XviD and Kiss-Technology

[NoLogo]

Read here:
http://www.kiss-technology.com/support/dp-450_FAQ.asp

Their DVD player should be compatible with XviD 2.1 (I guess they talk about API 2.1). I assume these are great news for people who worked on it, but I have one question: if XviD is an educationnal codec, will have Kiss-Tech to pay fees to LA-MPEG ?

EDIT: Unfortunately, the new firmware supports Ogg Vorbis, but not OGM :(.

[sam_b]

I don't think a lot of people here would even consider this player considering Sigma had a role in creating it. I think a lot of other people are going to be pissed off when they realise that it will not play any MS-derived MPEG4 (DivX ;-). Don't most people even use GMC with DivX 5.02(spit)? I also fail to see why an API number is relavent when all it's playing is a bitstream. And I thought GMC and Qpel were indeed Advanced, Simple profile. May be wrong here though.

I'd also be worried about the 3Mb/s limit. I have certainly had scenes go over this. What will it do then?

Sorry about ranting, but I don't like this player very much.

[Gaia]

Personally i am not excited about these stand alone players at all. I think they will be far too expensive and all these compatibility issues.

DVD-burner is a lot better buy, they are reasonably priced now and most new DVD-player will play DVD-R's. Who will buy these MPEG4 stand alone players, same geeks who hang out here, not "normal" people. Does it really matter if you play your movies from computer and use tv-out. This way you can use all the options and all audio formats+subtitles. I think they are just waste of money.

[NoLogo]

sam_b>
I do not like THIS player, I just think it's a good thing they did not only support DivX4/5 (what they could have done, I guess). I know people usually every available options (GMC, QPel,...), and I know DivX3 should not be supported, but, what would you like to have:
1) DVD player which can only play DVD ?
2) DVD player which can play either DVD or MPEG4 content ?
But I agree, there should be compatibilities issues, I didn't say this was a good product, just noted the fact.

Gaia>
This is not a MPEG4 stand-alone player. :)

Regards
NoLogo

[Gaia]

Ok not MPEG4 player but still stand alone player that will play MPEG4.
Just buy DVD-burner if you want to watch your ripped movies without computer.

[sam_b]

@Nologo
That makes more sense. It's just that they're charging £250 here for it. Would be fine if it was a £250 DVD player which could play MPEG-4, but I suspect it's an £80 DVD player with £170 for the privilege of playing MPEG-4. May be a very good product though, but I doubt it. I think the decoder complexity for MPEG-4 ASP will stop it from becoming a mainstream thing for while, and even then it will likely only be for MP4/AAC streams.

If you weren't around for the whole Sigma Designs MPEG-4 codec thing it's worth a read.

[vorbis]

are you guys nuts?
gmc has little or no effect with divx 5.
Personally I only use b frames which work with this player. Are you saying you cannot create a good rip giving whats allowed. I for one will be getting this player when they have sorted out some teething issues regarding synching.
As for the Sigma thing, I believe that issue is resolved. I don't carry any hate for Sigma over it since I'm not a developer. They were caught and generally have complied with the GPL license. End of Story.
As for dvd-r, mpeg 4 offers FAR superior compression, what about the idea of fitting 5 dvd quality movies on one dvd-r and watching them on a standalone player? Tv-out is impractical for some people. Its not just "geeks" who'll buy them, mpeg-4 is a widely accepted format. Indeed Gaia why are you posting the benefit of dvd-rs in the xvid forum? The whole point of using mpeg 4 is its better compression. Suggesting its not a suitable format to play on a tv is nonsense.

[sam_b]

May I ask how many non-geeks you know who encode their own MPEG-4? Or do they have another source of Xvid/Divx4/5 files made by people who know only to use B-frames?

I'd say about 99% of the time people use MPEG-4 for three things:

1) Xvid/ffmpeg testing of owned DVDs.
2) DLing rips of the net
3) Captures/archiving

KiSS player is useless to group 1 (you can only experiment with the non-experimental features, hmm), useless to group 2 (DivX ;-) not gonna happen) and of some use to 3, who are the people who are most likely to own DVD-burners anyway.

But god-dammit Qpel looks nice, and you can't use it. Assuming you statement about GMC effectiveness is true, how the hell is everyone else meant to know that and not use it before they get the player?

"MPEG-4 is a widely accepted format".... on P2P networks. Whoopee.

And get off Gaia's back about MPEG-2. Right codec for the right job, whatever forum it's in.

"I don't carry any hate for Sigma over it since I'm not a developer."
Good to see we all stick together then.

And I politely suggest that "are you guys nuts?" is not the best way to get people to listen to you.

You go ahead and buy this player.

[masken]

For me this is really simple, and I don't have to categorize myself either ;)

The player simply doesn't support enough formats, and it's unsure if it ever will.

GMC, QPel, B-frames, VBR MP3, DivX 3.11, subtitles (vobsubs as well as subrips) etc. When a player that does this (processor based MPEG4 decoding probably? -Ie; not chip-based processing), and has an open source firmware for improvements, I'd seriously reconsider :)

[vorbis]

some people will never be satisfied. Mpeg 4 is not only a pirate's format. Its quite likely going to be the format for future dvd formats. As for downloading rips, a lot are now made in xvid if you're into that sort of thing. QPel is not a silver bullet. It is possible to do without it. In all likelihood a future firmware update will probably support it anyway.
As for supporting formats, subtitles will probably be supported eventually. Personally I have little use for them but come people might. If a player came out with everything butmpc audio support, people would still bash it. Look at dvd players, do they support every variation of mpeg 2 imaginable? They don't so why should a mpeg 4 player attempt to support everything. Its easy enough to correct issues on a PC, i'd imagine its harder on a standalone box.

[masken]

@vorbis:

Around 94% of the world's population uses either subtitles or dubbing when watching features. That's a fact. And it's eaily derived from the fact that 6% of the world's population speaks English as a native language.

But yes, I see your point.. sure, MPEG4 is a better format than MPEG2 in all aspects, but the usefullness of the KiSS player in general is discussed here, and as there's no "standard" for MPEG4 stream setups as there are for DVD's for example, the usefullness drops dramatically if the most common options and codec combinations used today isn't supported.

[NoLogo]

Just one thing I didn't notice when posting, the player is not (at least they do not mention this) compatible with .MP4... quite weird.
About the supported formats, we could suppose some could be with a firmware update (such as Ogg VOrbis, MP3 VBR, GMC, QPel) or non-officially supported (DivX ;-) can be DivX4-decoded).
But one interesting question would be the use that can be done with MPEG4 and DVD. I mean, we all know that at equal birate, MPEG4 is better than MPEG2, but will we have better quality movies, more bonuses (without having to pay expensive 2-3 DVD boxes) ? I don't think so; my two cents that MPEG2 will still be the DVD-format for a long time, whereas MPEG4/H26L will perfectly fit streaming (if it appears one day).

Regards
NoLogo

[vorbis]

as I said subtitles suit some people. dubbing doesn't require subs last time I checked. You could always hardcode them if you wanted but thats not ideal. Also some people are being misled over what it doesn;t support. 2 features !! One GMC of little benefit and the othee Qpel which is still experimental. To say it doesn't support common options is a bit trite. A non GMC QPel movie with vbr mp3 or ac3 would play on this machine. Thats not bad.

[Gaia]

MPEG4 will never be format for DVD's. It's cold fact. MPEG4 is desinged for streaming high quality moving picture in Internet!

Do you really think there will be someday MPEG4 DVD's? Why on earth normal people would buy new DVD player to be able to play MPEG4 DVD's. Ofcourse new and better formats will come but MPEG4 is not that much better than MPEG2 if file sizes are not problem. In fact MPEG2 can better in some cases. MPEG4 will never replace MPEG2 in stand alone players, it's going to be somenthing else. Maybe MPEG5 or whatever.

Hard coding subtitles is not a good idea and dubbing should be illegal! Dubbing destroys whole movie!

[Zhnujm]

Originally posted by Gaia
...and dubbing should be illegal! Dubbing destroys whole movie!

tell that a person who doesnt speak (and dont want to speak) english :D
anyway, the mpeg-2 dvd will last a long time, it will be very difficult to replace a consumer standard with a new one. look how long it takes to replace all the vhs recorders, a new standard would confuse people even more.
it could be succesful if it supports recording, that would be a big enough improvement and a feature that dvds doesnt have.

[NeVeRLiFt]

what about this....

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/Press/2002/Jul02/07-15DigitaLibraryPR.asp


:D

[vorbis]

Zhnujm does have a point. Mpeg 4 would be of use for video recording. As it stands, dvd recorders only record on average 2 hours to a disk. Thats hardly an attractive alternative to vhs. Using mpeg 4 would double that making a dvd recorder more viable. Don't be so sure there won;t be mpeg 4 dvds either. If enough dvd players with mpeg 4 support sell, some company might use it to sell some sort of budget range on dvd-5s.

[DBaT]

If you dont like it dont buy it.
KiSS does what it says to do with mpeg4 using advanced-simple profile.
There are some glitches but those seem to bee quite well corrected by firmaware upgrades. Propobly next firmware will have support for Ogg VOrbis.

@NoLogo
KiSS450 should already support MP3 VBR with current firmware.

[NoLogo]

DBaT>
You're right, I haven't read correctly (or entirely).
About Ogg Vorbis, yeah, that's what they say in their FAQ, but no word about OGM...

[sam_b]

I may be mistaken, but I believe that Qpel and GMC *are* advanced, simple profile options, unlike the site states. I've no idea what Advanced, advanced profile is. I'm having trouble finding the MPEG4 docs. Anyone know the truth?

[MfA]

They are full of it, Sigma almost certainly just fitted an old MPEG core in their MPEG-4 chip. That being the case it would obviously miss necessary features for advanced simple profile in the dedicated hardware part, because they have no functional equivalent in MPEG-1/2. Since the programmable part simply doesnt have the horsepower to make up for that lack (it probably is only meant to perform bitstream decoding and dequantization) we are left with a MPEG-4 chip which really only fully supports the simple profile.

Which wouldnt be so bad ... but their marketing not being able to acknowledge the facts is irritating.

[seewen]

Originally posted by DBaT
@NoLogo
KiSS450 should already support MP3 VBR with current firmware.
That's right, you can read MP3-VBR with KiSS & firmware 2.5.1 and UP.

But if you try to FastForward/backward (mean jump in the time), you get a Video/Audio Desynch... :-(

So for now you have 2 choices :
- MP3-CBR (and DIvX Audio, Ac3, etc.. )
- MP3-VBr and don't try to skip a chapter, or if you miss a part of the movie you have to re-look it from the beginning ;-)