H.264 status and definition

[CruNcher]

i used rev 12 and saw no bugs like these mentioned ones only the problem with chens mc-c.c not compileable deleting it from the project file and everythings working :)

[movmasty]

Originally posted by bond
not totally correct, there is a workaround avialable in virtualdub(mod) which makes b-frames work with vfw (in divx5 and xvid), but other vfw apps will not offer this workaround
therefore other companies like m$, offering a vfw version of wmv9, dont allow b-frames in their vfw codec, b-frames are only available in their wmencoder
(not to speak of that the avi container itself isnt able to handle b-frames without hacks, not to speak of other h.264 specific things, like markers)

an alternative would be a dshow encoder or even better a commandline encoder (dont understand whats wrong with this, real uses it for rv9 and it would not be that windows-centric as vfw and dshow)

but yes there definitely is the need for a better interface (hope gstreamer, or at least dshow, will become something widely usable in the future) excuse me if i repeat a my old idea, why do not use the mpg container?

i mean that container that now handles mpeg 1 and 2 streams with mpg ext.

years ago there was only the mpeg1 codec, then mpeg2 was added in a separate decoder for commercial reasons(mpeg2 is not free)

so why dont add a mpeg4 decoder to handle movies coded in mpg container with mpeg4 codec????
Originally posted by Tommy Carrot

The only real handicap is the missing VFR ability, but for most of us it's not important at all.
i remember, years ago, that opening avi indeo 3.2 movies with old mainactor 1.xx,
i had the options to set a timecode for EACH INDIVIDUAL FRAMES,

this mean the ability to build a variable frame rate stream into avi,and fine tuned too,
what happened then to this ability???

[EDIT]now i see that ffdshow can save mpeg1 streams in avi container,
would have more sense to save mpeg4 in mpg container...
has an option to "store frames in external file" like "mpeg1 video stream", but isnt working.
anyone knows more about this option od ffdshow?

[movmasty]

Originally posted by bond
current downsides of AVC/H.264

If you sniff throught the available AVC implementations you will surely find out soon that there are still some problems, which have to be solved before AVC is widely usable:

- interoperability: most available implementations support different container formats atm:
.mp4: which is the native container of AVC in the MPEG-4 Standard
.mpg: which is also standardized for AVC
.264: which is the plain bitstream as output by the reference encoder for example
.avi: using AVI for AVC/H.264 is a bad idea!....
i have too see still an implementation of h264 or any other mpeg4 codec in .mpg,

where do i could find one??

[SeeMoreDigital]

Hi movmasty,

Have a look at these two Nero AVC (h.264) threads: -

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=81678

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=82036



Cheers

[movmasty]

Originally posted by SeeMoreDigital
Hi movmasty,

Have a look at these two Nero AVC (h.264) threads: -

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=81678

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=82036



Cheers
no post specified...you want me to read ALL those pages....thanks however

[SeeMoreDigital]

Sorry movmasty,

Re-reading your post it seems you are after h.264 in .mpg

For this, you need to look at MainConcept's implementation. However, it's nowhere near as good as Ahead's....

Please be aware the generic container for h.264 (and Mpeg4 SP/ASP) is .mp4


Cheers

[movmasty]

yes, but .mpg is very widely supported,

mp4...matroska...ogg vorbis....not, never been in the past at least

we always played with avi, why not mpg?

[Manao]

mp4...matroska...ogg vorbis....not, never been in the past at leastAnd ? You can play matroska on any computer, the same goes for ogm. mp4 is a little more tricky, because implementations are not yet widely distributed, but it's also possible.

Now, you want to put h264 into mpg, in order to read it everywhere. But h264 itself is even less supported than mp4, so it's useless imho.
we always played with avi, why not mpg?Because of VFW. No such interfaces exist for mpg. Avi is not a great format, but it is supported by great tools ( VirtualDub for example ), which often can only output avi files, because the VFW interface makes it easy.

[SeeMoreDigital]

When the standards for Mpeg4 (as we know and love it today) were agreed, the MP4 container was designed to be "its" container. Not AVI, MKV, OGG or even MPG.

Right from the start, the MP4 container was specifically designed for "future use" - which includes Mpeg4 AVC (aka Mpeg4 part 10).


Cheers

[movmasty]

Originally posted by Manao
And ? You can play matroska on any computer, the same goes for ogm. mp4 is a little more tricky, because implementations are not yet widely distributed, but it's also possible.

Now, you want to put h264 into mpg, in order to read it everywhere. But h264 itself is even less supported than mp4, so it's useless imho. all good video editors load mpg and can save mpg....

vdub loads mpg and can also save in mpg with an appropriate codec like YMPEG, would not be hard to make it save directly....

and then?

(ps. i said that here 3 years ago, not "now")
Originally posted by Manao
Because of VFW. No such interfaces exist for mpg. Avi is not a great format, but it is supported by great tools ( VirtualDub for example ), which often can only output avi files, because the VFW interface makes it easy.
and...mpg is cross platform very easy to manage in mac or linux too...

[stephanV]

im not sure a random mpg splitter would output H.264 anyway, so support would certainly not be guaranteed (not anymore then with mp4)... VirtualDub will most certainly not handle such files (and very likely never will, for the same reason it does not hanlde MPEG2)... it seems far more logical to support it in MP4 than in MPG... and of course, the container is only part of the issue... you need a decoder too. i guess part of implementing something new is lack of support in the beginning.

as for other containers... native support in Matroska would be nice, AVI is not too suited for it (but will do for now) and due to licensing it doesnt belong in Ogg (perhaps OGM).

[movmasty]

Originally posted by stephanV
im not sure a random mpg splitter would output H.264 anyway no, you need to make one, new mpg codec for mpeg4 as mpeg2 codec was new respect to mpeg1

[Manao]

mpg is a container, not a codec. To read / write into a container, you need a muxer / demuxer. If the container is well done, such a muxer / demuxer can be written without having knowledge of what you're muxing. ( theorically, of course, because just to keep the sync you'd need more information ).

[movmasty]

Originally posted by Manao
mpg is a container, not a codec. To read / write into a container, you need a muxer / demuxer. If the container is well done, such a muxer / demuxer can be written without having knowledge of what you're muxing. ( theorically, of course, because just to keep the sync you'd need more information ).
ok, a new mpeg4 codec for a mpg container...

[stephanV]

a new codec isnt what is needed for h.264 to work in mpg... muxers and splitters are...

[bond]

as smd pointed out already, mainconcepts encoder places h.264 into .mpg. other commercial implementations place it in .mp4 (like sorenson, nero and envivio)

Originally posted by Manao
And ? You can play matroska on any computer, the same goes for ogm. mp4 is a little more tricky, because implementations are not yet widely distributed, but it's also possible.i would say that .mp4 is more widely supported than .mkv and .ogm atm
.mp4 can be played in directshow, quicktime and realplayer already (all for free), plus there exists support for it in all the big opensource players (mplayer, vlc aso...), bringing it to as good as every platform existing (including pocketpc aso...)

read more about exisiting implementations in my mp4 faq i link to in my sig

[stephanV]

i wouldnt go that far... in fact, the tools available for matroska and ogm are in most cases far more user friendly and mp4 support is very often incomplete (although sometimes more on the decoding side)

[bond]

i talked about playback (as manao did), and regarding playback there exists perfect .mp4 support for directshow and yes, incomplete support for .mp4 in quicktime and realplayer. still there is no .mkv and .ogm support at all existing for qt and rp, so what...
also regarding .mp4 support in the big opensource players, its in no way worse or less user friendly than the support for .mkv and .ogm in these players of course

[chilledoutuk]

movmasty seems to not know what hes talking about as I cant see any possible benifet of using a old container format such as .mpg over .mp4 for mpeg-4 video streams.

In fact it will just make things more complicated becuase if somone were to make a splitter that could use the .mpg container for mpeg-4 then it would also have to take into acount all the other video technologies that also use that format such as mpeg-1 and mpeg-2 then differentiate between the different streams and then send the video to the corect dshow filter without having any compatibility problems.

Now legacy application that already exists that can play import or use video that is stored in a .mpg container would not be able to use a Mpeg-4 AVC video stream in a .mpg without making significant time consuming changes to the software, which may as well be spent on supporting the new .mp4 container format.

[movmasty]

Originally posted by chilledoutuk
movmasty seems to not know what hes talking about as I cant see any possible benifet of using a old container format such as .mpg over .mp4 for mpeg-4 video streams.

In fact it will just make things more complicated becuase if somone were to make a splitter that could use the .mpg container for mpeg-4 then it would also have to take into acount all the other video technologies that also use that format such as mpeg-1 and mpeg-2 then differentiate between the different streams and then send the video to the corect dshow filter without having any compatibility problems.

Now legacy application that already exists that can play import or use video that is stored in a .mpg container would not be able to use a Mpeg-4 AVC video stream in a .mpg without making significant time consuming changes to the software, which may as well be spent on supporting the new .mp4 container format. this makes sense, altought mpeg2 was already added in the mpg container using a different decoder, sw needed to be upgraded for this.
This is a thing to be made years ago, at the begin of divx-xvid....