RMVB Encoding in Linux

[Razorblade2000]

Any news on Linux-RMVB encoding?
Last time I checked (>a year ago) there wasn't any possibilty of getting the file-input to the encoder (piping or the abilty to read compressed input)

any news or is the situation still that sad :( ?

[Sirber]

Don't think it changed. Not even a new build for windows... :(

[Razorblade2000]

well, it's a pity

[karl_lillevold]

yes, it's a pity there are no Linux programmers that have volunteered to add this. Anyone?

[Sirber]

Is producer cmdline opensource?

[karl_lillevold]

yes, most of it. only the RM codecs and the file format are not open source. If anyone wanted to improve input format support on Linux, they have all they need in open source.

[Sirber]

Is the libavcodec project still alive?

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=77018&highlight=producer

[xxthink]

yes, most of it. only the RM codecs and the file format are not open source. If anyone wanted to improve input format support on Linux, they have all they need in open source.

Is there some opensource rmvb encoder on linux now?

[benwaggoner]

What are folks using RealVideo for these days?

The main places I hear about are .rmvb libraries in Chinese internet cafes, and a few enterprises still using it internally.

[roozhou]

The main places I hear about are .rmvb libraries in Chinese internet cafes, and a few enterprises still using it internally.

That's right. RV40 still dominates online videos in China. Many portable players and SAPs also have hardware decoding support for RV40 while only a few of them support WMV3/VC1.

P.S. I highly doubt VC1 gives better quality than RV40 at the same bitrate.

[tetsuo55]

not really an answer to your question, but i strongly recommend not encoding RMVB, no point in keeping this format alive any longer than needed.

That said libavcodec can now decode rv10,20,30 and 40

[benwaggoner]

That's right. RV40 still dominates online videos in China. Many portable players and SAPs also have hardware decoding support for RV40 while only a few of them support WMV3/VC1.
Online video? It seems to be more P2P or sneakernet distribution from what I saw.

Web video proper (played in a browser) that I saw was mainly WMP/Silverlight/Flash.

P.S. I highly doubt VC1 gives better quality than RV40 at the same bitrate.
Emperical question :). Do you have a scenario in mind?

[xxthink]

What are folks using RealVideo for these days?

The main places I hear about are .rmvb libraries in Chinese internet cafes, and a few enterprises still using it internally.

Then what another format should be prefered?

[benwaggoner]

Then what another format should be prefered?
I don't really understand why they're doing it that way now, so I can't really say would would do better. RV9/10 is one of the better codecs for quality@perf when DXVA isn't available. So maybe it's about low-end machine decode perf?

[tetsuo55]

That can't be it, RV30/40 are almost equally as difficult as h264.

At the same resolution the the rmvb will stutter more often on my xbox with xbmc when compared to the h264 in mkv.

I read once that realproducer was very easy to use for newcomers and that no other application has come along that matches its noob-user friendlyness.
Also all those chinese users have installed realplayer and there are even standalone devices (extremely high priced) to play RMVB.

Now with HD i have been trying to convince some of my chinese friends to use x264, i got some home videos in 720p that where encoded with rmvb, and my system that can happily play h264 was stuttering like crazy with the rmvb.

[Dark Shikari]

I don't really understand why they're doing it that way now, so I can't really say would would do better. RV9/10 is one of the better codecs for quality@perf when DXVA isn't available.Is this a joke?

No proprietary video format is ever decent in terms of performance because there's only a single decoder implementation which is generally horrifically slow. Even if you're lucky enough to get it reverse-engineered into libavcodec, they rarely care enough about your pet format to bend their brain trying to optimize it.

This is the primary reason why WMV9 was so godawful performance-wise: it isn't merely an issue of Microsoft being unable to write a fast decoder if their life depended on it, it's that without competition, you just won't get good decoders.

Nevermind the fact that RV's subpel is just patently insane and the inverse transform much more complicated than H.264's (it's almost as bad as VC-1's).

[xxthink]

Then x264, perhaps the most suitable choice now for HD video?
Only perhaps, before my word done :).

[xxthink]

That can't be it, RV30/40 are almost equally as difficult as h264.

At the same resolution the the rmvb will stutter more often on my xbox with xbmc when compared to the h264 in mkv.

I read once that realproducer was very easy to use for newcomers and that no other application has come along that matches its noob-user friendlyness.
Also all those chinese users have installed realplayer and there are even standalone devices (extremely high priced) to play RMVB.

Now with HD i have been trying to convince some of my chinese friends to use x264, i got some home videos in 720p that where encoded with rmvb, and my system that can happily play h264 was stuttering like crazy with the rmvb.

Would you like to post the configration of your machine?
Where you find the 720p video sequences?
Do you watch 1080p video?

[tetsuo55]

Would you like to post the configration of your machine? Xbox 1 unit (733mhz celeron PIII)
Where you find the 720p video sequences?Filmed with digital camera's, weddings and stuff.
Do you watch 1080p video?Yes but only on my real HTPC (C2D e8400)

[benwaggoner]

No proprietary video format is ever decent in terms of performance because there's only a single decoder implementation which is generally horrifically slow. Even if you're lucky enough to get it reverse-engineered into libavcodec, they rarely care enough about your pet format to bend their brain trying to optimize it.
Well, RealVideo was the first streaming codec that could do 720p24 on relatively low-end hardware. NAB 2001-2002? Before WM 9 Series launch.

And it had that super-aggressive filtering that kept it from getting too blocky. Sort of a prepreprocessed "in-loop" deblocking that did some kind of QP-feedback driven low-pass filter?

This is the primary reason why WMV9 was so godawful performance-wise: it isn't merely an issue of Microsoft being unable to write a fast decoder if their life depended on it, it's that without competition, you just won't get good decoders.
I'd say it has been more an issue of the slow pass of Windows and thus WMP releases. There are some great multithreaded VC-1 decoders created since WMP 11 shipped, but they're in things like the Xbox The Silverlight 2+ VC-1 software decoder is also quite a bit faster than the WMP11 one.

Plus stability/security gets a lot of attention; there may be more bounds checking etcetera in our decoders due to all the fuzz testing they go through.

Nevermind the fact that RV's subpel is just patently insane and the inverse transform much more complicated than H.264's (it's almost as bad as VC-1's).
I've never looked at the guts of that codec, just my recollections as a compressionist back in the era when RealVdieo and Windows Media were the main competing codecs. RV offered better decode complexity, and WIndows Media (probably V8 at that point) retained more detail.

[roozhou]

Emperical question :). Do you have a scenario in mind?

I can do a RV40 vs VC1 test. Samples will be SD anime.
Encoders are Easy RealMedia Producer for RV40 and MediaCoder for VC1.

One problem is that with default settings RV40 encoder is much faster than VC1 encoder so I cannot consider it a fair contest. Any suggestion on how to tweak WMV PowerToy to speed up VC1 encoding?

[benwaggoner]

I can do a RV40 vs VC1 test. Samples will be SD anime.
Encoders are Easy RealMedia Producer for RV40 and MediaCoder for VC1.
What VC-1 implementation does MediaCoder use?

For a meaningful test, you'd want to use a VC-1 Encoder SDK based product like Expression Encoder. If you can provide source, I can do that encode.

But shouldn't we pick something that's film/video? Anime's not very representative test content for anything but anime.

[Dark Shikari]

What VC-1 implementation does MediaCoder use?

For a meaningful test, you'd want to use a VC-1 Encoder SDK based product like Expression Encoder. If you can provide source, I can do that encode.

But shouldn't we pick something that's film/video? Anime's not very representative test content for anything but anime.Roozhou is choosing anime because he knows RV will win, since RV uses a 4x4 transform and VC-1 uses an 8x8 transform (for intra at least) ;)

Tricksy hobbitses.

[benwaggoner]

Roozhou is choosing anime because he knows RV will win, since RV uses a 4x4 transform and VC-1 uses an 8x8 transform (for intra at least) ;)

Tricksy hobbitses.
Spatial transform? VC-1 can switch between 8x8,4x4, 4x8, and 8x4 intra per 8x8 block. That shouldn't make a difference.

RealVideo 10's QP adaptive smoothing (at least that what it looked to me like what it was doing a few years ago) probably does a great job of sucking detail out of flat regions, which in Anime is mainly going to be noise.

Hmmm. I think I've got the uncompressed (albeit SD) source for the "Sinbad" trailer around here somewhere. Want to offer up some specs?

[Dark Shikari]

Spatial transform? VC-1 can switch between 8x8,4x4, 4x8, and 8x4 intra per 8x8 block. That shouldn't make a difference.No, that's for inter coding. Intra is 8x8 only, from what I know.

From libavcodec (I-frame decoding, relevant stuff highlighted):

for(s->mb_y = 0; s->mb_y < s->mb_height; s->mb_y++) {
s->mb_x = 0;
ff_init_block_index(s);
for(; s->mb_x < s->mb_width; s->mb_x++) {
ff_update_block_index(s);
s->dsp.clear_blocks(s->block[0]);
mb_pos = s->mb_x + s->mb_y * s->mb_width;
s->current_picture.mb_type[mb_pos] = MB_TYPE_INTRA;
s->current_picture.qscale_table[mb_pos] = v->pq;
s->current_picture.motion_val[1][s->block_index[0]][0] = 0;
s->current_picture.motion_val[1][s->block_index[0]][1] = 0;

// do actual MB decoding and displaying
cbp = get_vlc2(&v->s.gb, ff_msmp4_mb_i_vlc.table, MB_INTRA_VLC_BITS, 2);
v->s.ac_pred = get_bits1(&v->s.gb);

for(k = 0; k < 6; k++) {
val = ((cbp >> (5 - k)) & 1);

if (k < 4) {
int pred = vc1_coded_block_pred(&v->s, k, &coded_val);
val = val ^ pred;
*coded_val = val;
}
cbp |= val << (5 - k);

vc1_decode_i_block(v, s->block[k], k, val, (k<4)? v->codingset : v->codingset2);

s->dsp.vc1_inv_trans_8x8(s->block[k]);
if(v->pq >= 9 && v->overlap) {
for(j = 0; j < 64; j++) s->block[k][j] += 128;
}
}

vc1_put_block(v, s->block);
if(v->pq >= 9 && v->overlap) {
if(s->mb_x) {
s->dsp.vc1_h_overlap(s->dest[0], s->linesize);
s->dsp.vc1_h_overlap(s->dest[0] + 8 * s->linesize, s->linesize);
if(!(s->flags & CODEC_FLAG_GRAY)) {
s->dsp.vc1_h_overlap(s->dest[1], s->uvlinesize);
s->dsp.vc1_h_overlap(s->dest[2], s->uvlinesize);
}
}
s->dsp.vc1_h_overlap(s->dest[0] + 8, s->linesize);
s->dsp.vc1_h_overlap(s->dest[0] + 8 * s->linesize + 8, s->linesize);
if(!s->first_slice_line) {
s->dsp.vc1_v_overlap(s->dest[0], s->linesize);
s->dsp.vc1_v_overlap(s->dest[0] + 8, s->linesize);
if(!(s->flags & CODEC_FLAG_GRAY)) {
s->dsp.vc1_v_overlap(s->dest[1], s->uvlinesize);
s->dsp.vc1_v_overlap(s->dest[2], s->uvlinesize);
}
}
s->dsp.vc1_v_overlap(s->dest[0] + 8 * s->linesize, s->linesize);
s->dsp.vc1_v_overlap(s->dest[0] + 8 * s->linesize + 8, s->linesize);
}
if(v->s.loop_filter) vc1_loop_filter_iblk(s, v->pq);

if(get_bits_count(&s->gb) > v->bits) {
ff_er_add_slice(s, 0, 0, s->mb_x, s->mb_y, (AC_END|DC_END|MV_END));
av_log(s->avctx, AV_LOG_ERROR, "Bits overconsumption: %i > %i\n", get_bits_count(&s->gb), v->bits);
return;
}
}
ff_draw_horiz_band(s, s->mb_y * 16, 16);
s->first_slice_line = 0;
}

[roozhou]

What VC-1 implementation does MediaCoder use?

For a meaningful test, you'd want to use a VC-1 Encoder SDK based product like Expression Encoder. If you can provide source, I can do that encode.
MediaCoder uses WMF SDK? Can you provide a free VC-1 Encoder SDK based encoder that accepts raw YUV from stdin?

Tests must be taken on the same machine. I need same bitrates and same encoding speed.

But shouldn't we pick something that's film/video? Anime's not very representative test content for anything but anime.
Sure.

[benwaggoner]

No, that's for inter coding. Intra is 8x8 only, from what I know.
Yes, of course. I was saying intra to discrimate from partition, when I meant to say predicted :).

Anyway, I found that Sinbad source, and it looks like Dreamworks actually gave me permission to distrubute the source for compression testing back in 2004, so I'm going to post it up to a share.

It's an interesting clip, with a mixture of cel and CGI animation, plus a few shots of actual video source. And there's some interesting/annoying banding in some frames that could produce some interesting.

I'm uploading it to SkyDrive right now (in .zip segments due to the darn 50 MB limitation).

http://cid-bee3c9ac9541c85b.skydrive.live.com/browse.aspx/.Public/Sinbad%7C_Source

It has six segments; maybe another hour or so in the upload. My ADSL is very "A"...

[benwaggoner]

MediaCoder uses WMF SDK?
I don't have any idea what it uses, honestly.

Can you provide a free VC-1 Encoder SDK based encoder that accepts raw YUV from stdin?
Expression Encoder has a full-featured 30-day trial.

There's also this:
http://forum.doom9.org/showpost.php?p=1284628&postcount=173

Tests must be taken on the same machine. I need same bitrates and same encoding speed.
Are we doing a quality test or a quality@perf test? Two different things.

And what's the scenario for bitrates and rate control model?

And comparing with postprocessing on or off? On would be more realistic as to real-world experiences, while Off would be a better test of the codecs themselves.

[Dark Shikari]

Use my blackpearl sample, it's standard enough ;)

[benwaggoner]

Use my blackpearl sample, it's standard enough ;)
Link?

[Dark Shikari]

Link?linkage (http://www.mediafire.com/?mymhmje0iki)

[benwaggoner]

Got it. Preprocess to 704x288? What's the bitrate used for those internet cafes? 1 Mbps?

[Dark Shikari]

Got it. Preprocess to 704x288?I just encode it at 720x352 (black cropped off) with no resizing.What's the bitrate used for those internet cafes? 1 Mbps?I usually use 500kbps for low bitrate and 1000kbps for medium-ish bitrate on that sample.

[benwaggoner]

I just encode it at 720x352 (black cropped off) with no resizing.
Well, there's a little horizontal blanking left and right. I think you'd want to crop to at least 712.

If you don't want to do any scaling and want to be Mod16, I'd probably do:

MPEG2Source("D:\Dark Shikari\Black.Pearl.Sample.d2v",cpu=6)
tdecimate(mode=2)
CROP(8,64,704,352)

I usually use 500kbps for low bitrate and 1000kbps for medium-ish bitrate on that sample.
Sounds reasonable. Your usual unconstrained 2-pass VBR with 10 sec GOP?

[Dark Shikari]

Well, there's a little horizontal blanking left and right. I think you'd want to crop to at least 712.I guess, I never bothered with that.Sounds reasonable. Your usual unconstrained 2-pass VBR with 10 sec GOP?Yup.

[roozhou]

@ben
I am tesing DS's Black Pearl sample and still downloading your clip. Here are two questions concerning Expression Encoder 2

1) How can I set SAR? I cropped the video to 720x360 and set Video Aspect to 64:27, but it had no effect.
2) Why did the encoder complain about invalid video profile when I enabled dquant?



tdecimate(mode=2)

Why are you using tdecimate? The source is progressive.

[benwaggoner]

@ben
I am tesing DS's Black Pearl sample and still downloading your clip. Here are two questions concerning Expression Encoder 2

1) How can I set SAR? I cropped the video to 720x360 and set Video Aspect to 64:27, but it had no effect.
First, make sure you have SP1 installed.

Set Resize Mode > Stretch
Video Aspect > Custom > 47:20 or whatever you like


2) Why did the encoder complain about invalid video profile when I enabled dquant?
Were you doing Advenced Profile?

Also, for that clip you only want to use I-Frame DQuant, and probably not even that for the 500 Kbps.

A good starting point would be:

Adaptive Dead Zone: Conservative
DQuant: I-Frame Only
Filters: In-Loop and Overlap On
Closed GOP: Off

For typical settings, set Search Range to Adaptive

For a HQ encode, also set:
Complexity:4
Chroma Search: Adaptive True Chroma
Match Method: Adaptive

And for an Insane encode:
Complexity: 5
Chroma Search: Full True Chroma
Threads Used: 1
Match

Why are you using tdecimate? The source is progressive.
I was getting some interlaced frames coming through for some reason, and it was left over from troubleshooting. Go ahead and delete.

Anyway, I threw up a couple of my own tests here:

http://cid-bee3c9ac9541c85b.skydrive.live.com/browse.aspx/.Public/DS%20Tests

[roozhou]

Were you doing Advenced Profile?


I have SP1 installed. Tested with more clips, but it always gave me "Error: Bad video profile: Invalid video profile for VC-1 Advanced profile"

All my settings are as follows:

Framerate: Source
Key frame interval: 8
Profile: VC-1 Advanced Profile
Mode: Quality VBR

Width: 640
Height: 480
Quality: 65

Video Compexity: Good (2)
Adaptive Dead Zone: Off
DQuant: I and P frames

Filters: Only In-loop enabled

B-Frame Number: 2
Scene Change Detection: On
Adaptive GOP: On
Closed GOP: Off

Chroma Search: Luma Only
Match Method: SAD
Search Range: Adaptive

[benwaggoner]

I have SP1 installed. Tested with more clips, but it always gave me "Error: Bad video profile: Invalid video profile for VC-1 Advanced profile"
Why are you using those settings? They're completely off scenario.

I don't see why you'd get an "invalid profile" error, though. Admittedly I've never seen that in SP1 before.

Can you PM me your settings file?

Have you compared my enodes to RMVB yet?


All my settings are as follows:

Framerate: Source
Key frame interval: 8
Profile: VC-1 Advanced Profile
Mode: Quality VBR

Width: 640
Height: 480
Quality: 65

Video Compexity: Good (2)
Adaptive Dead Zone: Off
DQuant: I and P frames

Filters: Only In-loop enabled

B-Frame Number: 2
Scene Change Detection: On
Adaptive GOP: On
Closed GOP: Off

Chroma Search: Luma Only
Match Method: SAD
Search Range: Adaptive

[roozhou]

@Ben
What is the length of the Black Pearl sample? Should it be 2 min 14 s?
Why does your encoded video has only 2 min?

[benwaggoner]

@Ben
What is the length of the Black Pearl sample? Should it be 2 min 14 s?
Why does your encoded video has only 2 min?
I have no idea. Is it missing frames, or is it running too fast?

I'm not at that machine right now to double check. I was having some weirdness in decoding the .m2v as I recall, so I might have messed something up there.

[roozhou]

OK, here is my encodes of DS's Black Pearl sample @ 500kbps
http://files.filefront.com/13928181

I don't have patient to tweak both of them to be perfect 500kbps. ~1% difference in size is tolerable.

RV40 settings:
2pass VBR
Video Mode: Sharpest image
Max Bitrate: 4000 kbps
Key Frame Interval: 10
Dropdup: Off
1st Pass Complexity: 50
2nd Pass Compexity: 85
B Frames: 1
CutOffQuant: 9
All other settings use default

VC1 settings:
Video Complexity: Good (2)
Key frame interval: 10
Profile: VC-1 Advanced Profile
Mode: VBR peak unconstrained
Adaptive Dead Zone: Conservative
DQuant: I and P Frames
In-Loop: On
Overlap, Denoise, Noise Edge Removal: Off
B-Frame Number: 1
Scene Change Detection: On
Adaptive GOP: On
Closed GOP: Off
Chroma Search: Luma Only
Match Methed: SAD
Search Range: Adaptive

Encoded size is 7.9M for wmv and 8.0M for rmvb.
Encoding time is ~140s for EE2 and ~130s for ERMP1.94, running on a E8400 @ 3.0GHz.
I think it is fair enough.

[benwaggoner]

Are you comparing fixed quality encodes? Shouldn't we be testing with rate control?

Also, your VC-1 encodes shouldn't be using P-frame DQuant; just I-frame at 1000 Kbps, and probably off entirely at 500 Kbps. The signalling overhead of DQuant is going to be a net loss at 500 Kbps.

Closed GOP should be OFF as well.


OK, here is my encodes of DS's VC1 settings:
Video Complexity: Good (2)
Key frame interval: 10
Profile: VC-1 Advanced Profile
Mode: VBR peak unconstrained
Adaptive Dead Zone: Conservative
DQuant: I and P Frames
In-Loop: On
Overlap, Denoise, Noise Edge Removal: Off
B-Frame Number: 1
Scene Change Detection: On
Adaptive GOP: On
Closed GOP: On
Chroma Search: Luma Only
Match Methed: SAD
Search Range: Adaptive

[roozhou]

Are you comparing fixed quality encodes? Shouldn't we be testing with rate control?

I am comparing quality under fixed bitrate. Both were encoded with 2-pass VBR rate control.

Also, your VC-1 encodes shouldn't be using P-frame DQuant; just I-frame at 1000 Kbps, and probably off entirely at 500 Kbps. The signalling overhead of DQuant is going to be a net loss at 500 Kbps.
WMV Powertoy says "Dquant applied to I and P frames only usually produces the best results" and I just followed that. I thought it was something similar to AQ in x264 so I turned it on.
Closed GOP should be OFF as well.
My bad. I did turn that off. Fixed.

BTW. I cannot find an expert on Real Producer. There should be some quality improvement in RV40 clip if I get good advice on RV40 settings.

[benwaggoner]

I am comparing quality under fixed bitrate. Both were encoded with 2-pass VBR rate control.
Cool.

WMV Powertoy says "Dquant applied to I and P frames only usually produces the best results" and I just followed that. I thought it was something similar to AQ in x264 so I turned it on.
It's akin, but the implementation in EEv3 is really tuned for HD bitrates. PowerToy refers to the Windows Format SDK .dll implementation, which has a better low bitate DQuant, but the other advantages of the new SDK leave it better on net.

Recent quality tuning has more focused on dynamic motion vector cost to address similar issues, which has the advantage of being compatible with all VC-1 profiles. Most of the time I don't use DQuant at all, but it's helpful with this particular clip on I-frames, as it reduces QP in the smoother areas of the backbround on the reference frame.

BTW. I cannot find an expert on Real Producer. There should be some quality improvement in RV40 clip if I get good advice on RV40 settings.
Indeed. I don't know if there are any expert compressionists focused on RealVideo anymore.

I had to do quite a bit of my own testing for the RealVideo chapter in my book.

[roozhou]

So what do you think about the two encoded clips?

IMHO The wmv seems to have more details and more grains but look more blocky as well.
Generally it doesn't look any better than rmvb.

[benwaggoner]

So what do you think about the two encoded clips?

IMHO The wmv seems to have more details and more grains but look more blocky as well.
Generally it doesn't look any better than rmvb.
Your encode or my encode?

Anyway, I an believe that would be the general distinction. Low bitrate VC-1 is tuned more for detail preservation assuming that deblocking and deringing postprocessing would be available to reduce blockiness (post-processing, although optional, is defined in the SMPTE VC-1 spec).

[roozhou]

Your encode or my encode?

Anyway, I an believe that would be the general distinction. Low bitrate VC-1 is tuned more for detail preservation assuming that deblocking and deringing postprocessing would be available to reduce blockiness (post-processing, although optional, is defined in the SMPTE VC-1 spec).

Deblocking is on, but still bad. The edges looks bad.

[benwaggoner]

Deblocking is on, but still bad. The edges looks bad.
Is that comparison with your encodes or my encodes?

[Dark Shikari]

the encode has more detail, but the edges are worse!You're comparing a 4x4-transform-based encoder to an 8x8-transform-based encoder and this is supposed to be new information? ;)