Nero Digital info thread

[bond]

Originally posted by ThePanda
Will Nero Digital be able to preserve the menus in the movie, so I can just put in the CD and play it like the dvd?no, this is not planned for nd in the beginning, but there is something else coming which will let you do this soon, be patient :)

[SeeMoreDigital]

Originally posted by bond
no, this is not planned for nd in the beginning, but there is something else coming which will let you do this soon, be patient :) Just a simple menu, like the ones you can create for use with VCD's or S-VCD's would be nice start!

Cheers

[RadicalEd]

You can do way more than just that with XMT ;)

[bond]

some news about how nero digital will store subtitles in mp4:
they will just attach the original dvd vobsubs in mp4 (no srt support or so)

also interesting concerning mp4 subs is that there are plans to include the TX3G text stream format (from 3gp) into the mp4 specs as native sub format...

[bond]

some rumours came to my nose lately

ahead/ateme is preparing a new release of their mpeg-4 codec, which should bring more quality than the first release (seems they are very ambitious to enter the mpeg-4 market)
also new features can be expected on the encoder side, like being able to add error correction (not only detection!) to the streams (good for XCD, read more here (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=65646))
also recode2 is said to allow .avs input now

[nimbles]

Hey guys i've read a few reviews on NeroDigital codec and was thinking about backing up one of my simpsons dvd's to mp4's but was wondering whether it is at all possible to play Nero digital MP4's in a non nero showtime player-

I have one pc with Nero installed as it has a cd-rw/dvd-rw installed but a couple of the pc's in the house don't have a cd/dvd writer so i see no reason to pay for and install a licensed copy of nero just for the player- i guess it wouldn't play in any of those standalone divx/xvid players either :(

edit : ok found this having re read the thread
- ffdshow can be used to decode ND
Do i need the latest ffdshow (err... 05-04-04 build) for this to work?


If not thats ok, I may just have to go the xvid route but was curious to do some testing

[bond]

Originally posted by nimbles
Hey guys i've read a few reviews on NeroDigital codec and was thinking about backing up one of my simpsons dvd's to mp4's but was wondering whether it is at all possible to play Nero digital MP4's in a non nero showtime player- :search: :readfaq:
of course its possible to play mp4 files also with other player

.mp4 is the file format of the mpeg-4 standard, so there are lots of player which support it already
the most popular one is maybe quicktime, the best one is imo 3ivx, which allows you to play mp4 files in any dshow based player, like wmp9, bsplayer, mpc aso...

[nimbles]

sorry, i was under the impression that there may have been issues with the playback of the video without the NeroDigital codec installed- which i assumed would only be present if Nero Recode 2 and hence the Nero retail edition was installed on a pc.

Thanks for tip about 3ivx bond (some of the pc's at home are OLD-PII 333MHz/64mb ram/onboard GFX- will they cope?), I'm off to read all these mp4 faq's :scared:

[bond]

Originally posted by nimbles
sorry, i was under the impression that there may have been issues with the playback of the video without the NeroDigital codec installed- which i assumed would only be present if Nero Recode 2 and hence the Nero retail edition was installed on a pc.not at all

some of the pc's at home are OLD-PII 333MHz/64mb ram/onboard GFX- will they copehm, mp4 doesnt need more cpu power than other formats
also you can try to use the ffdshow decoder together with 3ivx, as it needs the least cpu power of all decoders afaik

[SeeMoreDigital]

Originally posted by nimbles
...some of the pc's at home are OLD-PII 333MHz/64mb ram/onboard GFX- will they cope?, I'm off to read all these mp4 faq's :scared: Not very well, I'm affraid!

But you may have more luck with encodes that have a small image pixel frame size.

Cheers

[opsis81]

@nimbles
NeroDigital subtitles are only recognized by ShowTime Player.If you want them you are limited to ShowTime Player.

[LostMP4]

I have some questions: (Nero Recode 2, June 2004 update)

Q1. Audio is compressed in constant bitrate or average bitrate - constant quality?

Q2. Will Recode ever allow muxing multiple Audio or Subtitle tracks in the same file?

Q3. Any chance to have some different subtitle format compatible with ND?

Q4. Will be PAR supported in encodes (and decodes by ShowTime)?

Q4-OT. Shouldn't the X-axis be resized by PAR? 3ivx filters resize the Y-axis?

Q5. Saving project files... why not?

Q6. Why to limit ND diffusion by allowing to create only backups of unprotected DVDs and not of personal media files?

Q7. Is Audio delay "corrected" during Encoding or "stored" in MP4 (I don't know if it's possible)?

[SeeMoreDigital]

With regard to question 4, I think there's certainly something wrong with Recode2, when you try and generate 720x480/576 anamorphic encodes, ie: with no cropping and no resizing!

I've generated tests from DVD's where the movie has an AR of 1.77:1 or 1.85:1 and they playback at the correct AR. But encodes from movies with an AR of 2.35:1 or 2.40:1 are very wrong.

It doesn't help too that all versions of Nero's NeVideo.ax after version 1.1.7.35 dont handle anamorphic Mpeg4 video correctly either.


Cheers

[LostMP4]

Originally posted by SeeMoreDigital
With regard to question 4, I think there's certainly something wrong with Recode2, when you try and generate 720x480/576 anamorphic encodes, ie: with no cropping and no resizing!

I've generated tests from DVD's where the movie has an AR of 1.77:1 or 1.85:1 and they playback at the correct AR. But encodes from movies with an AR of 2.35:1 or 2.40:1 are very wrong.

It doesn't help too that all versions of Nero's NeVideo.ax after version 1.1.7.35 dont handle anamorphic Mpeg4 video correctly either.


Cheers

A bug or a Nero Digital Specs "redefinition"?

[JohnV]

Originally posted by SeeMoreDigital
With regard to question 4, I think there's certainly something wrong with Recode2, when you try and generate 720x480/576 anamorphic encodes, ie: with no cropping and no resizing!

I've generated tests from DVD's where the movie has an AR of 1.77:1 or 1.85:1 and they playback at the correct AR. But encodes from movies with an AR of 2.35:1 or 2.40:1 are very wrong.

It doesn't help too that all versions of Nero's NeVideo.ax after version 1.1.7.35 dont handle anamorphic Mpeg4 video correctly either.


Cheers
It's not Recode2 problem or ND specs problem. Funny thing is that the latest 3ivx dev build decoder/splitter displays the Recode2 2.40:1 anamorphic encode aspect ratio correctly (ShowTime shows it incorrectly), so it's a bug in the ND decoder filter.
I informed Bobololo about this, so I think we will see a fix for this quite soon..

Edit. Well, the original video aspect ratio of my test encode was 2.4:1, but Recode2 seemed to encode with AR 2.5:1. So even the encode is slightly off. The biggest problem still is the ND decoder filter which doesn't use(?) the AR figure giving weird playback. Latest devbuild 3ivx filter plays it with AR 2.5:1 which is close but not quite the original.
Anyway, it's also possible to change the AR in the MP4 stream afterwards, and I believe for example 3ivx has this feature already implemented.
I suggested to bobololo that ND devs would allow also manual setting of AR (for advanced users) which is available in the ND DS encoder filter but disabled in the Recode2 application..

[LostMP4]

Originally posted by JohnV
I suggested to bobololo that ND devs would allow also manual setting of AR (for advanced users) which is available in the ND DS encoder filter but disabled in the Recode2 application..

It would be very useful

About the other questions? Any clues?

[SeeMoreDigital]

Originally posted by JohnV
It's not Recode2 problem or ND specs problem. Funny thing is that the latest 3ivx dev build decoder/splitter displays the Recode2 2.40:1 anamorphic encode aspect ratio correctly (ShowTime shows it incorrectly), so it's a bug in the ND decoder filter.
I informed Bobololo about this, so I think we will see a fix for this quite soon..I disagree. And the main reason why I'm able to do this is because unlike some of you guys, I'm able to play these encodes via hardware and watch them on a 16:9 TV.

To show you what I mean I've generated some MP4 Anamorphic Test Clips (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/seemoredigital/MP4_(2.35.1)_Anamorphic_Test_Clips.zip) using Recode2, XviD and 3ivX, all from the same PAL 720x576, 2.35:1 anamorphic source.

When playang back the encodes in hardware, I've found XviD to be spot on, 3ivX is just a very, very, tiny bit low but Recode2 to be way out!

When playing back the encodes in software the only way I've managed to get Nero's Showtime player to behave properly is by replacing the Nevideo.ax filter with this older version (http://82.2.167.24/Uploaded_Files/Doom9_Forum_files/Nero_DSFilter_Fix.zip).

Also when forcing the encodes to play via WinMedia player9 (and using 3ivX's filter) the XviD and 3ivX encodes playback as they sould but the Recode2 encode is way off!

But please give the encodes a go yourselves and report back?


Cheers

EDIT: link changed

[JohnV]

Originally posted by SeeMoreDigital
[B]I disagree. And the main reason why I'm able to do this is because unlike some of you guys, I'm able to play these encodes via hardware and watch them on a 16:9 TV. Eeh, but I didn't say I disagree with you.. :rolleyes:
Like I said there are currently 2 issues with ND regarding this AR stuff:
1. Biggest problem is that ND decoder filter doesn't seem to take PAR/DAR into account currently much at all, or it is very wrong.
2. For example the latest dev build 3ivx (3ivx_d4_452fc1) does playback the AR which is defined in the ND stream quite correctly as far as I can see. Slight problem is that for example for a 2.40:1 DVD, the automatic aspect ratio Recode seemed to be 2:50:1 (5:2) in this case. But this is still much closer to the correct aspect ratio than what ShowTime currently produces. I check this by putting WinDVD and the MPEG4 video "on top of each others", so it's easy to see any difference in AR.
Also if you don't have access to the latest 3ivx stuff, it's a bit useless to compare experiences here. But I don't disagree with you in anyway, I agree that this anamorphic encoding AR is an issue which should work in all codecs and currently it doesnt.

[SeeMoreDigital]

My apologies then JohnV,

I agree that there does appear to be a problem with Nero's Nevideo.ax filter (which is why I use the much older filter).

But it's got to be their encoder filter that cocks up the encode in the first place. And no amount of fiddling by 3ivX to correct this during decoding is going to correct this, nor should it!

Unless of course Nero is not storing the anamorphic signalling in the bit-steam, just in the container. In which case I would have thought you would not see any 'horizontal' stretching at all. The problem lies in the vertical axis.

Strange that Nero does not have the same problems when encoding from a PAL 720x576 (1.77:1) anamorphic source (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/seemoredigital/Recode2_(1.77.1)_Anamorphic_Test_Clip.zip). These play back fine in both hardware and software. However, I reckon this is more by luck than by design!

What do you think?


Cheers

[JohnV]

Originally posted by SeeMoreDigital
My apologies then JohnV,

I agree that there does appear to be a problem with Nero's Nevideo.ax filter (which is why I use the much older filter).

But it's got to be their encoder filter that cocks up the encode in the first place. And no amount of fiddling by 3ivX to correct this during decoding is going to correct this, nor should it!

Unless of course Nero is not storing the anamorphic signalling in the bit-steam, just in the container. In which case I would have thought you would not see any 'horizontal' stretching at all. The problem lies in the vertical axis.

Strange that Nero does not have the same problems when encoding from a PAL 720x576 (1.77:1) anamorphic source (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/seemoredigital/Recode2_(1.77.1)_Anamorphic_Test_Clip.zip). These play back fine in both hardware and software. However, I reckon this is more by luck than by design!

What do you think?
Cheers Well..
ShowTime seems to ignore AR parameter currently completely.
The issue with Recode is the Pixel Aspect Ratio (PAR) and Display Aspect Ratio (DAR) values which are causing problems in different implementations in anamorphic encodes obviously.
At least 3ivx has video muxer which can change the PAR value afterwards, so in principle it should be possible to make a tool which can cope with PAR/DAR issues and modify both of these values in an existing stream/container.

There's certainly some work to do for developers on this issue.
Currently it's a bit messed up..

[SeeMoreDigital]

Originally posted by JohnV
Well..
ShowTime seems to ignore AR parameter currently completely.
The issue with Recode is the Pixel Aspect Ratio (PAR) and Display Aspect Ratio (DAR) values which are causing problems in different implementations in anamorphic encodes obviously. That's true if you are using Nero's newer versions of Nevideo.ax but if you swap over to the old version, the ShowTime player will not only playback XviD and 3ivX anamorphic in .mp4 content correctly but XviD and 3ivX anamorphic in .avi content too!

Have you tried doing this... it's a well weird scenario?

If you use mp4UI to demux the .mp4 video streams I uploaded back to .avi, you will see what I mean :confused:


Cheers

[JohnV]

Originally posted by SeeMoreDigital
I disagree. And the main reason why I'm able to do this is because unlike some of you guys, I'm able to play these encodes via hardware and watch them on a 16:9 TV.

To show you what I mean I've generated some MP4 Anamorphic Test Clips (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/seemoredigital/MP4_(2.35.1)_Anamorphic_Test_Clips.zip) using Recode2, XviD and 3ivX, all from the same PAL 720x576, 2.35:1 anamorphic source.
The problem with that MPEG4 2.35:1 Recode clip comes because you don't crop the black bars out of the image. The effective height in that video is clearly less than 576 pixels. Recode computes and uses the aspect ratio from the effective pixels (the MPEG2 DAR), and is confused when you don't crop the video..
Of course Recode should realize that it needs to use different AR and PAR, if you include the black bars from top and bottom, this is a thing which should be fixed.

Recode AR/PAR calculation is a little bit inexact even when only using effective resolution (needs to be fixed). So when you crop to include only the effective pixels and don't include black bars, it's quite close but not precise.

The reason why your PAL 720x576 (1.77:1) anamorphic source is correct in Recode anamorphic encoding is, that the effective height of that video is 576 pixels (or very close), you can check this yourself, no black bars to crop.

I tested Recode precision with 2.40:1 Anamoprhic PAL 720x576 video.
The effective pixels in this video are 720x424 for which the AR is 2.40:1. Recode wants to make the height dividable by 16, so the actual encoded size will be 720x416. I fear there's extra resizing to 416 which decreases the quality a little bit also even if resizing is in principle disabled, unless you do the crop using the manual crop option in Recode, so that the effective height is 416 (dividable by 16). This is the best way to be sure to avoid resizing in this situation (I'm not 100% sure how Recode ends up to the 416, resize or extra auto-crop, but use manual crop to be sure.)
For 720x416 the correct AR=x should be 2.40/(720/424)=x/(720/416) <=> 2.40/1.698 = x/1.730 -> x = 2.445. Recode gives AR 2.5:1 which is a bit off, but quite close.
In 3ivx muxer I can redefine PAR, so to make it correct, I can change the PAR to 244:173 which gives the correct aspect ratio of 2.445:1 for the 720x416 anamorphic encoding.
Of course ShowTime still doesn't work, because the PAR support in it was disabled for some weird reason, but 3ivx decoder works.

To be honest, I'm not quite sure if this 720x416 encoding can be called a real anamorphic encoding, because it's not using the full 720x576 PAL resolution, even though what is left out are only the black bars and a couple of effective lines to make the effective height dividable by 16. In principle it's very close though.
Of course, what you can always do, is to encode with Recode using the full 720x576 reso and include the black bars, and then fix the PAR with 3ivx muxer. But including the black bars does increase the file size, so that's another thing to consider also.

The above things really shouldn't be so hard to fix, so I hope these issues will be checked in Recode at least in the next major version.

[SeeMoreDigital]

Originally posted by JohnV
The problem with that MPEG4 2.35:1 Recode clip comes because you don't crop the black bars out of the image. The effective height in that video is clearly less than 576 pixels. Recode computes and uses the aspect ratio from the effective pixels (the MPEG2 DAR), and is confused when you don't crop the video..
Of course Recode should realize that it needs to use different AR and PAR, if you include the black bars from top and bottom, this is a thing which should be fixed. So it would seem Recode2's encoding method is not correct. It seems ridiculous that you would need to crop away the mattes from an encode in order for the correct AR to be displayed!

Originally posted by JohnV
Of course ShowTime still doesn't work, because the PAR support in it was disabled for some weird reason, but 3ivx decoder works..Did you have a go with the old version of Nero's DS dec filter? It works perfectly... I don't know why they don't still use it as they are just making matters more confusing for themselves!

Originally posted by JohnV
I tested Recode precision with 2.40:1 Anamoprhic PAL 720x576 video.
The effective pixels in this video are 720x424 for which the AR is 2.40:1. Recode wants to make the height dividable by 16, so the actual encoded size will be 720x416. The exact effective quantity of images pixels is actually 426.66. I must admit if I was cropping the mattes away, I would resize it to the same as a 2.35:1 encode ie: 720x432 pixels!


Originally posted by JohnV
To be honest, I'm not quite sure if this 720x416 encoding can be called a real anamorphic encoding, because it's not using the full 720x576 PAL resolution, even though what is left out are only the black bars and a couple of effective lines to make the effective height dividable by 16. In principle it's very close though.I don't see any reason why not. It's bad enough that the film industry in general redefines the actual meaning of a word to suit it's own requirements. And in my opinion, it's not a practice that should be rolled over into the digital domain (but it would seem I'm in the minority here :D) I was talking last night with a film cameraman friend of mine, about this very subject.... Anyway, I would not worry about it too much, as most of M$'s high-def 1080 encodes could be considered anamorphic, as they only use 1440 horizontal pixels and not the full 1920!

Originally posted by JohnV
The above things really shouldn't be so hard to fix, so I hope these issues will be checked in Recode at least in the next major version. I would like to hope so, but it's not like they haven't know about it since the launch of Recode2, and certainly by the first or second update. I for one have sent them emails and made many posts on this forum! As I said before I don't see why 3ivX should go out of their way to create a correction method for a failing in Recode2...


Cheers

[sbp]

Hi I'm trying to do real time capture from my TV-card. I have been using XVID - and the results are OK. BUT as the Nero-encoder is so much faster, I would like to try this encoder for real time capture.

How can I do that?
Steen

[bond]

Originally posted by LostMP4
Q1. Audio is compressed in constant bitrate or average bitrate - constant quality?no clue, isnt it chooseable which mode you want?

Q2. Will Recode ever allow muxing multiple Audio or Subtitle tracks in the same file?mux other audio streams into the mp4 with your favourite mp4 tool, for example mp4ui

Q3. Any chance to have some different subtitle format compatible with ND?there is only one official text based subtitle format specified in mp4: iso 14996-17 (yeah wierd name ;) )
no others should be used (apart from vobsubs, which nero pushes to become useable on standalones, or mpeg-4 part1)
muxers/creator for mpeg-4 part17 subs are on their way ;)

Q4. Will be PAR supported in encodes (and decodes by ShowTime)?should be already possible in neros encoder

Q4-OT. Shouldn't the X-axis be resized by PAR? 3ivx filters resize the Y-axis?3ivx decoder resizes the stream horizontally ("x-axis")

Q6. Why to limit ND diffusion by allowing to create only backups of unprotected DVDs and not of personal media files?the next version will allow .avs input, which basically will allow you to encode any content

Q7. Is Audio delay "corrected" during Encoding or "stored" in MP4 (I don't know if it's possible)?its possible and i would really wonder if recode2 would not handle delays between audio and video correctly

[JohnV]

Originally posted by LostMP4
Q1. Audio is compressed in constant bitrate or average bitrate - constant quality?
Originally posted by bond
no clue, isnt it chooseable which mode you want?
It's ABR (uses larger bitreservour), but the audio bitrate doesn't fluctuate very much.

[pogo stick]

Originally posted by bond
muxers/creator for mpeg-4 part17 subs are on their way ;)
Ah? You shouldn't tell it. Now I will not be able to sleep. :( :D