Quicktime 7 MPEG-4 ASP/AVC encoding? [Archive] - Page 3

giandrea

4th May 2005, 19:48

I can personally say that QT7 AVC is far superior to MPEG-4 ASP. I tested a clip (640x272) encoded at 850 kbps with QT7 AVC and with XVID (B-frames, QPEL, GMC, etc...), both 2pass, and QT7 had a superior quality than XVID.
Sure, Nero AVC may be better, but this is just the first version of the QT codec, and I think they will get better and better with the next version, in the same way as they did with AAC.

Ah, and the QT7 AVC decoder is far superior than any other decoder for Mac, and perhaps even for Windows... (http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=10497)

I will post the encoded clips when I'll get back my broadband line working... :rolleyes:

Sharktooth

4th May 2005, 20:44

well... qpel @ 850kbps... uhm...
what custom quant matrix you used?:P

Originally posted by LordRPI
If anybody has a totally free... as in non-copyrighted source, I'll be more than happy to provide an encode.
... one of the divx HD trailers resized to 720*xxx?

LordRPI

5th May 2005, 00:47

Originally posted by Sharktooth
well... qpel @ 850kbps... uhm...
what custom quant matrix you used?:P

... one of the divx HD trailers resized to 720*xxx?

Unfortunately those are not completely free (except for YOUR viewing), we actually do have restrictions on what we can do with them... and I being an employee of DXN have to obey those restrictions.

acidsex

5th May 2005, 01:57

I dont see how since Sorenson is the AVC codec used in QT7 and compared to Nero, Sorenson plain sucks. Sorenson has been out longer than Nero's version, so I dont buy the theory that it will get better from this "first version."

Furthermore, Sorenson's AVC (QT7)isnt always superior to Mpeg-4 ASP. It depends on the source, etc... I just cant believe everyone is harping on QT7 as being this awesome codec seeing how it has been around since Sorenson Squeeze 4 was launched back in August.

Originally posted by giandrea
I can personally say that QT7 AVC is far superior to MPEG-4 ASP. I tested a clip (640x272) encoded at 850 kbps with QT7 AVC and with XVID (B-frames, QPEL, GMC, etc...), both 2pass, and QT7 had a superior quality than XVID.
Sure, Nero AVC may be better, but this is just the first version of the QT codec, and I think they will get better and better with the next version, in the same way as they did with AAC.

Ah, and the QT7 AVC decoder is far superior than any other decoder for Mac, and perhaps even for Windows... (http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=10497)

I will post the encoded clips when I'll get back my broadband line working... :rolleyes:

LordRPI

5th May 2005, 02:02

Originally posted by acidsex
I dont see how since Sorenson is the AVC codec used in QT7 and compared to Nero, Sorenson plain sucks. Sorenson has been out longer than Nero's version, so I dont buy the theory that it will get better from this "first version."

This is what is being used :confused: :confused: :confused:

I really doubt that. Otherwise Apple wouldn't have had job req's up on their website for codec engineers. I've also personally seen the codec change over time... I'm sure this is Apple's implementation.

acidsex

5th May 2005, 02:20

David, this information cam directly from an Apple Rep. I had asked him how close to the specs Apple's implementation would be and he said that they licensed use of Sorenson's codec. Makes a lot of sense since Sorenson encodes QT better than Apple themselves. Now, its entirely possible that they used some of the licensed code from Sorenson with their own code, if so, I am still not impressed as said before, Sorenson's implementation just sucks.

Latexxx

5th May 2005, 08:22

At least their aac implementation is Dolby's encoder + in house tricks. So it wouldn't be a surprise if they had bought a working avc encoder and tweaked it.

bond

5th May 2005, 13:22

Originally posted by Latexxx
At least their aac implementation is Dolby's encoder + in house tricks. So it wouldn't be a surprise if they had bought a working avc encoder and tweaked it. well in the case of sorenson avc apple seemed to make it worse :D
sorenson avc is more powerful than apples avc (eg sorenson supports loop)...

one reason why apple would have an interest in removing functionalities from the sorenson avc encoder would be that they want a as fast as possible codec, with the tradeoff of lower quality

or apples avc encoder isnt sorensons avc encoder, and this apple rep simply mixed up sorenson3 with sorenson avc...

keel

5th May 2005, 13:45

All these anectodes and between-the-lines interpretations are fun, but don't really mean much. Many can't be verified. What we need are some encoded samples, using either uncompressed or mimimally compressed I-frame source materials.

Apple develops their MPEG2 codec in-house (originally with developers brought in from a purchased company, forgot which one now), what I've heard is that most of the H.264 work was done in-house also. And remember, this codec is just out, it's just beginning to show its potential, there is a lot of maturing and improvement to be expected.

So, until we see some real-world head-to-head comparisons from adequate source material, compressed the best way possible given a codec's limitations, all this talk is just speculation.

Sharktooth

5th May 2005, 13:58

keel... just give a free trailer or non copyrighted stuff to LordRPI and he will encode it with QT7 Pro... then let's see who's speculating.
AVC implementation in QT7 just suck. Xvid coupled with a good quant matrix and the new DivX fusion can do much better.

neo_anderson

5th May 2005, 14:12

wow, this is great, u guys are insulting qt7 , saying that it sucks, when i have seen the hd trailers and they rock! and some time ago, i said xvid sucks in front of divx, and i got suspended! i think this qt trashing should stop right here!

keel

5th May 2005, 14:17

Originally posted by Sharktooth
keel... just give a free trailer or non copyrighted stuff to LordRPI and he will encode it with QT7 Pro... then let's see who's speculating.
AVC implementation in QT7 just suck. Xvid coupled with a good quant matrix and the new DivX fusion can do much better.
Please note I did not state what codec is best, only that objective testing is needed.
Look at Hydrogenaudio's TOS#8
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=3974
"8. All members that put forth a statement concerning subjective sound quality, must -- to the best of their ability -- provide objective support for their claims."
Same should go for video on Doom9.
I would not be surprised if there are better codecs, at this time, than Apple's H.264, but then again, maybe there aren't. Only objective testing will tell. From individuals that don't have a big vested interest in seeing which codec comes out ahead.
On the other hand, there may be reasons to use a codec, for certain situations, when it is not the absolute best visual codec. And some codecs may be better than others in compressing certain content, or may have better "sweet spots" at certain data rates.
There is a lot of compression to be done, and be publicly available, before conclusions can be reached. That is ALL I am saying, no need to get defensive.

Sharktooth

5th May 2005, 14:37

well AVC in QT is inferior on both paper and by (some) ppl reports.
If you want to conduct a blind test then do it.
But dont expect QT AVC to have the performance an AVC codec should have.
I'll stay away from QT (as always) for my private and personal reasons and coz it falls in the mediocrity (concerning video quality).

EDIT: This is not bashing or trashing. this is what i call "telling the truth".

bond

5th May 2005, 14:47

lets all wait for qt7 for windows to appear (i assume most of us use win) and than we can test it extensively ourselves :)

keel

5th May 2005, 14:58

Originally posted by Sharktooth
I'll stay away from QT (as always) for my private and personal reasons and coz it falls in the mediocrity (concerning video quality). Personal reasons are perfectly valid for your using or not using specific technology by certain companies. Look at all the people that stay away from Microsoft products! However, your personal likes and dislikes may not be shared by others, nor do they change a codec's quality. You claim that Apple's H.264 is "mediocre" still needs impartial visual objective testing to back it up and prove it.

neo_anderson

5th May 2005, 17:50

Originally posted by Sharktooth
AVC implementation in QT7 just suck.

Hey, for pointing out that there was going on some unnecessary bashing towards a new codec,which is just coming up, i have received a warning! and in this case, i am just pointing out something, i have not said anything bad or abusive!Well, i do not think this is by any means fair, and if i do not have any right to call some codec sucky, then no one else has it too! same warnings should be given to "others" too!

IgorC

5th May 2005, 18:13

Maybe QT7 AVC isn't enough good right now. But QT7 plays x264 and nero avc (don't know what features). But I hope QT7 will improve AVC as they've done with AAC. QT6 and QT7 AAC have very good sonor quality (in old rjamorim test QT6 was the best AACenoder). I don't know about testing QT7 AAC and NERO AAC, but i listened some samples. For me it has very good quality.

I don't like Divx (for very slow progress on quality of video) at all but I don't cry about it always when I have opportunity to do this ;)

dimzon

6th May 2005, 00:40

Originally posted by LordRPI
If anybody has a totally free... as in non-copyrighted source, I'll be more than happy to provide an encode.
http://www.panicstruckpro.com/revelations/revelations.html

JohnV

7th May 2005, 06:33

Originally posted by dimzon
http://www.panicstruckpro.com/revelations/revelations.html If LordRPI provides QT7 AVC version, I could provide the Nero Digital AVC version of this for download.
I suppose we use the DVD-version as the source: http://www.lysator.liu.se/%7ezap/revelations-dvd-1.iso.torrent

Then we can compare QT7 AVC and Nero Digital AVC and see which one is better. :)
What bitrate we gonna use for video and audio?

cabal

7th May 2005, 09:08

The DVD version is perhaps easier to convert, though the quality isn't better than the quicktime version for example. In this respect it doesn't matter which file you use - but download size matters ;)

One question to quicktime - quicktime is generally very slow, but is there a difference at apple computers opposite to windows systems in terms of speed?

Greetings

Cabal

Sharktooth

7th May 2005, 13:56

Well the SW-R DVD is not a high quality production: horizontal lines jagging, noise and oversaturated colors (expecially the reds)...
I managed to remove much of the noise and desaturated some colors before encoding it to divx. but still had problems with jagginess...

http://www.webalice.it/f.corriga/misc/jagging.png

EDIT: The QT version is the worst one...

LordRPI

7th May 2005, 18:10

@ Sharktooth

I think the great part about the source above is that it'll be easy to see how much QT7 AVC blurs it out or not.

@ Juha,

Let me know the crop/resize/bitrate settings and such you use. Encoding these sources on OS X provide less... lets say control of how you encode. Chances are I'll have to uncompress the mpeg-2 to a raw file first, because outside apps don't always support the multi-pass encoding and the QT MPEG-2 component blows some real chunks.

plonk420

8th May 2005, 21:09

anyone know of any good vids from archive.org (http://archive.org)? i've only grabbed a small handful. mostly black and white t&a tease or propaganda videos... :D

Sharktooth

9th May 2005, 14:03

Originally posted by LordRPI
@ Sharktooth

I think the great part about the source above is that it'll be easy to see how much QT7 AVC blurs it out or not.
If you got the DVD then just encode it with with QT7 Pro and DivX at a target size of 260MB (so we can compare it with the WMV version too).
Use 128kbps for audio. No external filters except crop and resize (WMV version is denoised "de-jagged" and resized at 600x400 with 128kbps for audio and 727kbps for video)
Im prepearing a x264 and a VP7.0.6.0 encodes right now.

@JohnV: could you please do the same with the latest NeroDigital?

planet1

9th May 2005, 16:23

a new QT sample-link for Win32 users:

http://images.apple.com/movies/us/hd_gallery/gl1800/nasa_shuttle-r_m720p.mov
http://images.apple.com/quicktime/hdgallery/images/nasa2_196x110.jpg

some differences to the 1080p zip-samples:
http://www.apple.com/quicktime/hdgallery/

-mplayer plays this 720p clip correctly

-remuxing to mkv wont help as it did for the 1080p samples (no-video)...

-still no working .mov -> .mp4 option

OK - the speculation-round is opened ... ;)

Sharktooth

9th May 2005, 17:05

I can only watch it with mplayer... coz of the CPU load!
However, quality is not quite superb...

Sagittaire

11th May 2005, 09:10

Possible to make QT7 AVC sample with my HPII trailer for metric test?
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=90784

LordRPI

11th May 2005, 17:34

Yes, it should be possible. It will be a lot easier than doing a full movie for me. OS X encoding tools are teh suck.

LordRPI

12th May 2005, 05:37

Aiight,

I have the HP clips @ 450 and 900 kbps.... Let me know what to do with them...

Get ready to puke.

JohnV

12th May 2005, 09:59

Downloaded The Revelations DVD source.. Yes, like it was said, the source quality is unbelievably bad.. We should use better source than this. Suggestions?

keel

12th May 2005, 13:45

If anyone is interested, Ben Waggoner, a compressionist who also consults for Microsoft, has posted a "same clip, 10 codecs" 200 kbps comparison.
Bittorrent link at
http://lists.apple.com/archives/quicktime-users/2005/May/msg00192.html
Download link at
http://lists.apple.com/archives/quicktime-users/2005/May/msg00203.html
The Apple H.264 clip actually came out at 150 kbps though.
This is from uncompressed content
http://episteme.arstechnica.com/eve/ubb.x/a/tpc/f/8300945231/m/526004803731/r/902006923731#902006923731

Selur

14th May 2005, 09:31

nasa got some hd stuff on their ftp that might be a nice source, see:
ftp://ftp.cmf.nrl.navy.mil/pub/iHDTV/

Sagittaire

14th May 2005, 23:06

Originally posted by LordRPI
Aiight,

I have the HP clips @ 450 and 900 kbps.... Let me know what to do with them...

Get ready to puke.

possible to up your QT7 AVC encoding on ftp or http link ... ???

Merci ... ;)

lazyn00b

16th May 2005, 12:50

Originally posted by Selur
nasa got some hd stuff on their ftp that might be a nice source, see:
ftp://ftp.cmf.nrl.navy.mil/pub/iHDTV/

Selur, were you able to open any of these videos in DGIndex? I got an error about PIDs with andrews_18.mpg.

Sharktooth

16th May 2005, 14:08

Ok here are the QT7 encodes:
*moved to another host - see below*

As you can see they look like... well you know what.
Compare them with the clips in this thread: http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=90784
expecially with Nero, x.264, xvid and divx.

Sharktooth

17th May 2005, 03:10

Oh i forget to say you can use nero or ffdshow+haali's splitter to play them back.

IgorC

17th May 2005, 03:45

I wouldn't say that DivX, XviD is better . Especially on low bitrates there are many artefacts during high motion and ringing. QT7's quality is between MPEG4 ASP and AVC for low bitrate.
QT7 AVC seems like has problem with color space(gray out as Apple PCs ;) ) and it's quite smooth. It´s definitely better than their old ASP but it´s pretty inferior for AVC.

LordRPI

17th May 2005, 06:55

I would go as far as saying that the AVC in the WWDC 2K4 developer's preview looked a hell of a lot better.

If I find some time, I'll toss it back on a partition of mine and give it a whirl...

bond

17th May 2005, 11:55

Originally posted by IgorC
QT7's quality is between MPEG4 ASP and AVC for low bitrate. excuse my nitpicking, but qt7 avc is in the same way "AVC" as nerodigital avc or x264 avc...

therefore saying something like "qt7 avc is worse than avc" or similar things doesnt really make sense

Sharktooth

17th May 2005, 12:06

he meant qt7 is worse than the other (common) avc implementations and its quality is something in between ASP (common implementations) and AVC (common implementation).
But i'll add ASP + a good custom matrix could reach the same if not better quality (at 900kbps)

bond

17th May 2005, 12:23

Originally posted by Sharktooth
As you can see they look like... well you know what.i am not surprised at all, cause basically the apple encoder outputs baseline profile only (+ max 1 b-frame, but it doesnt even set the b-frame adaptively (ok its has scenechange detection tough :D ))

i am very disappointed by apples implementation, i mean such a big company could have surely afforded to develop an encoder that blows everything existing away...

at least their decoder seems to support main profile (as good as) completely. imagine if qt7 would only support baseline profile + 1 b-frame :D

Originally posted by LordRPI
I would go as far as saying that the AVC in the WWDC 2K4 developer's preview looked a hell of a lot better.

If I find some time, I'll toss it back on a partition of mine and give it a whirl... that would be indeed great, cause it could also be that apple removed some quality-bringing settings, like cabac, in the final encoder for being able to make the users decode their avc streams faster
but somehow i doubt it, cause why hide a setting? in this situation it wouldnt hurt to eg offer simply an option for enabling these things...

Originally posted by Sharktooth
he meant qt7 is worse than the other (common) avc implementations and its quality is something in between ASP (common implementations) and AVC (common implementation). well what does "common implementation" mean? i dont think this is defined at all:
i would say regarding industry importance sorenson's or mainconcept's encoder count much more than x264 for example, and i am not sure if apple's encoder does a bad job compared to these...

IgorC

17th May 2005, 17:18

Originally posted by Sharktooth
he meant qt7 is worse than the other (common) avc implementations and its quality is something in between ASP (common implementations) and AVC (common implementation).
But i'll add ASP + a good custom matrix could reach the same if not better quality (at 900kbps)

Sharktooth, Thanks to get clear my previos message. I agree that it was not so clear. My fault.
I have same opinion about QT7 AVC(advanced video coding) (MPEG4 part 10 ):devil:. Inferior to x264 and Nero AVC but much better than Mainconcept, Moonlight. Finally, it´s only first version. However people was waiting something much than this.