I'm impressed with RMVB.WOW!!!

[Fistandantilus]

I tried out a few gui's I got errors with autoRV9 and wouldn't work properly(using winxp)so I decided to use rmFatcory.Wow what an awesome little proggie.I was backing up my DVD of Smallville Season 1 to 350mb avi files.I decided to see what RMVB was able to do.After several frustrating hours of encoding,fixing the avs script etc,this was before rmfactory,I finally got it figured out.I ended up with 2 files,the first one video the second one audio(RMVB).I used rmFactory to mux them toghther as a matroska file.The total file size was 175mbs.The quality of it is even better than the avi files of twice the size and higher bitrate.In dark scenes in most avi's you will see a little bit of pixilization.In the RMVB-MK files,in the dark scenes,there is absolutly no pixilization at all and it is DVD clear.

I think i'm going to be sticking to this for backup purposes.Only reason I back up my DVD's is that when I am on the road I or my kids watch movies on the Laptop.My laptop doesn't have a DVD player in it just a Cd burner so backing up by DVD movies is necessary if I want to watch them on the laptop in The van.

[Fistandantilus]

ONly thing is I wish that someone would write,or the people that made the gui's,would make a very easy guide to follow.There are practically no guides for RMVB encoding.

[Koepi]

Don't post,

[Koepi]

just to increase your post counter.

[Koepi]

You can use that "edit button"

[Koepi]

below your post

[Koepi]

to edit your post

[Koepi]

and add that comment!

[Koepi]

But thanks for positive feedback anyways, nice to see some satisfied people around sometimes. Usually all people just complain and tell that everything's bad - ah wait, that was the first part of your post ;-)

You're of course right, for your purposes it seems RMVB is the best solution - but for other peoples there are other goals or targets to be achieved, so this isn't the magic bullet for everyone.

Regards
Koepi

[bilu]

Originally posted by Koepi
You're of course right, for your purposes it seems RMVB is the best solution - but for other peoples there are other goals or targets to be achieved, so this isn't the magic bullet for everyone.


That's what the MPEG-2 guys said about MPEG-4 for a looong time ;)
"Yeah, but can you use it on a standalone player?"

Colors in RV9 are quite good, and while it is very slow on encoding it is quick on playback, unlike H.264.

Quality seems to be improving (not so blurry lately) and static textures and edges are the best I've seen (that's why it's becoming an anime favorite).

Pity my computer is still a PIII-850... :D


Bilu

[Sirber]

@Koepi

We don't see you posting in RV9 thread a lot... is it because MPEG4 is in danger? ;)

[bilu]

@Sirber

No, he just got scared by the title ;)

Bilu

[Koepi]

Sirber:

No, i'm just not into anime and don't need RealMdia. I'm still scared off by the propietary formats.

As I wrote above, which point you'll never get it seems, is that everybody has different preferences, different needs, and therefore needs different solutions.

You still always propose realmedia for everything. In extreme low bitrate ranges for example. A quality which _I_ wouldn't accept (i.e. RealAudio 64kbps).

I just did my "moderators job" here and try to remind Fistandadilus about our rules - and i tried to do it in a funnier way than usual.

Bottom line, I didn't hijack this thread and wrote "use XYZ instead" :P

Regards
Koepi

[Atamido]

Originally posted by Koepi
No, i'm just not into anime and don't need RealMdia. I'm still scared off by the propietary formats. You might find it quite useful for futurama episodes....

Also, your use of the word proprietary is interesting. While I cannot use a legal copy of an MPEG-4 de/coder on my computer without someone paying for it in the US, there is no problem with me installing Real's codecs and encoding/decoding with them for free. While the internal workings of the codec are closed from the public, almost everything else about the codec is free*. While at the same time, the internal workings of the MPEG-4 design are open*, liscense to use the does require money.

It is an interesting tradeoff.

I almost always use XviD, but I have always been impressed with the visual quality that Real is able to deliver.
*Free and Open are relative. The requirements to sign draconian EULA's or exorbiant fees to obtain electronic documentation are of different levels of concern to everyone.

[bilu]

Originally posted by Koepi
You still always propose realmedia for everything. In extreme low bitrate ranges for example. A quality which _I_ wouldn't accept (i.e. RealAudio 64kbps).

Koepi, Sirber does have a point, but you're right too.

If you REALLY REALLY want such low bitrates, RV9 is the best (at least in the video part). Also you can use Vorbis in RV9 in their container, probably a lot more audio codecs on Matroska.

Acceptance of such low bitrates... well, it's beyond the scope of this thread :D

Cheers,
Bilu

[tiki4]

Originally posted by Pamel
You might find it quite useful for futurama episodes....


:D

O.K., to contribute something substantial... The interesting question to me is, how this can be accomplished. I think RV9 (and I'm unfortunately no expert here) seems to do some major pre-processing (and post-processing) of the source to achieve such quality at such low bitrates. Yesterday I just did a short test with a small clip from my Springsteen DVD, RV9 with 180 kBit/s 5.1 Real Audio vs. XviD with HE-AAC streaming profile (around 180 kBit/s). I encoded at full resolution 720x576 and you can really push RV9 to say 20-30 % smaller file size without losing too much detail. On the other hand, Real Audio doesn't really stand a chance against HE-AAC. Of course this is just my short impression without doing any serious listening tests...

Regards,

tiki4

[Atamido]

Originally posted by tiki4
Sorry, but: :D ?

[Kaiousama]

@fistandantilus:

I agree with you, i always do several encodings with the main codecs before deciding which codec i'll use for the job session but since january 2003 (when i started using rv9) no one other video codec gave me a similar perceived quality (expecially on hard subbed subtitles' borders) nor a better psnr value for my anime episodes.

If it could be useful i've written a guide for the italian doom9 forum, it's specifically aimed for anime encodings.
If you're not confident with italian language i think an online translator will do a good job (there are not difficult sentences), here's the link (http://forum.doom9.it/viewtopic.php?t=1799)

@Koepi:
If i well remember, a moderator's duty is to minimize flames, not to start potentially new ones ;)

[Koepi]

Kaiousama:

We're still having a civilised discussion here. If this thread turns into a flamewar it'll be closed - but until now I only feel proud that everyone discusses in a constructive way here.

Koepi

[bilu]

What do you people think about RV9 in non-anime encodes? I mean encodes made with EHQ.

I've tried it on the first chapter of LOTR Two Towers and still am impressed by the great colors and static scenes. It looked clean (some may call it washed) but not blurred. Tested with full res and no filtering except IVTC.


Bilu

[Sirber]

Originally posted by tiki4
:D

O.K., to contribute something substantial... The interesting question to me is, how this can be accomplished. I think RV9 (and I'm unfortunately no expert here) seems to do some major pre-processing (and post-processing) of the source to achieve such quality at such low bitrates. Yesterday I just did a short test with a small clip from my Springsteen DVD, RV9 with 180 kBit/s 5.1 Real Audio vs. XviD with HE-AAC streaming profile (around 180 kBit/s). I encoded at full resolution 720x576 and you can really push RV9 to say 20-30 % smaller file size without losing too much detail. On the other hand, Real Audio doesn't really stand a chance against HE-AAC. Of course this is just my short impression without doing any serious listening tests...

Regards,

tiki4 can we see both clips? Also, RV9 don't do any preprocessing or postprocessing. The only "filtering" used is in-loop filtering, done at encoding between frames, and redone at decoding to match the encoding.

[hoola]

i have used rv9 on chicago and matrix 2 (of which i own both)and the quality is just perfect. i also used full res no filters. with chicago i used ehq=none in autorv9 and still got a archivable flic. with M.R. i used full res went for 2 cds used ehq=veryhigh and wow.after a day or so hehe the quality is perfect. i mean perfect when i say perfect.i really dont notice the blurring effect everyone talks about. which is why i waited so long to try rv9 in the first place. i must say rv9 is very acceptable for 1cd backups,easily.anime or not! i know that there is an issue with compatability and such but, the backups are only for me and used for pc>tv so i could care less about compatability.
i mean if im having a get together or something i will pop in the original dvd in the sitting room with surround and all for sure.if its just for me in my bedroom i will only watch backups as to keep from maybe having more of a chance of something happening to the original.im the type of person who can watch a movie 300x before it gets old. ok im rambling again.
yes rv9 with ehq in non anime is totally recommended by me.
after reading the below posts i must say i too use mkv container to put my rv/vorbis encodes into as well. kudos to all autors and contributors. :) :)

[tiki4]

@ bilu:

Well,

I did an encode in RV9 of Bad Boys (the first one). The source isn't the best you can think of but at least a good movie IMHO. I am exercising myself in getting a full movie + 2 languages audio in 5.1 channels to one CD (just for the fun). So ordinary movies get pretty tough jobs this way.

The result was, that I still can get a watchable movie at reasonable resolutions (640 times x) without applying any filters. So I was very impressed how far you can push RV9 + EHQ. I tried the same with XviD but often this one needs the additional space of an XCD to achieve good results.

tiki4

P.S. Sorry for the long post.

P.S. 2: Some guys here are very fast indeed. I didn't see the other posts after bilus yet, so...

@Sirber:

I don't know, I'd have to upload them somewhere and furthermore I didn't tweak both codecs to their limits yet. The XviD file was around 100 MB and the other one around 70 or so. I can go still lower with RV9 (maybe also with XviD) but you can tell the difference pretty fast then.

[ChristianHJW]

Sorry for the OT here, but one thing is really strange about RV9. With becoming available in MKV as a 'normal' video codec, its obviously more and more used in the scene. I dont know if Karl predicted this, and if this was the reason why he decided to post here on the forums, but its a fact. Just go to jigle.com and make a search on all files with extension MKV, just leave the file name empty. Half of the files you find are using RV9 !! Make another search on 'rv9' without adding an extension, and you find a lot of other files also. REAL may not be happy about this, but this is actually bringing RV9 a lot of popularity, and thus ...... market power !!!!

Why do hardware manufacturers, even real big ones like Philips (http://www.consumer.philips.com/global/b2c/ce/catalog/product.jhtml;jsessionid=F2ZCCVIU1FF1ICRQNAVRZNYKGBUTSHG4?divId=0&groupId=VIDEO_GR&catId=DVD_CA&subCatId=DVD_PLAYERS_SU&productId=DVD737_02&language=de&country=DE), launch DVD players with 'DivX' support, instead of simply writing 'MPEG4' support ? Well, because of the market power that the brand name DivX has meanwhile, because it is widely used. Of course, the number of MKV files with RV9 on p2p is still small, so there is no such power behind it yet, but its definitely growing, and fast.

How strange does it appear in this context that it is DivX N, the 'shooting-star' of the p2p era, who now go mad and absolutely want to leave the open scenario that made them big, and have plans to create a new standard now with 'Q', introducing their own container, own video editing/creation tools, and of course ... DRM !! I wrote about this here (http://forums.divx.com/viewtopic.php?topic=54857&forum=5) in more detail why i find this strange .... did they forget their roots ?

Sorry for the OT ....

[tiki4]

Just to add this to Christian:

Who of them makes really money with p2p users? I don't know how much money DXN gets from hardware manufacturers for DivX compatible devices. Maybe they have to pay much more to the MPEG Licensees for 'selling' an MPEG4 compliant codec.

Just my thoughts,

tiki4

Edit: NUS (non-understandable sentences).

[bilu]

@ChristianHJW

Well, market is growing and everybody is trying to lock the market to their format. The usual.

The more choice we have, the more the market will compete on features.
And IMHO MPEG-LA will start chasing XVid for its dominant presence without royalties (everyone knows that there isn't such a thing as "everybody compiles the source of this academic purpose project", most people download binaries from 2 developers, so they make an easy target). That's why MPEG-LA has been quiet until now, there's not enough MPEG-4 commercial market yet. But it's on its way.

Having RV9, WMV and others around break a bit of this MPEG-4 potential monopoly. Remember how much Apple and others had to fight about the licenses proposed by MPEG-LA to MPEG-4? DO you really think these guys could quit so easily? :sly:

The RV9 license and the potential threat posed by MPEG-LA will help RV9 and WMV (I wouldn't be surprised to see a WMV encoding integration into the next Windows versions :devil: )

Maybe we'll turn out to develop a really open-source video codec based on Theora or completely new in the future. Then we'll be in "patent war". :sly:


Bilu

[ChristianHJW]

Originally posted by tiki4 Who of them makes really money with p2p users. I don't how much money DXN gets from hardware manufacturers for DivX compatible devices.

My information is that meanwhile the 'DivX certified' program and the license payments from hardware vendors to be allowed to use the name 'DivX' and their logos for hardware DVD players is their main source of revenues, even bigger than the DivX Pro codec and adware payments ....

EDIT : :D typo in ad'a'ware ;) .... thanks bilu ...

[bilu]

Originally posted by ChristianHJW
even bigger than the DivX Pro codec and adaware payments ....

LOL :D

It's adware payments. Ad-aware is one of the medicins. :p

But it would be cool if DXN payed another company to clean spyware on my computer :D

Bilu

[tiki4]

Originally posted by bilu


Having RV9, WMV and others around break a bit of this MPEG-4 potential monopoly. Remember how much Apple and others had to fight about the licenses proposed by MPEG-LA to MPEG-4? DO you really think these guys could quit so easily? :sly:



Didn't we accuse Microsoft of monopoly once upon a time?



The RV9 license and the potential threat posed by MPEG-LA will help RV9 and WMV (I wouldn't be surprised to see a WMV encoding integration into the next Windows versions :devil: )



There is already the integration via Windows Movie Maker in Windows XP. Also ripping CD's to WMA is there since Windows Media Player 7.0.

Regarding 'Q': I haven't seen anything of that yet. But if they really can develop something ground breaking (they are in the RV9 or maybe RV10 league then), say higher quality, lower bitrates or both and they get the same hardware vendors that now pay for the DivX certified logo into the boat, they can make money but without paying anything at MPEG-LA. They just have to be faster than M$ which seem to aim for WMV9 certified devices as well. I don't consider it fun to play against them...


tiki4

[bilu]

I still think that competition and lock-ups will get hard enough to motivate the development of real open-source video codecs. Patents will get in the way as much as they can.

EDIT: But let's not ruin this thread about how good RV9 is :D

Bilu

[ChristianHJW]

Originally posted by tiki4 Regarding 'Q': I haven't seen anything of that yet. But if they really can develop something ground breaking (they are in the RV9 or maybe RV10 league then), say higher quality, lower bitrates or both and they get the same hardware vendors that now pay for the DivX certified logo into the boat, they can make money but without paying anything at MPEG-LA. They just have to be faster than M$ which seem to aim for WMV9 certified devices as well. I don't consider it fun to play against them...

Sure, they could get hardware support for it maybe, fighting hard against M$, trying to live from licensing revenues where Redmond gives it all away for free just to push WMV.
But this doesnt answer the question what kind of material people would play in those units, once these had 'Q' support. Because the 'normal user', for sure, will be using Rududu + Vorbis in MKV by then, made and edited in VFRE :D .. all freeware, and cool ;) ....

[bilu]

Can you describe a bit of VFRE and Rududu?
How good are they?

VFRE is lossless and Rududu is wavelet, I know. But what about their compression and image quality?

Bilu

[tiki4]

@Christian:

I wish you the best success with MKV seeing how fast this project has developed and into what it has developed. I considered it dead when you splitted from MCF.

Anyway, at the moment I do not care to predict what the future will bring. I think what speaks against WMV is the fact that encoding into that format is still something for specialists. Yes, there is Windows Media Encoder but what end user bothers with 'encoding profiles'? Also there is WMV9 VCM but I bet apart (from this forum) not many people knowing DivX have ever heard of it. A third thing that speaks against is that CD/DVD burners come bundled with Nero or InstantCD+DVD which all have MPEG2 encoders built in. So nearly everybody with a computer can make his own DVDs by now.

Backup up DVDs is a different thing. There are the people with a burner which just need to use InstantCopy or something similar. Then there are still guys like us going the MPEG4 (or RV9) route and backing up to CD.

P2P users, well, for the moment I think they'll stick with DivX as there are hardware players that can play them. I didn't hear of any RV9 players yet. Also I don't think we will see WMV9 encodes there because M$ is still evil.

Enough said,

tiki4

[ChristianHJW]

Originally posted by bilu Can you describe a bit of VFRE and Rududu? How good are they?
VFRE is lossless

You swob VFRE with Gldm's WARP. VFRE is Jcsston's and spyder'

Variable Frame Rate Encoder

project, the true opensource successor of Virtualdub :). jcsston has a very limited form of an alpha on his HDD already, and it can eat AVS scripts on his input as far as i heard. It is truely timestamp based in all operations, thats the plan, so there is no framerate anymore.

Along with VFRE the both of them are working on a new interface API, which can be extended later to a new openstandard codec API. But be prepared, until we have only 30% of Virtualdub's functions in it, we may talk several years ;) ....

and Rududu is wavelet, I know. But what about their compression and image quality? Bilu

I dont know where Rududu i going, but i am deeply impressed what Nicolas has created, from scratch and completely on his own. I just feel that for Xiph it would have been a better solution to work harder on Tarkin, try to interest people like Nicolas to work with them in the team, instead of adapting an old, abandoned ON2 codec as a platform for their future video project. This behaviour is confirming me that Xiph people are no video people, they are musicians. They dont understand the video scene, IMHO.

[bilu]

@ChristianHJW

About VFRE this thread might be of interest to you:

@VFW/DShow experts: VFR in Avisynth could be good news for Matroska
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=63541

Read my last posts, I described a probably very easy to develop and completely AVS and VFW compatible method to use VFR in Matroska :)


Bilu

[bilu]

One thing about RV9 on standalone players:

Most DivX standalone players are Linux-based and support updates.
The Kiss DP-450 only added Ogg Vorbis after it has been released.

The same can be done eventually to RV9, probably they're using Mplayer or something. Haven't checked RV9 license for such a thing though...


Bilu

[Fistandantilus]

Koepi I didn't repost just to get another post so don't assmume it makes an a$$ out of U and Me.LOL.If you look I've probably posted a total of 5-6 times since the time I started in Doom 9's forum which was quite some time ago.

I just wanted to point out that I thought RMVB did an amazing job for how small the files were.I got DVDrips of Smallville onto 175mb files and they look pretty darn clear and sharp.
I also just wanted to show the appreciation to whoever took the time to do Rmfactory because it is such a simple program to use,took me all of 5 minutes to figure it out and get it working right.I
also just wanted to point out that I had errors while installing the other one.
Anyways you are right.For the purposes I am using the files for it is excellent.I can fit more onto a disc,when I go somewhere,rather than carting around a whack load of CD's with me.

[FastMike]

Originally posted by Sirber
can we see both clips? Also, RV9 don't do any preprocessing or postprocessing. The only "filtering" used is in-loop filtering, done at encoding between frames, and redone at decoding to match the encoding.

Sirber,

Just wondering how you are certain about the in-loop filtering in RV9. IIRC, a certain someone else mentioned a carefully tuned postfilter in RV9, but maybe I missed something else?

I am certain there is some filtering going on, just trying to figure out for sure if its done during the motion compensation loop, done afterwards, or a combo of both.

[Kb_cruncher]

I'm so impressed with the quality of rv9 i doubt i will use anything else for quite some time to come and the best bit for me is Xbox Media Player now has full support for rv9 including 5.1 channel audio.Usually with other formats you can really see any imperfections come through on a tv but there are non with rv9.
All my dvd backups are 890mb so i can fit 5 on a dvdrw and even a 145min movies look awesome at this size using anamorphic resize(with resized source).
All i need know is matroska support for xbmp so i can have he aac and rv9 :D

[Sirber]

Originally posted by FastMike
Sirber,

Just wondering how you are certain about the in-loop filtering in RV9. IIRC, a certain someone else mentioned a carefully tuned postfilter in RV9, but maybe I missed something else?

I am certain there is some filtering going on, just trying to figure out for sure if its done during the motion compensation loop, done afterwards, or a combo of both.

From what I remember, RV9 use a "tuned" in-loop filtering to add more compressibility and to remove artefacts.