Hardware for a WM9 encoding PC

[bigjohn]

Hi everyone.

I would like your fine and considered opinions on how to build an encoding workstation.

The unit will not be used to play games, so let us not devolve into a discussion of Nvidea VS Radeon.

I'm interested in Athlon / Athlon64 / Pent. 4 and motherboard/memory type considerations...

The workstation will run xp pro or win2k pro.

Also any information on software to transcode mpg2 to wm9? I know I can use MS WM9 encoder... but perhaps something outhere is better?

John

[Neo Neko]

Well first of all don't rule out the Nvidia/ATI issue. Though it is some months away before you need to give it any serious thought. And even then it should not make a big difference.

Second if you are going to be doing WM9 you need the all the horse power you can get. It takes WM9 easily twice the time to encode than your standard MPEG4 codec on the same hardware. And that is just to get equivalent quality. WM9 can't beat MPEG4 for quality. But it is comparable. It just takes a heck of alot longer to get the same result.

Lastly you are going to have to spend more on hardware. If you are not aware Intel and Microsoft are closely allied. So for the absolute best performance you should probably stick to the more expensive Pentium 4 chips etc. There is nothing wrong with the AMD chips. Just that Microsoft really only optimizes for their friends at Intel for the most part. They each drive the product cycles for the other. AMD 64 can run some 32bit aplications better than comparable 32 bit processor. But there is no reliable way of knowing exactly which aplication. I have not heard of 64bit versions of WM9 existing either. And it will probably stay that way untill Intel finally releases their AMD 64 clone. With MPEG4 this will not be a problem. You can already get builds of Xvid for 32bit processors or 64bit. Intel or AMD. Windows, Linux, Mac, BeOS. And DXN is already testing 64bit Divx for the AMD 64. And most h264 codecs should be the same way as well since they are also open standards and are not reliant on one slow company to push their development.

You might look at some guides like the ones over at Tom's Hardware and see what they have listed. A warning though. Tom's Hardware has been known to put out some unrelible or questionable data in the past. But it is one of the sites people often refference. And you will probably find some usefull info there.

[bigjohn]

thanks for your thoughts, neo... but WM9 is the distribution medium here, so 90% of what you said is of little value.

I would love to hear if anyone has comparative info re: encoding wm9 *with any application* on various hardware platforms.

[Neo Neko]

Originally posted by bigjohn
thanks for your thoughts, neo... but WM9 is the distribution medium here, so 90% of what you said is of little value.

I never said there were not reasons to use it. But you did not make your intentions for the result clear. Which can have an impact on the software which you can use and other possible better alternatives. So how exactly is it to be distributed so it mandates WM9? ;)

Originally posted by bigjohn
I would love to hear if anyone has comparative info re: encoding wm9 *with any application* on various hardware platforms.

Well when it comes to encoding "with any application" why would you need another aplication? WM9enc, Premiere, Vegas they all offer different features. But the encoding is all the same. The output gets routed to directshow and is encoded by the exact same codec no matter what app you use. What kind of filterning etc are you gonna do? If it deals alot with floating point math then traditionally AMD processors will be better. On rare occasions you get something highly optimised for SSE2 or SSE3 then of course the Pentium would be faster and possibly the only chip cabable of running it. What application you plan to use is alot less relevant than what type of filtering and what type of codec you plan to use when you talk hardware. And as far as your codec choice goes it is as I said Microsoft and Intel are buddies. An Intel chip is your best choice if you plan to use WM9. And without knowing more that is the best anyone can say. You only have yourself to blame. Specifics are spiffy.

Now there may be something on the software side you may or may not know. There are technically 3 WM9 codecs in public circulation. The first two are fairly well known. WM9 Directshow and WM9 VCM. Both of which should favor a Pentium. [for obvious reasons] The third would be FFmpeg. ;) And that not to many people know. FFmpeg being natively developed on *nix and generally compiled with GCC I have found tends to favor Athlon systems a bit better. Further it tends to encode a bit faster with comparable quality compared to the real WM9 codecs on any given system. Probably since FFmpeg is not / can not be legally sold they don't have to worry as much about pattented algorythms. But that would not be a mojor obsticle to keep someone from using it in a business sense. Bait and switch would be childs play. Now you may be wanting to ask what good is FFmpeg to you if you plan to use VFW or Directshow applications. It isn't any good. But that is where FFdshow/FFvfw come in. ;)

[bigjohn]

wm9 is required because the audience will be 98% windows users, and we want to use the native windows media player. Actually, its a requirement to. And to use wm9 drm too. (i know, drm is a dirty word, but...)

So, i need to have WMV files and ASX metadata... the content must be streamed and not stored on the users device, so the server will use RTSP protocol. Given these requirements, I'll likely end up on Windows 2003 with Media Server...

John

[bond]

Originally posted by bigjohn
wm9 is required because the audience will be 98% windows users, and we want to use the native windows media player. Actually, its a requirement to. And to use wm9 drm too. (i know, drm is a dirty word, but...)lol, thats exactly the reason why i love m$ (and thats why the EU punished them to pay 500 million € for bundling their wmp with windows)
sorry to interupt the discussion i couldnt hold this back ;)

[bigjohn]

do you realize how hard it would be to deploy a commercial product that required it's own viewer? Most corporate PC's are locked down, disallowing the user from installing any software at all except what comes from windows-update...

So, I try to target what is out there... and there are native wm9 players for Mac too...

John

[CruNcher]

Originally posted by bigjohn
do you realize how hard it would be to deploy a commercial product that required it's own viewer? Most corporate PC's are locked down, disallowing the user from installing any software at all except what comes from windows-update...

ehh then there is a reason that they are lock downed or do you think Microsoft is trying to deploy Windows Media Player Components for Corporate systems hmm the Server and Content Serving Platform for sure but not the Player. Also most Corporate Clients i saw even don't have Directshow installed why would someone in the Finance Department need Sound or even Video :P the only thing they need is Excel and Word :rolleyes:

[bond]

Originally posted by bigjohn
do you realize how hard it would be to deploy a commercial product that required it's own viewer? Most corporate PC's are locked down, disallowing the user from installing any software at all except what comes from windows-update...ok if you are specifically aiming at users which are behind what you call "locked down" pcs than i understand it

for all other users around i wouldnt underestimate the usability of realplayer and quicktime

[bigjohn]

Originally posted by bond
ok if you are specifically aiming at users which are behind what you call "locked down" pcs than i understand it

for all other users around i wouldnt underestimate the usability of realplayer and quicktime
GAWD - realplayer? That spyware? Never EVER will I have that on my pc.

Some of the mediaplayers that have been developed as opensource are great - vlc, mediaplayer classic, etc... but we can't expect a client to have anything but what is already part of win98/win2k/winxp.

Anyway, it sounds like the only encoder I could/should use to make wmv files is with Windows Media encoder on an P4 computer...with a good amount of ram and some fast disks.

Thanks.

John

[Neo Neko]

Originally posted by bigjohn
wm9 is required because the audience will be 98% windows users, and we want to use the native windows media player. Actually, its a requirement to. And to use wm9 drm too. (i know, drm is a dirty word, but...)

DRM, unfortunate but somewhat understandable. To be honest with you WM DRM is not that good. I can bypass it on a whim with common software found on my PC. But I am not an average user so I digress on that point.

And another small point. I will try to refrain from preaching. But the "lets just use what is installed on most of our customers PC" while popular is intrinsically flawed. The majority of Windows users are not going to have WM9 installed as most versions if not all versions save maybe Windows Server 2003 don't come with it. It will have to be installed. And MPEG4 components for WMP can be just as easily installed. I will leave it at that.

Originally posted by bigjohn
So, i need to have WMV files and ASX metadata... the content must be streamed and not stored on the users device, so the server will use RTSP protocol. Given these requirements, I'll likely end up on Windows 2003 with Media Server...

I know I am nitpicking here I just hope that you will humor me this bit. And if you are already aware of this ignore this next part. But unfortunatly it is quite impossible for anyone to stream anything to anyone without that data getting stored locally. Even with the MPEG4 multicasts I have done or recieved over the Mbone can be recorded rather simply. WM is no different. I assume this is for a video rental service of some sort since anyone else would hardly have need of such a feature. Most porn sites which are the largest portion of the Internet video business still allow people to store streams on their HD as a perk of membership and to save bandwidth by not having to stream the same content several times over.

If the codec is going to be the most strenuous process you are running [IE no filterning etc] then get the most powerfull P4 processor you can get. Honestly any more than 256 of 512 MegaBytes or RAM is going to be a waste. You could probably get by with 128Mb of RAM just fine. Also you don't need the fastest HD on the market. A 5400 RPM HD should do you just fine as long as you have enough storrage. With WM9 the CPU is the biggest bottleneck. You should not even come close to maxing out IDE datarate or bandwidth across the bus or to memory. Most video encoding is computationally taxing more than anything else. And the higher the frame size the more you need your CPU. That would be rule number one of video encoding. Low complexity codecs like MPEG1 and 2 with todays CPUs can max out HD transfers and memory swaps. But that is not what you are using. ;)

Lastly why Windows Server 2003? What exactly does it offer that you require? Windows 2000 Server with SP4 and the WM9 codecs and related software installed should be every bit as good and substantially more stable than Windows Server 2003 at a reasonably lower price point to boot. I am not aware of any feature that makes 2003 more ideal for your purposes. Unless you are getting some sort of discount on 2003. I would probably still choose 2000 with service packs though. I have run 2000 Advanced Server and Data Center Server and would not be switching to 2003 for quite a while yet. At least not till one or two service packs have come out for it to patch it's many holes. ;)

[bigjohn]

Originally posted by Neo Neko
DRM, unfortunate but somewhat understandable. To be honest with you WM DRM is not that good. I can bypass it on a whim with common software found on my PC. But I am not an average user so I digress on that point.

wmplayer 9 can process encrypted drm streams, can it not? At least MS would have us believe this... those can't be 'bypassed' so easily. I suppose one could run a frame capture application. How do online video places like 'movielink' do it?


And another small point. I will try to refrain from preaching. But the "lets just use what is installed on most of our customers PC" while popular is intrinsically flawed. The majority of Windows users are not going to have WM9 installed as most versions if not all versions save maybe Windows Server 2003 don't come with it. It will have to be installed. And MPEG4 components for WMP can be just as easily installed. I will leave it at that.

our concern is PLAYER software installed...

I know I am nitpicking here I just hope that you will humor me this bit. And if you are already aware of this ignore this next part. But unfortunatly it is quite impossible for anyone to stream anything to anyone without that data getting stored locally. Even with the MPEG4 multicasts I have done or recieved over the Mbone can be recorded rather simply. WM is no different. I assume this is for a video rental service of some sort since anyone else would hardly have need of such a feature. Most porn sites which are the largest portion of the Internet video business still allow people to store streams on their HD as a perk of membership and to save bandwidth by not having to stream the same content several times over.

this is true to a point. http streams would create a temporary file for the entire video in the 'temporary internet files' directory. My understanding of RTSP is that is only stores a small cache of the current blocks of the file, never the entire video.


If the codec is going to be the most strenuous process you are running [IE no filterning etc] then get the most powerfull P4 processor you can get. Honestly any more than 256 of 512 MegaBytes or RAM is going to be a waste. You could probably get by with 128Mb of RAM just fine. Also you don't need the fastest HD on the market. A 5400 RPM HD should do you just fine as long as you have enough storrage. With WM9 the CPU is the biggest bottleneck. You should not even come close to maxing out IDE datarate or bandwidth across the bus or to memory. Most video encoding is computationally taxing more than anything else. And the higher the frame size the more you need your CPU. That would be rule number one of video encoding. Low complexity codecs like MPEG1 and 2 with todays CPUs can max out HD transfers and memory swaps. But that is not what you are using. ;)

Right. My real thought was 'will I get a boost from Athlon 64'. I can grab a couple of nice 7200rpm disks cheap enough. Its the server that will likely need some SATA disks.


Lastly why Windows Server 2003? What exactly does it offer that you require? Windows 2000 Server with SP4 and the WM9 codecs and related software installed should be every bit as good and substantially more stable than Windows Server 2003 at a reasonably lower price point to boot. I am not aware of any feature that makes 2003 more ideal for your purposes. Unless you are getting some sort of discount on 2003. I would probably still choose 2000 with service packs though. I have run 2000 Advanced Server and Data Center Server and would not be switching to 2003 for quite a while yet. At least not till one or two service packs have come out for it to patch it's many holes. ;)

It was my impression (again from researching MS website) that server2003 had all the components for Media serving installed. I can get the software for $550, which is reasonably close to what I can pay for server 2000. I'd be happy to stay with 2k because as you note, i'm familiar with it (don't have it installed here right now though...).

Thanks for your comments.!

John

[azerty@qwaerty]

Also any information on software to transcode mpg2 to wm9? I know I can use MS WM9 encoder... but perhaps something outhere is better?

For MPEG2 -> WM9 WM9Encodeur is the best solution for WM9 Streaming encoding ...

- WMV9 Pro codec VBR with 2 pass streaming profil
- WMA9 Pro codec VBR with 2 pass streaming profil
- WMV container

Sometimes I have the impression that the moderators of this forum are not ojective with the WM9 (performance and quality): it's an excellent solution for high performance video and audio encoding. In the XviD Devapi3 and WMV9 comparison much still said that XviD was visualy better than WMV9 with 1 or 1.5 dB less in PSNR test. Same judgement with RV10/XviD. Sometimes XviD fan say that XviD is better than the RV10 for animate ... ???

- WMV9 video codec Free*
- WMA9 audio codec Free*
- WMV container Free*
- WM9Encodeur Free*
- WM9Player Free*
- Sonic Produceur for HD-DVD interface (beta and not free)

*Free ... with M$ OS ... :D

If we shouldn't always use the WM9 it isn't because it's not powerful but to prevent a situation of monopole with WM9. MPEG4 ASP isn't the best codec: WMV9, H264, VP6 or RV10 are little most powerfull but we must use MPEG4 ASP to prevent that one day all the codec are paying. Today all codec are free because XviD is an excellent Open Source Codec ...

The next generation of CDA, HD-DVD or DVDA will have DRM function, with Microsoft or without Microsoft, with WM9 or without WM9. The anti-hacking is a request of the Major ...

[McoreD]

As it was clearly mentioned above, for encoding video, I would also recommend an Intel Pentium 4 Processor. Encoding video is CPU intensive, the power of the processor should be the main conserdation. Apart from that, an Intel Motherboard and PC3200 DDR RAM configured in Dual Channel will be a plus.

Freeme was a successful attempt to break WM7 DRM. Microsoft has addressed this issue (http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/drm/freeme.aspx). However, tt has been over two years, and WM8 and WM9 DRM hasn't broken yet.

Windows Server 2003 will include Windows Media Services 9 Series (http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/9series/server.aspx) will allow you to stream your media over the internet. So if you can afford it, going with Server 2003 will be a good idea.

[Latexxx]

Originally posted by azerty@qwaerty
- WMV9 video codec Free*

Is slow.

- WMA9 audio codec Free*

Is is crap. (Except WMA Pro which isn't being used anywhere.) The ongoing great listening test @ 128 kbps will hopefully prove that.

- WMV container Free*

But isn't suitable for streaming at low bitrates because it has too much overhead.

- WM9Encodeur Free*
- WM9Player Free*

They work only in Windows. MPEG4, Real and QuickTime are playable in many systems.

- Sonic Produceur for HD-DVD interface (beta and not free)

There aren't any players playing those files.

Nevertheless WMA9 streaming from Windows 2003 server is like heaven. It just works and I have some positive experiences from it.

PS. You should really check the English counterparts for some French words to gain some credibility.

[McoreD]

Originally posted by Latexxx
They work only in Windows. MPEG4, Real and QuickTime are playable in many systems.

I am surprised that most of us are not aware or do not acknowledge the fact that there is Windows Media Player 9 for Mac OS X (http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/software/Macintosh/osx/default.aspx) available for FREE.

Windows Media content can be also played in Linux using MPlayer (http://www.mplayerhq.hu/homepage/) .

Windows Media also made it into linux. Turbolinux Announced First Linux Support for Microsoft Windows Media Format (http://www.turbolinux.com/news/040427.html)

[bond]

Originally posted by azerty@qwaerty
Sometimes I have the impression that the moderators of this forum are not ojective with the WM9 (performance and quality): it's an excellent solution for high performance video and audio encoding.noone says that wm9 codecs are bad solutions, still it has to be prooven that there exists a field where wm9 is able to beat the technologies mpeg-4 provides
and with h.264 mpeg-4 is getting even more powerfull

m$ once chose to leave the way of supporting the open mpeg-4 standard and instead decided to go an own totally proprieatary way, still i dont see any benefits because of this decision for the consumers till now, offering things which couldnt have been done with mpeg-4

being more specific: do you mean statements like "wma9 has this ugly metallic sound on low bitrates" or "wmv9 tends to blur out details on medium/low bitrates", i thought these were facts ;)

In the XviD Devapi3 and WMV9 comparison much still said that XviD was visualy better than WMV9 with 1 or 1.5 dB less in PSNR test.well if you do your own tests with quality measuring values like psnr you will see that they are far from being perfect
nothing goes above your own eyes when measuring quality

[saratoga]

Originally posted by CruNcher
ehh then there is a reason that they are lock downed or do you think Microsoft is trying to deploy Windows Media Player Components for Corporate systems hmm the Server and Content Serving Platform for sure but not the Player.

They're locked down because people like me lock them down. This has nothing to do with MS. I can't even distribute videos in WM because so many machine cannot play it (you need to logged in as Admin the first time you run a WM video in order to load the codec for WU unless the tech slipstreamed it into the install or added it later). For this reason I use MSMPEG4v2. Its the best codec that I can find that can be played on all 2000 and newer machines with any level of permissions and no additional software.

Also most Corporate Clients i saw even don't have Directshow installed why would someone in the Finance Department need Sound or even Video :P the only thing they need is Excel and Word :rolleyes:

All Windows machines have Directshow installed. They also have video installed, as windows is based on a GUI.

Is slow.

Compared to what?

Is is crap. (Except WMA Pro which isn't being used anywhere.) The ongoing great listening test @ 128 kbps will hopefully prove that.

If you have the freedom to use WM9, you can certainly use WMA Pro which is top notch. But even standard is fine for most corp uses (people don't have nice speakers or any speakers at all at work).

They work only in Windows.

But they decode on the mac and on unix machines so in actuality they work on virtually all machines.

MPEG4, Real and QuickTime are playable in many systems.

But far, far fewer then WM. Hence the point of ever bothing with WM in the first place. Most machines do not have real and qt installed, particularly in office settings. ~95% have some flavor of WMP installed (so they can decode WM9 provided their admin allows it).

[slavickas]

Originally posted by saratoga

But far, far fewer then WM. Hence the point of ever bothing with WM in the first place. Most machines do not have real and qt installed, particularly in office settings. ~95% have some flavor of WMP installed (so they can decode WM9 provided their admin allows it).

vlc and winamp can be installed without admin permissions

[Neo Neko]

Originally posted by saratoga
Compared to what?

It would be slow compared to basically any other codec. MP3, Vorbis, and even AAC if I am not mistaken are all noticably faster to encode and tend to sound better.

Originally posted by saratoga
If you have the freedom to use WM9, you can certainly use WMA Pro which is top notch.

And who in their right mind would plan to stream lossless audio over standard internet connections. Heck it would be tough over basic broadband as well. It would only be possible over a LAN. And that is not what bigjohn is looking to do IIRC. He is looking to stream over the net which implies good ole tinny WMA. On the topic of WMA pro though it does sound good. It would be rediculous as a lossless codec if it did not. But almost any other lossless codec will encode faster and produce smaller files in most cases compared to WMA PRO.

[i]Originally posted by saratoga
But they decode on the mac and on unix machines so in actuality they work on virtually all machines.

But it is considderably more painfull to set it up on those systems than other formats like MPEG4/AAC And Vorbis etc. In fact if I am not mistaken current methods often make use of loading the Microsoft DLLs which raises issues of legality for non Microsoft systems.

Originally posted by saratoga
But far, far fewer then WM.

Not true at all. In fact both Apple and Real have provided actual support for Linux and other non Windows OS in the past. [Unlike Microsoft who wont support someone they have no stake in or poses real competition in another area.] Though for quicktime version 4 was the last official version. Which is still adequate. But now there is openquicktime which is getting better and better. Something we will never see the like of for WM. In fact even if there were not such projects based on other companies open standards unlike Microsoft's closed standards they are not any harder to use under Linux than WM is. Just like WM all I need to do is coppy a DLL file or two to my Mplayer file tree and I can play any Quicktime or real media content just as easy as WM.

Originally posted by saratoga
Hence the point of ever bothing with WM in the first place. Most machines do not have real and qt installed, particularly in office settings.

That really depends on the business. But is totally irrelevant to the discussion.

Originally posted by saratoga
~95% have some flavor of WMP installed (so they can decode WM9 provided their admin allows it).

WM9 does not come with any version of Windows. So even that dubious 95% statistic is of no real benefit. Further if the admin is going to install WM9 why not Quicktime and Real while he is at it. [If we want to get really technical it is entirely possible to playback both Quicktime and Real Media without their respective players under Windows. I do it all the time.] A person does not have to just settle for what comes installed with their machine. That is a market misconception perpetuated by Microsoft to spin the markets in their favor. These are general computing machines capable of running a nearly endless number of constantly evolving aplications. We can expand their capabilities at will. And it has become rediculously easy to do so especially in the MS Windows world. So it makes no sense not to do so. There is nothing wrong with requiring users to install software. In fact as users it is something they should all be familliar with. The only time installing would be a major issue is if the install program is of more than sufficient size for the functionality it provides. ffdshow and friends are hardly a burden even over dialup.

In the end I understand the situation as being that bigjohn is either being mandated to use WM by a controlling body, or is simply looking for a simple system that even though it can not provide the best quality functions decently on many target systems. Either of which are valid reasons. But no more valid than any other reason. This whole "the user does not have to install anything" business is some sort of false doctrine. They always have to. And pandering to that mentality only continues to breed more ignorant users who can't take basic steps to secure their machines or perform rudementary system matinance. Which in the end is showing to hurt us all. WM and Microsoft's streaming server solution are decent. But not any better than MPEG4 and software like the Darwin Streaming Server. In fact I much preffer MPEG4 and DSS over the Microsoft solution due to the cost savings, increased freedoms, and a much wider possible audience than what any MS product could provide. The only difficulty with MPEG4 for commercial streaming is the licensing. Microsoft does not require you to license their solution since they can simply gouge the equivalent funds out of consumers through sales of MS Windows operating systems and/or the highly overpriced MS Office suite.

[bond]

And who in their right mind would plan to stream lossless audio over standard internet connections.wma9 pro is not the lossless codec (the lossless codec is called "wma9 lossless")
wma9 pro can only be used starting from 128kbps and higher, therefore its not really usable for streaming

m$ knows why they label all their codecs as "wma9" :devil:
this leads up to the point where people get confused that much that they think that wma9 is one codec able to offer everything: lowbitrate, multichannel, lossless and speech encoding, altough these are a whole bunch of different codecs, which only have the name in common...

If you have the freedom to use WM9, you can certainly use WMA Pro which is top notch. But even standard is fine for most corp uses (people don't have nice speakers or any speakers at all at work).as i said wma9 pro isnt really usable for streaming + you would need a special decoder to be able to decode it, as its not compatible to wma9 std

when it comes to quality it has to be said that you also hear that wma9 std is crap on low bitrates, even with weak speakers
wma9 has this typical metallic sound at low bitrates

have a look here for a quality comparison at 64kbps:
http://www.rjamorim.com/test/64test/plot12z.png
which shows that mp3pro, vorbis and aac (with sbr enabled) beat wma9 std (but also realaudio) by far qualitywise at this bitrate

[bigjohn]

Thanks for continuing the debate...

we're doing video, by the way. And the fact that there is no 'fee' to encode or distribute this content using wm9 is a factor in the decision, as is the fact that while we won't be streaming 'over the net' we want to keep the quality as high as possible while abusing the network as little as possible.

It's great to see the 'perceved quality' of the audio codecs, but I do have to say that it's much easier to buy a car stereo that supports mp3 and wm9 than it is to buy on that supports vorbis... So I personally encode my 'take along' audio in wm9 vbr.

John

[avih]

Originally posted by bigjohn
Thanks for continuing the debate...

we're doing video, by the way. And the fact that there is no 'fee' to encode or distribute this content using wm9 is a factor in the decision, as is the fact that while we won't be streaming 'over the net' we want to keep the quality as high as possible while abusing the network as little as possible.

It's great to see the 'perceved quality' of the audio codecs, but I do have to say that it's much easier to buy a car stereo that supports mp3 and wm9 than it is to buy on that supports vorbis... So I personally encode my 'take along' audio in wm9 vbr.

John

eventually, it's your choice. i think that a better description of your task would have made this thread more focused. i.e. how many users, what's the bandwidth of the users? of the server?, what is 'highest possible quality'? (r we talking VOD for home users? corporate instructional videos? etc). such info would have made this thread better imho. but it's a good lesson for next time ;)

[bigjohn]

Originally posted by avih
eventually, it's your choice. i think that a better description of your task would have made this thread more focused. i.e. how many users, what's the bandwidth of the users? of the server?, what is 'highest possible quality'? (r we talking VOD for home users? corporate instructional videos? etc). such info would have made this thread better imho. but it's a good lesson for next time ;)

Well, I did specify what I wanted: A discourse on the best hardware for me to build a WMV9 encoding pc...

[Sagittaire]

wma9 pro can only be used starting from 128kbps and higher, therefore its not really usable for streaming

Yes in VBR Bitrate 2 pass mode not but not in VBR Quality mode: 10%, 25% and 50% quality are low bitrate profil. WMA9 pro VBR for streaming is possible for 128 Kbps and higher bitrate ...

I think that the WMA9 Std can be compares with LC-AAC and WMA Pro with HE-AAC for quality. there are hardware decodeur for WMA9 sdt or LC-AAC but not for Ogg, HE-AAC or WMA9 Pro ...

http://www.rjamorim.com/test/64test/plot12z.png

In this graph "QT" is the Quick Time LC-AAC and it's the best LC-AAC coder

[Sagittaire]

@ bigjohn

http://www.hardware.fr/medias/photos_news/00/07/IMG0007345.gif

PIV for WMV9 encoding is the best solution ...

NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Ultra for WMV9 hardware decoding ...

[bigjohn]

what size video and encoder options were used to create that graph? I need to extrapolate the 'cost benefit' of those 10 seconds.. (p4 3ghz vs athlon 64)... it's probably negligable when I look at a win2k or xp pro machine with 512mb ram.

[Neo Neko]

Originally posted by bond
wma9 pro is not the lossless codec (the lossless codec is called "wma9 lossless")
wma9 pro can only be used starting from 128kbps and higher, therefore its not really usable for streaming

Correct you are. Microsoft always goes for confusion. Which explains my mistake. I don't see a need to call it WMA PRO when all it is is multichannel WMA. There is multichannel AAC but we don't call it AAC pro. There is multichannel Vorbis but we don't call it Vorbis Pro. There is multichannel MP3 but we don't call it MP3 Pro. There is MP3 Pro but it is not multichannel. Result confusion.

Originally posted by bond
m$ knows why they label all their codecs as "wma9" :devil:
this leads up to the point where people get confused that much that they think that wma9 is one codec able to offer everything: lowbitrate, multichannel, lossless and speech encoding, altough these are a whole bunch of different codecs, which only have the name in common...

Actually there are only three distinct codecs IIRC. Voice, lowbitrate/multichannel, and lossless. Since all the multichannel is is just the low bitrate codec with slight tuning for more than two channels. ;)

Originally posted by bond
as i said wma9 pro isnt really usable for streaming + you would need a special decoder to be able to decode it, as its not compatible to wma9 std

Yup just tried it and there is no way to get it to decode right via Mplayer or even VLC on non MS Windows platforms. Not that there should be a problem. But what can I say. They are Microsoft. :p

Originally posted by bond
when it comes to quality it has to be said that you also hear that wma9 std is crap on low bitrates, even with weak speakers
wma9 has this typical metallic sound at low bitrates

Yes I remember reading that it is all because Microsoft chose an uncommon algorythm in order to avoid licensing a particularly expensive algorythm that was more commonly used. Damned if I can find the link anymore though.

[Neo Neko]

Originally posted by bigjohn
Thanks for continuing the debate...

we're doing video, by the way. And the fact that there is no 'fee' to encode or distribute this content using wm9 is a factor in the decision, as is the fact that while we won't be streaming 'over the net' we want to keep the quality as high as possible while abusing the network as little as possible.

Hmmmmmm. Well if you won't be streaming over the net Then why exactly should one bother with DRM or worry about fees? I hope you don't mind my prying but you have piqued my interest a bit. What exactly are you planning to do? I mean if you are just streaming company video to employees over the LAN I don't understand the requirement of DRM or the issue with fees. If you are not encoding for proffit there would be little to worry with regards to the extraction of fees. Especially if it is just over the LAN for company use. Better safe than sorry I suppose. But if that is the case then I suspect that it is entirely possible that licensing MPEG4 etc for that setup might actually be cheaper than the 500+ bucks for Windows Advanced Server with Windows Media Streaming Server. But I could be wrong as MPEG4 licensing is not always the clearest.

BTW bigjohn take a look at the latest videolan. It just got support for h264 which is well on it's way to blowing everything else out of the water. And it has been capable of doing AAC for quite some time now. It may not be what your company is looking for. But you might still enjoy playing with it. It is great for multicasting and even works well even over my poor strength 802.11b network. 300Kbps is about the maximum I can get over it even on the floor directly below the access point.

[Neo Neko]

Originally posted by Sagittaire
There are hardware decodeur for WMA9 sdt or LC-AAC but not for Ogg, HE-AAC or WMA9 Pro ...

WMA decoding hardware is not all that common either. MP3 is still the lions share. But there is hardware to decode HE AAC and even Vorbis. They are just a bit less common.

[bond]

Originally posted by Sagittaire
I think that the WMA9 Std can be compares with LC-AAC and WMA Pro with HE-AAC for quality.not really, he-aac is an option for lowbitrates, whereas wma9 pro is only usable for 128kbps and up
he-aac is backwards compatible meaning every aac decoder can also decode he-aac, thats not the case for wma9 pro, which needs a totally different decoder than wma9 std

imho m$ came up with wma9 pro because they realised that wma9 std cant keep up with other audio encoders, therefore they had to came up with a better solution
m$ knows they cant only rely on their monopoly power for forcing people to use their solutions, otherwise they will get wiped away. i still wonder how they will react on h.264, i assume they will come up with a h.264 clone, called wmv10, which uses mostly the same features as h.264, but not in a spec compliant way to the mpeg-4 standard. thats what m$ always does :D

there are hardware decodeur for WMA9 sdt or LC-AAC but not for Ogg, HE-AAC or WMA9 Pro ...there are hardware decoders for both he-aac and ogg vorbis existing, not to speak of that every lc-aac decoder can decode he-aac too as wrote already

it has to be noted that he-aac is not a new aac profile, its simply lc-aac with the sbr option enabled
i see this like when people enable qpel in mpeg-4 asp, but with the difference that you need a special decoder for being able to decode qpel, whereas with sbr you dont need that

[Sagittaire]

not really, he-aac is an option for lowbitrates, whereas wma9 pro is only usable for 128kbps and up

Yes in VBR Bitrate 2 pass mode not but not in VBR Quality mode: 10%, 25% and 50% quality are low bitrate profil ... for WM9 movie encode I use WMA9 Pro quality 50% in 2.0 (~64Kbps) ...

[SeeMoreDigital]

Originally posted by bond
it has to be noted that he-aac is not a new aac profile, its simply lc-aac with the sbr option enabled
i see this like when people enable qpel in mpeg-4 asp, but with the difference that you need a special decoder for being able to decode qpel, whereas with sbr you dont need that Yes I can confirm this. But I still find it very odd!

What I mean is. If I generate an MP3 and an MP3pro file from the same WAV source. The MP3pro file sounds awful when played back without an MP3pro decoder.

I regularly listen to 2Ch AAC-HE audio files in hardware via my Xcard and they sound hardly any different to the AAC-LC files!


Cheers

[bigjohn]

Originally posted by Neo Neko
Hmmmmmm. Well if you won't be streaming over the net Then why exactly should one bother with DRM or worry about fees? I hope you don't mind my prying but you have piqued my interest a bit. What exactly are you planning to do? I mean if you are just streaming company video to employees over the LAN I don't understand the requirement of DRM or the issue with fees. If you are not encoding for proffit there would be little to worry with regards to the extraction of fees. Especially if it is just over the LAN for company use. Better safe than sorry I suppose. But if that is the case then I suspect that it is entirely possible that licensing MPEG4 etc for that setup might actually be cheaper than the 500+ bucks for Windows Advanced Server with Windows Media Streaming Server. But I could be wrong as MPEG4 licensing is not always the clearest.
We still don't want the content copied... mpeg4 fees are HUGE compared to doing the same thing on windows.


BTW bigjohn take a look at the latest videolan. It just got support for h264 which is well on it's way to blowing everything else out of the water. And it has been capable of doing AAC for quite some time now. It may not be what your company is looking for. But you might still enjoy playing with it. It is great for multicasting and even works well even over my poor strength 802.11b network. 300Kbps is about the maximum I can get over it even on the floor directly below the access point.
I already used videolan at home - for streaming from my Replay TV!