Will QuickTime ever use MPEG Custom Matricies?

[plonk420]

well, after putzing around a few threads that convinced me Xvid *could in fact* be just as good, if not better than VP6x at ultra-low bitrates, i decided to try it out for myself and found myself pretty impressed. i then took it into GraphEdit and made a happy little MP4 file and tested it out in QT. well, QT puked. puked out 2 errors above and beyond the usual "movie is using a more advanced profile blah blah blah" .. and fatal enough not to play the movie.

my question is this: will Quicktime ever improve to the point that would make it worth using these incredible matricies (sp?) or do they want you just to use their mediocre built-in crap or their Panther-only codec and have no plans to progress any? i sure don't see them getting excited over AAC-HE/AAC-HE+PS yet... they seem content with the god-awful audio they have in their trailers (my only complaint about their downloadable/streaming content)

[bond]

:search:
this has been discussed very often already

quicktimes decoder supports the MPEG-4 Simple Profile only, which means you cant play Advanced Simple Profile tools like b-frames, qpel, gmc, custom quants aso...

now to get an answer whether apple will upgrade their decoder, you will have to ask apple of course ;)

[Zep]

Originally posted by plonk420

my question is this: will Quicktime ever improve to the point that would make it worth using these incredible matricies (sp?) or do they want you just to use their mediocre built-in crap or their Panther-only codec and have no plans to progress any? i sure don't see them getting excited over AAC-HE/AAC-HE+PS yet... they seem content with the god-awful audio they have in their trailers (my only complaint about their downloadable/streaming content)

quicktime does NOT decode itself per se'. quicktime is the
name of the high level system as a whole.

what you are talking about is a decoding problem and thus
a Codec issue. You could say this about windows

"will windows ever play Xvid files!!!"

The answer is YES if you install the right codec/lib/app


just install divx or 3ivx or any of the tons of codecs
that DO play the files correctly. Apple only supplies
the basic codecs for the basic formats.

Here is the basic list

Video Codecs

Animation
Apple BMP
Apple Pixlet (Mac OS X v10.3 only)
Apple Video
Cinepak
Component video
DV and DVC Pro NTSC
DV PAL
DVC Pro PAL
Graphics
H.261
H.263
JPEG 2000 (Mac OS X)
Microsoft OLE (decode only)
Microsoft Video 1 (decode only)
Motion JPEG A
Motion JPEG B
MPEG-4
Photo JPEG
Planar RGB
PNG
Sorenson Video 2
Sorenson Video 3
TGA
TIFF


Audio Codecs

24-bit integer
32-bit floating point
32-bit integer
64-bit floating point
AAC (MPEG-4 Audio)
ALaw 2:1
AMR Narrowband
Apple Lossless Encoder
IMA 4:1
MACE 3:1
MACE 6:1
MS ADPCM (decode only)
QDesign Music 2
Qualcomm PureVoice (QCELP)
ULaw 2:1



Xvid, Divx, 3ivx whatever... you
have to install just like on any platform.


The trailers use vbr mp3, or ac3 or AAC or QDesign
all are very good and NOT crap. The trailer MAKERS
may have used a too low bit rate but that is not
apple/quicktime problem. Apple only hosts the trailers,
they do not make them.

[bond]

Originally posted by Zep
quicktime does NOT decode itself per se'. quicktime is the
name of the high level system as a whole.

what you are talking about is a decoding problem and thus
a Codec issue. You could say this about windows

"will windows ever play Xvid files!!!"

The answer is YES if you install the right codec/lib/app

just install divx or 3ivx or any of the tons of codecs
that DO play the files correctly. Apple only supplies
the basic codecs for the basic formats. not really true regarding the question of plonk420

for the playback of specific files you dont only need a decoder but also a file parser/splitter

the inbuilt quicktime mp4 splitter itself will deny to pass files indicating that you are using advanced simple profile mpeg-4, as it assumes that the inbuilt decoder will not handle it anyways (even if you have 3ivx installed which might be able to do so)
in this case it (quicktime) displays the message "this file uses technologies currently not supported in qt"

you can circumvent this by marking the video stream as mpeg-4 simple profile tough, altough i am not sure if the 3ivx qt decoder already fully handles custom quants aso...

[shitowax]

Originally posted by bond
not really true regarding the question of plonk420

you can circumvent this by marking the video stream as mpeg-4 simple profile tough, altough i am not sure if the 3ivx qt decoder already fully handles custom quants aso...

This is not a solution at all ... only a hack wich may work but which would cause tons of problems and is not compliant with the specs.
The 3ivx qt video decoder is able to decode custom quant for months now.

[SeeMoreDigital]

Yes, the installation of the 3ivX DSdec filter is a 'must have' when watching Mpeg4 .mp4 content via the QuickTime player!


Cheers

[plonk420]

Originally posted by shitowax
This is not a solution at all ... only a hack wich may work but which would cause tons of problems and is not compliant with the specs.
The 3ivx qt video decoder is able to decode custom quant for months now.


and is freeware/shareware? or is crippled?

(someone could be so kind as to answer that, otherwise i'll just try it out when i get back from cali :)

Originally posted by SeeMoreDigital
Yes, the installation of the 3ivX DSdec filter is a 'must have' when watching Mpeg4 .mp4 content via the QuickTime player!

DSdec? windows? or mac only? the whole reason i'm even bothering to use MP4 is so that i can watch my Xvid encodes on plain-jane installs of Quicktime 6 on Macs in the event that's all i have access to and i can't change anything. if i can use MPEG Matrices that would be really cool, but it doesn't sound like it works.

[plonk420]

Originally posted by bond
:search:
this has been discussed very often already

i did for a short time but didn't know what to search for and "quicktime" came up with waaay too much crap that didn't pertain... :(

Originally posted by bond
now to get an answer whether apple will upgrade their decoder, you will have to ask apple of course ;)

so the Apple/Quicktime developer team member doesn't say much, does he? ;)

Originally posted by Zep
what you are talking about is a decoding problem and thus
a Codec issue. You could say this about windows

"will windows ever play Xvid files!!!"

The answer is YES if you install the right codec/lib/app


just install divx or 3ivx or any of the tons of codecs
that DO play the files correctly. Apple only supplies
the basic codecs for the basic formats.


well, my whole point in encoding and muxing to MP4 was so that i could play back my xvid encodes on a standard install of Jaguar. plus AAC has pretty superior audio at low bitrates (while maintaining that compatibility) (imagine that having strike-thru .. controversial phrase .. just ignore >_>). macside, VLC is a whopping 12+ meg DMG file to transport on a CD with the movie if i wanted to play an xvid AVI. PC side, MPC+ffdshow is barely 1.5 megs, if that (older ones), and i'm sure i could find some small solution to play mp4 files easily, too.


Originally posted by Zep
Here is the basic list

Video Codecs

Animation
Apple BMP
Apple Pixlet (Mac OS X v10.3 only)
<snip>

Audio Codecs

24-bit integer
32-bit floating point
32-bit integer
64-bit floating point
AAC (MPEG-4 Audio)
ALaw 2:1
AMR Narrowband
Apple Lossless Encoder
IMA 4:1
MACE 3:1
MACE 6:1
MS ADPCM (decode only)
QDesign Music 2
Qualcomm PureVoice (QCELP)
ULaw 2:1

The trailers use vbr mp3, or ac3 or AAC or QDesign
all are very good and NOT crap. The trailer MAKERS
may have used a too low bit rate but that is not
apple/quicktime problem. Apple only hosts the trailers,
they do not make them.

i didn't think of it that way, but it makes sense, and i probably would have come to that conclusion if i'd had to think it thru. the problem is that even though everyone makes their own trailers, every freakin' one of them uses that crap-ass QDesign Music 2, IIRC. Episode 1 (earilest one i can think of) to The Terminal being the last one i downloaded sounded like crap. well, i suppose i could write the film company, but, even in the unlikely chance anyone will actually see the email, it probably won't be changing any time soon...

edit: heh, trailers site still says Watch Trailers with QuickTime 6.5 ;)

[shitowax]

Originally posted by plonk420
and is freeware/shareware? or is crippled?
(someone could be so kind as to answer that, otherwise i'll just try it out when i get back from cali :)
DSdec? windows? or mac only? the whole reason i'm even bothering to use MP4 is so that i can watch my Xvid encodes on plain-jane installs of Quicktime 6 on Macs in the event that's all i have access to and i can't change anything. if i can use MPEG Matrices that would be really cool, but it doesn't sound like it works.

None of our codecs is "crippled" at all.
On windows, our QT codec doesn't use directshow at all but it shares the same encoding/decoding core than our DirectShow filters or our VfW codec. Only the directshow audio filters are limited in time in the free version (1 month).
On the mac, there is only a QT video codec.

[SeeMoreDigital]

Originally posted by plonk420
DSdec? windows? or mac only? the whole reason i'm even bothering to use MP4 is so that i can watch my Xvid encodes on plain-jane installs of Quicktime 6 on Macs in the event that's all i have access to and i can't change anything. if i can use MPEG Matrices that would be really cool, but it doesn't sound like it works. A few months ago I created a dozen or so, XviD Mpeg4/AAC .mp4 files for a friends web site. And more recently the same again but using XviD Mpeg4/AAC .mov

Mpeg4/AAC was chosen so they could be cross platform compatible for the QuickTime player.

And yes, there is a version of 3ivx for Mac's (http://www.3ivx.com/download/macos.html). And by all accounts it offers Mac users the ability to generate '2pass' Mpeg4/AAC encodes in .mp4 (http://www.3ivx.com/support/mac/encoding/quicktime.html), plus a whole lot of other functionality not usually associated with the QuickTime player.

So maybe with the installation of 3ivX it's possible to play Mpeg4 encodes 'with' custom matrices (but without ASP) using the QuickTime player. It is on a PC (as I generated some with XviD and Recode2 using Soulhunters matrices). Dunno about Mac's though!


Cheers

EDIT: Well I just generated some Recode2 and XviD Mpeg4/AAC .mp4 encodes with MPEG custom matrices and 'no' the QuickTime player cant play them, even with 3ivX installed... Bummer!

EDIT: Get this. If you keep/de-mux the above streams as Mpeg4 in .avi, the QuickTime player (with 3ivX) will play them.

Confused... you will be :D

[plonk420]

Originally posted by SeeMoreDigital
EDIT: Get this. If you keep/de-mux the above streams as Mpeg4 in .avi, the QuickTime player (with 3ivX) will play them.

with 3ivx being the key words there :p . i'm assuming some computers i'll be trying to play these on might be school computers where i can't even touch the Quicktime Plugins folder, so MPEG/MPEG Matricies are a no-no i guess. oh well. hopefully Quicktime/Apple will get with the picture and update their MPEG-4 decoder to handle ASP at least SOMETIME before h.264 becomes unleashed in the next few months to year or so...

xvid for 1CD movies is pretty damn good by itself. i did a mindblowing DVDRip of The Cell, and RC3 or so kept the trippy sequence pretty freakin' blockless. it was amazing.