for the G400 that could affect jitter.

Could you take a look at the files in http://www.lillevold.com/files/jitter.zip (one RV9, one XviD) and see if you notice a difference in the amount of jitter? On my system both play back pretty smoothly.

[31 Flavas]

Originally posted by kilg0r3
i have uploaded a small (3mb) clip to www.mynetcologne.de/~nc-allgeife8/mmm.rmvb Playback of this clip is very smooth for me.

[kilg0r3]

Ok her comes some data:

cpu: axp 1700+
vga: matrox g400 dual head 16mb
sound: soundblaster pci 128

os: winxp pro sp1
directx: 8.1

xvid clips generally play smoothly.

just discovered that the sound stream is 44.1khz which is strange since the source is a dvd. strange, cannot rember resampling it.:confused:
------
o.k., i tried those clips, and, the real clip plays definitely less smooth. it looks as if video acceleration were not switched on but it is. i'll instal directx 9 now. god be with me ..
-------
o.k. installation went fine. nothing seems to be more broken than before. but the jitter is still there

[31 Flavas]

Originally posted by kilg0r3

just discovered that the sound stream is 44.1khz which is strange since the source is a dvd. strange, cannot rember resampling it. Both Real Producer and Helix producer, AFAIK, resample to 44.1khz. They accept the input of 48khz so you don't have to do it yourself. Again, AFAIK, it is a compatiblity thing since Real's format wasn't nessarily created for what this webboard uses it for.

--

my computer is also an axp 1700+, but i have an ATI Radeon 9700.

[karl_lillevold]

Originally posted by kilg0r3
o.k. installation went fine. nothing seems to be more broken than before. but the jitter is still there
I asked around and it seems the Matrox drivers have problems with the DirectX function GetScanLine() http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/directx9_c/directx/htm/idirectdrawgetscanline.asp , which we use to achieve as accurate blitting as possible. This is why we need special handling code if we detect Matrox. If you PM me your email I can ask our Matrox expert who implemented this code (who currently has a Parhelia) to get in touch with you. Other than that I am afraid there is not much I can do.

[Rash]

Hey Karl, guess what? Today I tested RV9 myself and I just loved the results. Really. So I'm thinking about making RV9 my default format for all my encodings. Still, I have some questions and a problem.

When I play a RV9 (.rmvb) on RealOne the image is perfect but sometimes it seems chopped. This happens mainly when the camera is panning at a quite high speed. It is like the monitor didn't finish scanning one frame when RealOne is already sending the next frame to the video card (and to the monitor). If it was a game I'll be sure it is a VSync problem. I don't see it on DivX or WMV. Still, I'm using ATI Catalyst 3.0 which I know still have some bugs and you guys and ATI guys are trying to fix it. ;)

One question I have is how many subtitle streams does RV9 supports? I mean, how many languages? One other question is the surround mode (option available on AutoRV9) is 5.1, right? Does it keep the 5.1 information from AC3, for example?
Finally, will there be a GUI to Helix Producer?

Now, there is just one thing to ask about AutoRV9. Why doesn't the Quality (bits/pix*frm) on the codec tab doesn't change when I increase/decrease the resolution? And, will there be a compressibility test on AutoRV9? Is it possible? :)

Pfew! That's it. Thank you all for your attention. ;)

[Caddis]

@Karl

I too, am having this jitter/choppy behavior with my playback of my RV9 encodes.
I noticed in a previous reply you mentioned it could be a Matrox problem but I'm using a Geforce2 MX400. It really shows up bad when panning or high motion scenes. I tried that "jitter" clip you linked to earlier in this thread and the XVID played fine but the RV9 is terrible. I would really like to find out what this problem is.
I reinstalled RealOneV2 as well.

I linked to an exaggerated picture of this jitter

http://members.shaw.ca/fab1/Files4U/jitter_tearing.png

Also, is there any news on the DirectShow filter as to allow us to playback RV9 with other players?

Thanks...

[Dark-Cracker]

hi,

@ Rash

>Why doesn't the Quality (bits/pix*frm) on the codec tab doesn't change when I increase/decrease the resolution?

it's perhaps a bug i check if the refresh for the quality value is used when u change resolution.

>And, will there be a compressibility test on AutoRV9? Is it possible?

yes i will add it as soon i finish the autodub release.

++

[Rash]

Thank you very much Dark! ;) These are really good news!

For now, I'm guessing myself the Quality values and it seems I'm always right. :) (or it is the Helix Producer backing me up, hehe)

Good job! :cool:

[gabest]

Originally posted by Caddis
@Karl
I noticed in a previous reply you mentioned it could be a Matrox problem but I'm using a Geforce2 MX400. It really shows up bad when panning or high motion scenes. I tried that "jitter" clip you linked to earlier in this thread and the XVID played fine but the RV9 is terrible. Very handy little clips, thanks Karl :) However, I also have this vsync prob in realone and mpc w/ real's renderer on a gf4ti4200 card. When I try to manually render the frames using GetScanLine it is still not looking perfect, but the problem is only noticable about once per second and mainly near to the top of the screen.

edit: Just shut down the tv tuner application to let the player use overlay and it plays smooth now! Hm, but why can't the other time :confused:

[karl_lillevold]

This is great feedback. As it happens, I also have a GF4 4200 Ti just like gabest. So I double-checked my jitter test clip, and found that it indeed played back with some pretty noticable jitter problems, compared to the XviD clip, even with overlay. I recently changed to an LCD display, which lowered the screen refresh from 85 to 60 Hz. Since this clip is 30 fps, it should play back with close to perfect sync, but it does not. I don't know what the problem could be :confused:, but I have forwarded it to our renderer experts. This is something that can be improved.

[karl_lillevold]

Originally posted by Caddis
I noticed in a previous reply you mentioned it could be a Matrox problem but I'm using a Geforce2 MX400. It really shows up bad when panning or high motion scenes. I tried that "jitter" clip you linked to earlier in this thread and the XVID played fine but the RV9 is terrible. I would really like to find out what this problem is.
I reinstalled RealOneV2 as well.
Based on your exaggarated picture, this looks like tearing, and much worse than the issue I mentioned in my previous post. Tearing can appear if you don't have overlay, and the renderer can not flip surfaces correctly. Do you have TV tuner or some other settings that could prevent the RV renderer from obtaining an overlay? Is your Tools->Preferences->Hardware in RealOne set to Best Performance in the Video Card Compatibility section?

[karl_lillevold]

@Rash:
Lots of questions, let me see if I can answer some of them:

Choppy playback with tearing: do you have overlay? (you can check with Alt-PrtScn with RealOne in focus to copy the current window to your clipboard, then paste into Accesories->Paint. If the video shows up and not just a black frame, you don't have overlay)

The only way to do sub-titles with RV9 is to use RealText, and SMIL to render both the video and the RealText stream. You can have as many RT streams as you like, and with SMIL choose the stream that corresponds to your chosen language. It is not possible to mux sub-titles streams into an RM file.

The surround mode is Dolby ProLogic Surround (for now), and not a discrete solution like AC3. This means that the surround information is downmixed from 5.1 channels into 2 channels, where the back channel is encoded in the phase difference between the two channels. So when played back through a Dolby Surround decoder, it will decode the surround information from the 2 channels, and properly send the approriate signal to front center, right, left, and rear speakers.

Producer GUI: I don't think there are plans to release the GUI source code, but there are already at least three 3rd party encoder GUI tools, but more may be on the way. See the first post.

[Rash]

Thank you Karl. ;)

Well, I don't have overlay on RealOne because of that Catalyst issue. ;) So it is not a problem right now. (Could you tell me if it is OK to use the Helix Client? Thanks)

Thank you also for your explanations on Surround and the RealText. ;)

Well, about the GUI, I was just wondering if there would be an official one. Not that I wouldn't use the amazing AutoRV9. :)

[Caddis]

@Karl

I don't have any Capture Card or device installed, ever.
I've had "Force Overlay Mixer" ticked in ZoomPlayer and FFDshow but, when I unticked them there is still no change and the choppy playback is still bad.
My hardware controls in RealOne are set to "Best Performance".
I've reinstalled other driver's several times and no change.

Thanks...

[midiguy]

where can I find these motion test clips (XviD + RV9) that everyone is talking about?? I looked throughout the thread (As well as others and searched too) but I can't seem to find it. link me please thanks! bye!:D

[karl_lillevold]

http://www.lillevold.com/jitter.zip

[midiguy]

thanks.

[midiguy]

the XviD clip plays fluidly and has great motion throughout. the RV9 clips has god motion some of the time, but like once every second or so, I notice a jump (or jitter), (especially in the beginning of the clip). I hope this gets fixed soon! (karl, it would be cool if you could make another test clip when this issue is resolved, so then you could get feedback from everyone to see if the prob is gone, just a thought).

[RadicalEd]

this is interesting. The XviD clip played in wmp 6.4 decoded by ffdshow is, as everyone's been saying, generally free of jitter. The RV9 clip showed a bunch of jitter. The interesting part is that when I played the XviD clip in RealOne the tearing effect mentioned above which wasnt there with the other two clips was really noticable :\

[karl_lillevold]

FYI: ATI posted updated drivers Feb. 10th, Catalyst version 3.10. However, RealVideo playback still has the same bugs as discussed previously in this thread, probably relevant for models 8500 and higher.

According to ATI, they have identified the issue, and a release of a fix is scheduled for mid-March.

Thanks for your patience...

[31 Flavas]

Once again, thank you karl.

[Rash]

Damn!! ATI release the update but not the correction! :(

Anyway, does anybody know when they will release a new RealOne? Thanks. ;)

[31 Flavas]

Originally posted by Rash

Anyway, does anybody know when they will release a new RealOne? Thanks. ;) When it is released? :)

[kilg0r3]

@everybody having a jitter problem

try getting your hands on v1 of realone player. at least for me with a matrox g400 it is gone.

[Sirber]

Best video quality at any bitrate, best audio quality at any bitrate.

These are my favorites codecs :)

[phrentec]

@karl_lillevold: Would it be possible for you to help Gabest to implement a way to resize quicktime media from within media player classic. RealOne seems to be able, to an extent, to play and resize quicktime videos. And it would be good if MPC could in a similar way do the same.

-best regards

[midiguy]

well, about the jitter bug, I always DID think that real player was playing my video files a little more "jerky" or "slower" than it would normally play, I just kind of dismissed my observation as being my imagination, but I guess not.. anyone know when this thing will be resolved? also, appearently something that is causing this excessive blur problem is a resize bug in realone player. If you use MPC you will notice that this bug does not exist, and video looks less blurry (although the video jerking bug still exists, since that bug is in the decoder and not the player). any comments on all this?!

[Sirber]

With Helix Producer Plus (9.0.1), I always have to reinstall my codecs in order to be able to decode DIVX or XVID. I don't understand...

[jonny]

Any plans/news about a vfw interface implementation?

[karl_lillevold]

Originally posted by midiguy
well, about the jitter bug, I always DID think that real player was playing my video files a little more "jerky" or "slower" than it would normally play, I just kind of dismissed my observation as being my imagination, but I guess not.. anyone know when this thing will be resolved? also, appearently something that is causing this excessive blur problem is a resize bug in realone player. If you use MPC you will notice that this bug does not exist, and video looks less blurry (although the video jerking bug still exists, since that bug is in the decoder and not the player). any comments on all this?!
The jitter problem appears to be worse on some video cards and not really a problem on others. For those cards with a problem it is worse at typical LCD 60 Hz refresh rates than CRT at 85 Hz or higher. Accurate timing during playback is very hard, and since the video frame rate is usually not a multiple of the screen refresh rate, it is impossible to be as accurate as your TV. Not to mention how you are limited by the timer accuracy of the OS, with its non-deterministic behavior in certain cases, along with how each video card driver and manufacturer handles the necessary API calls differently.
May I ask which video card you have? (I am assuming you have the latest driver, like everyone reading this forum..:) ) The target is to fix this for the next release of RealOne (V.3).

[midiguy]

Matrox G400 32 MB

umm, what about the blur bug in real one player that I mentioned above? thanks!! and nice to know that it will be resolved! also, all this talk abouit refresh rates and OS environments and all, if all this is true, how come other formats don't suffer from this same jerking problem?

[karl_lillevold]

I will specifically mention the G400 to make sure this is looked at for the jitter reduction. I still don't understand how RealOne can make the video more blurry than MPC, since they both use the same renderer, so this is also something we have to try to reproduce. It does not happen for nVidia or ATI, the systems I have easy access to.

[midiguy]

Originally posted by karl_lillevold
I will specifically mention the G400 to make sure this is looked at for the jitter reduction. I still don't understand how RealOne can make the video more blurry than MPC, since they both use the same renderer, so this is also something we have to try to reproduce. It does not happen for nVidia or ATI, the systems I have easy access to.
I'm not sure if it does make it more blurry.. I just seem to see some more artifacts in mpc than I do in realone player, but at the same time, the image does look a bit more detailed.. I can't explain it, maybe its just my imagination.. maybe the bug is in realone player on playback, and has nothing to do with the decoder (DLLs)?

[^^-+I4004+-^^]

>For those cards with a problem it is worse at typical LCD 60 Hz refresh rates than CRT at 85 Hz or higher. Accurate timing during playback is very hard, and since the video frame rate is usually not a multiple of the screen refresh rate, it is impossible to be as accurate as your TV

see....this is interesting!
remember me?
i said that i have problem on tv-out with
realmedia files.......and guess on what refresh rate
tvout is.......yeap,60hz.......

anyhow few digressions:
works flawlessly for me on win98 (seems even if i use
same tvout software as used on w2k)
ie. wk2 tvout jerks,win98 tvout doesn't.......

avi doesn't jerk and it has same framerate
as real.......right?right!
how can avi do it and real can't?
( no 25fps avi jerks on either w2k or win98 )

how come your renderer has ANYTHING to do with refresh rate
at all?
GPU is providing refresh rate no matter the source
video framerate..
don't tell me rplayer has to produce 60fps on 60hz
or
85fps on 85hz refrsh rate.....


point3:get this fixed already!

will the fix be available as a patch?
modem folks don't like 12MB dloads,let me tell you.(hehe)

[kilg0r3]

@karl_lillevold

hi karl, probabely you could encourage somebody to look into xcd-support too?

[karl_lillevold]

See my reply here:
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=40097

I am not sure which other features than random bit error resiliency would be needed, but I will look into it.

[kilg0r3]

@karl_lillevold

hi karl, might i dare to direct your attention to a producer problem in the x2real thread (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=46669)?

[midiguy]

meh, any news about RV9 stuff? any idea when the next version of the decoder will be out (v3 I assume?) the only things stopping me from using RV9 is the jitter problems and the uncontrollable post-processing (be it on the encoder or decoder side).

[karl_lillevold]

V3 will be out in 2003 ;) I am afraid that's all I can say about V3, but it will have some really nice features.

Regarding the resolution of some video cards' jitter problems: Since V3 will take some time, I will look into if it's possible to build a V2 DLL that includes the fix, but no promises..

With regards to encoder and decoder DLLs with adjustable filtering: I actually have this running on my own system, but I got stuck doing a lot of other tasks, and have not had time to complete this work. What I would like to do is finish them enough to perhaps release them on some sort of limited trial basis to get some feedback, but I am not yet sure I will be able to do this.

[Sirber]

If you are able to, I'm the man for testing!! :)

[midiguy]

Originally posted by karl_lillevold
V3 will be out in 2003 ;) I am afraid that's all I can say about V3, but it will have some really nice features.

Regarding the resolution of some video cards' jitter problems: Since V3 will take some time, I will look into if it's possible to build a V2 DLL that includes the fix, but no promises..

With regards to encoder and decoder DLLs with adjustable filtering: I actually have this running on my own system, but I got stuck doing a lot of other tasks, and have not had time to complete this work. What I would like to do is finish them enough to perhaps release them on some sort of limited trial basis to get some feedback, but I am not yet sure I will be able to do this.

When you say sometime in 2003, does that mean it could be all the way in December or something like that??? cause that is a looong release date! and also, when you say "filtering", are you referring to post-processing? thanks!

[wing1]

Probably this is an irrelevant question, but I can't help but ask :D Is there any chance this codec will make it to a stand alone player box?

[karl_lillevold]

@midiguy: '2003' does not mean December, it just means that I can not give any more details in this forum :)

@wing1: If you by 'standalone player box' mean something like a DVD player, take a look at these couple of examples

http://uk.us.biz.yahoo.com/prnews/030109/sfth052_1.html
"RealNetworks and Equator to Enable RealVideo 9 for Next-Generation of Consumer Electronics on Equator Platform"

http://www.internetnews.com/bus-news/article.php/1489901
"The company [RealNetworks] announced Acer would optimize RealVideo and RealAudio for their chipsets targeted toward the DVD market"

and some more
http://www.realnetworks.com/company/press/releases/2002/helix_client.html

[wing1]

Thank you for the information. It would be a crying shame for this codec to be tied to PC only. Now if a DVD player type of box is available for playing back RV9 content, then what will be the format and/or standard that will be written to CDR/DVDR? format is referring to burning session, and standard is referring to encoding session. Furthermore, will the anamorphic playback still hold true in this type of box?

[karl_lillevold]

Yes, I am really looking forward to DVD player type support for RV9. I am afraid I don't know the answer to your format questions. The sources I mentioned are porting RV9 and RA to their chipset and platforms. Then DVD player manufacturers will license the result and make a DVD player, at which time these questions will have to be answered.

Anamorphic support should be included though, since this is not really a decoder issue, it just decodes its input at the given size, but a matter of support in the DVD player for stretching and adjustment of the output of the decoder to your type of display.

[kilg0r3]

hi karl!

is there already a bug fix for the producer regarding the switching back to single pass on starting the second pass?

cheers

kilg0r3

[karl_lillevold]

Yes, a fix has been checked in and will be included in the next Milestone. If you can not wait until then, get the latest x2real, and use the encoder DLL from this version, like I described here:
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=47426&highlight=erv4

[iwod]

Hi,

I have got a RM which is 25 min long but i can only view it to 16 min..... ( Does that mean it is broken?? )

Are there any tools to fix it?? I am viewing it with MPC so i will try RealONE and see what happens.....




:::::::UPdate::::::

Well i manage to fix three of my RM files with a program called RM fix.
But there is still one i can not fix becoz of timestamp issue..... any body know any other program other than RM-fix??

[kilg0r3]

Originally posted by karl_lillevold
... get the latest x2real, and use the encoder DLL from this version, like I described here:
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=47426&highlight=erv4

I usually use the producer binaries included with x2real, i.e. i don't have to worry about this bug anymore?

[wing1]

@karl_lillevold

I just download milestone build 5 binaries and test it. I get the following errors :

Error: Unexpected file format, e:\test.avs may be a flat file.
Error: Missing RIFF header. e:\test.avs is not a valid AVI file.

However, diagnostic for input file properties still is ok and producer will still encode the avs. These errors does not show up in milestone build 3.

[karl_lillevold]

it's just a warning that the file is not a valid AVI file, which is true. It should have said "Warning", not "Error" though. One problem with Milestone 5 is that 2-pass is broken. See my reply to question above related to that.

[wing1]

Thanks Karl. I don't use 2-pass, so that is not an issue with me. I always favor 1-pass and control the quality via avisynth. I replaced all the dll in milestone build3 codec folder with milestone5 and also common folder. It seems to work well now.

[kilg0r3]

@karl

sorry, even if i am, again, making a fool of myself, i must say that i still haven't entirely understood which dlls to place where in order to be able to do a two-pass encode. sorry for bugging

[wing1]

@Kilg0r3

If i am not mistaken, I believe the erv*.dll inside the codecs folder. The old milestone build 3 has erv23260.dll, erv33260.dll, erv43260.dll: The new milestone build 5 has erv2.dll, erv3.dll, and erv4.dll.

I am not 100% sure, but I think the problem was introduced when I combined the two encoder DLLs. Go to the codecs folder, check if you have only erv4 (+ erv3 and erv2). Then it is likely that 2-pass will work just like 1-pass, which by the way is not "life-or-death" .. 1-pass works pretty well, too.

I have only erv43260.dll, erv33260.dll and erv23260.dll. I'm gonna die!!!

take erv4.dll from x2real, rename it erv43260.dll, you'll survive.

...here I think Karl is saying to take erv4.dll from milestone build 5 and replace the old erv43260.dll from milestone build 3/4 with it.

What's the big difference between all Producer versions?

bug fixes, new features (YV12), clean-up, for instance we combined two DLLs into one for each of the codecs, and we removed that ancient '3260' in most of the filenames.

Compression wise, not much has changed in these builds, so you don't always have to keep up with the latest, if the version you are using works well. For any significant changes, like YV12, or when this 2-pass bug has been fixed, I will let you all know.

So if you replace the erv*.dll from milestone build 3/4 with those in milestone build 5 and rename them with *3260.dll, 2-pass should work and will have the update in milestone build 5. i.e. with xreal2, replace the real folder with the older version, and copy the erv*.dll from the newer version to the codec folder, and rename them.

correct me if I am reading something wrong here.

[karl_lillevold]

Sorry for making it sound complicated. It is not really.

erv4 is the RV9 encoder DLL. Don't worry bout erv3 or erv2. This is RV8 and RVG2.

Erv4 used to exist as a pair of DLLs, rv403260.dll and erv43260.dll, where rv40 would load erv4. If you have a version of producer with this DLL pair, 2-pass works.

Then, the pair was combined into one DLL, erv43260.dll, which was renamed to erv4.dll in the most recent version. If you have just one DLL, 2-pass most likely will not work.

Then, all you need to do to fix this, is to replace your one erv4 DLL with the one from x2real. If your DLL used to be called erv43260.dll, that's what you need to rename the x2real one to. If your DLL is already called erv4.dll, just replace it with the x2real one without renaming. Don't worry about any other files in the codecs folder.

Or, even simpler, just install Milestone 5, and replace codecs/erv4.dll with the one from x2real, without any renaming.

[kilg0r3]

Originally posted by karl_lillevold
Or, even simpler, just install Milestone 5, and replace codecs/erv4.dll with the one from x2real, without any renaming.

Or, as I proposed, just use producer and dlls which come with x2real. Right? Now I am happy little kilg0r3 again :gleem::)

[wing1]

@Karl

regarding playback: I don't know if this issue has been reported as yet; However, if you are running a dual screen using two video cards, the primary video card will playback ok, but the secondary card will have black screen only. It seems like the overlay is not working on the secondary video card. I am seeing this in both realone player and mpc. Is there a work around for this?

[karl_lillevold]

That's an interesting question. I don't know the answer when you have two video cards... When using WMP, is it able to have overlay on both screens? Then RealOne should be able to, as well, and I will file a problem report to hopefully have it fixed in RealOne V3 (and MPC using RealOne DLLs).

With regards to dual screens using just one video card, then it is up to the video card where and how overlay works. ATI cards can have overlay only on one screen when used with two displays, so for instance if connected to a TV and a computer display, you have to disable the computer display to get the overlay to the TV. I have been told nVidia with two displays can have overlay on both displays, but can not verify this information right now. Anyone?

I have too little experience with dual screen setups, so please, if anyone knows more about this, please speak up, especially regarding how overlays work with two video cards.

[gabest]

I have been told nVidia with two displays can have overlay on both displays, but can not verify this information right now. Anyone?That's true, but I only noticed this recently. Maybe they added it to the driver or it was just me who upgraded his nvidia card to a newer one. It still turns off when the picture is on both monitors.

[kilg0r3]

@karl_lillevold

hi, karl!

(1) Last night I did a two-pass encode of a movie which, however, turned out 35MB undersized again.
The movie starts out with a reduced screen size of 206x174 which is maintained for about 4500 frames. I am not sure, of course, but I think the rate control should be able to cope with this.
The max bitrate was set to 2.2 times the average bitrate. So I think this is not the problem.

(2) I am planning to do a little quality comparison between rv9 and xvid and just wanted to ask which factors you think that I should take into account in order to be fair to rv9. Your input would be highly appreciated since I am by far not as much familiar with rv9 as with xvid

a) video encoding settings: perhaps, you would like to write a *.rpad file yourself. (otherwise I'd just use x2real to generate it)

b) player app: since i own a matrox G400 card, I am currently forced to use realOne v1. Do you think it will make much of a difference using v1 instead of v2? Any adjustments in the player I should think of? The frame grabs would be done using xnviews screen shot feature while overlay is disabled. BTW I usually disable overlay simply by occupying it with another app; e.g. dvd2avi.

c) material: any suggestions regarding film type? Evidently, both codecs will be fed with the same input material. Any filtering, except the one done by the quantizer matrices, will be done in avisynth

(3)
I'll probably need to run multiple second passes for the material, due to the undersize issue mentioned above. For that, I'd be happy to know in which file producer stores the data of the first pass AND how can I initiate a second pass reusing the stas-or-whatever file of the first pass.

Let me know what you are thinking.

Cheers, and thanks for all your help so far.

[wing1]

let me clarify my initial reports a little further.

I am running win2k, and I have two video cards installed in the same system: One is an AGP video card which is a generic nVidia Geforce2, and the other is a PCI ATI Rage XL. Both are old cards, but the drivers are the most recent that were made for them.

I have both RealOne V2 gold and MPC 6.4.3.1 w2k installed. No codec pak are used here :D The primary display is the nVidia GeForce2 while the secondary display is the PCI ATI Rage XL.

If playing contents such as DivX4.x/5.0.x/3.11, xvid, QT, and mpg1/2, I get video on both individual display as I drag the player from one display over to the other display. The only problem I am experiencing is with RV9 content. I have tested on both mpc and RealOne players, and they both open files other then RV9 just fine. I have not tested on realmedia8 or older version yet ( don't have that to play with ).

If the player resides on both display, half and half, I still get video overlay fine too for all contents except RV9.

tested with wmv content also, and that too works fine.

[karl_lillevold]

@kilg0r3

1) why make it so complicated..? Just encode standard resolution for the whole encode.. I am not exactly sure what you mean though, but I am guessing you are cropping to this small size, and then resize back up to the full size before encode? otherwise you would have to encode in two sections..

That said, I have had the same problem with undersized encodes when credits are included at the end. When credits are encoded separately with a fixed quality, the encode always ends up within 1 to 2 MB of the target filesize. This, of course, requires AutoRV9.

I started to look into this problem, but there is no quick fix. The VBR window may be too short to handle 5-6 minutes credits and your 4500 frames properly, but I really don't know the answer here and now.

2) If you use autodub for one and autorv9 for the other, things should be fairly equal, right..?

I can't think of any problems with V1 that would prevent good screenshots, but it's been a while, and I might have forgotten something. Picking screen shots to represent full-screen playback of a long encode will be very hard though. Ringing for instance, is not very visibile with stills, and if you pick a high enough bitrate, any modern codec will look pretty darn good with these relatively small screenshots.

Content: just any content not requiring any pre-filtering would be good. Pre-filtering just introduces other factors.

3) See 1) for suggestions. It is not unfortunatley not possible to re-use the 1st pass info and restart just the 2nd pass.

[midiguy]

why use v1 of the decoder if you own a matrox g400? I own a g400, and I am using v2, and aside from the jitter problemm I don't really have any opther issues.. is there something I'm missing?

thanks!

[kilg0r3]

Originally posted by karl_lillevold
[B]
I am guessing you are cropping to this small size, and then resize back up to the full size before encode? otherwise you would have to encode in two sections..

Oh sorry, iwas really unspecific here. Actually I resize to this resulotion and then add blackborders, so that the credits take up only about a sixth of the whole frame. This settings, apply only to the credits sequence.

What, is the problem with prefiltering? I almost always use slight filtering for 1 CD encodes.

[Dark-Cracker]

hi,

@killor
u cant redo the second pass the stat file is stored in the window temp directory (.dat it seems to me) and use a random name.

++

[karl_lillevold]

and the information stored in this file is so specific to the settings you used, that it can not be re-used if any settings change, incl. bitrate and everything else. We have thought about ways improve this to make the information more re-usable, but nothing specific yet.

[karl_lillevold]

@wing1
Thanks for the detailed information. I checked with our renderer/overlay expert, and found that this is known behavior. Any format that's played back using DirectShow will have an adaptive overlay surface going from screen to screen, while RealVideo which is played back using our own renderer, does not have this support. Unfortunately, this dual video card setup is not very common, and the feature request will probably not have high enough priority to be included in V3 :(

[wing1]

@Karl

That is not a big problem at all. I thought it was a bug so I report it. However, if this is something that has been known, then I am sure it will work out when the time is right.

btw. The dual(multi) card setup is very convenient. win2k has the ability to allow upto 10 video card to be setup and display on a single PC. This setup allow you to spread your work around each individual screen at full resolution of the screen. I can watch full screen TV, while I am surfing the net on another full screen while do compression on another screen if I have another monitor and video card setup :D

[midiguy]

Originally posted by wing1
@Karl
I can watch full screen TV, while I am surfing the net on another full screen while do compression on another screen if I have another monitor and video card setup :D
... and a really fast computer.

[wing1]

hehehe... only a 2100+ xp, but that will do.

@karl

I am playing around with the settings in the audience file, I am using the default values, your recommended values, and my own: I did noticed that the latency startup setting is drastically increase from default to your recommendation. What exactly does this value do? Is it something similar to buffer time? I did noticed that if this value is increased, the playback seem to be sharper.

[midiguy]

Originally posted by wing1
hehehe... only a 2100+ xp, but that will do.

@karl

I am playing around with the settings in the audience file, I am using the default values, your recommended values, and my own: I did noticed that the latency startup setting is drastically increase from default to your recommendation. What exactly does this value do? Is it something similar to buffer time? I did noticed that if this value is increased, the playback seem to be sharper.

if the playback is sharper than that would most likely mean your film was compressed with better settings. usually when the video looks more "blurry" it is because of the in-loop filtering or post-processing having to cover up too many artifacts. so if it is sharper, prolly means less artifacts to cover up. that's generalizing the situation I gues, but it gets the point accross.

[Wilbert]

@karl,

Can anyone of you make AviSynth video and audio plugins for importing the rm streams in AviSynth?

[karl_lillevold]

Originally posted by wing1
I am playing around with the settings in the audience file, I am using the default values, your recommended values, and my own: I did noticed that the latency startup setting is drastically increase from default to your recommendation. What exactly does this value do? Is it something similar to buffer time? I did noticed that if this value is increased, the playback seem to be sharper.
the max latency setting is named after the maximum amount of buffering time which is needed if you were to stream your content. In practical terms for offline encoding this extra buffer or bit reservoir gives the encoder more flexibility to spend more bits during high action scenes. And more bits means higher quality and sharper video.

On the other hand, with the latency time set to a small number, the encoder is forced to keep the bitrate pretty close to the average even during high action, thus limiting the quality.

[karl_lillevold]

Originally posted by Wilbert
Can anyone of you make AviSynth video and audio plugins for importing the rm streams in AviSynth?
That's a great idea. Like I have posted a few times, it is possible the codec APIs will be opened up, but there is no decision yet, and I can not possibly make any promises. If this happens [codec API published], I am sure there will be people writing DS filters, VirtualDub plugins, AviSynth plugins and a lot of other really cool stuff.

[kilg0r3]

Originally posted by karl_lillevold
the max latency ... this extra buffer or bit reservoir gives the encoder more flexibility to spend more bits during high action scenes. And more bits means higher quality and sharper video.


Does this also apply to two pass encodes. If so this could be a way to get rid of undersized files.:)

[Valky]

Originally posted by karl_lillevold
Could you take a look at the files in http://www.lillevold.com/files/jitter.zip (one RV9, one XviD) and see if you notice a difference in the amount of jitter? On my system both play back pretty smoothly.


Actually I tried this realmedia-file and noticed that it look awful at any other settings than recommended setting at performance/hardware-tab.

If the slider isn't at far right, the line starts to break. Also with MPC the line jitters and breaks at all other renderer that wmr7, but even with that, it isn't as perfect as it is with RealPlayer. So should I now always use RealPlayer with my movies? This would be shame, cause then I cant use srt-subtitles :(

The reason I tried this file of yours was that I encoded Merlin-dvd with your recommended settings and I used AutoRV 1.2 for that.
The movie is over 3 hours long so for the first time I had to put it on 2CD.

First thing: I wasn't really happy with the cutting. After the second part starts there is over 10 seconds black screen without the picture but the audio can still be heard and it gets synched little bit later..something wrong with the cutting in AutoRV?

Secondly: I have been pretty satisfied with the results in two other movies (LOTR-cartoon and SOUTHPARK -movie) I have encoded on 1CD but just like in this Merlin-movie, there has been some strange screen shifting from the middle of the picture from time to time. These I have noticed when watching with TV-Output using TVtool. So it is something similiar to that test-clip and it isn't as smooth as I hope.

In this Merlin there is also very skipping picture when camera is moving horizontally panning from right to left..this exist also with divx codec but would have been nice to get rid of it :)
This is related to the thing mentioned above I think..

Also I would like to ask if it is possible to use these rt-subtitles so that they appear transparent without that black box on top of my movie? Can this be done somehow modifying that smil-file?
Now it look pretty silly when movie doesn't cover the whole screen. It hang above the screen and subtitle-box just below that.

Also if I encode PAL DVD's with 25fps I should also always change max fps to 25 at Realmedia encoder? (Default is 30fps)


My hardware is WinXP, Geforce2, Athlon 1700XP+, Live!
I have tried with resolutions 1024, 800 and with both 16bit and 32bit. Refreshrate 60,75 and 85. DX8.1

Just wanted to add that this xvid jitter-clip doesn't play smooth at all with MPC, but with Viplayer it does..? The RM jitter-clip plays much smoother with MPC than xvid-clip..this is weird..I tried with both ffdshow and Nic's xvid decoder.
Does somebody happen to have same jitter clip encoded in Divx? This seems interesting :)
or then again maby not..now I dont know what player to trust anymore :)

Also when I changed the framerate to 25fps in xvid-clip it wasn't as bad as with 30fps on my 50hrz tv, but still jittering (and perfect with Viplayer)

Now I try with latest beta MPC..

[gabest]

The vsync detection of mpc's special rm renderer was improved in the latest test verisons. You can find it in its topic in the "players" forum. The video renderer settings on the first page doesn't affect realmedia playback. By default it uses real's own renderer in overlay if possible (ok), or without overlay (jitters). When the "special renderer" is checked, mpc renderers the video onto the screen with dx7 functions (looks also ok since v6435).

[Dark-Cracker]

@valky
autorv9 slpit the movie on a keyframe using rmeditor normaly no problem on the split :) i don't think the error come from autorv9 :)

for the subtitle wait version 1.3 of autorv9 u will have the transparency option and a shadow option :)

@karl
could u try to put latency upper than 25 sec ? it will done a better quality and a better accurency for the final file size.

@gabest
could u try to add the possibility to sharp and change colors for the .rmvb file ? like in realone player :)

thank u :)
Bye.

[31 Flavas]

Originally posted by karl_lillevold
In practical terms for offline encoding this extra buffer or bit reservoir gives the encoder more flexibility to spend more bits during high action scenes. And more bits means higher quality and sharper video. Is there any 'hack' that would allow max latency to be increased beyond 25 in RV9 producers?

It would make the file almost unstreamable (too much inital waiting), but for local playback this shouldn't matter. It did not hurt local playback in RV8, afaik...

[Sirber]

@gabest

MPC uses 100% CPU now and don't start :( I don't understand why.

[karl_lillevold]

Originally posted by 31 Flavas
Is there any 'hack' that would allow max latency to be increased beyond 25 in RV9 producers?
It is not possible to increase this beyond 25 seconds, but the good news is that the buffer size is calculated based on the max bitrate for VBR encodes, and not the average bitrate. This means that if you increase the max bitrate for a VBR encode, the VBR buffer will be larger.

I have not run many experiments to verify this, but I have on my list of things to do, to investigate 2-pass VBR behavior in general, and this will be part of that work. I wrote a perl script to create spreadsheet data such that the bitrate over time can be plotted, based on the output of 'rmeditor -d', and if possible I would like to improve a few things (like how producer tends to undershoot the bitrate when part of the clip is very very easy to encode).

[karl_lillevold]

@Valky, finally a few replies for you. Sorry I have not gotten around to it sooner.

Originally posted by Valky
[B]If the slider isn't at far right, the line starts to break. Also with MPC the line jitters and breaks at all other renderer that wmr7, but even with that, it isn't as perfect as it is with RealPlayer. So should I now always use RealPlayer with my movies? This would be shame, cause then I cant use srt-subtitles :(
If the line in the jitter test clips "breaks" that probably means what we call tearing, which is an indication that flip buffers are not used. These buffers are used in the most optimized renderer in such a way that we copy data to video memory to a surface that is not being displayed. Then, at some instant in time later, the buffers are flipped, thus the name, to display the content of this buffer. The "breaks" are caused by a frame being displayed in the middle of a mem copy to this frame. When MPC uses its own renderer for its great looking sub-titles, the flip buffers are not used, and you will unfortunately see tearing. However, when MPC uses the native RealVideo renderer, it should display frames the same way RealOne does

First thing: I wasn't really happy with the cutting. After the second part starts there is over 10 seconds black screen without the picture but the audio can still be heard and it gets synched little bit later..something wrong with the cutting in AutoRV?
This is a problem with rmeditor, I believe. It will cut the video where it is being asked to cut (by AutoRV9) regardless of keyframes. Then the video frames up until the first key frames will be discarded. Worst case, this could be up to 10 seconds. I wish it was different, but I am afraid the only way to cut to key frames with rmeditor, is to use its GUI flavor.

Secondly: I have been pretty satisfied with the results in two other movies (LOTR-cartoon and SOUTHPARK -movie) I have encoded on 1CD but just like in this Merlin-movie, there has been some strange screen shifting from the middle of the picture from time to time. These I have noticed when watching with TV-Output using TVtool. So it is something similiar to that test-clip and it isn't as smooth as I hope.
Not sure about this one...

Also I would like to ask if it is possible to use these rt-subtitles so that they appear transparent without that black box on top of my movie? Can this be done somehow modifying that smil-file?
Now it look pretty silly when movie doesn't cover the whole screen. It hang above the screen and subtitle-box just below that.
I think you are asking about if the sub-titles can have transparent background, right? Take a look at this thread:
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=40636&highlight=RV9+transparent+subtitles


Also if I encode PAL DVD's with 25fps I should also always change max fps to 25 at Realmedia encoder? (Default is 30fps)
I don't think that really matters, producer will look at the input framerate, and if it is 25 fps, this will automatically be the maximum framerate.

Just wanted to add that this xvid jitter-clip doesn't play smooth at all with MPC, but with Viplayer it does..? The RM jitter-clip plays much smoother with MPC than xvid-clip..this is weird..I tried with both ffdshow and Nic's xvid decoder.
Does somebody happen to have same jitter clip encoded in Divx? This seems interesting :)
or then again maby not..now I dont know what player to trust anymore :)

The amount of jitter depends on the renderer used. Both DivX and XviD would probably have the exact same amount of jitter if you use the same renderer sub-system, which for AVI files in most cases is native DirectShow. If a player uses its own renderer system, this could potentially affect the jitter. RealVideo does not use DirectShow, and is why you will sometimes see more jitter with RealVideo, something which has already been improved, but not released yet (RealOne V3).

[kilg0r3]

Hi Karl!

Thank you very much. Just wanted to say that your patience and dedication is very much appreciated. :)

Take Care.

[slavickas]

Originally posted by karl_lillevold


I don't think that really matters, producer will look at the input framerate, and if it is 25 fps, this will automatically be the maximum framerate.



i have opposite question, why producer encodes at source's fps (for example 30) if in audience it is specified different (25). so it meants what producer simply is ignoring this setting (if correctly i remember 8th producer encoded at specified fps)

[karl_lillevold]

Originally posted by slavickas
i have opposite question, why producer encodes at source's fps (for example 30) if in audience it is specified different (25). so it meants what producer simply is ignoring this setting (if correctly i remember 8th producer encoded at specified fps)
I am not exactly sure what producer8 did, or this specific example, but it is simply not possible to encode a 30 fps clip at 25 fps in a nice way. You could get to 15, 10, or 7.5 fps, by skipping frames, but not from 30 to 25. In that case you will have to use a tool like VirtualDub to modify the framerate, which has more advanced video editing features.

Other than that, maybe there is a problem, but please provide a specific example, and I will take a look to see if I need to file a bug report.

[31 Flavas]

Originally posted by Valky

Also I would like to ask if it is possible to use these rt-subtitles so that they appear transparent without that black box on top of my movie? Can this be done somehow modifying that smil-file?
Now it look pretty silly when movie doesn't cover the whole screen. It hang above the screen and subtitle-box just below that. Although the information is cryptic and probably incomplete; I think this thread (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=30840) is the most useful right now. It contains basic code, transparancy code, and a link to doing borders/shadows (the link Karl posted).

I'll write a complete gide thread though, one of these days.....

[Dark-Cracker]

@karl
>It will cut the video where it is being asked to cut (by AutoRV9) regardless of keyframes.

autorv9 split the .rmvb file on the keyframe :) i am sure :).

[Sirber]

I made some tests with RMEditor and it don't cut at keyframe. I'm 100.01% positive. You may start with a black screen for few seconds.

J'ai fais kek tests et RMEditor coupe n'importe où. Chu sur a 100.01%. J'ai eu kek épisodes de Cowboy Bebop qui startais avec un écran noir.

P.S. This text has been modified to fit in your screen. :P

[Valky]

Originally posted by 31 Flavas
Although the information is cryptic and probably incomplete; I think this thread (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=30840) is the most useful right now. It contains basic code, transparancy code, and a link to doing borders/shadows (the link Karl posted).

I'll write a complete gide thread though, one of these days.....

Yes..it was totally cryptic and I really tried with those post, but my final results were just the same when I started..White text at the black backround and below the movie :(

But I rely on dark-cracker and to his excellent AutoRv9 and I hope he/she will find a good solution. Until that I rely on Gabest excellent MPC with support to beautiful looking srt files. Thank you both.

<smil xmlns="">
<head>
<layout>
<root-layout backgroundColor="black" width="512" height="418"/>
<region id="video_region" z-index="1"/>
<region id="text_region" height="50" bottom="0" z-index="2"/>
</layout>
</head>
<body>
<par>
<video src="south.rmvb" region="video_region" regPoint="topMid" regAlign="topMid" fill="remove"/>
<textstream src="south_Subtitle.rt" region="text_region" fill="freeze"/>
</par>
</body>
</smil>

[31 Flavas]

Here is my code from some transparent subs I did just last night. I'll try to explain it. The code below is my .smil file.


<smil xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2001/SMIL20/Language" xmlns:rn="http://features.real.com/2001/SMIL20/Extensions">
<head>
<layout>
<root-layout width="846" height="480"/>
<region id="video_region" z-index="1"/>
<region id="text_region" top="375" z-index="2"/>
</layout>
</head>
<body>
<par>
<video src="akira.rmvb" region="video_region" fill="remove"/>
<textstream src="akira.rt" region="text_region" rn:backgroundOpacity="0%" fill="freeze"/>
</par>
</body>
</smil> The first line is manditory; It has to be in the file or transparency won't work. The <root-layout> part defines the viewing window. Set it to your movies dimentions. The next important part is the top="". To calculate the number to put in the quotes subtract the height of your subtitles (get this from the .rt file) from the height of the movie and then subtract 20, 25, or 30 from that number (depending how far up from the bottom of movie you want to raise the subs). Now insert the rn:backgroundOpacity="0%" line into your <textstream> tag.

Your subs should be transparent now.

[Dark-Cracker]

@valky
transparency subtitle have been add in autorv9 v1.3 beta1 (not already released).

@sirber
rmeditor doesn't split on a keyframe but i have fouund the .rmvb structure and i detect the frame type and i calculate the time to split the file.

i have made some tests and the split seems correct.

if u want to made some tests try to split a sample movie (the split size can be added manually). and use 2 audio streams and the audio streams will be encoded separately (and all the frame in audio are considerly like some keyframes) and if all it correct the .smil file will read without desynch the files.

++

[Sirber]

@DarkCracker

From now you are my God. :D

[Valky]

I just wanted to say, that I have had major problems with my 'Robin of Sherwood' -serie, which I ordered from England.
This 80's tv-serie dvd-set is very noisy and I have had difficulties with so many different avs-scripts I have tried. Noise has been relatively easy to reduce, but I have had really bad blocking issues with scenes where there is lots of fire on the screen or at fast-action scenes where men run in a very thick forest.

My allowed bitrate is around 900kbit/s since my aim is to put two 50min episodes on one 700mb CD.

Now I decided to try RealMedia-codec and for my big surprise all those nasty blocks on those scenes were gone!! I mean totally gone!!

They were there with both xvid and divx codec. Thank you so much!

This was just what I needed :)

[Sirber]

Glad to ear that! Long life to Real!!! :D

[Dark-Cracker]

hi,

@karl
could u perhaps give theses request feature at the millestone developpers :

- max value for latency around 60 sec instead of 25 sec
- possibility to add switch to :
-p - set/clear perfect play mode
-b - set/clear mobile playback mode
-r - set/clear selective record

Bye.

[karl_lillevold]

Originally posted by Dark-Cracker
rmeditor doesn't split on a keyframe but i have fouund the .rmvb structure and i detect the frame type and i calculate the time to split the file.
There seems to be a problem with rmeditor in that the start time used to split the file is 'exclusive'. This means that when the start time is set exactly at the key frame, this key frame will not be included in the output file. This is why I would see around 10 seconds of no video at the beginning of the 2nd part when I used this feature.

The work-around is to set the start time for the 2nd part of the clip to around 50 ms before the key frame. Then the key frame will be included. Hopefully this work-around can be included in AutoRV9 V1.3, which I am very much looking forward to.

[Valky]

And most important..when can we see avs input in AutoRv9?

Of course it is now included in x2real which make both these 2 programs vital at the moment. Autorv9 has it advantages with so many great filters and better audio conversion, but avs-input in x2real makes also something that you can't live without.. :)

[akabob]

hi :)

What's differ between AutoRV9 and x2real audio conversion ?
As for filters, you can add your own into x2real\bin\avisynth\filters folder, they will be available when you click on "custom filters" then "add..."

Best regards,

[ToiletDuck]

Is the RV9 codec being actively enhanced or is it a done deal untill a new one comes out in the future? I was looking so see if there were any possible updates for it but haven't found any.
Duck

[iwod]

Originally posted by ToiletDuck
Is the RV9 codec being actively enhanced or is it a done deal untill a new one comes out in the future? I was looking so see if there were any possible updates for it but haven't found any.
Duck

This is quite a good questions.... as i want to know in terms of RV9....

Here is what has happened this month with encoder and the decorder.

A new developer release of player..... and in future may be a adjustable Post processing....

A milestone 6 release of Producer 9.1
Still don't know what is new with.....


Actually i have only notice bug fixing and some small enhancement..... In terms of quality i don't think there is any improvement....i don't think you will see as much going on in RV than in Xvid.

Anyway, you will have to wait for Karl to answer in details....

[karl_lillevold]

Originally posted by Dark-Cracker
- max value for latency around 60 sec instead of 25 sec
- possibility to add switch to :
-p - set/clear perfect play mode
-b - set/clear mobile playback mode
-r - set/clear selective record

increasing the max latency should be possible, and I will try to make that happen.

Perfect play mode: isn't this an old player only setting?

Mobile playback mode: not sure what this is. Perhaps you are referring to the old "Download to mobile devices", which I think was specifically for Audible players, not mobile phones or anything like that. It was obsoleted a while back -- we don't recognize or set that flag in Producer 9.x.

Record option: this is always on in Producer 9.x

[karl_lillevold]

Originally posted by ToiletDuck
Is the RV9 codec being actively enhanced or is it a done deal untill a new one comes out in the future? I was looking so see if there were any possible updates for it but haven't found any.

Yes, it is being actively worked on, but so far no encoder releases with much improved quality over the Gold release, which we are still pretty okay with. We have improved playback, fixed a few minor bugs, spent lots of time integrating with Helix, and enabling various ports. This is a lot of work, for a video codec team so small you can count us on less than one hand. Something might be brewing on the encoder side though, but no news for a little while yet.

[ToiletDuck]

wow there are that few of you? Awesome work man.

[ToiletDuck]

well you really don't know how many people microsoft has working on it. I'm not sure how big of a market there really is for this.

[midiguy]

more people doesn't neccarily correlate to better product. in fact, when there are more people, in some respects, it is a disadvantage.. because then more stuff ahs to be explained to more people and bugs will pop up everywhere because of people having trouble with other people's code (m$) etc. etc. of coarse, there is the advantgage that more work could potentially get odne in less time...

[wing1]

@karl,

We have improved playback, fixed a few minor bugs, spent lots of time integrating with Helix, and enabling various ports. This is a lot of work, for a video codec team so small you can count us on less than one hand.

Regarding playback improvement, I have a quick question: EO video seems to be the only commercial application which is capable of converting RV9 encoded stream into either VCD/SVCD/AVI (am I wrong with this assumption?). However, it can only do RV9 encoded stream which is not using the anamorphic resize function. If the latter is true, EO output will be all scramble lines. Is this something wrong with EO or RM decoder?

[karl_lillevold]

I just tried EO Video and the first thing I noticed was that during playback of RealVideo, it does not use optimized rendering, like MPC. This means software resizing is used, which looks pretty bad with jaggies everywhere, and multiple output buffers are not used, which results in tearing. This is the same quality as with the RealOne hardware compatibility slider all the way to the left.

Then when transcoding, it seems to do an okay job with each individual frame, but it has framerate problems. It does not seem possible to preserve the original framerate, and the list of framerates does not include 23.976. Then, when using 24 fps, it does not look all that great.

With regards to anamorphic encodes, you know how the RealVideo renderer uses the video card hardware to stretch the video. This uses a high quality resizing filter, and looks very good. I am not sure why EO has problems with such a clip, maybe they simply have not run into any of those clips. It should be possible, but I don't know which APIs they use.

Even if it had been working, one potential problem would have been the resizing filter. If the RealVideo software resizing is used to stretch the video to the correct aspect ratio, there will jaggies. Just try to play such a clip with the hardware compatibility slider all the way to the left. A high quality resizing filter is required for playback (or conversion) of anamorphic encodes.

[ToiletDuck]

Is there anyway to config realone to play using the filters that I want? Or a way to possibly encode it with a lower bitrate giving it the jaggy edges and then getting my 9700pro so some way use AA to smooth it out?

[karl_lillevold]

I am not quite sure I understand the question. When are you seeing jaggy edges you would like to get rid of?

The jaggy edges I referred to in my previous post is caused by resizing diagonal edges with a fast software resizing algorithm. This happens for all bitrates, if you do not use an optimized renderer. The only cases when a non-optimized renderer is used, is if you set the hardware compatibility slider all the way down, which should not be necessary, or EO Video.

[wing1]

Geeze..EO video! This is not worth it at all! Karl, you are correct regarding the frame rate. I got all kind of jerky movement after the conversion to VCD NTSC. The encoding quality is awful...remind me of panasonic encoder ages ago. The input is nice and sharp, but the output is blurry and the color is way off to left field.

[ToiletDuck]

I was editing some video on my machine and noticed how much slower it is compared to the ones at work. I have a dual 2200+ system and at work they are 833mhz. However they have the matrox hardware that does all the video work so you don't have to render it each time you make an edit. Is it possible that you could encode movies much faster if you had matrox hardware installed on your comp?

[Sirber]

@Karl

I have tearing effects with my GeForce 4 TI 4200. I'm in hardware acceleration whiuout using overlays.

[karl_lillevold]

Tearing will occur if the multiple frame buffer flip-chain is not used. That could happen if your hardware compatibility slider is in the middle, or you are using MPC's custom RealVideo renderer. Does that happen to be the case here?

[karl_lillevold]

Originally posted by ToiletDuck
I was editing some video on my machine and noticed how much slower it is compared to the ones at work. I have a dual 2200+ system and at work they are 833mhz. However they have the matrox hardware that does all the video work so you don't have to render it each time you make an edit. Is it possible that you could encode movies much faster if you had matrox hardware installed on your comp?
I am not too familiar with how these Matrox cards help video editing, but I am afraid there is currently no available hardware acceleration for RV9. On a dual 2200+ it should be pretty fast though, with no pre-filters or color conversions, the multi-threaded encoder should be about real-time for full-screen content, is my guess. I have a dual Xeon 2.2, and it can encode RV9 640x480 30 fps real-time capture.

[Sirber]

Originally posted by karl_lillevold
Tearing will occur if the multiple frame buffer flip-chain is not used. That could happen if your hardware compatibility slider is in the middle, or you are using MPC's custom RealVideo renderer. Does that happen to be the case here?

I'm using RealOne v2 now for Real content. The slider was in the middle. I'll set it to full acceleration. Also, menus like Tools is really slow to show (5 sec to 30 sec) on my 2000+. Any idea?

[karl_lillevold]

Originally posted by Sirber
I'm using RealOne v2 now for Real content. The slider was in the middle. I'll set it to full acceleration. Also, menus like Tools is really slow to show (5 sec to 30 sec) on my 2000+. Any idea?
The Menus in R1P have always been slow, since I think they are dynamically generated. However, not /that/ slow. I wonder if perhaps something on your system (CD-ROMs, or something else the Tools menu might need to look up) takes extra time to access. Maybe something has gone wrong in the registry keys used by R1P. It's really hard to tell, but I will forward your question to someone working on the player.

[karl_lillevold]

I found out that like I guessed, a potential reason for menu slowdown is the CD drive enumeration to build the Play and the Tools menus. Are those the menus that are slow, or is it all the menus?

You could also try to run C:\Program Files\Real\RealOne Player\Setup\.r1pclean to perform a Real clean un-install, before re-installing the latest slipstream R1P V.2 from http://www.real.com/freeplayer

[Sirber]

I have 3 CDROM/DVD player, 2 real and 1 emulated. In V.3, will be possible to staticly build them at installation? It's slow as hell when playing a movie or a DVD :(.

[iwod]

@Karl

I have always forgot to mention this problem....

If i choose MPC as the default RM player. Real Media Editor doesn't not seems to work. It will open up the file and you can play it as well but only audio ( or nothing... i can't remember ) comes out.

I figure out the soloution is to open up R1player and close it again then Real Media editor would work.

Do you know how to permantly fix the problem... ( you know the pain when opening up realone.... )

[karl_lillevold]

Hmm, I can't seem to be able to reproduce this problem. Even after setting MPC to be the default player for RealMedia, RM files play back fine in Real Media Editor (rmedtgui.exe), both video and audio. It sounds like rmedtgui does not find the DLLs it nead, unless they have been loaded by RealOne. Maybe some DLLs or reg keys are missing. rmedtgui needs its own complete set of DLLs in the codecs, tools, common, and plugins sub-folders in the RealMediaEditor folder.

[Valky]

Hmm..not sure where the problem lies..in RM-producer or Xreal, but I have now tried to capture two movies I captured from TV with this same script and result have been the same both times.

File is only little bit bigger than 500mb (target 700mb) and it can't be played..RealOne neither RealOne or MPC doesn't show anything..they both just keeps buffering from 0 to 40% and never starts to play file.

If I have done test clips using trim-option everything works flawlessly. Also little bit shorter clips like 45-60min with about same scripts have been worked so far. So why doesn't this clip work with my 90minutes movie? Why doens't Xreal produce the whole movie?

Script:

#SOURCE:
video=AviSource("E:\capture\capture.avi", false)
audio = wavsource("E:\capture\capture.wav")
video=audiodub(video,audio)

video=ConvertToYV12(video)

#video=trim(video,102000,103000)
#video=Levels(video,0, 1.2, 255, 0, 255)

video=AutoCrop(video,0,wMultOf=4, hMultOf=4)

#video=crop(video,4,2,380,568)
video=bicubicresize(video,384,288,0,0.6)
Video=deen(video,"a3d",3,6,1,6)
Video=unfilter(Video,-5,-5)

return(video)


I tried to make target file 700mb and audio 96kbs..just one pass like recommended for avi. Using trim everything works great. And probly to the point where encoding stops also.. My video is 384x576 PicVideo mjpeg and audia is pcm 44.1khrz stereo 16-bit wav.

[karl_lillevold]

i have seen a problem similar to this. At that time it was caused by an exception in AviSynth somewhere in the middle of the encode. The flat video resulting from this, confused to encoder and/or rate control enough to make the resulting file unplayable.

[Valky]

..and did you happen to see any solution to this also? :)

It's almost like there is some kind of time limit..the movie I tried befofe was almost the same size in mb's 520mb or something..
I am using the latest avs and I have made about 20 one hour episodes with this same script and some whole movies from dv2-source too, but never before with avi source. So it must be that.

[karl_lillevold]

No, I am afraid I did not. In my case it occurred with a d2v source, and when I re-encoded with different settings, it did not happen.

This one is hard to track down without a debug build of AviSynth and a debugger to see where in AviSynth the exception happens. You may want to ask the AviSynth experts over in their forum.

[Valky]

third time with different filters and now I tried to convert back to yuy2, but no luck. The file size always stop at the 518mb (target 700mb).

This time I tried with this:

video=AviSource("E:\capture\capture.avi", false)
audio = wavsource("E:\capture\capture.wav")
video=audiodub(video,audio)

video=ConvertToYV12(video)


#video=trim(video,102300,102900)
#video=Levels(video,0, 1.2, 255, 0, 255)
#video=TemporalSoften(video,3,4,4,mode=2,scenechange=10)

#video=AutoCrop(video,1,wMultOf=4, hMultOf=4)
video=cnr2(video)
video=crop(video,4,2,380,572)



video=bilinearresize(video,384,288)
video=Convolution3d(video,1,10,20,10,10,0,0)
video=ConvertToYUY2(video)
return(video)

I have also triedto encode with plain avi-file (same avi file than in these scripts..) without any filtering in X2real so now I am pretty sure the problem lies in Avi file itself cause it's PicVideo mjpeg-format. I guess it could work if it would be Huffy, but I dont have enough space left on my HD right now so that I could try that..

[slavickas]

Originally posted by karl_lillevold
I am not exactly sure what producer8 did, or this specific example, but it is simply not possible to encode a 30 fps clip at 25 fps in a nice way. You could get to 15, 10, or 7.5 fps, by skipping frames, but not from 30 to 25. In that case you will have to use a tool like VirtualDub to modify the framerate, which has more advanced video editing features.

Other than that, maybe there is a problem, but please provide a specific example, and I will take a look to see if I need to file a bug report.

well i understand that it's not "nice" way, but then what actually do "Target frame rate" setting in audience do, if producer 9 is simply encoding @ source framerate

[marnum]

Hi!
I've already done 2 RV9 encodes which I'd really like to watch on my notebook. The quality is really really good, but there is one problem - jerky playback :( Every now and then (every 10-30 frames) a frame is dropped. I read that another user had the same trouble with his TV-out, but my vids also jerk in Desktop mode. I'll post my system specifications:


Soft:
WinXP Home SP1
Tried players: RealOne & WMC
Graphics Driver: Newest driver provided by ATI

Hard:
Athlon XP 2000+ Mobile
512 MB DDR RAM (32 MB shared to graphics chip)
ATI IGP 320M Chipset (All-in-One solution with Radeon Mobility built-in)
1024x768 @ 32 Bit

Video:
720x288 & 576x? both jerked
Bitrate: ca. 1500 kb/s
CPU Usage while playing: 40-50%
System Memory Usage: ca. 150 MB


Does the RealPlayer Codec not work out with shared Memory solutions? I can playback everything else on my notebook (DivX, Xvid, DVD,...) without any dropped frames.

Greetings and Thanks in Advance

[karl_lillevold]

One parameter which is important is the display refresh rate, relative to the clip frame rate. I am guessing your display refresh rate is 60 Hz since it's a laptop. Then plase try my jitter test clips http://www.lillevold.com/files/jitter.zip
These two clips are both exactly 30 fps, and should play back very smoothly on a 60 Hz display. Please let me know how these two look on your system (one is RV9, the other is XviD).

If your encodes are 23.976 fps or 25 fps it is not possible to play them back on a 60 Hz display without some jitter. However, you say that other formats play fine, and that there are /dropped/ frames, and not jitter. Could you please check in the Statistics for the video stream in RealOne, that the frames are actually dropped, and that it is not just severe jitter? The test clip above is also good to try here. In either case, this is something I would be curious to investigate some more.

Thanks!

[karl_lillevold]

Originally posted by slavickas
well i understand that it's not "nice" way, but then what actually do "Target frame rate" setting in audience do, if producer 9 is simply encoding @ source framerate
It decimates the input frame rate. If you have a 30 fps input, and select target fps 15, every 2nd frame is dropped. However, if you have 30 fps input and set 25 fps out, it is not possible to decimate in a way that looks decent (it will look choppy). Also, any frame decimation will break the inverse-telecine which needs to see all the input frames. I never change the target fps, except for very very low bitrates, and then always in an "even" manner, i.e. 30 -> 15, 24 -> 12 etc.

[marnum]

I've downloaded your 2 Clips and tested with RealOne and MPC.

RealOne:
REALMEDIA: The line makes a little jump forward every now and then (I'd say every 5-10 frames, but it seems very random)
XVID: The line runs perfectly smooth

MPC:
REALMEDIA: Same as with RealOne, but there is also a difficult-to-describe effect. In every frame the line seems to be split in 2-3 parts and these parts seem to jump around. I guess that's dropped frames, but MPC doesn't show the statistics. When I hit "Pause" the picture was ok.
XVID: Line runs perfectly smooth

Statistics: No failure packet - I think this is what you meant.

By now I think that it has something to do with the video-buffer on the graphics chip. Maybe the graphics chip itself drops frames?

EDIT: Tested one more time with MPC and this weird side-effect was gone - the little jumps remained

[Valky]

My previous mentioned problems with captured avi-movie and efforts to put in RM haven't been solved. The problems was not PicVideo mjpeg-format, cayse last night I also tried it with same script in avisynth but the video was converted to 3ivx-format.

I am gonna try to put that that same script now in divx format and if that works, it got to be something wrong with X2real or RealProducer.

[akabob]

Valky, try to add the following line at script end:
ConvertToYV12()

Maybe u could upload a 10-20 sec part of your PicVideo AVI (if it's not too hot..:p ) somewhere so that we could it with Real Producer ?

++

[Valky]

Originally posted by akabob
Maybe u could upload a 10-20 sec part of your PicVideo AVI (if it's not too hot..:p ) somewhere so that we could it with Real Producer ?

++

No, I can't cause there is no point? Like I said in previous post all the testclip works great if I do short clips using trim-function. And I am very positive that everything goes right until that point it stops.
Also with this excact same script using same avi converted to 3ivx it hangs at the excact same point 518MB so the problem is not PicVideo. It doesn't give any errors and it just starts after that with the next video in queue almost like everything has gone properly with previous video.

So my question is now: Is here anyone who has been able to encode over 1h 30min captured avi-file to realmedia-format targeting 700mb using x2real for that? And if so, then what are your avs-scripts and your avi-format?






Originally posted by akabob
Valky, try to add the following line at script end:
ConvertToYV12()
++

Since, I have tried to use deen or Convolution3d that line is at the beginning of my script...what's the point to put that at the end of script too? But, I tried to put ConvertToYuY2() and it gave me the same result..video that has stopped at 518mb and is not playable.

But of course I can try that too..after that I have fought too long wih this one..


Edit: I tried to add ConvertToYV12() at the end of script..no luck. At the end I had a video 517mb. Not playable. That's it.

[midiguy]

it could be one of your filters.. for test purposes, take out all filters (convolution 3d, etc.)

[daiyam]

@Valky
Is your 3ivx clip is complete?
Because in some captured or streamed video, there some packets of the video, which are bad. This can't stop the encode because the decoder can't decode correctly your captured video.

If that it, you must correct your video before start an encoding.


Sorry for my bad english.

[Valky]

I have also tried this clip with plain avi file without any filters. And the original file is in Mjpeg-format and I then encoded it to 3ivx format using qiality setting 100% and have tried also with that. Same result.

How can I see if there is some errors in that certain point?
And wouldn't the encoding process then stop when encoding to divx- format too? (haven't tried that yet..)

Definetely thre has to be something strange since I have now tried to encoded it 5 times and always stops at the same point..517-518mb.

Hmm..now that I think it..I dont think there is nothing wrong with my captured file. I have previously captured another movie and tried first with that and now that I think it..it also stopped at the same point 518mb.

I could try one more thing..if the reason is somehow in X2Real-software could someone give me the rigt command line if I try to use that in RealProducer? I don't know how to use it and so far the X2Real is the only software I know that supports avs-input.

I want to try to put my video on 700mb with 96kbs audio and I wanna use 1-pass only. My video is 25fps and wav-file is already synched and demuxed.

My avs-script:

LoadPlugin("C:\avs25\convolution3d.dll")
#LoadPlugin("C:\SWIFT\Plugins\Cnr2_YV12.dll")
#LoadPlugin("C:\avs25\unfilter.dll")
#SOURCE:
video=AviSource("E:\capture\capture.avi", false)
audio = wavsource("E:\capture\capture.wav")
video=audiodub(video,audio)
video=ConvertToYV12(video)

#video=AutoCrop(video,1,wMultOf=4, hMultOf=4)
video=crop(video,4,2,380,572)

video=Convolution3d(video,1,10,20,10,10,0,0)
video=bicubicresize(video,384,288,0,0.6)
#video=ConvertToYV12(video)

return(video)

[CaptainCarrot]

@valky
Maybe it's a stupid question... but did you check wether your wavefile is correct? Maybe you have an error with that?
For producer command-line options: if you call producer without any options you get a list.
Your command-line could look like:
producer -i <inputfilename> -o <outputfilename> -vm normal -dt -da

This is without audio (-da), since i don't know how to do that.

Hope i could help a little bit.

[karl_lillevold]

Originally posted by marnum
RealOne:
REALMEDIA: The line makes a little jump forward every now and then (I'd say every 5-10 frames, but it seems very random)
XVID: The line runs perfectly smooth

MPC:
REALMEDIA: Same as with RealOne, but there is also a difficult-to-describe effect. In every frame the line seems to be split in 2-3 parts and these parts seem to jump around. I guess that's dropped frames, but MPC doesn't show the statistics. When I hit "Pause" the picture was ok.
XVID: Line runs perfectly smooth

Statistics: No failure packet - I think this is what you meant.
Thanks for trying that out. However, from the Statistics, what I need to know is from the Streams tab, select the RealVideo Stream in the pulldown menu and see if there are any Frame Dropped. This would be really helpful in determining if it's just jitter or a more serious problem. If it's jitter, we have signficantly improved this, and I may ask for some volunteers to PM me to alpha test a couple of DLLs.

Also:
1) Sometimes there are some timing issues during start-up and the test clip may play really badly for a few seconds before it stabilizes.
2) If you use MPC's custom renderer, I don't know how to resolve any weirdness, but if you use the standard RV renderer, it should behave just like in RealOne.

[karl_lillevold]

Originally posted by Valky
My previous mentioned problems with captured avi-movie and efforts to put in RM haven't been solved. The problems was not PicVideo mjpeg-format, cayse last night I also tried it with same script in avisynth but the video was converted to 3ivx-format.

I am gonna try to put that that same script now in divx format and if that works, it got to be something wrong with X2real or RealProducer.
When AviSynth fails it's really hard to tell where the problem is. Producer just uses the Windows DirectShow interface to read AVI files. For instance, for 2-pass and batch encoding there is a serious memory leak problem. I was debugging this for a while with input from the developers in the AviSynth forum, and neither Producer nor AviSynth appeared to be doing anything wrong. It was DirectShow that did not call the appropriate Release functions preventing memory from being freed. What I am saying is that even though this is different from the mem leak problem, it may be really hard to find, and it may in fact also be located in the "middle", that is DirectShow. Or it could be some weirdness in the source file(s). DS has been known to have more trouble reading problematic AVI files that VfW. Have you tried this AVI verification tool http://www.headbands.com/gspot/ ? I have not myself, so I don't know if it is useful. Or what about just processing the AVI through VirtualDub to "fix" it. This has helped me on occasion.


I have also tried this clip with plain avi file without any filters. And the original file is in Mjpeg-format and I then encoded it to 3ivx format using qiality setting 100% and have tried also with that. Same result.
Does this mean eveything worked fine when you with Producer encoded the AVI file without using AviSynth?

And when you used 3ivx, was that with AviSynth as source or the plain AVI file?

[marnum]

Thank you, eventually found the right statistics tab (Sometimes I really am with stupid). And what I see there is quite strange (I'm translating the titles into English, so they're probably not correct):

Framerate
--------------------
Coded with: 53027854
Right now: 76852626
Postprocessing: Off

Shown Frames: 58184274
Lost Frames: 109801
Dropped Frames: 1866691

The Numbers change randomly as I push Stop and Play again.

Is this a known bug? New hope comes to my mind that I do not have to throw away my latest 2 (perfect!) encodes...


EDIT:
Ok, maybe this showing incredible framerates is a common bug. I switched off "repeat" and it shows:

Coded with: 30.0 fps
Right now: 30.1 fps
Postprocessing: Off

Shown Frames: 100%
Lost Frames: 0
Dropped Frames: 3

And yes, by then it had jerked 3 times during playback.

[wing1]

I've not noticed this before, because most of my encoding has been bright and colorful scenes, but I've stumbled onto a clip that has mostly dark scenes (black everywhere) and I've noticed that black became darkish grey instead of true black. Furthermore, this is only noticeable when viewing in full screen mode (MPC and RealONe). Is this something has to do with player or encoding?

YV12 encoding is most noticeable, while YUV is a little less.

[Valky]

Originally posted by CaptainCarrot
@valky
Maybe it's a stupid question... but did you check wether your wavefile is correct? Maybe you have an error with that?
For producer command-line options: if you call producer without any options you get a list.
Your command-line could look like:
producer -i <inputfilename> -o <outputfilename> -vm normal -dt -da

This is without audio (-da), since i don't know how to do that.

Hope i could help a little bit.

I guess there is nothing wrong with the audio file, cause I have tried to encode also with the original wav file (which is in the avi-file) too...but now I try with this separate wav file cause I have converted this one into stereo-mode afterwards (cause the original wav-file in avi is in mono-format and I have also reduced some noise in it..).

But like I said..I have also tried with this plain avi-file without any filtering and use that as a source. Of course this X2Real-software puts it through avisynth afterwards, but I can't do nothing to that..
Yet to be honest, I am completely out of ideas here..

I have tried now 5 or was it 6 times now..encoding always stops at the same point..

tonight I'll try one more time with plain avi file without any audio..that should exclude the possibility that there is something wrong with the wav-file..

[Dark-Cracker]

hi,

@karl
it seems there is some change in the codec dll name and now rmeditor was lost :) one poeple have report me an error :

Error: -2147221496 / -2147220520
it probabely a problem of color conversion.but i can't reproduce it problem.

personaly i have an error : -2147220910
it's because the audio codec have change there name and rmeditor.exe was unable to find them.

to solve this problem : rename : atrc3260.dll and cook.dll with :
atrc3260.dll and cook3260.dll and normaly all will work.

(it seems the error are only some numbers and can't find the appropriate error msg)

Perhaps could u point me a 100% working rmeditor (that can split new .rmvb file without problem, and perhaps with the keyframe problem fixed.

Thank u :)
Bye.

[kilg0r3]

hi dark-cracker,

how is it going with ... ah no, I wont ask this question :D

[karl_lillevold]

@Dark-Cracker:
Re: various rmeditor problems.
Thanks for reporting these problems, which I will forward to the producer team. In the mean-time pls just rename the DLLs causing the problems. With regards to the split-on-keyframe problem, where the start time is exclusive, not inclusive: I am afraid this will probably not be changed, so I think you have to use the work-around we discussed, where you set the start time of the 2nd part just a few milliseconds before the exact time of the keyframe.

[marnum]

@ karl
Have you got an idea what can cause dropped frames when the CPU is at 40%?

[Sirber]

What's your computer? :logfile:

[marnum]

It's a Siemens-Fujitsu Notebook

Athlon XP 2000+ Mobile
512 MB RAM (32 MB shared to graphics chip)
ATI IGP 320M Chipset with graphics chip built-in
60 GB HD
WinXP SP1
MediaPlayers: MPC 6.4 & RealOne, both drop frames, no matter what content or resolution the RV file has

As mentioned before, CPU usage during playback is ~40%. No other codec drops frames. I really got no clue what's wrong. :scared:

PS: What logfile shall I post? :rolleyes:

[midiguy]

Originally posted by karl_lillevold
If it's jitter, we have signficantly improved this, and I may ask for some volunteers to PM me to alpha test a couple of DLLs.
hey, I would LOVE to alpha test some DLLs (I have a matrox g400, and have experienced jitter). When you say "significantly improved", is the jitter noticable anymore? why is there any jitter at all, when with other formats there is none? Was it a *bug* that was fixed, or did you guys just improve your renderer?

thanks!

[karl_lillevold]

Originally posted by wing1
I've not noticed this before, because most of my encoding has been bright and colorful scenes, but I've stumbled onto a clip that has mostly dark scenes (black everywhere) and I've noticed that black became darkish grey instead of true black. Furthermore, this is only noticeable when viewing in full screen mode (MPC and RealONe). Is this something has to do with player or encoding?
Incidentally, I came across a very similar source this weekend. RV9 or Producer do not change black levels, and at high bitrates, these should be represented very well throughout the chain.
So this problem may be due to your video card's overlay surface settings. If your advanced settings have gamma, try to adjust it. Also, how does the original source look when played full-screen?

My nVidia Ti4200 only has brightness, contrast, hue and saturation. I had to adjust saturation way down from default to not get drowned by much too strong colors.

[wing1]

@Karl,

The source's black level looks fine at full screen, hence, I was wondering about the encoded playback. My video card is a generic TNT2 Nvida 64Mb 4xAGP, and it has gamma adjustment on board: I have adjusted that. I also adjusted the monitor's brightness and RGB saturation color using AVISYNTH's function RGB as my standard. However, the blackness level on the playback is still a little lighter when comparing to the source. I am encoding using 1-pass with video bitrate ranging from 768kpbs to 1Mbps (audio bitrate will be additional to the video bitrate). Again yv12 input source showed this problem most aparent while yuy2 helped a little. I have not tested with RGB32 yet.

Another thing that i've noticed is that if the scene has 70% bright colors, the surrounding black level is fine.

[karl_lillevold]

Interesting problem, since RV9 accurately represents black levels from the Producer input to output directly to the video card's overlay surface.

which format is your source? If MPEG-2, maybe AviSynth's mpeg2dec outputs different values than the MPEG-2 decoder used when playing the source normally. I know for instance PowerDVD has some built-in gamma adjustments. Could you try to load your AviSynth script in VirtualDub, choose Direct Stream Copy and save a problematic segment of your source as an actual AVI file (you can try YV12, YUY2, and RGB with conversion functions supplied by AviSynth [ConvertToYUY2 etc]). Then examine how these AVI files look when played back in 1) MPC or any DS based player, 2) RealOne. How are the black levels now?

[karl_lillevold]

@marnum: can you try this?
I know very little about the ATI IGP, so I am not even sure if this is applicable for this card, but can you try the work-around to disable the special ATI video surface described in this thread:
http://www.rage3d.com/board/showthread.php?s=&threadid=33675184

I doubt this will make any difference, but please give it a try.

A couple of questions about your problem:

Do you see any /dropped/ frames for the /jitter test clip/, or does it have to be a clip that loads the CPU to a certain extent?

How regularly do the /dropped/ frames occur?

Thanks!

edit: link corrected

[marnum]

Thanks for replying!

The link you provided doesn't work, but I've found the thread using the search function.

No, I'm afraid this reg key doesn't take any influence - same dropped frames.

>Do you see any /dropped/ frames for the /jitter test clip/,
>or does it have to be a clip that loads the CPU to a certain extent?

Yes, this dropped frames occur with your clip also, it doesn't depend on CPU usage. As mentioned before, the Xvid version of your clip plays perfectly smooth, so I don't think it's jittering.

>How regularly do the /dropped/ frames occur?

They are quite random, though after watching it for several minutes :D it roughly seems as if there were 3 dropped frames every 1/2 second - but not really regular.

[karl_lillevold]

@marnum: oops, link corrected. Thanks for trying out these things. I just needed to know if the dropped frames were all the time, or once in a blue moon, which you answered. Could you please PM me your e-mail address so I can send you an alternative DLL to try, and if that does not help, potentially one that will output some debug information.

[midiguy]

jitter is very real. I just watched the source vob file for this triple x trailer, and then I watched the rv9 encoded version. the vob seems so much smoother and motion is so much better. You don't notice it as much until directly comparing them.

[marnum]

Since my jitter problem is now solved (again many thx @ karl!) I'll turn back to RV9 encoding immediately :)

[wing1]

@karl,

I did some testings as you have suggested, and the source's blackness level are all fine. I look at the encoded's blackness level and I am still seeing the same problem. However, when I reduced the hardware acceleration to the left, all the gamma from the encoded clip came back to normal like the source! (what happened there????). Furthermore, detail levels instantly increased (why is that happening???).

So I am playing with the hardware acceleration settings a little and it seems to behave the best somewhere in the middle point when playing back the encoded clip. This bring me to a quick question regarding the inner-loop filtering function of RV9 decoder: Why does the hardware acceleration change the gamma and detail level if I lower the hardware acceleration? In order for me to capture the screen content of the player, I've to disable the hardware acceleration altogether as well. Is the hardware acceleration somehow related to the inner-loop filtering function of RV9 decoding at all? If so can RV9 decoding be revised so that it will work somewhere in the midpoint of the video card's hardware acceleration point?

[karl_lillevold]

@wing1: Thanks for running those tests. It seems pretty clear this is a problem with your video card's overlay surface, and how it does not accurately represent the video codec's output. The hw accel slider does not affect the codec output. With the hw accel slider all to the left, there is no optimized overlay surface. Also, then we use a fast and simple software resizing for fullscreen playback, that will introduce jaggies, but perhaps give a perceived increase in detail level, even though there are not really any more details.

Thinking back, I used to have a TNT2 once, and I remember it had bad problems with chroma offset with YV12 as the color format for the overlay surface, and we currently use YUY2 on nVidia cards. Still, it sounds like even that has problems.

None of this is related to the RV9 decoding, and I am afraid there is little we can do to improve this. With R1P V.3 there will be a reg key to select the color format of the overlay surface. Maybe this will be useful so you can select the color format that the TNT2 handles best.

[midiguy]

Originally posted by marnum
Since my jitter problem is now solved (again many thx @ karl!) I'll turn back to RV9 encoding immediately :)

Was it those DLLs?? are these the same DLLs that fix the jitter (the ones you were talking about earlier) Karl?? If so, I can't wait until this fix is released. The only things holding me back from using RV9 is the jitter and the excessive post-processing (or maybe excessive in-loop filtering if that is possible).

[iwod]

hi, Karl
few questions.

Does the post procsssing is auto set to different level in different bitrate range? or Is is set at a fixed level at all time?

And a questions.... is a RV9 D Show filter will ever be avalible. Or will RealOne 3 come out soon enough? I am spending as much time encoding as speaking to other people to purvade them to use RealONE. Most of them still have RealPlayer 8 installed on their system!!!

Trying to tell them that you are set this in RealONE brrrrrr is getting very very tiring.... and of coz they are not computer geeks and they don't want to mess with settings and they don't visit doom9.

The whole point of the player is letting other people to play our encoded content.
I could have easily said that all you have to do is download the RealCodec pack. But i still try my best to rebuild the image of Real....

You know destroying takes a matter of secounds and building something takes matter of years.

I hope that direct shown filter will be avalible sometime. Then every player could play real content.

[HomiE FR]

Hi all,

I'm very interested by Real Video 9 (and I did use it many times in the past), but I just have a little problem with the RV9 overhead.

Indeed, I'm trying to do a 175 MB RV9/RA8 96kbps anime episode (21 minutes 35 sec), but I need to know what the overhead in RV9 is. I've seen that AutoRV9 seems to have a good bitrate calculator in it, but my input is not a D2V file, but an AVS script (I have 3 D2V files used in it, start credits, episode and end credits). That's why I can't use this bitrate calculator.

If I knew how the Real Media overhead worked I could reach the right size without problems.
I know that I could probably find it out myself by doing many tests, but I'm a bit lazy, so if anyone here knows what this overhead is (in terms of size, etc.) I would be thankful !

Thanks in advance ! (I hope you can spot my problem)

HomiE FR

[midiguy]

alternatively, you could just load the 3 vobs in DVD2AVI in sequence, one after the other (start credits, then episode, then end credits, use the "ADD" button in DVD2AVI), then you just save one D2V and then you can use autorv9's bitrate calculator now go try it ya little Chicken McNugget.

[HomiE FR]

Thanks midiguy, but I had already thought about this solution. And it is no way in my case : I use many filters (I know that I could do that in AutoRV9 but it won't be as easy and flexible as with Notepad I think (and may be wrong...) ) and moreover I use Textsub.
So there is a problem, cause I have separate subtitles in ass format for the start credits, the episode and the end, which all start at 0 min 0 sec. So using only one D2V would force me to "merge" the different ass files, and it would take time... for each episode I plan to do...

What I ask for (if possible, I don't request anything...) is just a small bitrate calculator which needs :
- final size
- audio codec used (type, flavor and bitrate)
- length of the clip (I can't do that in AutoRV9, I tried this afternoon)
and returns the appropriate (total) bitrate which should be used in the audience.

I believe that many other people could benefit from this kind of tool.
If anyone only knew the formula to calculate this overhead, it would be totally enough for me ! :)

Thanks.

[karl_lillevold]

@HomiE FR: The RM file overhead is about 1.4% but you don't really have to worry about that. All you need is the length of the sum of the clips and your target filesize.

The get the length of the sum of the clips, just open your final .avs script in VirtualDub or mplayerc, and scroll to the last frame. When you know the clip length and the desired filesize, the rest is pretty simple:

bitrate(kbps) = total_filesize_in_kilobits/length_in_seconds
where one kilobit is 1000 bits.

example:
700 MB = 700 * 1024 * 1024 bytes = 734,003,200 bytes = 5872025600 bits = 5872025.6 kilobits

Then, for instance, 2 hours = 7200 seconds:
bitrate = 5872025.6 kilobits / 7200 seconds = 815.56 kbps

Did I miss anything?
This bitrate can be used as the audience target bitrate in Producer.
The hardest part is getting from MB (1024 and byte based) to kilobits (1000 and bit based) ;)

[karl_lillevold]

@iwod:

Almost every method and algorithm in RV9 is adaptive, not only based on bitrate, but everything else in the sequence as well.

I can not say when RealOne V.3 will be out, but I am worried if your friends do not like V.2, it will be hard to convince them to install V.3 as well. Perhaps you should just recommend them to try Media Player Classic and help them enable RV9 playback there, by whichever means you find most convenient...

You know destroying takes a matter of secounds and building something takes matter of years.
Yes, we are painfully aware of that :(

I hope that direct shown filter will be avalible sometime. Then every player could play real content.
I have mentioned how it is difficult to decide to release the codecs as DirectShow filters, but they way you phrased your suggestion, might actually be possible using the released Helix code and APIs: a DirectShow filter to play RealMedia files. Who knows, maybe someone is working on this right now.

[midiguy]

Originally posted by karl_lillevold

I have mentioned how it is difficult to decide to release the codecs as DirectShow filters, but they way you phrased your suggestion, might actually be possible using the released Helix code and APIs: a DirectShow filter to play RealMedia files. Who knows, maybe someone is working on this right now.
you're saying that technically it is possible to make a directshow decoder right now by using the released helix code and APIs?

[Sirber]

Looks like :)

But now I like the way Real is doing. The RM contener is fine and powerfull (with a smile ;) )

Both audio and video codecs work great.

@Karl

Is it possible to specify a minimum quality in VBR mode in Helix Producer?

[edit]

VBR 2-pass in Helix is quite good. In Evangelion, at 350kbps, the bitrate move from 80kbps (quality 66) to 1200kbps (quality 56), and sometimes in a interval on 1 sec!!!!

[HomiE FR]

Thanks Karl :), I thought I knew about the bitrate calculations but maybe I did something wrong last time. I will double-check it.

[kilg0r3]

Originally posted by iwod
The whole point of the player is letting other people to play our encoded content.
Well, just like netscape, the real player is also an advetisement vehicle. This function seems to be pretty difficult to implement into a DSfilter

[gabest]

Originally posted by kilg0r3
Well, just like netscape, the real player is also an advetisement vehicle. This function seems to be pretty difficult to implement into a DSfilter No, not at all. I could imagine some nicely alpha-blended banners on the picture or a woman's voice whispering in the background of the audio :D

[kilg0r3]

Yes gabest YESSS.

No seriously, even now, some advertisements are displayed through an extra app, 'message centre' I believe. This would of course be a possibility. Another possibility is a colaboration with gain, like Divx.

[midiguy]

Originally posted by kilg0r3
Yes gabest YESSS.

No seriously, even now, some advertisements are displayed through an extra app, 'message centre' I believe. This would of course be a possibility. Another possibility is a colaboration with gain, like Divx.

then they should offer a decoder-only directshow filter that doesn't have any adware/spyware, and only the directshow encoder will have the ads.. just a thought..

[31 Flavas]

Originally posted by midiguy
then they should offer a decoder-only directshow filter that doesn't have any adware/spyware, and only the directshow encoder will have the ads.. just a thought.. RealOne player is going to be better behaved, but it's largely going to stay the same; If I am reading Karl's comments correctly. In otherwords, SuperPass isn't going to go away so RealOne isn't going to go away.

Perhaps though maybe down the road Helix Community Player is going to become what everyone will want to use, if a codec or dshow filter isn't made. If it gets spiffed up, I think it could become a great realplayer "lite" with none of the SuperPass extras.

[midiguy]

the ads and crap on the realone player do bother me, but what bothers me most is the current rv9 renderer. As many of you have heard, it does have its problems, especially with certain video cards. These problems have apperently been "significantly imrpoved".. by how much, who knows, the *fixed* decoder hasn't been released yet. But I hope it will be bug-free. Everytime I watch an rv9 movie, I can't stand the bad motion. That is why a directshow codec would be a good idea, because then the directshow renderer will be used and these problems will disappear. Another thing I would like to see is configurable filtering (post-processing, and if it is possible, in-loop filtering). These are the things that are stopping me from using this codec full-time. Right now I just use it for tests and what not, and sometimes for movie trailers. I would really like to use rv9 for my site though (I will soon be releasing films.. "amatuer" films I suppose).

[kilg0r3]

midiguy: These problems have apperently been "significantly imrpoved".. by how much, who knows, the *fixed* decoder hasn't been released yet.

just pm karl, so that he can send you his jitterfix.dlls. then you can see it yourself.

[midiguy]

Originally posted by kilg0r3
just pm karl, so that he can send you his jitterfix.dlls. then you can see it yourself.

thanks, did. I was under the impression that he would let us know when to PM him :confused:

anyways,I have to go get a froster
http://www.froster.ca

bye.

[Sirber]

Originally posted by Sirber
@Karl

Is it possible to specify a minimum quality in VBR mode in Helix Producer?


Any idea?

It would be great to control the monimum quality for VBR 2-pass encoding. I hate sometimes when the codec cut too much bits, on from-divx animes.

[karl_lillevold]

VBR minimum quality is a good idea. In fact, we are in the process of adding more parameters that can be tuned. We just added a new interface to producer/codec such that it is possible to set codec options directly in the xml job file, without those options needing producer support, or producer updates, when we decide to change the codec. This will make it much easier for us to experiment with various codec options, and among other things, we could add an option for minimum quality without it being an "official producer option". Maybe it will be included in the next Milestone ;) Thanks!

[Sirber]

Thanks to you :)

I have a little question: Is it possible to put Helix Producer (cmd line) 9.2m1 in Helix Producer Plus 9 (The GUI)?

[karl_lillevold]

Originally posted by midiguy
why is there any jitter at all, when with other formats there is none? Was it a *bug* that was fixed, or did you guys just improve your renderer?
There are 2 reasons for jitter:
1) the clip frame rate does not match the refresh rate of the monitor. This is impossible to correct, unless the user changes the refresh rate to an exact multiple of the clip frame rate. However, certain improvements can be made such that the round off error is minimized.

however, more importantly
2) the accuracy of the operating system timer determines when your thread can decide to blit to the screen... In WinXP and Win2K this defaults to 10 ms, which is not good enough. However, there is a was to adjust this programatically, which for instance a DirectShow renderer does.

This setting is global for the system, so for this reason, did you know that in some cases, one way to improve the jitter without any DLL fixes, is to have a DirectShow player minimized while playing your RV9 clip...? This may or may not work, so don't shoot me if it does not.

We have also made some other improvements, both OS and video adapter specific, since both OS's and adapter manufacturers like to do things their own way. For the OS, it's the timing and thread scheduling, for the video adapters, it's the functionality and APIs that tend to differ.

However, based on the feedback I have received, it seems the jitter improvements we have done work pretty well. Thanks for all the help and feedback so far.

The only remaining problem is the algorithm to deal with the "roll-over" or rounding problem, when the timing is not accurate (OS problem) combined with the framerate vs screen refresh rate. Every so often you have to 'roll-over' to the next refresh interval, and any timing in-accuracies causes some 'flutter' back and forth just when it's time to skip one interval. hard to explain late one friday night..but anyway. DS might still have the edge right there, hopefully we'll get some more improvements in. I will use your feedback to try to convince the right people it's needed. Some are worried about breaking something, if we try to add some "radical"=new improvement

[karl_lillevold]

Originally posted by Sirber
I have a little question: Is it possible to put Helix Producer (cmd line) 9.2m1 in Helix Producer Plus 9 (The GUI)?
It is possible to replace the codecs without much trouble, I think I already posted instructions how to do that (for RV9, delete rv403260.dll, erv43260.dll, then take erv4.dll from latest Milestone, rename it rv403260.dll, put it where the old codecs were). This is not guaranteed to work, but may in most cases. You will then not get the the new producer/codec interface I just mentioned, because this requires one more DLL.

With regards to other functionality, it is more complicated, since interfaces in many cases have changed. I simply don't know the answer, but I understand your concern, since the GUI is nice to have, and at the same time you would like the improvements in the latest cmd line utils.

One thing you can do is set up your encoding in the old GUI, and save a job file. Then make the edits you need for instance for minimum VBR, and use this as input to the new cmd line Milestone. This should be possible, I think.

[kilg0r3]

1.
Tried the dlls today. And, the rmvb
jitter-test file
now plays as good as the avi.

2.
I ran into another problem, when encoding a scene from VIDOCQ in
anamorophic format at about 1300Kbit/s. It is really difficult to describe. The macroblocks seem to be wavering, or, it seems that the motion in two macroblocks is not the same while it should be
because the are representing different
parts of the same thing. Erm, well, you
see ... I'll upöoad a snippet of the clip to .here (http://www.uni-koeln.de/~a0597/shiver.rar).

[Sirber]

I saw what you meant... I only saw it one time, when I replayed it it was gone.

It's the first time I see a RIP at almort 1024x. Quality is great, a little blury in backgrounds, but overal quality is great.

[karl_lillevold]

nice quality!

I don't see any problems, but I think I know what might be happening with those 'wavering' macroblocks ; i don't know the speed of your CPU, but since this clip is higher resolution than average, combined with potential extra load due to resizing (your video card should do that job though), maybe the decoder is slightly running out of CPU cycles. In that case it might try to scale back quality with certain steps we call CPU scalability, instead of skipping frames. One of these might cause this effect. Please try to experiment with the regkeys below:

=== snip ===
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Software\RealNetworks\RealMediaSDK\6.0\Preferences\RV9]
"NoCPUScalability"=dword:00000000
"NoFullDecode"=dword:00000000
=== snip ===
Copy and paste everything within the 'snip' lines into a new file called rv9.reg. Double-click on this file to enter the values into the registry. You can edit the values in the reg file before double-clicking or manually afterwards with regedit).

If you set 'NoCPUScalability' to 1, the decoder will not scale back, but then frames might be skipped if the CPU load is too high.
If you want to force on the effect I think you are seeing, try to set 'NoFullDecode' to 1 and 'NoCPUScalability' to 0.
When I do this, I see these kind of wavering macroblocks, due to NoFullDecode being in effect.

Let me know how this works.

[Sirber]

When I watched the clip the first time, I had Helix Producer running in background. The second time, it was still running, but maybe Windows buffered it all in RAM, so I didn't saw the wavething macroblocks.

[midiguy]

I tried to play the clip, but my p3 600 mhz w/ 128 mb sd ram cannot play such a high resolution properly without eating all my resources. so it skipped frames and ditched like crazy. looked more like a still photo slide show. anyways, the forground quality looked good, but the background looked rather blurry, but still acceptable. can't tell you about the macro block problem though, I simply could not play the thing.

[karl_lillevold]

the backgound is blurry because the camera is focusing on the foreground. The faces look razor sharp :cool:

[Sirber]

You've got a point :)

I can't wait to try AutoRV9 1.3 with anatrucmachinchouette. :D

[kilg0r3]

@karl

yes it is a slow-cpu issue. R1v1 and R1v2 seem to behave excatly the same way.

my cpu is an athlon 1800+
my video card a matrox g400 dh dualhead disabled

the cpu load is about 85-91%
with the original clip

The reg patch did not help much. I can circumvent the problem with cropping just a little more into the movie. That's also why I hadn't seen it when I tried out anamorphic encoding for the first time.

[Sirber]

85-95% CPU on a 1800+ ?!?!?!

Wasn't RV9 supposed to be optimized? :p

@Karl

What is the resizing algoritm?

[kilg0r3]

my tip is a hyper-filtered version of lanczos.

Seriously, I hope that my video hardware is the culprit here. Probabely 16MB is not enough.

[Sirber]

G400 is 16 MB?

I'll redownload it and try on my 2000+ and GeForce 4 TI 4200 128MB and you know. Maybe your card don't support hardware acceleration...

[Sirber]

On my hardware (see my signature), the clip uses ~50% CPU. It's not too bad, almost the same as DIVX5 DShow at maximum filtering for a lesser rez (can I say that?).

P.S. Sorry for my english :)

[midiguy]

well guys it is pretty much HD resolution.. what do you expect..?

[karl_lillevold]

I will ask someone with an Athlon 1800+ to try it out, but I think one problem might be non-fullscreen playback... You see, as a work-around for old and buggy video cards which could not handle it, the player will drop out of optimized overlay mode, when the video is played at less than 100% size. This will result in a signficant extra load on the CPU. Since this clip is 1024 pixels wide (after resizing), if your screen resolution is 1024x768, and you are not playing full-screen, the video window will be less than 1024 pixels, due to the player borders.

Since this is a pretty common problem for HD clips (for instance 1280 and 1024 pixels wide, exactly matching common screen resolutions), and playing this resolution without overlay is pretty hard, we have fixed this for the next player release.

P.S. in order for the reg key to have any effect, you have to set NoCPUScalability to '1'. Then the codec will not make any shortcuts decoding, but whole frames might be skipped instead.

EDIT:
tried it on a dual PIII 600 MHz, which corresponds to something like a single 950 MHz (since threading is not 100% efficient), and the clip barely plays, with the codec going into CPU scalability mode. Every CPU intensive function in RV9 is MMX optimized, and with Athlon supporting MMX, an 1800+ should be able to handle this clip pretty easily, unless there are other problems, with for instance no overlay, resizing in software etc. Maybe the Matrox G400 can not handle anamorphic resizing too well..

[Sirber]

@Karl

Are you going to include AMD specefic optimizations like 3DNOW and 3DNOW2 in future release?

[kilg0r3]

Ok people,
I have to apologize, partly at least. Why? Well. I realized that having flashed my bios last time, I only loded the defaults and forgot about entering the optimised values. So my 1800+ ran with ram timed asynchronously at 100 MHz. :blush:.

Still, it seems there is a limit of the Matrox overlay to 1024x768. For I had less cpu load at this resolution, and, when disabling the cpu hog DVDmax. I could even play the clip before I entered the proper ram timings. Now, after the adjustments in the bios, I can even use DVDmax at and Task Manager looks like in the attachment. The first curve represents the load when playing the at 99% of its size. The second represents full-screen display; just illustrating Karl’s comments.

At least, we have learned something about the inner workings of real.

Btw, I think the quality is nice but not perfect, you can still see blocks on the cheeks of people and strange behavior of the last man's shadow in the last 'scene' when the walk away.

Yet, I admit that, although the source is extremely clean, due to the new sony digital camera being udsed, for a 720x576 resolution and bright, detailed pictures the bitrate of about 1400Kbps is not plenty.

[karl_lillevold]

Originally posted by Sirber
Are you going to include AMD specefic optimizations like 3DNOW and 3DNOW2 in future release?
No, I am afraid that's not very likely. I don't really know if these instructions sets offer anything that RV9 decoding can make use of in a faster way than it uses MMX.

@kilg0r3:
glad you figured out how to get the speed back into your system.

Originally posted by kilg0r3
Btw, I think the quality is nice but not perfect, you can still see blocks on the cheeks of people and strange behavior of the last man's shadow in the last 'scene' when the walk away.
Hmm, i don't really see any blocks on the cheeks, other than when CPU scalability kicks in on my slow system. I see some compression artifacts in the shadows when zooming out though. This kind of high spatial detail at 720x576 is pretty hard to compress during moving zooms, and on such short duration, there is no VBR to take advantage of either. Good test clip.

[Sirber]

I'll check if 3DNOW and 3DNOW2 can apply to video compression / decompression.

[edit]

I'm a dumb ass... I don't understand the docs :(

AMD Extensions to the 3DNow!™ and MMX™ Instruction Sets Manual
http://www.amd.com/us-en/assets/content_type/white_papers_and_tech_docs/22466.pdf

3DNow!™Technology Manual
http://www.amd.com/us-en/assets/content_type/white_papers_and_tech_docs/21928.pdf

AMD Athlon™ Processor x86 Code Optimization Guide
http://www.amd.com/us-en/assets/content_type/white_papers_and_tech_docs/22007.pdf

[Mr_Khyron]

Originally posted by Sirber
I'll check if 3DNOW and 3DNOW2 can apply to video compression / decompression.

[edit]

I'm a dumb ass... I don't understand the docs :(

AMD Extensions to the 3DNow!™ and MMX™ Instruction Sets Manual
http://www.amd.com/us-en/assets/content_type/white_papers_and_tech_docs/22466.pdf

3DNow!™Technology Manual
http://www.amd.com/us-en/assets/content_type/white_papers_and_tech_docs/21928.pdf

AMD Athlon™ Processor x86 Code Optimization Guide
http://www.amd.com/us-en/assets/content_type/white_papers_and_tech_docs/22007.pdf
sh0dan MMX/SSE/3DNOW documentation
http://cultact-server.novi.dk/kpo/avisynth/optimizing/index.html

[Sirber]

@Karl

If I use Constant quality with a maximum bitrate, it the bitrate goes too high, will the codec decrease the quality or drop frames?

[edit]

... or do nothing special?

[CaptainCarrot]

@Sirber:
I thought that the behavior depends upon wether you choose "smooth", "normal" or "sharp", with "smooth" filtering out details (thus decreasing quality), "sharp" dropping frames and "normal" doing a mix of both. But I maybe wrong.

[Sirber]

I set quality 60 and Max Bitrate at 600 and it still goes at 2000kbps sometimes. :confused:

[kilg0r3]

@karl and all

Hi! I did two further anamorphic clips (ca 1000Kbps and 1400Kbps) which i am going to upload somewhere but only sometime tonight (CMT). Beware, those will be about 10mb each plus 7mb for the screen shots of the source material.

In the course if this, I noticed something strange, at least for me. Playing the clip with higher bitrate also consumes more cpu. I always thought that lower bitrate => more Postprocessing => more cpu. Why is that?

[Sirber]

More the bitrate, more information to show, to calculate motion and to redraw pixels.

at 980x, it's kinda normal :)

At smaller bitrate, the codec recycle (verbe recycler en français) it's pixels, so it have less things to update.

[kilg0r3]

@Sirber

Hum, hum, well, hum alright ...

@all

BTW, before burning my dialup isdn connection, are there actually people interested in these clips?.

[Sirber]

I do. I'm interrested in anamorphic encoding :)

You can send them to sirber@webernic.com ou send my a URL.

Thanks!!! :D

[karl_lillevold]

Originally posted by Sirber
If I use Constant quality with a maximum bitrate, it the bitrate goes too high, will the codec decrease the quality or drop frames?

It will decrease the quality to try and stay within your set maximum bitrate. In the unlikely case it can not drop quality enough, it will skip frames, but this rarely happens at the bitrates you operate at.

[karl_lillevold]

Originally posted by CaptainCarrot
I thought that the behavior depends upon wether you choose "smooth", "normal" or "sharp", with "smooth" filtering out details (thus decreasing quality), "sharp" dropping frames and "normal" doing a mix of both. But I maybe wrong.
'Smooth' in the encoder results in HHR = Half Horizontal Resolution for high resolution clips. This means it will resample to half the width before encoding, and have the player stretch back after decoding. It will result in less sharpness.

For the bitrates discussed here, 'normal' and 'sharp' work pretty much the same way. I always use 'normal'. They only differ if the encoder has to drop frames, which it never does at reasonable bitrates. In that case, 'sharp' will rather drop frames, than decrease the quality below a certain threshold.

[karl_lillevold]

Originally posted by kilg0r3
In the course if this, I noticed something strange, at least for me. Playing the clip with higher bitrate also consumes more cpu. I always thought that lower bitrate => more Postprocessing => more cpu. Why is that?
More bits means higher CPU load when the entropy decoder parses the bits. Bit parsing is not very MMX optimizable, since it is hard to do bit wise operations in parallel.

[Sirber]

@Karl

Have you checked the PDFs about 3DNOW?

[karl_lillevold]

Originally posted by Sirber
Have you checked the PDFs about 3DNOW?
Nope, sorry, finally had some time to work on improving RV9 encoding, and there's not much time left over, and to be honest, that's something I'd rather do as well. Improving decoder speed beyond what we have today, is very incremental and time-consuming, especially since none of us know the AMD extensions. I think most would want 20% better compression in RV9, in addition to RV on all sorts of cool devices, which is another large part of what we do, rather than 5% faster decoding on AMD.. Or no?

[p.s. not promising 20%, that was just picked out of thin air]

[Sirber]

I see...

I'd like the 20% in encoding :). I don't care too much about decoding, but some people have problems with speed.

About encoding, it would be great to add "lines" to the codec, for making shapes at low bitrate, for animes. I have one that is mostly blue and white, with lines. Lines are blury at 350kbps and require at least 700kbps to have greats one. If you don't know what I'm talking about, I can make screenshots.

Cya!

hum...

by 20%, do you mean 20% better at the same bitrate, or 20% faster?

[karl_lillevold]

:) Like I said, 20% was just an example, but "x% better" for the encoder would mean x% less bitrate to achieve the same quality. If you like you can send me a screenshot per e-mail.

[Sirber]

That would be great :)

I'll reencode it (I deleted it) and shoot you a screen by mail. Do you the anime Ghost in the Shell? It's a special about Tachikomas, the blue armored suits, from the serie. It's ~5 MB, so I can shoot it in rmvb format, or a small clip.

[edit]

hum... what's your mail again?

[edit2]

This user's mailbox is currently full, and cannot be sent any messages until it is cleaned out. An email has been sent notifying the user of this. Please try your request at a later time.

Clean it!!! :scared:

[iwod]

Below are the clips from kilg0r3


1400Kbps (http://echo6.dr2.net/~edde/Clip-1400Kbps.rar)

1000Kbps (http://echo6.dr2.net/~edde/Clip-1000Kbps.rar)

SourceFrame (http://echo6.dr2.net/~edde/SourceFrameGrabsAndMisc.rar)


P.s.... how do i do so that there is a count how many times thes link has been clicked??

[Sirber]

@iwod

Check your apache's logs :)

@kilg0r3

I don't see any differences between 1000k and 1400k. 1400k seems to lag sometimes, the sound gets out of sync for 2 ms. Quality is SO GREAT!!!

What tools are you using?

[Sirber]

You are bandwith limited?

Remove the links in 1 or 2 days. So people that really want these and care about RV9 will have it, and the others nOoBs wont :).

[kilg0r3]

Originally posted by Sirber
I don't see any differences between 1000k and 1400k.
Yes, that is what i thought too.

I don't use anything special really but the source is extremely clean since it is sony's new highdef digi video cam.

[Sirber]

@Karl

Since you're not using hotmail, I'll try to upload the whole clip, which is 4.5 MB. Watch the lines on the tachikomas.

Here's the settings:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<audience xmlns="http://ns.real.com/tools/audience.1.0">
<avgBitrate type="uint">350000</avgBitrate>
<maxBitrate type="uint">2000000</maxBitrate>
<streams>
<videoStream>
<enableLossProtection type="bool">false</enableLossProtection>
<encodingType type="string">vbrBitrate</encodingType>
<maxFrameRate type="double">24.000000</maxFrameRate>
<maxKeyFrameInterval type="double">10.000000</maxKeyFrameInterval>
<maxStartupLatency type="double">25.000000</maxStartupLatency>
<pluginName type="string">rn-videocodec-realvideo</pluginName>
<quality type="uint">30</quality>
</videoStream>
<audioStream>
<codecFlavor type="uint">21</codecFlavor>
<codecName type="string">cook</codecName>
<pluginName type="string">rn-audiocodec-realaudio</pluginName>
<streamContext type="bag">
<audioMode type="string">music</audioMode>
<presentationType type="string">audio-video</presentationType>
</streamContext>
</audioStream>
<audioStream>
<codecFlavor type="uint">7</codecFlavor>
<codecName type="string">cook</codecName>
<pluginName type="string">rn-audiocodec-realaudio</pluginName>
<streamContext type="bag">
<audioMode type="string">voice</audioMode>
<presentationType type="string">audio-video</presentationType>
</streamContext>
</audioStream>
<audioStream>
<codecFlavor type="uint">21</codecFlavor>
<codecName type="string">cook</codecName>
<pluginName type="string">rn-audiocodec-realaudio</pluginName>
<streamContext type="bag">
<audioMode type="string">music</audioMode>
<presentationType type="string">audio-only</presentationType>
</streamContext>
</audioStream>
<audioStream>
<codecFlavor type="uint">7</codecFlavor>
<codecName type="string">cook</codecName>
<pluginName type="string">rn-audiocodec-realaudio</pluginName>
<streamContext type="bag">
<audioMode type="string">voice</audioMode>
<presentationType type="string">audio-only</presentationType>
</streamContext>
</audioStream>
</streams>
</audience>


Whish me luck :)

[Sirber]

@Karl

Have you got my mail?

[karl_lillevold]

nope, pls use the web based file transfer service I mentioned in my PM, because our attachment limit size is 5 MB (which is less in binary due to ASCII conversion). Also, I still don't have your e-mail, which would be a more efficient way to communicate information not of interest to the rest of this board :scared:

[Sirber]

I'll resend it using your wierd CGI upload :)

Don't have any FTP?

[edit]

Hum... My PM is empty. :( Could you resend it to my PM or mail? Thx :)

[Sirber]

Got it now?

I'm wasting all my bandwith :scared: ;)

[iwod]

I have just deleted some of my useless post in an afford to clean up the post.... i hope other would do the same.... just to make this post stay on topic.

[Sirber]

@Karl

Any news for animes?

[iwod]

@ Karl...

I remember you have said that adjustable post filter would be added. I am having the feeling partly why Rv9 looks so good is because the filter.

I am wondering if it is possible to allow the encoder to have the options to force different level/kind of post processing @ different point of playing??

[Sirber]

Or a Variable Post-Processing Engine :)

It would be nice to see a clip whitout and one with...

[wing1]

@karl

OK, play around enough with all the options in the audience file: I don't understand exactly what the quality setting does when you are using vbrbitrate for encoding. How does that get into effect? The only time I am seeing it doing anything is by using qualityvbr for encoding.

[karl_lillevold]

@wing1: you are right, the Quality setting does not affect anything in vbrBitrate mode.

[kilg0r3]

is there any way to do sth like a compressibility check with producer?

[Sirber]

Maybe with Quality-based encodes...

[karl_lillevold]

AutoRV9 1.3b1 has a compressibility test.

The following requires an understanding of how the compressbility test works: The compressibility test requires a number of bits corresponding to "max quality". The problem is that the best possible quality with XviD (QP=2) is very different from the best quality in RV9. In RV9 a higher maximum fidelity is possible, but this also requires more bits, so if a max quality if vbrQuality=100 was used as the comp test reference, the compressibility test number would be way too small, like 10% or less.

So the challenge was to find a suitable reference quality for RV9. I ran some experiments using the compressibility calculations, and found that vbrQuality=83 with no limit on max bitrate, is a good starting point. However, I have not tried AutoRV9 1.3b1 on enough samples to see how accurate it is. It is, however, a nice first step, so do give it a try and provide feedback as appropriate. Thanks!

[slavickas]

@Karl , is helixcommunity site fully working? i can't access binaries & servers mailng list archve

[karl_lillevold]

it is working right now, monday morning, US Pacific time.
If you still have trouble, please send email to feedback@helixcommunity.org, and include your user id.
Thanks!

[slavickas]

hmm, seems to be working now, probably somewhere were dns errors, thx anyway for reply

[31 Flavas]

For ATI users:

Catalyst 3.4 drivers have been posted at ATI.com

[slavickas]

@Karl

does m3 have updated encoder?

[karl_lillevold]

no, the new High Quality mode (with high complexity too though) will be included in the next milestone build.

[Sirber]

Will it be backward-compatible with decoders?

[karl_lillevold]

yes

[31 Flavas]

Can the next milestone, for that matter the existing milestones, be used by the Helix Producer Plus GUI?

i.e. Can I just copy the new producer.exe and codec folder over the existing ones?

[karl_lillevold]

no, unfortunately, it's not that easy. The most general solution is to use the GUI to create a job file, save it as jobfile.rpjf, then run the new command line producer with producer -j jobfile.rpjf. Before this you can edit the job file and add the options for the new high quality mode.

I have also added reg keys though, for convenient settings of these options without editing the job file.

I think I will also provide instructions for how to plug the new encoder DLL into the old GUI producer, then at least the improved compression efficiency will be availble (with the reg key settings).

[kilg0r3]

Where can I get some info this High Quality mode thing?

[slavickas]

https://helix-producer.helixcommunity.org/specs/Producer9.2/9.2Release/index.htm

[kilg0r3]

i am so goddam lazy sometimes :D

yet, i found only something about the high complexity mode is this synonymous with high quality mode.

Btw is this related to what xvid does with vhq?

@Dark Cracker?
I hope there will be a checkbox for this nice thingy. sorry, couldN#t resist :D

[karl_lillevold]

Even though the custom codec option exists in the current milestone, it does not yet have the intended behavior, and the result is a slower encoder, without all the improvement. This will be included in the next Milestone, at which point I will also publish some details as to the differences between the different numbers above 65. I hope a setting will be included in AutoRV9, but it will also be available with a simple reg key, for backwards compatibility with the GUI Helix Producer and older versions of other tools.

[Sirber]

As soon as the next milestone will be out, zadude will include in in RMFactory.

[Dark-Cracker]

hi,

for sure this option will be added :)
i think i will try to publish a new beta in few days (my exams will be finished soon :) )

Bye.

[kilg0r3]

@Karl
ey! nudge, nudge, ... any dates? .. nudge. 'nowhatImean? nudge, wink, nudge?

[iwod]

The new Producer 9.2 M3 is already out. I have read the whole page and spec but i still can not find anything about this new high quality mode. Can somebody point me to the exact place to read about it.

And dark Cracker, where can i get a 1.3 beta version??

[karl_lillevold]

sorry, not there yet, you have to wait for 9.2 M4.

[Sirber]

@Karl

Can you explain what exactly is that HQ mode? :D

@All

The lastest mplayer can now play RM files, but the seeking doesn't work wet.

[karl_lillevold]

yes, I will let you know when it is available, which will take a couple of weeks, I am afraid. I just spoke with Producer team, and the next Milestone, M4, should be out in about two weeks. It is not this this feature , which I am pretty much done with, that's holding it up, but other work.

I think there will be three new modes, in addition to what has been default until now, in lack of better terms, let's just call them:

Default(0): improved efficiency for high action
High(1) : same as (0) + better mode decisions, better representation of high motion
Higher(2) : same as (1) + very high accuracy motion representation
Highest(3): same as (2) + best possible mode decisions

as you can see, there is some improvement even for the default mode.

(0) same encoding time as before
(1) will take about 2X encoding time compared to default
(2) about 2.8X default
(3) about 3.5X default

The bitstreams will be fully backwards compatible, decoding speed will not be affected.

As always, the improvement will depend on content and bitrate, perhaps in some cases hardly noticable, while some cases, quite impressive. More later.

[iwod]

sorry........... i just reliaze something.... and that is espcially with ainme. Is that sometimes don't change much or even not changing at all for two or 3 secounds. So low framerate is good in this scence. I understand that Rv9 already support variable frame rate. But this apply to the video automatically? And if it is possible have Encoder to decide at what time should the frame rate be...( i.e User defined frame rate @ special time frame.)

And one thing that is good with this new HQ Mode. I have always think that it doesn't really matter if it take a 3+ Ghz and loads of ram to encode to a specfic format. As long as the user are able to watch the end file with a low end system. In this case RV9 has that. And i like it. I hope there is more options and enhancement to be made to the encoder that improve quality ( with higher resources / power to encode ) while staying at the same level amount of resources to decode.

[Sirber]

@Karl

That's great news.

I have a little question: What's the commandline option for audio normalization (not gain) ? You said we could use producer instead of besweet for normalization.

[karl_lillevold]

i am afraid producer does not include normalization, even though this would have been possible with 2-pass encoding. Considering how you can now (or very soon) use AC3 tracks as audio source for producer, normalization would have been useful. However, I do suspect the variation in the gain found by for instance Besweet's normalization feature, is not too great, and based on some experiments, you can use about the same 'dB' number for the audio gain in producer all the time, withou actual normalization. Producer includes a very high quality limiter, in case your gain is a little too high, so this should be no problem, rather an advantage.

[Sirber]

SO I can ask a 12db gain, and producer will "control" the gain to not go beyond the maximum?

Sorry for my english, I just woke up :D

[wing1]

@Karl,

Is there any plan that Real will provide some type of frame capture option like that in BSplayer or Vdub that can export frame/frames to either bmp/png/jpg? The work around with hardware is getting quite old :D

As for quality wise, current 9M3 is doing just fine; However, if 9M4 is promissing to be better, then all the best!

[kilg0r3]

A subtitle question:

The subtitles displayed with smil files are not part of the hardware overlay, and consequentially are not displayed on TV when using matrox' Dvd max feature. Is there any possibility to work around this?

[Sirber]

9.2M4 will kick ass. I saw a preview and it's SO GREAT!!! :D

[iwod]

Sorry Karl, Just ignore my previous post about controlable frame size. As i have ony just discovered i could do it with Avisyth.

Looking forward to to M4.

iwod

[karl_lillevold]

Just to let you know the status for the new Extra High Quality mode. I am still struggling with a very hard to catch bug. :angry: It is so non-reproducible, I can't tell how long it will take either.

[Sirber]

If it's non-reproductible and hard to catch bug, may we have an alpha test? :D

[karl_lillevold]

hey, maybe that's a good idea, considering how until now I have done all the development, optimization, testing and QA all by my lonely self, for this EHQ mode. I could use some help with the testing and QA part :cool: . I did however make great progress today, so hopefully it should be resolved soon.

[31 Flavas]

Originally posted by karl_lillevold

I did however make great progress today, so hopefully it should be resolved soon. Cool beans. Can't wait.

Good luck squishing the bug dead!

[Sirber]

Yeah!

Send it to hell!! :devil:

Can't wait for the next built :D

[karl_lillevold]

bug ( :devil: ) terminated! a misfit compiler setting led to a missing __chkstk() call in a P4 specific function, and the stack mangling that would then sometimes occur, resulted in these instances of sudden death.

The next Producer build that passes BVT should include an EHQ mode that I am quite happy with.. For certain content a quality improvement corresponding to a 30% bitrate reduction can be seen, and this is with a fully backwards compatible bitstream. On average though, and for very high bitrate content, it will be less, but for my current test encodings I can reduce the bits/pixel number quite significantly, and have the result still look very pleasing.

It will be very interesting to get some feedback. Remember though, every improvement is incremental, and it takes some time to adjust to the new mode. For instance, if you previously used such a high bitrate relative to resolution, that no compression artifacts could be seen, using the same bitrate now, you will still see no visual degradation. The improvement then would have been that you could have gotten away with a lower bitrate and still have seen no problems. I know you will ask if it can be made faster, and the answer is that every CPU cycle is spent trying to find more optimal compression parameters, and every CPU intensive function is fully MMX/SSE/SSE2 optimized. I would rather have my computer's 2.4 GHz P4 do that instead of searching for aliens in its free time :)

Will the improvement be worth the slower encoding speed? Well, certainly for me it will, but if your CPU is on the slow side, it may be too much. I have used it enough now to see the improved visual quality. I can now lower the bitrate more without seeing "stuff going on" both in the background and around edges. Of course, being the implementor, it is not possible to get more biased, but I am very happy with the result. More later.

EDIT (typo only)

[slavickas]

cool, any target release date?, btw waht is "very high bitrate content"(tm) :) ?

[The Shemeta]

Great News Karl,

When will be the new Producer build available for download? Can't wait to try it! :D

[Sirber]

Great!

About speed, it would be great to optimize for AMD too, with 3DNOW and 3DNOW2. My Athlon XP can only use MMX and SSE :(.

[iwod]

Originally posted by Sirber
Great!

About speed, it would be great to optimize for AMD too, with 3DNOW and 3DNOW2. My Athlon XP can only use MMX and SSE :(.

I think karl has already answer this question previously. I would like too since i also use AMD CPU. However to my understanding 3D Now should not be much use in this scenerio.

[31 Flavas]

Originally posted by karl_lillevold

It will be very interesting to get some feedback [on the RV9 EHQ improvements]. I'll be anxious to try out your improvements too. Just let me/us know what will need to be added to (or changed in) the .rpjf and if any switches need to be used, when the new milestone is released.

[wing1]

will this change be available in the audience file or project file?

[karl_lillevold]

status update: still waiting for a 'good' build before anything can be posted. No known bugs in the RV9 encoder, but it is a large system, and sometimes unrelated build busters are checked in elsewhere in the system :( Development for other 9.2 features than the codec is still going strong.

In order to enable the extra high quality modes in this 1st version, one can
1) edit job file (insert codecProperties)
2) edit audience files (insert codecProperties)
3) use reg key over-rides (useful for GUI Producer with replaced encoder DLL)
4) When the GUI front-ends are updated, they will likely include these options directly (and autommatically insert the right xml code in the job or audience file)

Details later.

For the final 9.2 release these options will probably also be exposed as a top level command line parameter.

[midiguy]

hello. It's been a whole since I posted here. the new ehq mode looks pretty cool. Question though, how is that jitter thing going? I alhpa tested some DLLs for you a while back, and like I said before, it was greatly improved but not perfect. just wondering how that renderer is coming? (I ask because the nly two things holding me back from using rv9 is the jitter problem in the renderer and the excessive, uncontrollable post-processing.)

[Sirber]

Originally posted by midiguy
and the excessive, uncontrollable post-processing.)

It's not that bad, the PP. I did great encodes with no "excessive" bluring at a variety of bitrates.

[slavickas]

@Karl
is it possible to get/build new dll via cvs?

[karl_lillevold]

no, but another Milestone should be posted shortly, hopefully today or tomorrow :cool:

[karl_lillevold]

You can now get a build of Helix Producer that has RV9-EHQ:
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=55193

[Valky]

Karl said: "...very often I have to find out information about a RealMedia file. Specifically, I need to know the video resolution, the video bitrate, the VBR buffer, and/or the audio bitrate. Soon, also the number of channels of audio..."

I am not sure if people are familiar with tools like GSpot (doesn't support RM-files..), but yesterday I found similiar very handy software that supports ALSO RM-files!

It's called AVIcodec and you can find this freeware from here: http://avicodec.duby.info/


With this message I hope I didn't hijack anyones thread or step on anyones feet. I just wanted to share this great utility I found and I am sure there are also others who have been looking for this kind of tool. (Personally, I found DC's tool too complicated and there is information I dont need) :)

[DaWolf]

Not bad at all but for rmvb files the analyse tool delivers much more information. The shell extenstion provides more basic information than AVIcodec. Nice tool though.

Ruud

[rakaz]

Karl:

This probably isn't the right place for reporting problems with RealOne, but since you already answered a couple of other questions regarding similar problems I am going to try anyway.

The problem I am experiencing is stuttering video. If I play a rm file (no matter which codec) the video freezes in a couple of seconds. A couple of seconds later the video resumes playback. A couple of seconds later the video freezes again...

All the files I tried are loaded from my local hard drive, so this isn't a bandwidth issue. I've tried old files, new files, the test files from real.com and nothing works, so it looks like it is a player problem and not a movie file problem.

Things I looked at so far:

- Sound keeps playing even if the video freezes.

- RealOne does use a overlay. If I move the window during playback the video area lags a bit behind the player window frame, a clear sign that an overlay is being used.

- MPC also experiences the same problem, with both render types.

- Both RM and MPG files are affected. AVI files are not.

- If I look at the 'Playback Statistics' the 'Current fps' drops to 0 during the freeze. 'Frames Dropped' increases. 'Frames Displayed' also drops to 0% momentarily.

- Changing the 'Video Card Compatibility' setting does affect this problem slightly. Setting it to 'Most reliable' does increase time between freezes and the length of each freeze. The problem does not go away though.

- Changing the 'Sound Card Compatibility' settings does noet affect this problem.

- Downgrading to Real 8 does not solve the problem.

I didn't have these problems before. Only after upgrading my system they started to appear. I use Windows XP. Athlon XP 2200+, nForce 2, geForce 2MX. Latest official drivers.

[karl_lillevold]

@rakaz:
I am sorry, but this problem sounds nothing like anything I have seen before. Could I ask you to check if the CPU usage spikes when the video freezes? If there is a spike, is it possible to use the Task Manager to see which process causes the spike? Do frames drop, or does the video continue where it left off, and then out of sync with audio? If you go to Tools -> Playback statistics, then click on the Streams tab, and select the Video stream in the drop-down box, are any frames reported as dropped? Finally, you mentioned it happens for MPEG. Does it happen for MPEG in any other media player than Real?

Thanks! Also, if you are interested in trying a pre-release version of the video renderer to see if this fixes your problem, pls send me a PM with your e-mail.

[rakaz]

Could I ask you to check if the CPU usage spikes when the video freezes? If there is a spike, is it possible to use the Task Manager to see which process causes the spike?

No spikes. CPU usages around 5% - 10% overall. During a freeze RealOne CPU usages drops from around 5% to 0-1%. At the moment the video starts playing again RealOne CPU usage goes up to around 20% then drop back to normal... at least until the next freeze.

Do frames drop, or does the video continue where it left off, and then out of sync with audio?

I have seen three things happen when the video continues:
- The video suddenly begins playing again at a keyframe and I've just lost all frames during the freeze.
- The video suddenly begins playing at a i-frame and you notice some artifacts on the screen until the next keyframe.
- The video suddenly begins playing out of sync and for a second or so you can see the video is trying to get back into sync (high fps). At the moment it is back in sync it starts playing normal again. This might be important: Not all of the frames that should have been displayed during the freeze will shown. Only the last couple of seconds of the frames that should have been shown are actually shown at a high fps. So most of the frames are lost.

If you go to Tools -> Playback statistics, then click on the Streams tab, and select the Video stream in the drop-down box, are any frames reported as dropped?

What happens is this:
a) the video plays correctly:
Current: is 20fps, Frames Lost: 0, Frames Dropped: 0

b) the video freezes, audio keeps playing
Current: is going down to 0.0fps, Frames Lost: 0, Frames Dropped: 0

c) the video starts playing again
Current: is 0.0fps, Frames Lost: 0, Frames Dropped: 0

d) not more than half a second after the video starts playing
Current: is going up to 20fps, Frames Lost: 0, Frames Dropped: 263

So yes, frames are dropped.

Finally, you mentioned it happens for MPEG. Does it happen for MPEG in any other media player than Real?

It does happen with MPEG, but only when played from RealOne. If I play MPEG files from MPC (for example) everything goes fine.

Thanks! Also, if you are interested in trying a pre-release version of the video renderer to see if this fixes your problem, pls send me a PM with your e-mail.

No problem, if you need more information, or if you would like me to do some specific test I would be glad to help. PM is on the way.

[Sirber]

@Karl

Hi Karl! What's up! I have (again! :() some questions about new features of Producer 9.2. What is the new multi-channel codec? Is it based on cook? What is it's bitrate range?

Thanks for your time and keep the good work!!! :D :D :D

[karl_lillevold]

Lots of things going on, very busy, but thanks for checking in!

I will be writing a post about RA Multi-Channel shortly, its ins and outs, the different codec flavors, and how to encode RA Multi-Channel content, once I have verified how such bitstreams can be played back by the Helix Community (and readers of this forum). It will either be splay, the Helix DNA Client cmd line decoder, and/or with DLL replacements for RealOne V2. Does anyone here have more than two speakers connected to their computer ;) :p ? I don't, only for my home theater setup, but now I may just have to upgrade my computer speakers :D

In the video world, I will be experimenting with an animation mode (variable framerate encoding) for RV9. Whether or not this will actually improve anything, is not at all certain. It is not that easy to tell the difference between noise and just a small part of the animation is being updated.

[31 Flavas]

Originally posted by karl_lillevold

Does anyone here have more than two speakers connected to their computer ;) :p ? I don't, only for my home theater setup, but now I may just have to upgrade my computer speakers :D Yes, I have a 5.1 speaker system. So I can try out any multi-channel you want me to. It goes without saying, i'd also like to try out multi-channel encoding myself, too. :) :D

Edit: changed some verbage.

[Sirber]

I have 2x 2.1 speaker system what I can plug togheter. I wanna test too!!! :D

[Valky]

Is there any way to edit my rmvb file afterwards so that I can change audio delay to -80ms?

[Sirber]

Using a :D (a smile), you can mux on the fly your rmvb and your rm.

[RadicalEd]

I just tried and it didnt work :( :scared: :D

[karl_lillevold]

i tried to, at first it did not work, because I was missing the SMIL2 tag. The code below works (change the audio offset), but probably doubles decode complexity, since it may decode the video twice. If someone can think of another way to achieve this, speak out :)



<smil xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2001/SMIL20/Language"
xmlns:rn="http://features.real.com/2001/SMIL20/Extensions">
<head>
<layout>
<root-layout backgroundColor="black" width="704" height="288"/>
<region id="Video" >
<region id="VideoChannel1" soundLevel="100%" z-index="0"/>
<region id="VideoChannel2" soundLevel="0%" z-index="1"/>
</region>

</layout>
</head>
<body>
<par title="test">
<audio src = "clip.rmvb" region="VideoChannel1"/>
<video src = "clip.rmvb" region="VideoChannel2" begin="0.5s"/>
</par>
</body>
</smil>

[RadicalEd]

oh yes, your method works, but sirber's is still buggy for me :o :|

[Sirber]

What Karl did is a smile (:D)... :confused:

[karl_lillevold]

Re-wrote the beginning of the first post, to include a section on what I am doing in this forum, for three reasons: (1) to say thanks to Doom9 and the moderators for all the time spent running this site, which (2) has resulted in a forum with an incredible amount of useful discussions and ideas, and (3) to make sure everyone knows I do not want to sell anything to anyone. Yes, I do let you know when there is a new improvement, and about all the optimizations in RV9. Maybe that sounds like I am selling RV9.. So, maybe I am - it is free after all.. Otherwise, the old RealPlayer stigma would prevent anyone from trying what I know is worth trying, no..? Anyway, thanks to everyone who has given RV9-EHQ a fair evaluation. Based on current feedback, I don't think anyone has been disappointed.

[kilg0r3]

could somebody please tell me what the "file roll" options do? I read the docs but can't seem to understand what 'roll' means in this context.

Thanks

[Dark-Cracker]

normaly it's the prebuffering in milliseconds.
if i am wrong karl will surely correct me :)

++

[karl_lillevold]

i was confused too when I first ran across the 'roll' option in TFC's HPG, because it's an option I have never tried. I think this is the meant to roll over to new output RM files every so often (in terms of filesize or time), and intended for live encoding to file, or when archiving a live encode. This way too large RM files are avoided. The RM file format does not support larger than 4 GB compressed RM files (there are no problems with large source files to Producer on Win32).

[Sirber]

Wrong!!! :p I can't compress a 2.7 GB wave with Helix GUI :D It crashes and return to desktop.

[karl_lillevold]

right you are indeed! I have filed a problem report (https://helix-dna.helixcommunity.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=451).

EDIT: Hmm, I thought it would work in Avisynth though, with WavSource, but a quick experiment shows that Avisynth as well fails to open a WAV files larger than 2GB. That might be quite problematic for 6ch encoding.

EDIT2: See this thread (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=57243) in the Avisynth Usage forum.
Until fixed, for long multi-channel encodes, the only option in Producer is to use the method of separate audio and video inputs, audio being an AC3 track decoded on the fly to producer by ac3filter, video an Avisynth script.

EDIT3: or use HeadAC3 to convert AC3 to 6ch WAV. This seems to produce "good" +2GB WAV files that Avisynth can read.

[justin]

I have a question... how do you find out how to script your own rvmb profiles? I want to test out how some cartoons look, and I don't want to use Sirber's tool for making it easier, because I like things nice and complicated. I know that I am a nincombpoop :eek:

And also, is there any way to know for sure that you're encoding with EHQ, even if it's setup right, I keep wondering if it's not being used. This is my script, just one second... ah there it is:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<audience xmlns="http://ns.real.com/tools/audience.2.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:schemaLocation="http://ns.real.com/tools/audience.2.0 http://ns.real.com/tools/audience.2.0.xsd">
<avgBitrate type="uint">350000</avgBitrate>
<maxBitrate type="uint">760000</maxBitrate>
<streams>
<stream xsi:type="videoStream">
<pluginName type="string">rn-videocodec-realvideo</pluginName>
<codecName type="string">rv9</codecName>
<encodingType type="string">vbrQuality</encodingType>
<encodingType type="string">vbrBitrate</encodingType>
<quality type="uint">95</quality>
<codecProperties type="bag">
<encoderComplexity type="uint">80</encoderComplexity>
<customPacketSize type="uint">16000</customPacketSize>
</codecProperties>
<maxStartupLatency type="double">60</maxStartupLatency>
<maxFrameRate type="double">24</maxFrameRate>
<maxKeyFrameInterval type="double">20</maxKeyFrameInterval>
<enableLossProtection type="bool">false</enableLossProtection>
</stream>
<stream xsi:type="audioStream">
<pluginName type="string">rn-audiocodec-realaudio</pluginName>
<codecName type="string">cook</codecName>
<codecFlavor type="uint">25</codecFlavor>
<streamContext type="bag">
<presentationType type="string">audio-video</presentationType>
<audioMode type="string">music</audioMode>
</streamContext>
</stream>
</streams>
</audience>

ok, and also, when I did an encode test of an anime, it turned out to be 350kbps, but I want it to be on quality mode of 95% instead. So do any of you guys know what's happening out there?!

[kilg0r3]

personally, I use the rpad files generated by autorv9 and modify them using the two relevant documentation pages included with the producer.

[karl_lillevold]

Originally posted by justin
I have a question... how do you find out how to script your own rvmb profiles? I want to test out how some cartoons look, and I don't want to use Sirber's tool for making it easier, because I like things nice and complicated. I know that I am a nincombpoop :eek:

I like your sense for challenges. kilg0r3 made a good point. Start with an example, and read the documentation. Note the difference between an audience file and a job file. In job files everything is specified, incl inputs and outputs and pre-filters, and are ultimately the most flexible solution. Audience files are more limited and specify only the target audience, but simpler to get started with. For an advanced job file example with two sources, check this thread on RA Multi-channel (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=56684), and here's another one with the DropDupe prefilter (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=56564).


And also, is there any way to know for sure that you're encoding with EHQ, even if it's setup right, I keep wondering if it's not being used. This is my script, just one second... ah there it is:

Well, based on your audience it should be enabled. If you really want to make sure :) check that the erv4.dll that's in the codecs folder of the producer you are using says "RealVideo 9 EHQ" in the description when right clicking on it. Also, if you encode a short test, run with both encoderComplexity set to 65 and 80. With 80 it should take 3-4X as long to encode.


ok, and also, when I did an encode test of an anime, it turned out to be 350kbps, but I want it to be on quality mode of 95% instead. So do any of you guys know what's happening out there?!
That's because you have both vbrQuality and vbrBitrate in your audience. Remove the line with vbrBitrate and it should get you quality 95 (this should result in a pretty high bitrate, and you probably will not see much difference for a little lower quality, but experiments are a great way to learn). In AutoRV9's compressibility test, what is used for the reference quality is 87.

[justin]

thanks for the feedback, yeah. Just about everything was in the help file, but at least I understand the syntax completely now :) (XML certainly is straitforward)

Wow, yeah 95% is a hog! I scripted up a job file instead and tried it again at 65% and it still came out pretty good (minus any action scenes).

Ok, this might sound awkward, I hope I can explain this ok... at 65% you get really sharp quality stills, but any scenes with motion are all garbled up. At 80%, those high motion scenes become a little clearer, but the still scenes become sharper too. Is there any way to get 65% quality stills and have crisp motion scenes as well?

Without using 2 pass, I'm not sure if two pass helps in this situation, but I wouldn't like to encode in two pass because it takes twice as long.

[karl_lillevold]

for vbrQuality make sure you set the maxBitrate very high

<maxBitrate type="uint">99999999</maxBitrate>

Otherwise, the maxBitrate will limit the quality during high action scenes. This sounds like what you are seeing.

[SeeMoreDigital]

Karl

I apologise in advance if you have already been asked about this. But have you had chance to test the new version of this filter with HelProd 9.2?

Cheers

[karl_lillevold]

yes, I tested ac3filter 0.69b a few days ago, and it works fine as input source filter for AC3 to Producer, I don't know which change that fixed it. I edited the RA5.1 thread (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=56684), but did not post a reply, which is why you did not know there was new information.

[trbarry]

I'm afraid I'm guilty of pretty much ignoring RV9 so far.

But I'm curious. Is anyone aware of any tests with RV9/EHQ on highly detailed HDTV material, say at least 1280x720p, at maybe 5-6 mbps?

Sorry if this has already been answered here somewhere.

- Tom

[Sirber]

I tryed :)

Can't be played on my 2000+. I have framedrop at 5000kbps. You'll need a P4 3GHz.

[SeeMoreDigital]

Hello Tom,

I recently encoded the hi-def 1440x816 WMV9 Terminator trailer, you know the one that can be found on the M$ web site.

When I encoded it to DivX5 using Dr DivX at 6500kbps 1440x816 2pass VBR it looked pretty good but did not playback very smoothly.

However, when I encoded the same trailer again using RMV9 (not EHQ sorry) at 6500kbps 1440x816 2pass VBR it looked and played great.

God knows who much better it would look with EHQ. Shame I could not manage to get the HP+GUI application to see .wmv files.

Maybe I should try again - Hope this helps!

[karl_lillevold]

The clip Sirber tried to play back was an example I transcoded from one of the many wmv9 HD samples as well, the Coral Reef demo at 1280x720p. I encoded it at 5 Mbps with RV9-EHQ, while the wmv9 source is 7 Mbps.

This clip plays back fine on a dual 2.2 GHz system, but probably requires something like a 2.8 GHz single P4 to avoid codec CPU scalability. This is a really complex clip.

[kilg0r3]

when can we expect multi codec hardware decoders? :D

wasn't there something like a joint venture of ati and real building part of the decoding into radeon chips?

[trbarry]

Yes! Hardware accel for something other than MPEG-2 is really holding up our ability to make and use our own HDTV clips. It means we have to focus more on playability than compressibility. Though I suppose once we all have 3.5+ Ghz machines it won't matter as much.

- Tom

[Sirber]

Originally posted by kilg0r3
when can we expect multi codec hardware decoders? :D

wasn't there something like a joint venture of ati and real building part of the decoding into radeon chips? You can build a system with a tv-out / sound-out with ffdshow and MPC. You just need a mouse connected :)

[SeeMoreDigital]

Agreed,

Yes! Hardware accel for something other than MPEG-2 is really holding up our ability to make and use our own HDTV clips. It means we have to focus more on playability than compressibility. Though I suppose once we all have 3.5+ Ghz machines it won't matter as much.

I remember the days (1997/98) when my old 333MHz P2 PC, with 16MB ATI video card was not good enough to playback DVD's. So I went out and purchased a Creative DVD Encore 'hardware' card. It cost me a small fortune at the time!

It's quite unbelievable to think that even todays 3.06GHz P4's struggle with high def images.

RealMedia Video9 seems to be the best of the bunch so far with HD. However, I would like to give WMV9 VCM (.avi) a go with HD, as some of my standard encode tests with this version of codec proved to run more smoothly than the equivalent standard .wmv version.

Apparently MingCL is investigating!

Cheers

[Sirber]

Think about H.264 for HDTV :D 12 GHz? :D :D :D

[kilg0r3]

Originally posted by Sirber
You can build a system with a tv-out / sound-out with ffdshow and MPC. You just need a mouse connected :) currently doing just that :)
cpu: amd athlon 700; ram: 368mb; vga: ati rage pro; sound: hercules 4 channel (need only two though); dvd: liteon something; Mouse: Logitech wireless trackball!!:D

[Valky]

Just a simple question: Is it possible to have dual language audio in rmvb or not?

Using forums 'search'-function I red all the 54 threads that came from 'dual language' but none of them doesn't seem to consider RealMedia.

I am asking this, because Dark-Cracker says in his Autorv9 advertise the following "support 2 audio streams".

Well, I tried his latest beta, but I couldn't find second source-input box anywhere? (And I was little bit disappointed anyhow, cause actually I tried to encode a simple movie with it, but it came without sound at all when using wav as input..which was ok and encoded with other great dark-cracker-tool 'Besweet_Gui_light', but thats unfortunately another story. Produced avs-file seemed to lack this audio-file completely, but I noticed this too late this morning after 8 hours of encoding...)

So if it's possible could it be done with avs-file if I wanna use RMFactory? (which is excellent software too, but usually crashes when adding second avs-file to joblist..with one input it works great)

My current avs file is this:

video=mpeg2source("E:\disney\mouses\mouses.d2v")
audio=wavsource("E:\disney\mouses\mouses.wav")
video=audiodub(video,audio)
video=AutoCrop(video,0,wMultOf=4, hMultOf=4)
video=TemporalCleaner(video,3,6)
video=undot(video)
video=unfilter(video,30,30)
video=bicubicresize(video,480,352,0,0.5)
video=mipsmooth(video)
video=limiter(video)
return(video)

[kilg0r3]

muxing into rmvb does not work. you can do two audio streams with a smil file or mux rv9 and two audio streams in a matroska container.

[Nic]

OT: Got round to finally installing and using RV9 last night. Its easy to install the RealOne player so its non-obstructive, so you can forget about it and use Media Player Classic. RV9's quality is excellent, at around 256kbps ive never seen anything better. I strongly recommend trying it for those, like me, who kept putting it off.

ps
Basically making it non obstructive is using the customized install option (rather than express), turn everything off, tell it you have no network connection. Quiting the install after its installed everything, (quit it as soon as it mentions anything about registering/passes), Going to the task manager, kill realsched.exe. Then goto C:\Program Files\Common Files\Real\Update_OB and remove the realsched.exe there. Also goto the registry and search for tkbell/realsched.exe in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run and remove it.

[Dark-Cracker]

it's not possible for the moment to mux 2 audio stream in a .rmvb file the only solution is to encode the 2 audio track separately (.rm) and the video track (.rmvb) and use some .smil file to launch the video + desired audio track .

> but I couldn't find second source-input box anywhere.

in the audio panel select your file and click on "ADD" button , select your second audio file and click again on the add button. u will have a list with the name of the audio file.

Bye.

PS: feel free to post a msg in the respected threads of these tools for your bug report.

[Sirber]

@D.C.

Could you do a RMVB-->MKV converter (like you did) but for commandline uses? I'd like to use it for future projects :)

[Valky]

Originally posted by Nic
OT: Got round to finally installing and using RV9 last night. Its easy to install the RealOne player so its non-obstructive, so you can forget about it and use Media Player Classic. RV9's quality is excellent, at around 256kbps ive never seen anything better. I strongly recommend trying it for those, like me, who kept putting it off.



I am happy to hear this kind of feedback from such xvid-devoted guy like yourself. I am sure that this kind of feedback gives much more to whole encoding-community than those codec-against-codec competitions and their-codec-sucks threads cause there isn't just one best-of-the-best codec for every situations.
Very refreshing to hear this kind of stuff!


Ps. To DC: I think that concerning my whole previous post it served better community in this thread than just making a bug-report to your beta-tool, cause I am not even sure yet if it was my own mistake or not. I am investigating more... :)

[karl_lillevold]

@Nic: thanks for taking the time! And for the excellent summary on installing RealOne and to stop Tinkerbell :p.
My summary (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=48179) is a little more awkward, and requires starting up RealOne to set some options, which is a good idea to make R1P behave nicely if you use it (for instance for streaming or DRM content).

[Nic]

Never saw that post! :) Your post is alot more complete. I did alot of encoding in WMV8 for a client at 128&512kbps, compared them with a RV9 clip I made at the same bitrate of one of the same sources. RV9 was lots better (especially the 128kbps clip, res was only 352x288, so if it had been higher there may have been more of a difference at 512). Guess ill have to read up on your licensing, for my company's next transcoding venture. :)

Ill encode a 1 CD of Road To Perdition over the weekend in a few formats. Ill report back :)

Keep up the good work,
-Nic

ps
Talking to one of the guys at work about it today, his reply was "Aren't Real evil?" ;) You may really have to change the marketing of the player (easy to download, non-intrusive, etc) to change that perception :(

[karl_lillevold]

@Nic: Re encoding: remember EHQ ;) Re marketing of player: I absolutely agree. Me and others have tried to change it, and the right people are taking notice, slowly...

[SeeMoreDigital]

Cor blimey me!

Me thinks if Karl and Nic carry on much more like this we could see the beginings of a dedicated RMV9 section!

I must admit I was an ardent DivX man myself. But RealMedia is certainly comming up with the goods more quickly than the competition.

Great fun and great work!

Cheers

[iwod]

Now that real can be put into Matrosaka then the real player doesn't really matter. Once we can get Matroska into good shape.

However I hope RealONE 3 will finally elminate all ( not some ) of those annoying things like sign up etc....

But i know it is not the programming people that makes the decision. ( Karl )

[Nic]

Rob Lanphier <robla at real com> wrote:
What's not legal is to put RealAudio or RealVideo data in a Matroska container.

On the helix licensing mailing list that was written after a question by Christian. Christian's reply stated:
"does really not help us here to make rv2mkv available in any
form, as its clearly a license violation of the Real specs license"

So sadly maybe not. Maybe something will be resolved about it, I hope so. But otherwise we'll have to play Real in the Real container (and play it in MPC ;)), which kinda makes sense for now.

-Nic

ps
more promising results from rv9 even at reasonably high rates:
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&postid=348719#post348719

[Sirber]

It's illegal to store Real content in Matroska? Datas is only taken on the fly and redirected :)

[karl_lillevold]

thanks for pointing me to the other thread. I posted a reply there, regarding EHQ and the noisyEdgeFilter, which really needs to be disabled for PSNR measurements.

News: in Producer Milestone 5, there are several new <codecProperties> settings for tweakers. I will publish them shortly, but the first one is

<codecProperties type="bag">
...
<calcPSNR type="bool">true</calcPSNR>
...
</codecProperties>

This can be used to verify independently calculated PSNR numbers, with for instance DirectShowSource. DirectShowSource decoding could potentially be the victim of CPU scalability in the decoder, which may reduce PSNR, and this is a nice verification, since it is the encoder's accurate PSNR measurement, relative to its source. This setting also automatically disables for instance the noisyEdgeFilter. I will verify how well DirectShowSource PSNR measurements shortly.

p.s. there is no reason whatsoever for RV9 to excel only at low bitrates, even though it works really well in that range. For instance, take a look at Sagitairre's PSNR comparison (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=57687).

This is a long time topic of discussion, and I always get back to this. The ringing in MPEG-4, and the lack thereof if RV9, can provide a difference in sense of sharpness, depending on the viewing distance or screen resolution. On my 1600x1200 LCD screen, or our demo 42" plasma at work, I really can not stand ringing, but when I connect a laptop to my oldish 36" Sony TV, ringing is much less annoying, hardly noticable.

Re Matroska: I think the binary EULA that users who download binaries from Helix, and possibly also the binary EULA that users who install RealOne click through, both have language in them stating that these binaries shall not be used to transcode RealMedia to another format. This is what Rob Lanphier referred to. These EULAs were constructed with great caution long ago. I don't know the current status, but work is going on to try and loosen them up a little.

EDIT: to enable PSNR calc, the flag has to be 'true', not 'false' ...

[kilg0r3]

Putting RM content into matroska is not exactly transcoding the content, is it. :)

[karl_lillevold]

I just found out that the previous method to enable EHQ was accidentally removed in Producer Milestone 5. So, please DO NOT USE the erv4.dll from Milestone 5. Use erv4.dll from Milestone 4, or the one posted in this thread (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=58196), which also has more information about the new method to enable EHQ.

the new and "official" way to set encoderComplexity is to have an <encodingComplexity setting in the <videoStream> section of the audience.


Values:
very-fast, fast, normal, high, or very-high

Type:
string

Example:
<videoStream>
...
<encodingComplexity type="string">very-high</encodingComplexity>
...
</videoStream>

Note that this goes in the videoStream section as opposed to the previous encoderComplexity number, which was inside codecProperties (inside videoStream).

[Sigmatador]

is there any hope for a linux version of the real producer ?

[karl_lillevold]

producer for Linux is already available. Helix DNA Producer is released for Linux, OSX, and Win32. The Linux and OSX versions are a little limited due to filesize restrictions, and they can not read compressed AVI and MOV files. We are looking for contributors in those areas, since the Producer team is very resource limited.

[Sigmatador]

oops, i didn't check before posting ^^

but only uncompressed avi for input is a bit restrictive, i will looking for a linux frame server.

what's about this file size restriction ??

[karl_lillevold]

Originally posted by Sigmatador
what's about this file size restriction ??
Good question. It's probably relatively simple to resolve, and may in fact already been fixed (at least I can not seem to find any open issues), but I have been told even the Linux kernel did not handle > 4GB files too well until recently. And most native tools still don't handle such files. Input, research, and testing to find out what works or not would be very nice.

[r0cket]

sorry, didn't find it in the forum or in documentation to producer, but is there any way to force constant framerate in real media files? vdubmod only handles this types of streams but i always get some dropped frames (original - 25 fps, result - 23.1 fps).

[Sirber]

RV9 is Variable FrameRate. At encoding set Max Framerate to 30.

[kilg0r3]

yep, and videoquality to normal or below

[Sirber]

RealAnime v1.12

*** New version with CPU Fix ***

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&postid=336534

[midiguy]

lol.

Sirber, you claim that it is 30% faster, but really, the bug was making it 30% slower. M$ style marketing, I like. :D

[iwod]

long time no post, ever since the release og EHQ and Dup......

The new features in Producer 9.2 allow user to customize packet size, however the maximum size allowed is only 16K, due to a stupid bug in Decoder. I.e if we want to use anything larger than 16k then we will break the bitstream. And if real were to release a new decoder that will coz too much hassel........... :angry:

Anyway i am wondering will there be any quality improve if the packet size was unlimied or no packetasation.

And i am wondering if there is any chance that the decoder for Rv9 could be optimise further........ seeing Divx 5.1 has done a job in these area to allow people with slower computer to view it.........

[karl_lillevold]

there is no improvement from larger packet sizes than 16K, so there is no reason to force decoder upgrades for that reason. BTW, there is little hassle for RealNetworks to release a decoder upgrade, it's a hassle for the average end user :) The bug has been fixed though, and will be released along with the next major release.

However, all that does not really matter, because the encoder currently at least splits a frame in two packets, to enable decoder multi-threading, where the two threads decode the packets in parallel. In many cases, this makes the packets less than 16K in size anyway.

With regards to decoder optimizations:
1) I had an interesting experience on my PIII 700 MHz laptop. I found I could not play back 640x352 XviD using ffdshow. It was playing 18 fps at 100% CPU load. So I installed DivX 5.05, changed to 4CC to DIVX and now it plays at 50% CPU load at 24 fps.

2) On this same 700 MHz laptop, RV9 plays at around the same CPU load for the same resolution. I found that an old PII 450 MHz laptop was just the limit for playing 640x272 RV9.

3) Every CPU intensive function in RV9 has been heavily MMX and SSE optimized, and lately we have spent a lot of time to optimize for ARM processors on WinCE / PocketPC devices. Further PC optimizations would be possible, but the impact would be very small, and would take away time from future video quality improvements, since we are only 2 engineers in the video codec team. Which would you prefer? To enable slower than 500 MHz PCs to play RV9, or improved video quality for everyone else? :eek:

[TFC]

For sure i prefer u improve image quality!!!!! :D

[SeeMoreDigital]

Hi Karl
With regards to decoder optimizations:
1) I had an interesting experience on my PIII 700 MHz laptop. I found I could not play back 640x352 XviD using ffdshow. It was playing 18 fps at 100% CPU load. So I installed DivX 5.05, changed to 4CC to DIVX and now it plays at 50% CPU load at 24 fps.
Are you still using ffdshow for playback or did you use the DivXPlayer v2.1?

I only ask because some time ago I noticed that WMV9.wmv files use up more CPU power than WMV9.avi files. Infact WMV9.avi files appear to use less CPU power than DivX and RV9 (non EHQ) files!

I've not been able to do CPU load tests on very many PC's. So could you try could you have a go with your laptop please?

Cheers

[iwod]

Of coz improve quality......

But i am curious......... apart from better VBR, what else could be improve??

This may be a silly questions....... what will happen if we don't have packet at all in RV9?? ( apart from not streamable )

[karl_lillevold]

Originally posted by SeeMoreDigital
Are you still using ffdshow for playback or did you use the DivXPlayer v2.1?

I only ask because some time ago I noticed that WMV9.wmv files use up more CPU power than WMV9.avi files. Infact WMV9.avi files appear to use less CPU power than DivX and RV9 (non EHQ) files!

I've not been able to do CPU load tests on very many PC's. So could you try could you have a go with your laptop please?

I did not install DivXPlayer.. Why would I want to..? I just installed the DivX codec (and removed Gain), and still play in my favorite media player : Media Player Classic.

I don't have wmv9.avi and wmv files that are the same content and bitrate so I can not run that test, but if there is a difference I would suspect it to be caused by the player choosing different renderer mechanisms, possibly with different levels of postfiltering.

[karl_lillevold]

Originally posted by iwod
But i am curious......... apart from better VBR, what else could be improve??
Well, EHQ helped, right..? Nothing specific to report yet, but my colleague came up with a cool idea that looks promising.

Originally posted by iwod
This may be a silly questions....... what will happen if we don't have packet at all in RV9?? ( apart from not streamable )
Nothing. (maybe 0.1% improved compression efficiency, but you would lose the advantage of dual threaded decoding).

[SeeMoreDigital]

Originally posted by karl_lillevold
I did not install DivXPlayer.. Why would I want to..? I just installed the DivX codec (and removed Gain), and still play in my favorite media player : Media Player Classic.

I don't have wmv9.avi and wmv files that are the same content and bitrate so I can not run that test, but if there is a difference I would suspect it to be caused by the player choosing different renderer mechanisms, possibly with different levels of postfiltering. Yes, I like to use MediaPlayer Classic too. I was using this player when I noticed the WMV9.avi and WMV9.wmv CPU issue. I then tested using the WinMediaPlayer9 but still the .avi file ran more smoothly that the equivalent .wmv file!

Never mind. It will have to remain a mystery!

Cheers

[daiyam]

use graphedit for show the different renderer mechanisms used by the player.

[DKDIB]

Or GSpot (http://www.headbands.com/gspot/download.html): even if it doesen' t support a container, it show the graph correctly.

[alx]

Really thanks for all your support Karl, i think RV9 has a very good present and an excellent future!!!
As soon as tools become available to work with RV9 files, no more Di...what??? Xv...who??? ;) (just a joke, please don´t kill me)
One question, is there any way to extract the audio, or the video to another file from an .rmvb???
Keep the good work.
Alx

[Sirber]

yes

RMVB --> Matroska works using mkvmerge or graphedit

[alx]

Sirber, thanks for your reply, but maybe u don´t understand me or viceversa.......I meaning extract a .rm audio file from a .rmvb which has 3 .rm inside.
Any ideas?
Alx

[karl_lillevold]

hi alx, there is no tool to directly demux an RM file with multiple tracks into several RM files. Until now, this has rarely been requested, because there was no way to then re-mux these files. However, if you trans-mux the RM file into Matroska, maybe there is a way to then de-mux this Matroska file into multiple files, for instance one MKV and several MKA files. I just tried 'mkvextract' with a Matroska file with RealAudio + RealVideo, but was not able to get it to work.


L:\>mkvextract tracks atest.mkv 1:atesta.mka 2:atestv.mkv
Warning: Unsupported CodecID 'A_REAL/COOK' for ID 1. Skipping track.
Warning: Track ID 2 is missing some critical information. Skipping track.
Nothing to do. Exiting.

so this may not be possible yet. I don't know Matroska or its tools well enough to answer for sure though. Maybe you could try to ask on the 'mkvtoolnix: new version' thread.

I will ask internally as well. Maybe there is some developer/Helix tool that can help.

[alx]

As usual you came into my help karl.......i chose a very bad example!!! :(


I made a test with AutoRV9 which gave me a .rmvb file with a video stream and audio stream inside, and i want to test same video with an .mp3 file to compare sizes and quality.......but, then....i realized that i don´t how how to extract the video stream (of course i deleted the temporary video stream ;)
It is possible to extract one stream from a .rmvb file??? any stream? .rm audio or video?
Thanks
Alx

PS. Hope this "real case" does not bring any new confusion :)

[karl_lillevold]

@alx and everyone using RM files: There is a very powerful tool available via the Helix Community. As far as I know you currently have to check out source code and build it yourself, but I will see what I can do...

The tool is called dtdriver, and here are its options:

Version 6.0.9.2-Release
usage:
dtdrive [+|-<Options>] [<Commands>] {[[<FSName>,]<Protocol>://]<File>}
Options: (+ = add, - = remove)
p = dump packet content
h = dump headers/processing stages
v = verbose (show all buffer contents)
u = uncompress (decode) content
c = decrypt content into unprotected (clear) form
f = when decoding filter-out any streams unable to decode
s = when decoding maximize speed on detriment of standards
i = when decoding, set source properties in outgoing stream header
= = when decoding, have decoders simply pass through data
q = when decoding, block any audio streams
y = when decoding, block any video streams
e = dump event counters
w = dump phase execution times
d = if writing a file, recompute duration
r = if writing a file, recompute preroll
o = if writing a file, overwrite the existing file
t = if writing a file, use relative timestamps
Commands:
-L <Path> = load plugins from specified path
* overrides HELIX_LIBS environment variable setting
-F <File> = place output into specifed file
-R <Rate> = read only packets for the specified transfer rate (bps)
-J <Time> = skip to specified media time (ms)
-S <Mode> = run in server emulating mode
0 = run as client (local playback)
1 = run as server (streamed playback)
-W <File.Ext>= write out file in format associated with extension
-SL <MBytes> = set the file size limit for written out files
-D <DirPath> = use the specified directory for intermediate files
-T <Time> = fetch packets for the specified amount of time (ms)

So, in order to de-mux an A/V RM file, all I had to do was:

dtdrive +u=q l:\atest.rmvb -W video.rm
dtdrive +u=y l:\atest.rmvb -W audio.rm

It works great. Pretty cool!

[alx]

Karl, thanks (again) to enlight us in this arena...As you probably know, i am not a programer, just a fan an enthusiastic person about movies, so i can NOT compile the dtdriver source....if you or anyone here can, please let me/us know where we can get it.
Any news about milestone 9.3 with "video.stats generator ;)"??? I recently bought "Titus" with Anthony Hopkins and its an 1:33, interlaced, 160 minutes movie, which left my machine unusable for about 30 hours :( .......sniffff......i think Titanic or Red Rose have to wait to milestone 9.3 ;)

Thanks again Karl
Alx

[RadicalEd]

Pardon my ignorance Karl but I can't find dtdriver on helix community for the life of me. Where's the source code at?

[karl_lillevold]

Once you have set up the Helix build environment, and run the 'build' command, with the public BIF branch 'helix', you can select Target 'dtdrive', and check out source and/or build this target. The problem is I am not sure this builds the RM writer module, which is required for the above functionality, and other functionality related to writing out RM files. I will investigate further when I have time, to see if this can be built from public binary libraries, since this tool is very useful indeed.

EDIT: use profile 'helix-client-all-defines'

[For any Helix build environment questions {what is a BIF branch}, cvs, python, compiler problems etc, this is not the right forum. Please read the relevant FAQs on the Helix site. Most questions are indeed answered there. Then try the Helix IRC channel. Most of the time there is someone there that knows. Or you could try a Helix mailing list]

[karl_lillevold]

ah, the missing RM writer module, rmwrtr.dll, is available in the plugins directory for Producer. So until a binary release of dtdriver can be made available, it can be built from public source code, target dtdrive. Then download the latest Producer Milestone in the Binaries section, and copy its rmwrtr.dll into the directory where dtdrive.exe and its DLLs reside (when building 'release', this is the 'release' folder). I just built this from scratch on my home system, added rmwrtr.dll, and now I can de-mux an A/V RM file into separate A+V RM files.

[Sirber]

Hi

I wonder what gain in speed I would get if I was moving from my actual machine (see my signature) and this computer:

http://sirber.no-ip.com/~sirber/webernic.xls

for RV9 encoding...

[deXtoRious]

@sirber

A bit offtopic, but do you think that the 266 Mhz RAM (DDR-2100) is actually better (for the particular configuration of course) than 333 Mhz (DDR-2700)?

[Sirber]

Main PC: AMD Athlon XP 2000+, GeForce 4 TI4200 128MB AGP8X, 512MB DDR@266 Low Latency, GA-7VAX VIA KT400, 80GB HDD, Windows XP SP1a

running at 266 already :D

[bilu]

Are there any guides available that gather all the info needed to start doing some kickass RV9 encodes? :D

(including installation procedures and packages,please.)


Bilu

[bilu]

Is it possible to play RV9 with Vobsub subtitles using Gabest's Realmedia DShow Splitter or something?

Bilu

[Sirber]

You need to enable "Special Renderer in MPC"

[karl_lillevold]

VSFilter works very well for .srt and .ssa subtitles. Great visual quality. MPC even comes with RealMediaSplitter built in. Just make sure you set the playback to "DirectShow" in the pull-down in the Formats menu, instead of "RealMedia".

[karl_lillevold]

try to avoid the Special Renderer. It adds a lot of CPU overhead and introduces tearing. The DirectShow method is strongly recommended. This corresponds to RealMediaSplitter.

[bilu]

I'm now running RV9 under Zoom Player with raw Vobsub subtitles :cool:

Just needed to "C:\WINDOWS\system32>regsvr32.exe RealMediaSplitter.ax" :)

Bilu

[bilu]

@karl

Does Anamorphic resize work with the DShow filter on other players?


Bilu

[karl_lillevold]

It does not look like anamorphic RV9 works in mplayer2, even though it works great in MPC/RealMediaSplitter. I don't know DirectShow well enough to guess why. You should check with the Zoom player developers and/or the thread for RealMediaSplitter. You can use
http://www.lillevold.com/files/atest.rmvb
http://www.lillevold.com/files/atest.mkv
as test files, if you like.

[bilu]

I had already downloaded atest.rmvb before, but hadn't noticed it was anamorphically encoded.

It doesn't work with Zoom Player, probably because of the same reason that stops FFMPEG MPEG-4 encoded movies aspect ratio flag to work on Windows players.

On my PIII-500 laptop this test video doesn't run as near as smooth than under Real Player. But t01_ehq.rmvb from your site works fine, so it's probably related to bitrate :confused:

EDIT: Any chance to use DShow filters with Real Video on Real Player (optional of course)? ;)


Bilu

[gabest]

Originally posted by karl_lillevold
It does not look like anamorphic RV9 works in mplayer2Try it in fullscreen, wmp64 cheats there.

[bilu]

@Gabest

I could only work with raw Vobsub on Zoom Player.
tried your MPC and WMP9 without success.

Also the movie kept stuttering everytime it buffered a subtitle.

I was never able to go to the Filters section during RV9 playback, even after choosing DirectShow on MPC.

And your special rendering method for subs under RV9 made the movie look like both a bad resize and a slideshow, but played the subs :)


Enough of bad news :D Any hints?

Bilu

[gabest]

Is the "framestep" button enabled? It should be in dshow mode then. And when it is set to dshow (options/formats/realmedia/2nd column), it will never try to use real's api, it would report some error instead of opening the file.

[fyo]

Was any solution found to the frame-dropping problem RealOne "Rakaz" had a few months ago? (this thread: http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&postid=333689&highlight=problem+playing#post333689 )

I am having a very similar problem when playing back rv9 content:

The video (and audio) will freeze and then continue some frames later. The frames are dropped (and listed as such in the statistics) and CPU usage DROPS while the video is frozen. CPU usage is normally at around the 35-45% mark for the files I've tested with (1.1Mbps), very rarely over 50%.

The odd thing is that the playback is absolutely perfect when I use the Helix DNA Client instead (however, as a "media player" I find it fairly useless). Using Media Player Classic reproduces the effects of the RealOne player.

System: WinXP, 700MHz Athlon, 384MB RAM.

TIA,

fyo

[bilu]

Originally posted by gabest
Is the "framestep" button enabled? It should be in dshow mode then. And when it is set to dshow (options/formats/realmedia/2nd column), it will never try to use real's api, it would report some error instead of opening the file.


You were right :) I hadn't realised how to change from Realmedia to DirectShow, just changed in the "rstp://..." option :D


Now it shows up the same problem as Zoom Player: it delays the picture while buffering the subtitle and then accelerates the picture to compensate. :confused:


Bilu

[bilu]

@fyo

Have you tried on MPC to:

- change between "DirectShow" and "RealMedia" on RealVideo (2nd column) in the Formats menu;

- disable special renderer under the RM/QT tab?


Bilu

[gabest]

Which subtitling mode are you using, mpc's or dvobsub? Is the buffering set to use 0 textures? (options/subtitles) This is the same as dvobsub's "prebuffer subpics" options, just can be given in exact numbers, dvobsub always uses 10 at most.

edit: The next release of mpc will have one dedicated page to choose the renderers... I'm already working on it :P

[bilu]

I was using DVobsub's.

The MPC method seems to work only when I select Realmedia? :confused:
It doesn't show up in Filters when using DShow.

EDIT: and I also got stuttering everytime I use DirectShow instead of Realmedia, even now without DirectVobSub running. Only Filters show are the default DShow audio and video filters.

Bilu

[fyo]

Bilu:

Have you tried on MPC [...] to change between "DirectShow" and "RealMedia" on RealVideo (2nd column) in the Formats menu;

Made no difference. The freezing still occurs, although enabled "View Statistics" now works, but the number of frames dropped seems unrealistic - on average 50% of ALL frames are said to be dropped, which doesn't LOOK like it's happening (clarification: stats claim frames are being dropped continously, in addition to the freezes). Using RealOne, no frames were reported as being dropped, apart from the freezes.

"Special renderer" was never enabled. Post-processing in RealOne is disabled.

I tried to verify my DNA Client tests, but am now unable to get it to play back any video file at all. Exact same install, nothing changed. Same command line parameters. Same everything. Really odd. Error code is "80040016", which is apparantly a "missing filesystem error" (missing some dlls or the like - which doesn't appear to be the case, btw).

One other thing I've noted by testing a bit more: The freezing occurs in the exact same positions each time (although the number of dropped frames varies significantly, which was what prompted me to attempt a verification of my DNA Client experience).

TIA,

fyo

[karl_lillevold]

@fyo: someone in the netherlands actually had an error in the h/w timer on his Athlon / nForce2 based system causing random freezes in a similar manner, but this would also affect the Helix DNA client, I think.
See this thread (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=57343&highlight=nvidia), just in case.

[bilu]

I have a PIII-850 with a Geforce 2 MX400 32MB and have a similar problem.

I've sent you the tick.txt file now.

Bilu

[fyo]

karl:

I don't have any negative jumps, but I do have some rather odd "noise". Jump is almost always 10 ticks, but all of a sudden this happens:


5811506&nbsp;10&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;5814176&nbsp;10&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;5814176&nbsp;10&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;5815061&nbsp;10
5811516&nbsp;10&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;5814186&nbsp;10&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;5814186&nbsp;10&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;5815071&nbsp;10
5811536&nbsp;20&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;5814204&nbsp;18&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;5814204&nbsp;18&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;5815089&nbsp;18
5811606&nbsp;70&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;5814281&nbsp;77&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;5814281&nbsp;77&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;5815166&nbsp;77
5811776&nbsp;170&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;5814447&nbsp;166&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;5814447&nbsp;166&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;5815333&nbsp;167
5811786&nbsp;10&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;5814458&nbsp;11&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;5814458&nbsp;11&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;5815343&nbsp;10
5811796&nbsp;10&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;5814468&nbsp;10&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;5814468&nbsp;10&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;5815354&nbsp;11
5811816&nbsp;20&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;5814481&nbsp;13&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;5814481&nbsp;13&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;5815366&nbsp;12
5811826&nbsp;10&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;5814493&nbsp;12&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;5814493&nbsp;12&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;5815378&nbsp;12
5811846&nbsp;20&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;5814520&nbsp;27&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;5814520&nbsp;27&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;5815405&nbsp;27
5811917&nbsp;71&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;5814590&nbsp;70&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;5814590&nbsp;70&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;5815476&nbsp;71
5811937&nbsp;20&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;5814606&nbsp;16&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;5814606&nbsp;16&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;5815492&nbsp;16
5811997&nbsp;60&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;5814661&nbsp;55&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;5814661&nbsp;55&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;5815547&nbsp;55
5812017&nbsp;20&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;5814687&nbsp;26&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;5814687&nbsp;26&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;5815573&nbsp;26
5812047&nbsp;30&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;5814717&nbsp;30&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;5814717&nbsp;30&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;5815603&nbsp;30


I do have an NVIDIA graphics card... a GeForce256DDR (aka a GeForce1).

TIA again,

fyo

[bilu]

Just like my problem! A significant piece, including a big glitch and other more frequent minor glitches:

3205459 10 3206460 10 3206460 10 3206949 10
3205469 10 3206470 10 3206470 10 3206959 10
3205479 10 3206481 11 3206481 11 3206969 10
3205489 10 3206490 9 3206490 9 3206979 10
3205499 10 3206500 10 3206500 10 3206989 10
3205509 10 3206514 14 3206514 14 3207002 13
3205519 10 3206524 10 3206524 10 3207013 11
3205529 10 3206532 8 3206532 8 3207020 7
3205549 20 3206557 25 3206557 25 3207045 25
3205589 40 3206591 34 3206591 34 3207079 34
3205609 20 3206612 21 3206612 21 3207101 22
3205669 60 3206670 58 3206670 58 3207159 58
3205679 10 3206680 10 3206680 10 3207169 10
3205759 80 3206761 81 3206761 81 3207249 80
3205769 10 3206776 15 3206776 15 3207264 15
3205779 10 3206786 10 3206786 10 3207275 11
3205789 10 3206795 9 3206795 9 3207284 9
3205799 10 3206805 10 3206805 10 3207294 10
3205809 10 3206815 10 3206815 10 3207304 10
3205819 10 3206825 10 3206825 10 3207314 10
3205829 10 3206835 10 3206835 10 3207324 10
3205839 10 3206845 10 3206845 10 3207334 10
3205849 10 3206855 10 3206855 10 3207344 10
3205859 10 3206865 10 3206865 10 3207354 10
3205869 10 3206875 10 3206875 10 3207364 10
3205879 10 3206885 10 3206885 10 3207374 10
3205889 10 3206895 10 3206895 10 3207384 10
3205899 10 3206905 10 3206905 10 3207394 10
3205909 10 3206916 11 3206916 11 3207404 10
3205919 10 3206925 9 3206925 9 3207414 10
3205929 10 3206935 10 3206935 10 3207424 10
3205939 10 3206945 10 3206945 10 3207434 10
3205949 10 3206955 10 3206955 10 3207444 10
3205959 10 3206965 10 3206965 10 3207454 10
3205969 10 3206975 10 3206975 10 3207464 10
3205979 10 3206986 11 3206986 11 3207474 10
3205989 10 3206996 10 3206996 10 3207484 10
3205999 10 3207005 9 3207005 9 3207494 10
3206009 10 3207015 10 3207015 10 3207504 10
3206020 11 3207025 10 3207025 10 3207514 10
3206030 10 3207035 10 3207035 10 3207524 10


Bilu

[karl_lillevold]

yes, those big jumps are not good for smooth video playback since we rely on the hardware timer for accurate time measurements. On my Pentium systems the 'tick' test has always provided relatively smooth numbers. Were you doing anything CPU intensive while you ran the tick.exe test program?

example from my system:

140515109 16 140513183 7 140513183 7 140513183 7
140515109 0 140513191 8 140513191 8 140513191 8
140515125 16 140513199 8 140513199 8 140513199 8
140515125 0 140513207 8 140513207 8 140513207 8
140515140 15 140513215 8 140513215 8 140513215 8
140515140 0 140513222 7 140513222 7 140513222 7
140515156 16 140513230 8 140513230 8 140513230 8
140515156 0 140513238 8 140513238 8 140513238 8
140515171 15 140513246 8 140513246 8 140513246 8
140515171 0 140513254 8 140513254 8 140513254 8
140515187 16 140513262 8 140513262 8 140513262 8
140515187 0 140513269 7 140513269 7 140513269 7
140515203 16 140513277 8 140513277 8 140513277 8
140515203 0 140513285 8 140513285 8 140513285 8
140515218 15 140513293 8 140513293 8 140513293 8
140515218 0 140513301 8 140513301 8 140513301 8
140515234 16 140513308 7 140513308 7 140513308 7
140515234 0 140513316 8 140513316 8 140513316 8

[bilu]

AcroTray.exe 1752 C:\Program Files\Adobe\Acrobat 5.0\Distillr\AcroTray.exe
flashget.exe 1928 C:\Program Files\FlashGet\flashget.exe
iexplore.exe 3508 C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe
avpcc.exe 1456 C:\Program Files\Kaspersky Lab\Kaspersky Anti-Virus Personal Pro\avpcc.exe
avpcc.exe 1704 C:\Program Files\Kaspersky Lab\Kaspersky Anti-Virus Personal Pro\avpcc.exe
avpm.exe 2812 C:\Program Files\Kaspersky Lab\Kaspersky Anti-Virus Personal Pro\avpm.exe
persfw.exe 1736 C:\Program Files\Kerio\Personal Firewall\persfw.exe
PrcView.exe 3652 C:\Program Files\Process Viewer\PrcView.exe
sgbhp.exe 2032 C:\Program Files\SpywareGuard\sgbhp.exe
sgmain.exe 1980 C:\Program Files\SpywareGuard\sgmain.exe
Explorer.EXE 1292 C:\WINDOWS\Explorer.EXE
alg.exe 1436 C:\WINDOWS\System32\alg.exe
csrss.exe 464 C:\WINDOWS\system32\csrss.exe
CTHELPER.EXE 1532 C:\WINDOWS\System32\CTHELPER.EXE
lsass.exe 544 C:\WINDOWS\system32\lsass.exe
mmc.exe 928 C:\WINDOWS\system32\mmc.exe
nvsvc32.exe 1596 C:\WINDOWS\System32\nvsvc32.exe
services.exe 532 C:\WINDOWS\system32\services.exe
smss.exe 408 C:\WINDOWS\System32\smss.exe
spoolsv.exe 1000 C:\WINDOWS\system32\spoolsv.exe
svchost.exe 720 C:\WINDOWS\system32\svchost.exe
svchost.exe 764 C:\WINDOWS\System32\svchost.exe
svchost.exe 880 C:\WINDOWS\System32\svchost.exe
svchost.exe 912 C:\WINDOWS\System32\svchost.exe
svchost.exe 1836 C:\WINDOWS\System32\svchost.exe
winlogon.exe 488 C:\WINDOWS\system32\winlogon.exe
MozillaFirebird.exe 900 D:\mozilla\MozillaFirebird\MozillaFirebird.exe
thunderbird.exe 2496 D:\mozilla\thunderbird\thunderbird.exe


CT Helper is from Creative
nvsvc32.exe is "NVIDIA Driver Helper Service"
Kerio Personal Firewall
Kaspersky Antivirus Monitor
PrcView.exe is Norton Utilities Process Viewer, wasn't running then, but it's useful to generate this kind of reports :)

I'll try disabling those items for moments to see what happens in tick.


Bilu

[bilu]

I've sent you a lot of tick files, but I wasn't able to find the problem :( Maybe it's hardware related...


Tick files:

a_noKAV.txt - no Antivirus Monitor
b_noNV.txt - No NVidia service
c_noHQNV.txt - Changed from Best Quality to Best Performance in NVidia Control Panel
d_noCT.txt - No Creative Helper
e_noMOZ.txt - Closed Mozilla and other running programs listed in the post
f_noSG.txt - Disable Spyware Guard
g_noKAV2.txt - no Antivirus Control Panel
h_noPFSG2.txt - no Firewall, killed Spyware Guards process
i_stdwin.txt - only Windows process running
j_nonet.txt - disabled networking, since I use Connection Sharing
k_safe1.txt - Safe Mode
l_safe2.txt - another tick in Safe Mode
m_bios.txt - after changing BIOS setting, ran in Safe Mode


Bios Settings changed:
Processor In Order Queue Depth from 4 to 1
L2 Cache ECC disabled
SDRAM Cycle Time Tras/Trc 7/9 to 5/7
RAS-to-CAS Delay 3 to 2
RAS Precharge Time 3 to 2
CPU Latency Timer Disabled
PCI Delayed Transaction was already disabled


Best regards,
Bruno

[bilu]

I'm using HPG for the first time.

Unique features I love in HPG:
- job and audience generators;
- integrated Dropfilter and the possibility to use RV9 prefilters ( although I'm not using them);
- Vorbis support;

Unique features I love in AutoRV9:
- compressibility test;
- subtitle integration (could be better);
- better audio integration than HPG;

My dream: have a nice variable framerate filtering so I can auto-IVTC without worrying about hybrid movies and/or speed animes, and then integrate a tool with Robot4Rip that grabs the AC3 and D2V file,creates an RV9 job and starts encoding. This tool could burn the raw Vobsub subs or place them in the same directory, so that RV9 could be played nicely with external subtitles I didn't even OCRed. I was close once with my R4R_ENC batch tool, except for auto-IVTC :)

That is my dream of laziness: an encode by clicking Start :)


Bilu

[Sirber]

If you find something about hibrid movies, I'll be glad to add it to Surreal UI :D

[bilu]

@Sirber

Take a look at this interesting thread:

@VFW/DShow experts: VFR in Avisynth could be good news for Matroska
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=63541


@Karl
What could be done both in RV9 and Avisynth to increase compressibility to fit a certain size? I almost get the impression that whatever I do I'll lose quality so I'd better stick to EHQ=80, fixed vbrquality value, and split for CDs :)

If bitrate is not good enough for RV9, it washes the picture as needed.
Filtering to increase compressibility in RV9 would do the same I think, so there's no need to do it twice :)

I have to try C3D, Deen and Undot with RV9 to see if it's worth the compressibility gain and how does it look. Also I've heard that resizing doesn't help that much.


Bilu

[karl_lillevold]

@bilu: time permitting, we are planning to come out with 2-pass VBR improvements to the encoder. We also have another small enhancement to both encoder and decoder that will be out shortly.

C3D works very well for RV9. Without having used the compressibility measurements too much, I am not sure how much I would trust them :( Do not believe everything you hear, resizing works very well to increase compressibility. Like I have mentioned a few times, with EHQ=80 I resize such that I get 0.13 bits/pixel or higher. For grainy, noisy, lots of action material, or very low rez (w=400 or below), I go higher 0.18-0.20 bits/pixel.

Hope this helps.

[bilu]

Originally posted by karl_lillevold
@bilu: time permitting, we are planning to come with 2-pass VBR improvements to the encoder. We also have another small enhancement to both encoder and decoder that will be out shortly.

I wasn't complaining, it's just that resizing would be my best option since movies already look so clean :)

I was thinking that filters that help compressibility under MPEG-4 wouldn't necessarily help in RV9, but maybe it's time for me to try.

I know that compressibility tests on AutoRV9 take vbrquality 75 as reference like a first-pass. Is quality decreasing linear, i.e. if you decrease from quality 75 to quality 50 will it decrease mostly the same percentage in size in every movie?


Bilu

[karl_lillevold]

I was running some StackVertical comparisons with two DirectShowSource (rmvb) videos, and suddenly Avisynth started crashing with an unknown exception. So I simplified my script to display just one video, still no luck, unknown exception 4 out of 5 times, both in mplayerc and VirtualDub. Finally I realized when I re-installed Avisynth late last week, and I said 'yes' to install ffvfw. I did not notice any immediate problems at that time. So then I uninstalled ffvfw, and now everything is working again. Maybe I could have figured out how to make it work, perhaps by disabling ffvfw 'raw' video, or installed a newer version, but since I don't really need it, this was quicker. So, just something to keep in mind, if Avisynth starts crashing while using DirectShowSource, Gabest's RealMediaSplitter, and rmvb files.

[Rrrough]

After experimenting with RV9 on a Windows box I'm quite impressed by the quality. Especially with EHQ + new 2-pass. Unfortunately, transcoding to RV9 seems to be a "Windows-only" solution, because on a Linux box, AFAIK it's only possible to transcode an MPEG2-stream into raw avi and feed that into Helix producer for Linux. A nicer solution would be an export module for transcode (http://www.theorie.physik.uni-goettingen.de/~ostreich/transcode/).
Also 5.1 RealAudio sounds great, but transcoding from AC3 under Linux could be easier with an liba52 (http://liba52.sourceforge.net/) -interface for Helix Producer, resp. a transcode-export-module :D
Are there any plans for enhancing Producer on the linux platform ?
Anyway, the "support" for this codec within this forum is great !

cheers

[karl_lillevold]

@Rrrough: thanks! and yes, you are right about "Windows-only" :(

since the RV9 encoder runs as fast on Linux as on Windows, it is really unfortunate Producer on Linux (and OS X) supports only uncompressed AVI (and MOV) files and the filesize even has to be less than 2GB. We would really like to see this improve, for instance in the direction of your suggestions, but the Producer team is fully booked with other tasks in the foreseeable future.

I have already mentioned this before: since most of the Helix system is open source, it would be relatively easy for a skilled programmer with Linux experience, to work on these issues, and contribute the improvements back to the Helix Community. I would be more than happy to help someone get started, with pointers on where to start and the right contacts. Just let me know.

[Rrrough]

hey karl, thanx for your answer. too bad that my favorite OS isn't really supported (yet), so I've to stick with a seperate Windows-partition a bit longer, but the codec's quality is definetly worth it.

tusen takk og ha det bra (IIRC :) )

[karl_lillevold]

In Producer 9.2 Milestone 8 changes to encodingComplexity were made (again).. So now only 'low', 'medium' and 'high' work. 'very-high' does not work. The old codec specific registry keys and codecProperties "encoderComplexity" in the audience file, with 85 as the complexity, still work though.

More changes are expected, so for now, there is no need to upgrade. Just use Milestone 7 with my VBR fix (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=64163).

EDIT: and even 'high' and 'medium' and 'low' have been mapped differently, so the only working methods to set encoding complexity are the registry and codecProperties.

[phrentec]

Is there anyway to convert bink videos(.bik) into realvideo. I have tried to use the wrpr codec to frameserve from the radvideo to an avi but it seems to crash before it can be frameserved. I know mediaplayerclassic can play bink videos(even in the .exe form) through using the binkw32.dll so is it then possible to open bink videos with helixproducer through avisynth (this may belong in the avisynth forums i guess) via the binkw32.dll.

I am just looking for a way to convert bink videos to realvideo without having to use a lossless codec in the process.

[iwod]

It seems that M8 has alot of changes and somewhere in that releasenote suggested that EHQ is now not part of RV9 and is put into a new Codec.

Is that Rv10?? :D

[Sirber]

can you paste the text here?

[RadicalEd]

RealVideo EHQ/Encoding Complexity Changes
The number of levels available for encoding complexity was reduced from 5 (very-high, high, normal, fast, vary-fast) to 3 (high, medium and low) for several reasons:

Only some of the 5 options were triggering unique behavior in most of the codecs that supported the encodingComplexity property. Thus, users might change the setting from fast to very-fast with no change in behavior. This is not a very good user experience.
The EHQ technology added to RealVideo 9 was separated out into a new codec - itself with 3 ranges. The new codec is yet complete but RealVideo 9 is still available in this build. RealVideo 9 no longer includes the EHQ technology so there is no method in Milestone 8 to exercise EHQ. Please use Milestone 7 if you wish to encode with RealVideo EHQ.

From the M8 release notes (https://distribution.helixcommunity.org/files/documents/50/761/ReleaseNotes9.2M8.htm)


No more rv9 EHQ, that is a bit disturbing :\

[karl_lillevold]

No more rv9 EHQ, that is a bit disturbing
it is still there and will never go away :D, it is available via codecProperties or registry settings, but unless you want to use those, stick with Milestone 7 + my VBR improvement.

[Sirber]

Why does the compagny want to remove EHQ? It's like going back to the dinosaur age ;)

[iwod]

Originally posted by Sirber
Why does the compagny want to remove EHQ? It's like going back to the dinosaur age ;)

Simply Becoz RV9 is total crap.....

And So one day they break the bitstream, uncover somthing with Fast motion. A New PP build out of Codec. Better EHQ with even higher EHQ setting. Better VBR, other general improvement..... etc.... little by little.......

We begin to see a new age..... No we are not in Diniousor age....... we went to Mars......

Welcome to RV10 :D

[Sirber]

RVX will be RV9 + EHQ?

[RadicalEd]

Not too sure. I had the privelage of coming across Karl's roommate in a random IRC chat one day, so I got a bit of a personal Q&A. I asked about RV10 and Karl said they weren't really focused on it yet because RV9 with EHQ was so much better and almost like a completely different codec.

It's anybody's guess I suppose :]

[RadicalEd]

There seems to have been an update allowing for EHQ in milestone 8.

https://distribution.helixcommunity.org/servlets/ProjectDocumentList?folderID=169&maxDepth=&paginated_page=4

scratch that, the update was just karl's twopass updates. Stevemc screwed up :P

[karl_lillevold]

yes, updates made too late at night without enough communication can sometimes result in not very useful results. Producer M7 + VBR fix is still the recommended encoding combination.

EDIT:

i created another erv4 (RV9) encoder DLL to replace the patch, that
remaps and corrects the complexity levels such that

M8 complexity notation -> M7 complexity notation

high -> very-high
medium -> normal
low -> fast

in this way, Milestone 8 with this patch, now allows for both the
latest 2-pass VBR improvements + very high encoding complexity.

Notes:
without this patch, the complexity levels in M8 are like this

high (default) -> normal
medium -> fast
low -> fast

[iwod]

Originally posted by Sirber
RVX will be RV9 + EHQ?

That was beocz i was boring and spread a bit of rumors. :D I do believe Rv10 should be in development ( at least on paper ) but i really don't think they would come out so soon.

Considering that there are other little improvement hopefully karl said b4 that is coming up. I belive Rv9 still has some time b4 it goes.

To me, i am very happy with my anime rips with VBR fix and EHQ at my current bitrate. And with some of the upcoming enhancement i believe Rv9 's best has yet to be seen.

( And with Gabest ' MPC and Mkv format Rv9 is simply the best. )

[phrentec]

When encoding using producer.exe i get the error
"Warning: Channel 0 clips moderately."
What does that mean and how can I stop it from happening?
Thanks.

@Sirber: Is there a link to the most current binary of SurrealUI.exe because the link at http://sirber.no-ip.com/~sirber/SurrealUI.exe seems to be down.

[karl_lillevold]

Warning: Channel 0 clips moderately
information from producer mailing list, where this question was just asked:

Those messages are warning from one of the audio checks producer does.
We call these audio watchdogs. You can find more information about the
audio watchdogs in the Producer help page by typing 'producer -m' and
looking at the "-daw" option and reading about the 4 audio watchdog
checks that producer does.

In particular, it looks like your audio signal is too loud and is
clipping.

[phrentec]

thanks for the reply
sorry but what is meant by "clipping"?

[Sirber]

IIRC, sound goes out if it'S range, like if you normalize too much.

[karl_lillevold]

clipping is a well known digital audio problem when the levels are too loud. Imagine a nice smooth sine wave getting clipped off, ending up with square form instead. This sounds very bad. As long as you are encoding from a file, don't worry about this warning, especially, when it's only "moderate". Producer has a gain control pre-filter with a high quality limiter, if you need to reduce the input levels before compression.

[karl_lillevold]

in other news, upcoming RV9 encoder DLLs (erv4.dll) will be compiled with the Intel Compiler (ICL) version 7.1, which we have now finally fully integrated in our build system. Previously, only certain files were compiled with this compiler, since MSVC 6.0 did not support the required inline asm code.

Since all CPU intensive code is already fully assembler optimized, the improvement is around 5%. Still, worth including, just by changing the compiler (anything to switch from [...])

There is also some good news about the RV9 encoder speed on new hyper-threaded CPUs from Intel, but more about that later.

[Sirber]

Any news about AMD 3DNOW implementation? ;)



I can't wait to try it :D

[karl_lillevold]

No specific AMD improvements, but since AMD without SSE2 is slower in EHQ mode than a P4, this improvement should be very useful:

RV9-EHQ with fast 1st pass : http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=66132

[Sirber]

Hi

the splitter from the first pass isn't closed, so there is 2 splitter loaded in the second pass. :scared:

[edit]

With RealAnime, I can't encode 2-3 OGM in a row. Producer IDLE coz old splitter are still active.

[Sirber]

producer fail to encode a file with "&" in it's name :rolleyes:

[edit]

about the last OGM bug, I'll use AVISynth so everything will be ok.

[slavickas]

Originally posted by Sirber
producer fail to encode a file with "&" in it's name :rolleyes:



i think it's present all the time, i noticed and forgot it about year ago

[Sirber]

@Karl

Could it be possible to have settings for:

1) Force "keep high freq"
2) Force minimal bitrate

Thanks!!! :D

[karl_lillevold]

@Sirber: that's a good suggestion... I will maybe not add exactly those settings, but perhaps a new "high bitrate" mode, where the codec's adaptivity is less aggressive, specifically for B frames, and choice of quantizers. This adaptivity was previously tuned for medium to low bitrates.

[Sirber]

128 Kbps Stereo Music - RealAudio 10 raac 0 44.1 kHz RealPlayer 8
64 Kbps Stereo Music - RealAudio 10 raac 0 44.1 kHz RealOne Player

Might be a bug, cause Codec Flavor is the same for 2 different setting...

[damrod]

Originally posted by Sirber
producer fail to encode a file with "&" in it's name

i think it's normal since producer.exe is a cmdline soft no?

when i launche producer i use " in my cmdline

"c:\producer\producer.exe" -i "c:\test;avs" -o "c:\test.rmvb" ....

[Sirber]

nope, RealAnime use jobfile since 1.2x IIRC. The problem still exist...

[damrod]

oh yes so i know the problem

it's the format of jobfile which is the same of audience files....

XML !!!!!

some keywords to not be used in it : & for exemple

bad luck...lol

oh avec the accents...ok there's no accents in english...it's not my fault if it's a limited language ;-)

[Sirber]

the easiest fix would be to rename files prior encoding. hum... something I could do :D

[Lagoon]

Even better, rename file to a generic name during encoding, and give back its original name after the encode :D

Just a thought, I don't know at all if it's hard to code :confused:

[damrod]

good idea

btw i add the possibility to demux ra10 (aac inside) to aac file

just need mp4creator to create ipod m4a file....

[Wilbert]

I read somewhere the following line of text:

real has given us (*) some funding and is working on integrating the vorbis and theora in their Helix player.
(*) refers to the xiph people.

I'm a bit puzzled about the meaning of this. Does that mean that it will be possible to mux rv and ogg, and play it?

[damrod]

you can encode ogg with producer....

[kilg0r3]

Is it just me or ist it still impossible to get to the binaries and the producer documentation on helixcommunity.org? I'd like to read up on the 1 pass quality mode but I don't have a producer distor on the box.

[damrod]

see rv10 elysium thread...:-(((

sniff sniff

[kilg0r3]

Hi!

I am backing up some of my dvds on dvd-r. So i don't require filesize prediction for all of them. since it suffices to restrict the fielsize of the last file on a disc.

What I want to do with the producer should be roughly equivalent to a single pass constant quant 2 (standard mpeg matrix) encode with some b-frames in xvid etc. The most similar encoding mode in producer seems to be "constant quality", which appears e.g. in AutoRV9 and Realbatch etc. However, is not present in the producer docs. So how would I do it? And, which setting would be _roughly_ equivalent to the settings mentioned above in xvid?

TIA, kilg0r3.

PS. Do you never close your computer case?

[damrod]

lol

sometimes i shutdown my computer.. windaube need some reboot to work correctly ;-))

and my pc is also my tv so...

btw i'm not a geek ;-))

[karl_lillevold]

kilg0r3: Maybe the reason you did not find constant quality in the docs is that it is called vbrQuality. In any case, here is an audience snippet showing what you need in the <videoStream> section:

<videoStream>
<pluginName type="string">rn-videocodec-realvideo</pluginName>
<codecName type="string">rv10</codecName>
<encodingComplexity type="string">high</encodingComplexity>
<encodingType type="string">vbrQuality</encodingType>
<quality type="uint">85</quality>
<maxStartupLatency type="double">60</maxStartupLatency>
<maxFrameRate type="double">30</maxFrameRate>
<maxKeyFrameInterval type="double">10</maxKeyFrameInterval>
<enableLossProtection type="bool">false</enableLossProtection>
</videoStream>

In this case, avgBitrate is ignored, but remember to set maxBitrate to a very large value (9999999999) so it does not affect the constant quality.

The settings in RealVideo that approximate the ones you mention for XviD, would be what I use for the 1st (reference) pass in the new 2-pass curve compression scheme, that is quantizers 6 and 10. The quality level that corresponds to this is 85.

My computer case is always closed.. What you see is the passive VGA heatsink sticking out (http://www.lillevold.com/files/cube/P3232464%20(Medium).JPG). I wanted to make it as silent as possible, and installed a passive heatsink on the video card, i.e. one without a fan. This is very large, and did not fit inside the XPC (small form factor PC), so I had to make a hole in the case for it :)

[karl_lillevold]

There is finally a separate Helix DNA Codecs (https://helixcommunity.org/beula/download/) section in the file sharing section of the 'distribution' project on helixcommunity.org. This is where I will make available previews, updates, fixes, etc. Note that you need to sign up and agree to the binary EULA to have access to these. If you already have an account, you need to reset your password (since we moved the site to a completely new structure). Follow instructions on the site. There is also a convenient link to subscribe to be notified of any new updates :cool:

Currently, the following files are available:

RealVideo 10 'Elysian'
HE-AAC (racp) fix for RealPlayer 10 Beta
rmeditor update for raac and racp

[kilg0r3]

:stupid: I encoded a sample clip in order to compare it to an xvid clip (fixed quant 2 etc.). Well, it was about three times larger than the xvid file. Why? I need only a few words to explain: ffdshow with avih's noise algo at 32. How could I possibly have known that the helix producer uses directshow ;)!

Anyway, thank you Karl, for the snippet.

BTW: Which switch of producer gives me an fps indication during the encode?

[karl_lillevold]

Originally posted by kilg0r3
Is it just me or ist it still impossible to get to the binaries and the producer documentation on helixcommunity.org? I'd like to read up on the 1 pass quality mode but I don't have a producer distor on the box.
All the binaries incl Helix Producer 10 Preview (which includes documentation) are now back online:

Helix Binary Downloads (https://helixcommunity.org/beula/download/) : Binary file distribution (Codec Previews, Updates, Fixes, Producer Apps & SDK, Server)

Re FPS in Producer: I am afraid this is still a feature on the TODO list.

[damrod]

euhh i try using ativeX dll

when i show the versionstring i got 9.2.0.0...are you sure the zip is those of producer10sdk??

btw i can't startjob....

i filed jobfilename value but the startjob always crash...but the jobfile is good.. producer.exe launch it...

[stevemc]

There was a bug for a while regarding the version returned by GetVersionString. This was fixed but probably not in the build you have. I suggest you get the 10.0 preview SDK at either of the following locations:
https://helixcommunity.org/beula/download/

Or Here:
http://forms.helixcommunity.org/helix/producersdk/index.html

Regarding the StartJob, I'm not sure what is wrong. I suggest you catch the error (On Error with VB6 or Catch with vb.net) and see what the error message is. If that does not give you any clues, send me a code snippet to stevemc@real.com and I'll see if I can find anything.

[damrod]

i dwld the zip today but i will try again...

[stevemc]

Hmmm. Make sure you get the Producer 10 preview version.

I forget when we fixed that version string issue - maybe it was after the 10.0 preview build was released. Rest assured its fixed though.

Let's still try to figure out your crasher issue.

[Sirber]

Would be nice now to have our own forum for RealVideo / Real Audio, since it's popularity gained a lot and is a lot discussed.

[damrod]

yes !!!

with me as Moderator !!! :-))

the devil is back ;-)

[Sirber]

We should start a poll a gain...

[bond]

sirber, this was discussed already and doom9 decided that there will not be an own rv forum...

but to satisfy yourself, simply see the new a/v codecs forum as rv9 forum ;)

[kilg0r3]

@ karl

it really is a shame that I do not have time to do proper tests. Anyway, I just wanted to let you know. I have been doing some encodes of the Potter Trailer at full resolution and ultra high bitrates, ie. vbr constant quality 82-90. I am sorry to say that IMHO Rv10 underperformed xvid and Vp6 showing considerable blocking and flickering. The listed settings below do not exhibit the correct syntax because I put in the alternative values. The audience file looked different of course

<encoderComplexity type="uint">85</encoderComplexity> <enableAutoKeyFrames type="bool">true</enableAutoKeyFrames> <maxConsecutiveBFrames type="uint">0,1,3</maxConsecutiveBFrames> <exactPreview type="bool">true,false</exactPreview> <inloopCutOffQuant type="uint">1 or 12</inloopCutOffQuant> <inloopCutOffCompatible type="bool">always false</inloopCutOffCompatible> <inloopCutOffBUseRefQuant type="bool">always false</inloopCutOffBUseRefQuant>

<encodingType type="string">vbrQuality</encodingType> <quality type="uint">82,85,90</quality>

Properties of one example clip extracted with rmvbext:

Stream number : 0
Maximum bitrate : 47263000 bits/s
Average bitrate : 2417851 bits/s
Maximum packet size : 16009 bytes
Average packet size : 5872 bytes
Time offset : 0 ms ( 00:00:00.0 )
Prebuffering : 1037 ms ( 00:00:01.037 )
Duration : 122960 ms ( 00:02:02.960 )
Stream name : Video Stream
MIME type : video/x-pn-realvideo
Video resolution : 688x428
I suspect that Rv10, understandably, might not be optimised for Dvd-like bitrates.

Cheers, kilg0r3

[karl_lillevold]

kilg0r3: I rarely use fixed quality, but I think something must have gone wrong with your encode or settings, if you are seeing considerable blocking and flickering at such a high fixed quality. I have been doing some very high bitrate full anamorphic encodes with the new rate control, and those look very nice.

Thanks for the feedback, but you really need to provide some more information for it to be very useful, for instance rmeditor a few seconds of the resulting RM file and send to me, along with the job file you used.

[kilg0r3]

Hm, hm, I will see, if I get around to check the encoding chain, cut out a piece and probably do some further testing. Sorry for kicking up dust.

[karl_lillevold]

No problem, if there is a bug, I would definitely like to fix it. Please take a look in this XviD post on how to report a potential bug: XviD: What You Must Do When Posting Bugs/Problems! (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=24924) Not all applies to RealVideo bugs, but much of the same information is useful for us.

Other useful tools to be aware of are the visualization support in the RealVideo 10 'Elysian' decoder DLLs. With strength set to 1 and visualizations to 2, you get a useful display when playing back the video of which quants were used for each frame. If they appear too high, compared to the fixed quality you were using, there is for instance a problem. And of course, the rv9log.txt file from the encoder, since it contains both quants and PSNR for every frame.

Thanks!

[bond]

in accordance with karl_lillevold i now splitted the whole discussion behind the rv9 sticky and moved it to a separate thread
we think that it doesnt make much sense to have a 29 page long discussion as a sticky cause you are not able to find any info there you are searching for anymore anyways.
different discussion points should be discussed in extra threads and not packed into a single one

i also ask you guys for not using the rv9 sticky anymore for any discussions, the sticky should be a point where newbies can have a look at when they are searching for quick info or for the old ones which are too lazy to use search ;)

thanks for your understanding
bond

[Sirber]

Why not making a new forum since there is lots of threads related to RV9?

[karl_lillevold]

I am happy with the current state of things; I would prefer to stay in the New A/V Formats - Codecs forum, and not have a separate forum. For one, I like to keep track of everything else going on there, but I also do not think there is enough discussion on Real formats to support a whole new forum..

[Sirber]

Things will be different once YS RealAnime will be out :)

[Sirber]

Describes the type of presentation (if it is audio only or
audio and video). This setting allows different audio streams, one
that uses a higher bit rate for audio-only presentations and one that
uses a lower bit rate for audio-video presentations, to be assigned
in an audience. The setting is used at runtime to determine what
audio codec to use.

Default:
audio-video

Values:
audio-video, audio-only

Type:
string

Example:
<presentationType type="string">audio-video</presentationType>I don't uderstand the codec selection thing they talk about. What if I use audio-video and I encode only audio? What if I encode video only and no audio?

[Marcel]

Hum, if I got it right, it is this way:
You can specify four different audio codecs in an audience file:
(A) presentationType audio-video, audio mode voice
(B) presentationType audio-video, audio mode music
(C) presentationType audio-only, audio mode voice
(D) presentationType audio-only, audio mode music

If you feed the producer with an audio-only file, it will choose (C) or (D), regarding the command line option "-am <voice|music>", else (A) or (B), and will encode no audio at all (even no silence), when the source file contains no audio (but will, if the source file contains a silent audio stream).
IIRC, if you provide an incomplete audience file to the producer, it won't encode anything, but cancel with an error message.

Or am I telling you nuts you already have in your pocket?

[Sirber]

Thanks. Everything is clear now :D