Quicktime 7 MPEG-4 ASP/AVC encoding?

[Elias]

What do you guys think will be the new features? I hope that at the very least, Apple will add 2pass encoding this time, and higher profiles. On the site, there's a preview for QT 7 and according to that one, AVC will be included. B-Frames wouldn't be too bad either. Do you guys think Apple can compete with Nero when it comes to MPEG-4?

[Blue_MiSfit]

If apple's previous MPEG-4 is any indication of the quality of their AVC codec I would be surprised if it comes remotely close to x264 or NeroDigital.

QuickTime is a great idea, and their whole multimedia framework is definatley cool, but their video codecs have never impressed me AT ALL.

I mean come on, an MPEG-4 codec that doesn't even support B-Frames? And it's supposed to be an official apple codec to possibly be used in a professional environment??? Even DivX is better... geesh...

I'm not expecting anything even remotely impressive :)

[Elias]

Well yeah, it's pretty bad. Not much options at the moment. But I certainly hope that Apple improves it a lot for the next QT release. I seriously won't encode anything if it's 1pass only, I mean, MPEG-1 is even better :)

[Neo Neko]

Originally posted by Blue_MiSfit
If apple's previous MPEG-4 is any indication of the quality of their AVC codec I would be surprised if it comes remotely close to x264 or NeroDigital.

Don't be so sure. I have read several places that Apple's current MPEG4 offerings (pitiful as they may be) are in the situation they are due to licensing issues and conflicts. MPEG4 part 10 though looks as if it will have wider adoption and better licensing terms. Further I remember reading reviews about Apple's early AVC demos. And while terms like stellar and outstanding did not appear in the reviews terms like decent and respectable did. Remember when it comes to non SBR AAC I think Apple AAC is still king.

Originally posted by Blue_MiSfit
QuickTime is a great idea, and their whole multimedia framework is definatley cool, but their video codecs have never impressed me AT ALL.

Small wonder there since untill recently Apple did not really do any codec developent and instead focused on the framework. Most codecs or at least the better codecs used in quicktime were largely developed by Sorrenson.

Originally posted by Blue_MiSfit
I'm not expecting anything even remotely impressive :)

Well then I can say with some confidence that you will be surprised. As far as Apple goes they can really make some impressive stuff. And have always generally been ahead of their time. Most of the good and usable stuff in Windows was developed and pionered by Apple. And then "borrowed" for Windows. Microsoft has been fleshing out directshow for years in an effort to make a monopoly supported Quicktime equivalent.

[LordRPI]

Originally posted by Neo Neko
Don't be so sure. I have read several places that Apple's current MPEG4 offerings (pitiful as they may be) are in the situation they are due to licensing issues and conflicts. MPEG4 part 10 though looks as if it will have wider adoption and better licensing terms. Further I remember reading reviews about Apple's early AVC demos. And while terms like stellar and outstanding did not appear in the reviews terms like decent and respectable did. Remember when it comes to non SBR AAC I think Apple AAC is still king.


Last time I was in a conference (WWDC), they made it seem as that is the case. I don't recall specifics, but for a while all they did was make the MPEG reps there feel like idiots for horrible licensing deals which they said were fixed for AVC.

As far as I know, there were no MPEG-4 modifications to QuickTime 6 since i'ts launch near the middle of 2002. It looks as it has been abandoned as even their trailers use the Sorenson3 codec.

I do have Developer access to certain builds provided by Apple, but I'm under NDA so unfortunately I can't follow up :(



Originally posted by Neo Neko
Well then I can say with some confidence that you will be surprised. As far as Apple goes they can really make some impressive stuff. And have always generally been ahead of their time. Most of the good and usable stuff in Windows was developed and pionered by Apple. And then "borrowed" for Windows. Microsoft has been fleshing out directshow for years in an effort to make a monopoly supported Quicktime equivalent.

The thing that makes me nervous about Apple's track history is... they remain silent on the issues, their competitors release, then their competitors fail, and finally they show how it's done. :devil: :mad: :D

[bond]

Originally posted by Neo Neko
Don't be so sure. I have read several places that Apple's current MPEG4 offerings (pitiful as they may be) are in the situation they are due to licensing issues and conflicts. this make no sense...
- they support mpeg-4 aac (one of the best aac codecs existing)
- they (will) support mpeg-4 avc
- they support .mp4 (license free)
- they support mpeg-4 simple profile: fact is it wouldnt cost more licenses for them when updating to advanced simple profile (eg add b-frames), so licenses are not a valid excuse here!
- they dont support mpeg-4 systems: thats the only thing in mpeg-4 that would cause them additional licensing costs

i think they only added mpeg-4 sp support because
1) they wanted to support .mp4 (based on .mov) and .mp4 files used mpeg-4 part2 video normally
2) they wanted to add mpeg-4 part2 for the completeness of the mov framework sake and to be able to offer it if requested/successful
3) they had to add mpeg-4 part2 because they always talk out loud how nice they are because they support open standards
4) they had to keep mpeg-4 part2 weak to avoid developing a competitor themselves for their proprieatary sorenson based solution, which allowed them to exclude competitors and force people to use qt and mov (and not mpeg-4 asp in .mp4 they could play/create everywhere)

basically they now present b-frames as THE new video coding thing, and it was here already since mpeg-1 :D
that shows how far apple is related to video encoding imho

[SeeMoreDigital]

For more info about QuikTime 7, I guess some of you have already looked here: -

http://www.apple.com/macosx/tiger/quicktime.html

Most of which is detailed below: -

http://img199.exs.cx/img199/1599/qt75xj.gif


Cheers

[Elias]

Originally posted by bond
basically they now present b-frames as THE new video coding thing, and it was here already since mpeg-1 :D
that shows how far apple is related to video encoding imho HAHAHA :) Don't forget 29.99 bucks for full screen ;)

[Elias]

But I like one thing about Apple though: they may be retarded when it comes to providing the best quality/features/options/ etc for codecs, but at the very least they stick to the MPEG-4 standard all the way. I don't like that about DivX/XviD/3ivX/whatever. Using MPEG-4 in avi just isn't the real deal. They all should've gone for mp4 from the beginning, and providing us LC AAC at the very least.

[LordRPI]

Originally posted by Elias
HAHAHA :) Don't forget 29.99 bucks for full screen ;)

Unfortunately, you guys don't realize that QuickTime Player is only the default player that leverages the QuickTime Framework. Free fullscreen players come a dime a dozen on Mac OS X :)

[Neo Neko]

To be quite honest with you Xvid is not AVI specific. There are two versions of Xvid. The original container agnostic non VFW binaries and the AVI crippled VFW binaries. Xvid can be encoded via ffmpeg and written to MP4 or it can be encoded by standalone binaries with the output piped through ffmpeg to an MP4 file. 3ivx I believe is in a similar situation. They have both VFW encoder binaries crippled for AVI and Directshow binaries that are not AVI crippled.

In fact about the only MPEG4 codec which is AVI specific or AVI only is Divx. DXN is trying to focus on image quality which is great but I fear is also pointless. Their competitors not only keep catching up but pulling ahead. What DXN should have been doing IMO is exactly what nero did. Release a tool suite to go MP4 all the way or as close as they could. Ancient versions of Divx had the ability to repackage to MP4. It was not spec compliant but it was a start. And they continued that start by removing it ever since then. Now they have themselves in a bit of a pickle. They have promoted all this "Divx compliantness" which doesn't really support MPEG4 all that well and only supports AVI. Any changes to their codec to remedy things will break their compliance or at least lead to profiles that most of their non-savy users will never use. So it becomes a waste of R&D effort.

[Elias]

Originally posted by Neo Neko
To be quite honest with you Xvid is not AVI specific. There are two versions of Xvid. The original container agnostic non VFW binaries and the AVI crippled VFW binaries. Xvid can be encoded via ffmpeg and written to MP4 or it can be encoded by standalone binaries with the output piped through ffmpeg to an MP4 file. 3ivx I believe is in a similar situation. They have both VFW encoder binaries crippled for AVI and Directshow binaries that are not AVI crippled.

In fact about the only MPEG4 codec which is AVI specific or AVI only is Divx. DXN is trying to focus on image quality which is great but I fear is also pointless. Their competitors not only keep catching up but pulling ahead. What DXN should have been doing IMO is exactly what nero did. Release a tool suite to go MP4 all the way or as close as they could. Ancient versions of Divx had the ability to repackage to MP4. It was not spec compliant but it was a start. And they continued that start by removing it ever since then. Now they have themselves in a bit of a pickle. They have promoted all this "Divx compliantness" which doesn't really support MPEG4 all that well and only supports AVI. Any changes to their codec to remedy things will break their compliance or at least lead to profiles that most of their non-savy users will never use. So it becomes a waste of R&D effort. I see. I used to like DivX5 back in 2002 when they were aiming for the mp4 container and full MPEG-4 compliance, but alas, they got too damn proud and started this stupid Dr. DivX piece of crap. So that's where XviD became a new hero in a way, and the competition has been going on for DivX. Now with Nero Digital, I'd say it's safe to assume that DivX will go bankrupt soon if they don't start aiming for real MPEG-4 compatibility: start using the mp4 container and aac codec. I mean, just take a look at the "New A/V Formats - Codecs" forum, most posts are about Nero Digital. I wouldn't be surprised if Nero Digital got its own forum on Doom9. It's always the best choice to go for the real standard. My codecs of choice now are XviD>AAC=mp4UI or Nero Digital. That's it. No stupid DivX crap (unless they go for real MPEG-4 compliance).

[Elias]

Originally posted by LordRPI
Unfortunately, you guys don't realize that QuickTime Player is only the default player that leverages the QuickTime Framework. Free fullscreen players come a dime a dozen on Mac OS X :) They do on Windows too, they're like super abundant here... which is why Apple is stupid for using fullscreen as one of the reasons why you should buy Pro...

[LordRPI]

Oops, didn't know.

[Mug Funky]

but at the very least they stick to the MPEG-4 standard all the way

ummm... what do you buy at the iTunes Music Store? fully compliant mp4 content, or apple DRM tainted (non compliant) freak streams?

[Elias]

Originally posted by Mug Funky
ummm... what do you buy at the iTunes Music Store? fully compliant mp4 content, or apple DRM tainted (non compliant) freak streams? I don't use iTunes nor do I buy anything from the Apple store. When I buy music, I buy the albums in normal compact discs. When I said that the sticked to the MPEG-4 standard, I ment their MPEG-4 video/audio codec in Quicktime Pro.

[giandrea]

Actually I know someone who has tried the H.264 Apple codec in an early Tiger build. And he told me that there is a two pass option, something like main extended and baseline profiles, and it's slow and not good quality, but this was from a WWDC build... so things might have changed since then,
bye,

giandrea

[LordRPI]

Originally posted by Mug Funky
ummm... what do you buy at the iTunes Music Store? fully compliant mp4 content, or apple DRM tainted (non compliant) freak streams?

For all the Americans here, it's better than getting your butt sued off by the RIAA.



Originally posted by giandrea
Actually I know someone who has tried the H.264 Apple codec in an early Tiger build. And he told me that there is a two pass option, something like main extended and baseline profiles, and it's slow and not good quality, but this was from a WWDC build... so things might have changed since then,
bye,

Your friend tells you too much

[plonk420]

Originally posted by giandrea
Actually I know someone who has tried the H.264 Apple codec in an early Tiger build. And he told me that there is a two pass option, something like main extended and baseline profiles, and it's slow and not good quality, but this was from a WWDC build... so things might have changed since then,

exactly. from what i hear, the WWDC builds of Tiger that were leaked on the net were about as complete and useable as Windows 96 was (in comparison to Win98) when IT was leaked (instability, lockups, very unusable). definitely too early to tell anything.

[Sgt_Strider]

When will Quicktime 7 be released?

[LordRPI]

Originally posted by plonk420
exactly. from what i hear, the WWDC builds of Tiger that were leaked on the net were about as complete and useable as Windows 96 was (in comparison to Win98) when IT was leaked (instability, lockups, very unusable). definitely too early to tell anything.

Jaguar and Panther were even more fun!

[Elias]

One question though, will Quicktime 7 be released for Windows? I've nowhere found any statements supporting this.

[IgorC]

Why development of Quicktime is so closed? Do they try to not leak their technology? Bad or good for them, for us?

[bond]

Originally posted by Elias
One question though, will Quicktime 7 be released for Windows? I've nowhere found any statements supporting this. of course, why shouldnt it?

maybe it will arrive on windows little bit later tough than on mac...

[Elias]

Originally posted by bond
of course, why shouldnt it?

maybe it will arrive on windows little bit later tough than on mac... Everywhere I've checked, it says Mac OS Tiger or whatever that OS is called. I've never found a site or any source confirming the arrival for Windows. Made me a bit worried... since, well, Quicktime is good for MPEG-4 editing, at least with pass through :) I just hope QT7 supports MPEG-4 TTXT :) I mean, that's about the only thing I need from it, I don't care about B-Frames or anything else. TTXT support would rock :) Anyone who knows if QT7 will support TTXT?

[LordRPI]

Originally posted by IgorC
Why development of Quicktime is so closed? Do they try to not leak their technology? Bad or good for them, for us?

I pay for Apple SW seeding...

[Elias]

Does anyone know if QT7 will support MPEG-4/3GPP Timed Text? It's not much left now until release :)

[bond]

qt6 already supports timed text, but only when placed in .3gp

[Elias]

Originally posted by bond
qt6 already supports timed text, but only when placed in .3gp Yeah, but I meant for mp4 of course :D

[Tom Ellard]

QuickTime 7 loads and plays H.264 files made with Nero Digital.

It has a two pass mode and it is bloody slow.

Fact. Seen with my own eyes.

[Elias]

Originally posted by Tom Ellard
QuickTime 7 loads and plays H.264 files made with Nero Digital.

It has a two pass mode and it is bloody slow.

Fact. Seen with my own eyes. Oh yeah? Care to give more information about this? :)

[Tom Ellard]

Not much to say.

Took a mp4 made in Nero, loaded it up on a Mac running QT7. Plays. Made an MP4 in QT7, takes forever. Brought it home, will see if it plays in Nero when I get a chance.

I guess AVC is AVC is AVC.

[Tom Ellard]

Sorry for extra message.

There will be a QuickTime 7 for PC. It's been confirmed on all the Mac news sites. But it will come a little later.

[Elias]

Originally posted by Tom Ellard
Sorry for extra message.

There will be a QuickTime 7 for PC. It's been confirmed on all the Mac news sites. But it will come a little later. Is QT7 already released for the Mac? You perhaps have any information on when it'll come for Windows?

[Latexxx]

QT7 comes with Tiger. The final version of Tiger is available at major file sharing sites.

[LordRPI]

Originally posted by Latexxx
QT7 comes with Tiger. The final version of Tiger is available at major file sharing sites.

:-/ I'm an ADC Select member and they haven't given it to me.

[bond]

Tom Ellard, does qt7's avc/h.264 encoder also encode directly to .mp4?

[Latexxx]

Originally posted by LordRPI
:-/ I'm an ADC Select member and they haven't given it to me.
World isn't fair. Engadget reports. (http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000780040755/)

[Tom Ellard]

I'm here to answer questions about video. Ask questions about peer file sharing stuff, Tiger etc. to somebody else.

Everything I know I said.
Both files had .mp4 as the suffix.

Because of this I feel that a lot of mac owners will now be able to see my Nero encodes, although I still think that RealVideo lots better. That's another thread.

[bond]

you have a copy of qt7 but cant answer whether it is able to encode itself with avc/h.264 to the .mp4 container and not only to .mov?

[DeepDVD]

· Intelligent multi-pass encoding for the best possible results at the desired bit rate with the optimal number of compression passes.

· Time-saving single-pass encoding for creating draft encodes, meeting impending deadlines and live encoding with QuickTime Broadcaster.

· Peak-constrained VBR options for limited data-rate scenarios such as streaming and CD/DVD playback.

· Advanced frame reordering (B-frame) support to more efficiently represent movie data.

· 4x4 integer transform for reducing traditional blocking and ringing artifacts, especially in areas of fine detail.

· Improved intraframe prediction for more efficient compression of details and gradients in high-motion video.

· Increased precision in motion estimation for crisp reconstruction of objects in motion.

· Flexible block sizes in motion estimation for more efficient encoding of complicated motion in areas of fine detail.

· Adaptively tuned in-loop deblocking filter for eliminating blocking artifacts, resulting in a smooth, clean image.


So there's an improvemnet for that b-frame-feature lack of the previous versions.
But the thing i am most interested in is VBR. I wished that included in a H.264-codec for a long time. :cool: :cool: :cool:


EDIT for bond: As I said before I mean the VBR-feature in H.264. It's new to this standard. I mentioned it before in an other thread with a similar topic and someone said it would take long time of beta phase until they would try to put in such feature... it's less important compared to other issues

[bond]

omg vbr and b-frames, how revolutionary, as if that wouldnt be available already for over 10 years :D

[plonk420]

Originally posted by bond
you have a copy of qt7 but cant answer whether it is able to encode itself with avc/h.264 to the .mp4 container and not only to .mov?

well, without a registered version of QT7, i can't answer any questions reguarding encoding (exporting), but it plays Nero AVC just fine :) ...albeit without AAC-HE support, i think :(

[plonk420]

something pretty weird going on here... while ASP decodes without complaints from QT(7), it's pretty jerky, at least on my machine (G4 1.25), whereas the AVC version (and other AVC files) play perfectly fine.

unfortunately, i only had 1 ASP MP4 file around to test it out on, but i'm thinking it will be the same (QT doesn't seem to COMPLETELY decode it correctly; i see smearing as if it missed a keyframe and the motion vectors are mishing around the incorrect textures when i skip around in the file or copy a file in the background)...


(man i LOVE being able to playback AVC on mac finally ^_^)

ASP sample: http://plonkmedia.temp.powweb.com/tatana-asp.mp4
AVC sample: http://plonkmedia.temp.powweb.com/prydz.mp4
AVC ver of ASP sample http://s18.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=3W2AA7X77DURS2YSNBWKYKA7OM

[bond]

i think you encoded the avc files with nero, may i ask with what version?

[Sagittaire]

As I said before I mean the VBR-feature in H.264. It's new to this standard.

MPEG2 for your DVD player use VBV (constrained bitrate), VBR (in quant mode for example) and bframe (IBBPBBPBBPBBPBBP for GOP) ... anything new.

But NDAVC vs QTAVC could be a good fight ... lol

[plonk420]

Originally posted by bond
i think you encoded the avc files with nero, may i ask with what version?

hrm, i was QUITE sure it was the latest, 3.x.x.x but the About box is 2.2.6.11. i'll probably load 3.x tonight as i have to run off to work in a few...

[bond]

i asked because it seems that the encoder doesnt signal its name/versionnumber aso in the bitstream anymore!? maybe nero didnt like that it says "ateme" there :D

[plonk420]

Originally posted by bond
i asked because it seems that the encoder doesnt signal its name/versionnumber aso in the bitstream anymore!? maybe nero didnt like that it says "ateme" there :D

shhh! i used mp4toolbox and mp4muxer because i hate typing all that extra crap (and trying to remember it) when dealing with mp4box. i don't even know a program to split/cut mp4 streams... i hope bobololo doesn't mind... :|

edit: you mean "maybe quicktime doesn't like that it says "ateme" (or nero) there" ? :)

[LordRPI]

It certainly doesn't like ASP in .avi

[plonk420]

Originally posted by LordRPI
It certainly doesn't like ASP in .avi

i wouldn't have expected it to, not being "official" and all... :\


as for Nero, it IS 3.1.0.0 (not d)... the application (Recode) just reads 2.2.6.11. i thought it would have matched up with the 3.x of the NVE release package version.

[keel]

You probably all know this, and it's a bit OT, but QuickTime 7 will not natively support ASP, only MPEG4 Simple Profile and H.264 (AVC). Or at least that's what Apple has publicly stated so far.
It will probably support ASP with third-party components.

[plonk420]

i think Apple did things to take steps towards compatibility...


now here's something weird (and i wish i knew exactly which settings i used)

i did these three movies: Dreamcatcher, Finding Nemo, and The Cell; and i did them in Xvid and muxed them to mp4.

Dreamcatcher, because it was so long, i used all of MPEG-4 ASP's resources (3WP GMC, QPel, B-VOP) to make a watchable 1CD copy.

Finding Nemo, i think i ended up using H.263 quantization on the 2CD rip but still kept all ASP functions on (altho i experimented with MPEG Quantization for the first time).

The Cell i turned off a few functions in hopes of Quicktime functionality.

result, Finding Nemo and Dreamcatcher would case Quicktime 6.x to complain, but it would open. the picture would stutter on playback (play frame 1, 2, 3, 2, 4, 3, 5, 4, 6, etc). The Cell would cause QT6 to complain, but no stuttering on playback.

on QT7, no complaints anywhere; but Finding Nemo and Dreamcather playback as if at half framerate (12fps, as if it's dropping half the frames). The Cell plays back perfectly smoothly. i just wish i could remember what i enabled on encoding!

edit2: just finished a quick encode using MPEG Quantization and it looks like QT7 doesn't support it (still).

[keel]

Originally posted by plonk420
i think Apple did things to take steps towards compatibility...
edit2: just finished a quick encode using MPEG Quantization and it looks like QT7 doesn't support it (still). How were you able to get a copy of QT7 and talk about it? I thought everyone was under NDA.
Not trying to scare you or worry you, just wondering, as Apple has come down hard on people breaking NDA.
Or is it OK to publicly talk about QT7 now? Some people have claimed to have already gotten Tiger today, so it's probalby a moot point now.
Just wondering....no criticism meant

[xmltok]

Originally posted by keel
How were you able to get a copy of QT7 and talk about it? I thought everyone was under NDA.
Not trying to scare you or worry you, just wondering, as Apple has come down hard on people breaking NDA.
Or is it OK to publicly talk about QT7 now? Some people have claimed to have already gotten Tiger today, so it's probalby a moot point now.
Just wondering....no criticism meant

Seeing as some people who ordered Tiger from other retailers had received theirs a few days ago I believe it is ok to talk about now.

[LordRPI]

Originally posted by xmltok
Seeing as some people who ordered Tiger from other retailers had received theirs a few days ago I believe it is ok to talk about now.

They have :confused:

[xmltok]

Originally posted by LordRPI
They have :confused:

Yep
http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000777041145/

[keel]

Originally posted by xmltok
Seeing as some people who ordered Tiger from other retailers had received theirs a few days ago I believe it is ok to talk about now. Yes, You can talk about QT7 on Tiger. Sounds like a few shippers got a bit too eager! The cat is out of the bag...
But, if there is a seed of QT7 for OSX 10.3 (Panther) or/and a seed for Windows, the members of the seeding program would still be under NDA for those versions.

[plonk420]

never underestimate the power of underpaid minimum wage workers :)


so beta testers' hands are really that tied?

[plonk420]

not sure if this is a bug or what, but QT7 also plays both audio tracks at the same time (created as a two audio track file in Nero)...

[bond]

Originally posted by plonk420
not sure if this is a bug or what, but QT7 also plays both audio tracks at the same time (created as a two audio track file in Nero)... you have to en/disable tracks you (dont) want to play, cause otherwise all tracks are played at the same time of course, its the same in qt6 already

[FXsan]

Quicktime guys told me last week (NAB show - Las Vegas) that
- QT 7 will be released 29th April, with Tiger 10.4 (surely, you knew, or consult http://www.apple.com/)
- QT 7 for windows should come ~september (they do as fast as they can ...)
- QT 7 won't include MPEG-4 ASP as I previously read ;-( keep on SP...
- QT 7 will include baseline & main profiles AVC (which options ? TBD)

to be followed in some days after unleashing...

[plonk420]

Originally posted by bond
you have to en/disable tracks you (dont) want to play, cause otherwise all tracks are played at the same time of course, its the same in qt6 already

they kindly remove that option for you. command/apple-j has been disabled "pro version only" as they gently remind you...

http://s91855708.onlinehome.us/proonly.png

[bond]

Originally posted by FXsan
- QT 7 for windows should come ~september (they do as fast as they can ...)what the...? :devil:

[bond]

some nice screenshots of qt7's h.264 encoding options have been posted on hydrogenaudio (http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=33535)

http://medina.homeunix.org/hydrogenaudio/MOV_export_options.png
http://medina.homeunix.org/hydrogenaudio/MP4_export_options.png

http://medina.homeunix.org/hydrogenaudio/MP4_export_options2.png

so qt7 supports
- encoding with avc to .mp4 and .mov :)
- main and baseline profile (altough it isnt shown what options get used actually)
- arbitrary frame coding orders (i guess b-pyramid), only with .mov output?
- multipass

[bond]

a mp4 sample is available (harry potter trailer), which is said to use the max possible quality (900kbps):
http://rapidshare.de/files/1445177/vts_01_8_900k.mp4.html

my findings on this sample:
- the mp4 file uses slightly a variable framerate
- every frame consists of 5 slices
- max 1 b-frame in a row is used
- b-frames are set adaptively
- there are no multiple reference frames used
- no cabac used
- no loop used
- no weigthed prediction used
- no frame reordering (in the sense of b-pyramid) used
- buffering period seis are used

featurewise this stream is a baseline profile stream + b-frames, pretty poor imho...
qualitywise a lower bitrate needs to be used for testing, cause 900kbps is too high to really stress a codec imho, still i got the impression that the codec tends to blur, but this has to be tested more

problems:
- the file crashes mplayer, videolan and ateme's mp4toolbox, which normally handle avc mp4 files fine
- the filebrand of the mp4 file is "mp42", it should be "avc1" i think
- there is a strange sdtp atom written, which isnt needed in mp4 and only consists of 00 08 00 08s
- the cts values are not correct, for neither directly created mp4 files, nor passed through from mov .mp4 files (different behaviour for both cases: a more detailed description is written in a later post)

apart from that the file is played fine in directshow with ffdshow and the haali or nero mp4 parser

[Drachir]

Originally posted by bond
a mp4 sample is available (harry potter trailer), which is said to use the max possible quality (900kbps):
http://rapidshare.de/files/1445177/vts_01_8_900k.mp4.html


The file play too with Osmo4 2005.04.19(libffmpeg 2005.04.14) with some errors in the picture.

I updated today my xine-lib. With xine-lib CVS (come with a newer libffmpeg version) the QT7 file play without a problem). Should be the same with VLC and mplayer if they use a recent libffmpeg.

[neo_anderson]

so does that means qt7 will support avc encoding, without any third-part tool?

[bond]

Originally posted by neo_anderson
so does that means qt7 will support avc encoding, without any third-part tool? sure

[Stacey Melissa]

QT7 for Panther is available from the QT site now. Has anyone been able to get it to work with x264 in .mp4? On my machine, it only plays back the sound. There's no video window. On the plus side, it properly downmixes 5.1 HE-AAC so it sounds good coming out of two speakers. Well, at least as good as two PowerBook speakers can sound. :p

I also tried the Batman Begins 720p trailer (http://www.apple.com/quicktime/hdgallery/batmanbegins.html), which almost manages to play back without dropping frames on my G4 867. Looks incredible, too. :)

[plonk420]

Serenity in 1080p (http://images.apple.com/movies/us/hd_gallery/gl1800/serenity_1080p.zip)...!!!!

[LordRPI]

I seem to remember that 1080p required at least a 2x2ghz g5 to play. Are you guys having any problems?

[Stacey Melissa]

I finally found an x264 encode that plays in QT7. It plays frames out of order, though, so I'm guessing it's some kind of B-frame issue.

@LordRPI - my G4 867 looks like it gets about 2 fps when trying to play back the 1080p Batman slideshow, err... trailer.

[bond]

did anyone check whether cabac and loop are played back correctly in qt7?

i assume qt doesnt support b-pyramid, which might explain the out of order frames...

[Stacey Melissa]

Originally posted by bond
did anyone check whether cabac and loop are played back correctly in qt7?
both work

i assume qt doesnt support b-pyramid, which might explain the out of order frames...
I never use b-pyramid. I'm still exploring the b-frames issue. So far, I've found QT7 doesn't have problems playing back AVC with 0, 1, or 5 b-frames, but it might have problems with the 8 I normally use. I'm not entirely sure about that, though, as the stuttering might have more to do with the CPU maxing out.

QT7 doesn't support the PAR setting that the x264 CLI sets.

I also figured out why some x264 encodes don't show video in QT7. It's because of the 4cc (or whatever it's called in .mp4). The x264 CLI doesn't set it to something QT7 recognizes when outputting to .mp4. Muxing raw video into .mp4 with mp4box works, though.

[bond]

Originally posted by Stacey Melissa
I also figured out why some x264 encodes don't show video in QT7. It's because of the 4cc (or whatever it's called in .mp4). The x264 CLI doesn't set it to something QT7 recognizes when outputting to .mp4. Muxing raw video into .mp4 with mp4box works, though. [/B] there is no 4cc in mp4, so thats not the cause
must be another issue,

propably because the moov is not placed at the beginning of the file, which is spec compliant tough...
you might want to grab a compile of r214 and encode with this to .mp4 and test the resulting file, cause this one places the moov at the beginning
or simply add an audio stream to your cli .mp4, cause this will also move the moov to the start

edit: seems as if the apple avc .mov files also have the moov at the end, so this might also not be the cause...

[Stacey Melissa]

Originally posted by bond
there is no 4cc in mp4, so thats not the cause
must be another issue,
What I mean is the thing that marks the video track as "avc1". I don't remember what it's called.

propably because the moov is not placed at the beginning of the file, which is spec compliant tough...
you might want to grab a compile of r214 and encode with this to .mp4 and test the resulting file, cause this one places the moov at the beginning
or simply add an audio stream to your cli .mp4, cause this will also move the moov to the start

edit: seems as if the apple avc .mov files also have the moov at the end, so this might also not be the cause...
I always mux audio in, so it must not be the moov thing causing problems.

[nexx]

Has anybody had any luck playing the Apple H.264 HD trailers in anything other than Quicktime 7?
http://www.apple.com/quicktime/hdgallery/
Some of them have direct link to a .zip containing a 1080p .mov file

I only managed to get any results at all with CelticDruid's latest MPlayer CVS [here (http://www.aziendeassociate.it/cd//mplayer/mplayer2005.04.26.Athlon-XP.7z)].
However they play back with a lot of video artifacts in the bottom half of the frame.
screenshot: http://img184.echo.cx/my.php?image=untitled17dz.jpg

[Yong]

Yaeh, i also have problem same with nexx,
i tried 2 hd video clip, both have same problem.
libavcodec h264 decoding broked???

[plonk420]

damn, is anyone able to grab the link of the 1280x544 version of Serenity? yes, the 1080 chokes my 1.25ghz up something fierce and my mac doesn't have net connectivity (windows net connection sharing is borked) at the moment.. :(

[planet1]

I tried the zip version of this sample:

http://www.apple.com/quicktime/hdgallery/bbcmotiongalleryreel.html


mplayer & ffplay show a distorted picture (bottom half)

Trying to demux to AVC-RAW first and then muxing to MP4 was pretty much unsuccessful (VLC,mplayer,ffmpeg) - mp4box rejected all avc streams, mp4creator muxed like a weirdo with no useful results.

(VLC's raw output was playable though.)


What "kind" of AVC is apple using anyway ? (profile?, level?)

Is AAC-Main or AAC-LC used ?

[Sagittaire]

it's possible to demux h264 - mov -> h264 - raw ... !!?

[bond]

from my tests neither ffmpeg, vlc nor mplayer seem to be able to demux to raw avc from mov correctly atm, maybe thats also the reason why they bork during playback?

you will have to passthrough the .mov to .mp4 in qt7 to get something useable

What "kind" of AVC is apple using anyway ? (profile?, level?)

Is AAC-Main or AAC-LC used ? [/B] dont mix up avc and aac, these are different things!

apple uses lc-aac and main profile avc

[Yong]

i've tried transmuxing to MKV via MKVToolnix, the distorted picture problem still persist...:rolleyes:

[bond]

Originally posted by Stacey Melissa
[B]What I mean is the thing that marks the video track as "avc1". I don't remember what it's called. avc is always marked as avc1, in the x264 cli and mp4box

[bond]

i dont have a problem playing the, in qt7 passed through mov -> mp4, serenity_1080p file with haalis parser and ffdshow

i also dont have a problem playing directly in qt7 encoded .mp4 files with ffdshow

[bond]

ok i now merged the two qt7 asp/avc threads, cause they were about the same things anyways

[Sagittaire]

mux in mkv + haalis parser + Nero Digital Filter play fine (at 10 or 12 fps whit 1920*816) on my PC ... :D

[bond]

Originally posted by bond
problems:
- the file crashes mplayer, videolan and ateme's mp4toolbox, which normally handle avc mp4 files fine
- the filebrand of the mp4 file is "mp42", it should be "avc1" i think
- there is a strange sdtp atom written, which isnt needed in mp4 and only consists of 00 08 00 08sok i have to add one more item to that bug list:

- the cts values are not correct, for neither directly created mp4 files, nor passed through from mov .mp4 files

1) when encoding directly into .mp4 with quicktime the cts values get a "1" added:
correct would be:
Sample 1 - DTS 0 - CTS 3600
Sample 2 - DTS 3600 - CTS 10800
Sample 3 - DTS 7200 - CTS 7200qt7 writes tough:
Sample 1 - DTS 0 - CTS 3600
Sample 2 - DTS 3601 - CTS 10801
Sample 3 - DTS 7201 - CTS 7201
2) when transmuxing from mov to mp4 in qt7 the cts gets totally borked too:
the correct way would be
Sample 1 - DTS 0 - CTS 1024
Sample 2 - DTS 1024 - CTS 2048
Sample 3 - DTS 2048 - CTS 4096but qt7 writes
Sample 1 - DTS 0 - CTS 0
Sample 2 - DTS 1024 - CTS 1024
Sample 3 - DTS 2048 - CTS 2048
Sample 4 - DTS 3072 - CTS 3072which means that qt7 doesnt recognize that the stream has b-frames when transmuxing (there shouldnt be a problem when no b-frames are used)


Originally posted by Sagittaire
mux in mkv + haalis parser + Nero Digital Filter play fine (at 10 or 12 fps whit 1920*816) on my PC ... :D mux into mkv from mov or mp4?

but even if muxed from mov, who knows maybe your mkv muxing tool writes the mkv in some way it circumvents the problem


to sum it up: i dont trust quicktimes output to be correct at all :D

[planet1]

Originally posted by bond


dont mix up avc and aac, these are different things!



I wasn't mixing them up :) - its just that mplayer kind of alters the AAC profile setting when demuxing AAC from mpeg or mov (AAC-Main instead of AAC-LC). Though this wont introduce playback problems - some muxing tools get irritated e.g. mp4box.


VLC doesnt seem to do its job when demuxing to raw if more than 1 track is present (merges everything to one single output file).


ffmpeg also has some problems e.g.:
ffmpeg -i someclip.mpg -acodec copy -f aac -vn raw-output.aac


But above all there seems to be a bigger problem - the aac-dump is often "totally" raw (without ADTS headers).
I guess there is no tool which can add these headers afterwards ... (at least foobar2000 can play this stuff)

[bond]

btw i totally forgot that ffmpeg/libavcodec indeed has problems playing multiple sliced frames, which look very similar to the screenshots someone posted in this thread (apples samples all use multiple slices)

this was already seeable on such multiple sliced frames samples from moonlight and vss

stupid me forgot it :D


Originally posted by planet1
I wasn't mixing them up :) - its just that mplayer kind of alters the AAC profile setting when demuxing AAC from mpeg or mov (AAC-Main instead of AAC-LC). Though this wont introduce playback problems - some muxing tools get irritated e.g. mp4box. hm ic, thats not good, still you might want to know that aac-lc = aac main profile @ level 2

VLC doesnt seem to do its job when demuxing to raw if more than 1 track is present (merges everything to one single output file).
ffmpeg also has some problems e.g.:
ffmpeg -i someclip.mpg -acodec copy -f aac -vn raw-output.aaci werent able to extract an aac out of mov with neither ffmpeg, mplayer nor videolan. they output some files tough, but i doubt that they are correct

But above all there seems to be a bigger problem - the aac-dump is often "totally" raw (without ADTS headers).
I guess there is no tool which can add these headers afterwards ... (at least foobar2000 can play this stuff)there is indeed no tool, which can add the adts header afterwards, i am also not sure whether any other container muxing tool, which handle such files
apart from that i dont think that the "aac" files outputted by ffmpeg, vlc, mplayer are real raw aac files

[Yong]

Originally posted by bond
...i werent able to extract an aac out of mov with neither ffmpeg, mplayer nor videolan. they output some files tough, but i doubt that they are correct

there is indeed no tool, which can add the adts header afterwards, i am also not sure whether any other container muxing tool, which handle such files
apart from that i dont think that the "aac" files outputted by ffmpeg, vlc, mplayer are real raw aac files
Why not using MKVToolnix?
extract the AAC from mov to MKA, then use MKVextract to extract aac out of MKA;)

[planet1]

@bond

isnt AAC-MAIN more "advanced" than AAC-LC ?

http://www.audiocoding.com/modules/wiki/?page=Main




Originally posted by Yong
Why not using MKVToolnix?
extract the AAC from mov to MKA, then use MKVextract to extract aac out of MKA;)

excellent idea - thats easier/better than using quicktime to transmux the aac to mp4 ;-)

btw Sagittaire is right - remuxing the movs to mkv will indeed make them playable through dshow - ffdshow's h.264 decoder should be avoided though (see bonds reference to that libavcodec bug)

demuxing the mkv (to raw avc) is also useless - though VLC produces a playable result (maybe the mp4 muxers dont support 1080p yet :rolleyes: :confused: )

[bond]

did anyone already make an avc encode with nerodigital or x264 with everything enabled and tried to play it in quicktime7? did it play correctly?

Originally posted by Yong
Why not using MKVToolnix?
extract the AAC from mov to MKA, then use MKVextract to extract aac out of MKA;) hm, i am not that interested in mov files with aac streams, i just wanted to test whether the three opensource tools handle it already :)

[Sagittaire]

Well it's very complex but here HD QT7 mov remux in mp4
http://multimediacom.free.fr/Video/Batman_cut.mp4

Video:
MPEG4 AVC
1920*816
~8 000 Kbps VBR with I,P,B frame

Audio;
MPEG4 AAC Main
48 000 Hz
192 Kbps CBR

Video use [18-28] interval for QPframe ... in fact quality in high motion don't impressive me (perhabs because quant is too high). 8 Mbps for 1920*816 is perhabs not high enough for this source. I think that WMV-HD trailer use better quality level for example. WMV-HD use 8 mbps for 1440*816 and 1117040 pel and QT7-HD use 8 Mbps for 1920*816 and 1566720 pel. QTAVC is certainely a better codec than WMV9 but not enough good for these resolution/bitrate ...

[MuTeK]

mplayer & ffplay show a distorted picture (bottom half)

Now the Elecard Player supports the Apple QuickTime file format with AVC/H.264 video.

http://www.elecard.com/ftp/pub/mpeg/player/player3_0_1.zip

[Stacey Melissa]

I'm getting the idea that QT7 is rather crippled when it comes to AVC playback. I can get 1000 frame x264 clips to work just fine in it, even with multiple reference frames, multiple adaptive b frames, cabac, in-loop filter, 4x4..., but full movies just display a white screen. Soooo annoying.

[saratoga]

Originally posted by MuTeK
Now the Elecard Player supports the Apple QuickTime file format with AVC/H.264 video.

http://www.elecard.com/ftp/pub/mpeg/player/player3_0_1.zip

ffdshow seems to break horribly on the samples Apple posted. The top 75% of the video is fine, but the bottom quarter is blurry and filled with blocks and occasionally skips. I'm using the lastest build from the ffdshow thread.

Moonlight decodes the video fine, so its not a big deal, just wondering if I'm doing something wrong.

[bond]

Originally posted by saratoga
[B]ffdshow seems to break horribly on the samples Apple posted. The top 75% of the video is fine, but the bottom quarter is blurry and filled with blocks and occasionally skips. I'm using the lastest build from the ffdshow threadread the whole thread, this has been reported already

[MuTeK]

Bond
Yes, player support of AVC streams multiplexed into MP4.

http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=10497

[bond]

Originally posted by MuTeK
http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=10497 hehe, nice claims about the moonlight/qt7 decoding speeds :)

i guess its really time for some structured avc decoding speed comparisons :)

[toke]

Anybody made comparison about encoding quality between qt7pro and Nero yet?

[bond]

Originally posted by toke
Anybody made comparison about encoding quality between qt7pro and Nero yet? qt7's avc is far weaker featurewise than nerodigital (and x264), so i wouldnt be surprised if qt7 wouldnt stand a chance against nero

[Sharktooth]

Originally posted by bond
qt7's avc is far weaker featurewise than nerodigital, so i wouldnt be surprised if qt7 wouldnt stand a chance against nero
... and against MPEG-4 ASP ...

[LordRPI]

Originally posted by Sharktooth
... and against MPEG-4 ASP ...

I have a fully functioning version of QT 7 Pro. Shall we find out?

[Sharktooth]

Yup :D (... i hate QT ...)

[LordRPI]

If anybody has a totally free... as in non-copyrighted source, I'll be more than happy to provide an encode.

[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:

[Sharktooth]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

@ 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]

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]

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]

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]

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

[Sagittaire]

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

[LordRPI]

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]

Aiight,

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

Get ready to puke.

[JohnV]

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]

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]

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

[Sagittaire]

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]

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]

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]

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

[IgorC]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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.

[Sagittaire]

QT7 AVC use 1 bframe adaptative. 1, 2, 3 or more frames don't change really the result (visually and for metric) for other MPEG4 AVC (x264 and NDAVC).

QT7 AVC seem visually worth than other AVC codec (Luma is strange) but better than MPEG4 ASP: it's not so bad for first realise ...

[bond]

Originally posted by Sagittaire
QT7 AVC use 1 bframe adaptative.i didnt see any qt7 avc stream till now which placed b-frames adaptively. do you have one? if yes, i would love to get a sample

1, 2, 3 or more frames don't change really the result (visually and for metric) for other MPEG4 AVC (x264 and NDAVC). oh what a claim...
so using more than 1 b-frame is totally useless in x264 and nd avc in your opinion ("visually and for metric")?

[Sagittaire]

Originally posted by bond
i didnt see any qt7 avc stream till now which placed b-frames adaptively. do you have one? if yes, i would love to get a sample


QT7 AVC HD trailer (Batman Begin for exemple) use one adaptative bframe. Perhabs dev use more advanced codec for these HD encoding.


oh what a claim ...
so using more than 1 b-frame is totally useless in x264 and nd avc in your opinion ("visually and for metric")?

Well make the test with x264 and try to detect visually sample with 1, 2, 3 or 4 bframe. IMO it's impossible simply because in most case encoder use 0 or 1 bframe ...

Here result with metric for x264:
0 bframes: 42.96 dB ( 0000/3075 for bframes/total)
1 bframes: 43.09 dB ( 1144/3075 for bframes/total)
2 bframes: 43.10 dB ( 1354/3075 for bframes/total)
3 bframes: 43.11 dB ( 1438/3075 for bframes/total)
4 bframes: 43.11 dB ( 1471/3075 for bframes/total)

high diff between 0 and 1, little diff between 1 and 2/3/.../N

[babayaga]

Originally posted by Sharktooth
Ok here are the QT7 encodes:
450kbps (http://www.aziendeassociate.com/h264/hp-450.mp4)
900kbps (http://www.aziendeassociate.com/h264/hp-900.mp4)


The link is broken. Could you restore it ?

Thx

[Sharktooth]

Sorry, DNS problems...
I'll fix it asap.

[Sharktooth]

Ok DNS server gone nutz so i moved the files to another host.
QT7 450kbps encode (http://www.webalice.it/f.corriga/h264/hp-450.rar)

QT7 900kbps encode PART1 (http://www.webalice.it/f.corriga/h264/hp-900.part1.rar)
QT7 900kbps encode PART2 (http://www.webalice.it/f.corriga/h264/hp-900.part2.rar)

However look also at this xvid encode (900kbps):
http://www.webalice.it/f.corriga/misc/hp2-xvid-900-ULR.part1.rar
http://www.webalice.it/f.corriga/misc/hp2-xvid-900-ULR.part2.rar

Do you still believe QT AVC is a good codec? Well, i dont think so.

[akupenguin]

Originally posted by Sagittaire
Well make the test with x264 and try to detect visually sample with 1, 2, 3 or 4 bframe. IMO it's impossible simply because in most case encoder use 0 or 1 bframe ...

So encode something other than HPII. Sure, the 1st B-frame makes more difference that the 2nd, but don't call them useless.
720x480x24, 950kbit/s, avg qp=18
bframes=0 PSNR:46.41 fps:7.33 B: 0/129968
bframes=1 PSNR:46.72 fps:7.42 B:57407/129968
bframes=2 PSNR:46.80 fps:7.96 B:75447/129968
bframes=3 PSNR:46.80 fps:8.12 B:83409/129968

[SeeMoreDigital]

Originally posted by Sharktooth
Ok DNS server gone nutz so i moved the files to another host.
QT7 450kbps encode (http://www.webalice.it/f.corriga/h264/hp-450.rar)

Do you still believe QT AVC is a good codec? Well, i dont think so.

Hi Sharktooth,

I've just compared the Harry Potter II QuickTime AVC 450Kbps encode with the Nero AVC 450Kbps encode (ftp://mood.ateme.com/beta/hp2-ateme-450k-hp.mp4).

Apart from Nero's encode being 504KB smaller than QuickTime's... Nero's looks better... to my eyes!

[ac-chan123]

to compare mux files isn't good. demux and compare the raw streams.

[SeeMoreDigital]

Originally posted by ac-chan123
to compare mux files isn't good. demux and compare the raw streams. This should not matter too much as both the QuickTime and Nero encodes have been muxed into the .MP4 container!

That said, even after de-muxing both to RAW .h264 streams, there is still a 492KB difference!


Cheers

[Elias]

Anyone who knows when it'll be out for Windows? Last I heard was something like September in this thread. Not sure if that was official though.

[eb]

Originally posted by SeeMoreDigital
That said, even after de-muxing both to RAW .h264 streams, there is still a 492KB difference!

Is this difference caused by video data volume or structure of headers for video blocks ?

eb

[SeeMoreDigital]

Originally posted by eb
Is this difference caused by video data volume or structure of headers for video blocks ? Your questions are a little over my head eb :(


Cheers

[Elias]

http://fileforum.betanews.com/detail/QuickTime_for_Windows/948389372/1 Finally, a beta. Too bad I can't run Windows any more (Linux only now).

[damrod]

in was reading apple page about h264..

Use Scenario Resolution & Frame Rate Example Data Rates
Mobile Content 176x144, 10-24 fps 50-60 Kbps
Internet/Standard Definition 640x480, 24 fps 1-2 Mbps
High Definition 1280x720, 24p 5-6 Mbps
Full High Definition 1920x1080, 24p 7-8 Mbps

640/480@1-2Mbps ?? i use this with xvid...if i choose to use h264 it's to use 600-700kbps for near the same quality !!

i think apple don't understand video encoding and mpeg4 ;-)


btw quicktime7 basic can play fullscreen video??

[Elias]

in was reading apple page about h264..

Use Scenario Resolution & Frame Rate Example Data Rates
Mobile Content 176x144, 10-24 fps 50-60 Kbps
Internet/Standard Definition 640x480, 24 fps 1-2 Mbps
High Definition 1280x720, 24p 5-6 Mbps
Full High Definition 1920x1080, 24p 7-8 Mbps

640/480@1-2Mbps ?? i use this with xvid...if i choose to use h264 it's to use 600-700kbps for near the same quality !!

i think apple don't understand video encoding and mpeg4 ;-)


btw quicktime7 basic can play fullscreen video??Actually, that depends a lot on the actual source. If it has a lot of dark scenes, and is overall a good compressionable source, h.264 won't even be needed since XviD would do the job pretty much great.

[bond]

640/480@1-2Mbps ?? i use this with xvid...if i choose to use h264 it's to use 600-700kbps for near the same quality !!
well i think big companies never realised the power of xvid and opensource. i assume they simply ignore opensource codecs as its maybe not a professional and serious solution in their eyes

so when talking about mpeg-4 they might refer to encoders like apple's or sorenson's, which cant stand a chance against xvid and therefore need a higher bitrate to get the same quality

[damrod]

off course but divx is a professionnel/commercial codec no?

and it gives better quality than sorenson or apple codec !!!

i think the reason is : "if i pay too much it must be good...because i can complain latter"

stupid reason but common reason...in lot of compagnies

they don't like working and free solution ...it's weird for them lol

[Elias]

Actually, I find XviD, or MPEG-4 Part 2 (Apple's version not included, since it's on par with DivX 3.11) much better than AVC. Even if it's Nero Digital AVC. I don't know why, but I've never gotten good results with AVC. It's way overrated and hyped in my opinion.