packed bitstream question

[chrome]

did a search on my question, came back with somewhat mixed results, and an unclear answer, so once and for all:

with the latest xvid release, is it a good idea to use packed bitstream. the whole b-frame lag thing while editing in nandub, is annoying, and if i use packed bitstream, i wont have this problem anymore, right?

BUT, im curious, will packed bitstream mean there may be any bad effects on the video? will i have problems playing the vid in any circumstances?

what (if any) are the pro's and con's of using it.

thanks.

-Eberhard.

[iago]

If you use it, you will have playback problems with ffdshow.

[chrome]

what kind of problems? will it be unplayable? have any sort of audio synch problems, b-frame errors...? i just started an encode of matrix, so ill find out in 6 hours, but a bit of a heads-up would be nice :)

thanks.

[Koepi]

Ffdshow has problems playing back more than 1 consecutive bframe in packed bitstreams. It'll playback a little jerky (timing errors). You can still switch to XviD DSF (in ffdshow codec setup, select "disable" at xvid).

Regards
Koepi

[bond]

and you will have problems on standalones with the mediatek chipset, the ess chip seems to handle it, dunno about other chips

[Koepi]

For mediatek based players this will sure be fixed with a future firmware, if ESS is capable of coping with it :)

Regards
Koepi

[chrome]

ok, so may as well not use it... through trial and error, ill be able to use nandub to perfectly split my large movie encodes onto two cd, so theres no real need to use packed bitstream. it just sounds like a bit of a pain in the ass using it, at the moment really.

this is really an ffdshow problem isn't it, is it likely to ever get fixed so that there will be NO errors at all using packed bitstream in the future?

i really dont know what that would depend on happening, so im really talkin outa my butt, i dont know if it can ever be fixed so there are no problems at all, using it.

[bond]

Originally posted by Koepi
For mediatek based players this will sure be fixed with a future firmware, if ESS is capable of coping with ityepa :)

btw: the divx5 decoder also seems to have some problems with more than 1 b-frame packed bitstreams, altough pb is their "invention" if i understand it right :D

[Nic]

(Useful definitive answers so I've added a link to the FAQ)

-Nic

[HarryM]

I dont use packed bitstream.
This feature is too new for me, potentially problematic. Only original XviD decoder can corectly decode this.

[crusty]

Sorry if this has been answered elsewhere...but this thread has been linked to from the faq thread so I think this questions needs to be asked here:

The disadvantage of packed stream has been answered in this topic, but:

What exactly are the advantages of using packed bitstream?

This thread hinted at better seekability, but I'm not sure....

[chrome]

when i used packed bitstream, i found the playback VERY jerky, and also on my other comp, the video was actually vertically flipped (!!), but this is apparently an ffdshow problem?

as with better seekability, perhaps someone can help me with this... does it help you to better use the seek/position slider-bar in your movie player?

it DOES let you seek better in nandub if your planning on splitting a movie file into 2 segments, but im curious to know if it helps with searching while playing it in a movie player

either way, i dont use it, the movies play fine without it, and its not that big a bother when viewing it in nandub

[chilledoutuk]

i read somewhere that it can help with bframe lag can anyone confirm this?

[fccHandler]

Historically (from what I've seen), XviD packed bitstream AVIs are better for editing in VirtualDub. Without packed, I sometimes get wrong frame counts or an end frame ends up being lost.

P.S. I haven't seen any posts relating to this specifically, but it looks to me like the new beta3 codec plays choppy in WMP when I select packed bitstream. I've never used ffdshow at all, instead I allow the DivX 5.1.1 decoder to handle my XviD content. If I disable packed bitstream, there is no choppy playback, but then (as I said above) editing becomes unreliable in VirtualDub. Videos I've encoded with older versions of XviD play OK (packed or not), so I'm wondering if something has changed about the packing...

[sh0dan]

A sideline observation.

Why are you generating so many problems for yourself by enabling packeted bitstream by default?

The popularity of ffdshow, and the missing support of proper playback is bound to give a lot of bad user feedback/support requests.

[fccHandler]

Originally posted by sh0dan
Why are you generating so many problems for yourself by enabling packeted bitstream by default?
As I said, editing in VirtualDub seems unreliable unless packed bitstream is selected. And it was never a problem with previous builds of XviD, only the latest one.

[HarryM]

I dont use 'packed bitstream' temporarily.