What video codec to use for distribution?

[vlada]

Hello,
I'd like to ask you for help in choosing a video format. I'm one of reporters from official web page of icehockey club in Pilsen, Czech Republic. On the webpage we provide some short movies in WMV format in a rather low quality. I'd like to suggest to use another format but the question iswhich one?
XviD or x264 would be perfect, but I do believe we would have legal problems with distribution of MPEG-4 compressed movies. Would buying Nero Recode allow us to use MP4 (MPEG-4 AVC + AAC HE) for distribution? As you probably understand I want a cross platform compatibility and a simple way for Windows users to play the movies. This probably disqualifies codecs like Dirac, Snow or Theora. But what about VP3?
What are your opinions?
Vlada

[bond]

i would say for most widely available support and no license costs mpeg-1 is the best choice. also most users know that format

ogg theora and vorbis is playable in wmp (or any other dshow player), realplayer (both with the freely available plugins) and in all the big linux, etc.. players, so its also supported very widely already, its just that people dont really realise this
also there are no license costs related to spreading content in these formats

wm9 is only playable in wmp, but not playable in quicktime and realplayer and of course not in linux, etc, so i dont think its a good choice
also i am not sure how much you have to pay for spreading content in that format, especially since lots of companies now have discovered to own patents in wmv9 (aka vc-1) so we are now in some sort of "transition phase" here with different licensecosts coming up soon

mov with sorenson3 video is only supported in qt (for sure not in realplayer and wmp), no idea about license costs for the content distributor

mpeg-4 audio/video (best in mp4 for wide interoperability) is supported by default in qt and realplayer (only simple profile video!) and in wmp with a free plugin (for example 3ivx) and of course in all the big linux players
mp4 itself is licensefree, but for using aac and asp you have to pay licenses, altough there is a limit of how many copies you can spread where you dont have to pay anything (and no, encoding with a commercial encoder doesnt give you the right to spread content without having to pay licenses (of course there is the mentioned limit for free))

on2's vp3 is supported only in wmp (when installing the vp3 codecs) and not in realplayer and qt, but also in the linux players. the later versions (vp6/vp7) are only available in wmp, so i dont think its a good choice. also you have to know that ogg theora is vp3 practically and theora has a far better support in more players than vp3 and in contrary to vp3 you can use theora together with vorbis
spreading content in vp3 should be license free, i dont think thats the case for vp6/7 too



from my point of view i would use mpeg-1 video in .mpg, if you care about better quality ogg theora/vorbis, than mp4 with aac/sp

[Sharktooth]

On2 offers a nice java player and an encoding suite with VP6/VP7 at a very low price.
You can even embed the player on a web page and streaming the content at various bitrates. The client needs only to have java installed.
Check their website: http://www.on2.com/

[Selur]

@sharktooth:
"You can even embed the player on a web page and streaming the content at various bitrates."
Got a link for to a small tutorial about this ? :D

-------------------


About licensing (for buisness use):
(hope someone will correct me if I'm wrong somewhere)

mp4(simple profile video + he-aac) should be covert if one goes for '3ivx D4 4.5.1 Pro' (ca. 100$).

wmv should be free, see:
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=92824
(assumign you are nor using drm, a streaming server or some other fancy stuff)

on2 vp6 should be covert by their 'On2 VP6 Small Business Video Solution' (ca. 200$), assuming the content is less than 30 minutes in length.

on2 vp6 should be covert by their 'On2 VP6 Small Business Video Solution' (ca. 200$), assuming the content is less than 30 minutes in length. For prices about vp7 one would have to contact on2.

Cu Selur

Ps.: atm I would go for wmv and mp4(simple profile video + he-aac).

[Sharktooth]

Originally posted by Selur
@sharktooth:
"You can even embed the player on a web page and streaming the content at various bitrates."
Got a link for to a small tutorial about this ? :D
Uhm embedding the player is not that hard. However the docs are in the On2 TrueMotion Streaming Java Applet Development Kit.

[Selur]

"However the docs are in the On2 TrueMotion Streaming Java Applet Development Kit."
thx for the info :D

[bond]

Originally posted by Selur
wmv should be freeinteresting, still it has to be noted that m$ is with wmv9 currently offering something it doesnt really have the right on (as it doesnt pay licenses to the patent holders of wmv9), so if a patent holder of a technology used in wmv9 thinks he wants to charge something from content distributors using his technology, they will have to pay and m$ has no influence on that.
i am sure we will see some funny developments with that format in the future :D

Ps.: atm I would go for wmv why that? the only player where you can play these files is wmp.
thats surely not a good choice if wide support or cross platform compatibility is one of your goals

if its enough for you that only one player can play your files, you could also use real or apple's stuff, where you can natively use aac, which is a better audio format than wma (together with sorenson3 or realvideo, which are qualitywise surely not really worse than wmv9)

[Selur]

"why that?"
don't forget I wrote "wmv and mp4"

As I see it atm wmv is free to use and it delivers better quality than mpeg4 simple profile at the same datarate.
(I doubt that the license will change in the next future,..)

Sure it's only playable with WMP, but there comes Microsofts market share. :D
So most of the users would be able to playback the files and the rest could use one of the alternatives:
- mp4
- theora
- real
- on2
...
Especially the on2 solutions are interessting,... :)
(I like the idea of having the player integrated in the web page. :D)

"where you can natively use aac, which is a better audio format than wma"
sure aac is better than wma, but as far as I can tell at low datarates it's far more important to use a good video codec than a good audio codec. (btw. since I never tried it: does aac support mono audio?)

So using wmv and mp4 would at least allow all quicktime, real and wmv users to playback the files without installing additional stuff. (as does the on2 solution)

Cu Selur

Ps.: btw. what audio format does on2 use ?
(does anybody know what price range one should expect if one wants on2s java solution?)

[bond]

Originally posted by Selur
Sure it's only playable with WMP, but there comes Microsofts market share. hm the texts i read about that talked more about that the big three players share the market pretty equally
still dont forget new windows pcs in the european union are not allowd anymore to have wmp installed by default, so m$ market share is surely going to shrink (unless everyone offers his content in wmv) ;)

Especially the on2 solutions are interessting,... :)
(I like the idea of having the player integrated in the web page. :D)well realistically: on2's codecs are propably the least supported ones discussed in this thread PLUS you have to pay for using them... come on ;)

btw there is also a freely available java based media applet for theora/vorbis called cortado which maybe offers that too, but i never tried it

btw. since I never tried it: does aac support mono audio?)of course :)

Ps.: btw. what audio format does on2 use ?no idea, on2 uses the avi container, so you can use audio formats supported by avi i think

[Selur]

"still dont forget new windows pcs in the european union are not allowd anymore to have wmp installed by default"
wasn't it that M$ just had to offer a version of Windows without wmp?
(which they did, iirc named e.g. Windows XP 'N' )

"well realistically: on2's codecs are propably the least supported ones discussed in this thread"
yeah, but supported wouldn't be necessary if you play it through an applet :)

"PLUS you have to pay for using them..."
yeah, thats what I don't like, but personally I can live with it if a company has to pay for such things (as long as private users don't)

"come on"
:devil:

"btw there is also a freely available java based media applet for theora/vorbis called cortado which maybe offers that too, but i never tried it"
yeah but theora = vp3 isn't that great :), so the applet might be
interessing (got a link ? btw. what's the best software atm to do avs+wav => theora+ogg ?)

"so you can use audio formats supported by avi i think"
hmm,.. that would mean aac too (I too think aac should go into mp4 and not avi, but avi-mux supports it. :D)

Cu Selur

Ps.: @vlada: hope I'm not conquering your thread :D

[bond]

Originally posted by Selur
wasn't it that M$ just had to offer a version of Windows without wmp?
(which they did, iirc named e.g. Windows XP 'N' )of course, they now have to sell this windows version as the one bundled with wmp is a nono now

got a link ? btw. what's the best software atm to do avs+wav => theora+ogg ?)sticky should answer both. for the virtualdub loving crowd: you can even encode with ffdshow in vd to .ogg (yeah not .ogm), as ffdshow has an extra option to export to .ogg itself

hmm,.. that would mean aac too (I too think aac should go into mp4 and not avi, but avi-mux supports it. :D)aac-in-avi is even more supported than vp6 in avi i assume :D

[vlada]

Thank you all for your suggestions. I don't like embedded video, a downloadable clip is a better solution, so I probably won't go this way.
MP4 (or MKV) with ASP + HE AAC would be probably very good choice, but do you have any idea what are the limits for free use? I also do believe that AVC won't be a problem in near future. I tested x264 and FFDShow and it works great. There are also Nero codecs. On Linux it shouldn't be a problem thanks to MPlayer, but I have no idea about Mac OS X. VLC is probably the only chance, but it doesen't handle h.264 correctly in the latest stable release 0.8.1.
MPEG-1 doesen't have better quality then WMV9 and I wouldn't make the rest of our redaction to go for something worse just because of compatibility. OGG Theora+Vorbis is a good idea. For Windows there is a simple to install codec pack (Illiminable) for all 3 formats. It also includes Speex which is great for voice. But I have no idea how far the Theora development is. Is the bitstream already locked? I read it is still in alpha stage and shouldn't be used except for testing. Quality wise I know it is very close to VP3, so it will be probably similiar to WMV9. Vorbis is no dubt a very good codec. If there aren't any problems with Theora, this should be a very good and complex choice. Streaming is also supported as far as I know, if we ever decide to broadcast something.
Let's see what will happen with WMV. I just read today, that Warner Bros. Studios will use WMV9 for HD-DVD. Probably because of DRM.
Once again thank you all for your suggestions and advices.
Regards,
Vlada

[Selur]

if you gather any infos about license costs for using h264 content on a webpage plz post. :)

[Episode]

The limit is something like 50000 copies.

[Selur]

- Where End User pays for AVC Video
- Title-by-Title - 12 minutes or less = no royalty; >12 minutes in length = lower of (a) 2% or (b) $0.02 per title.

- Subscription (not limited by title) – 100,000 or fewer subscribers/yr = no royalty; > 100,000 to 250,000 subscribers/yr = $25,000; >250,000 to 500,000 subscribers/yr = $50,000; >500,000 to 1M subscribers/yr = $75,000; >1M subscribers/yr = $100,000

- Where remuneration is from other sources
- Free Television - (a) one-time $2,500 per transmission encoder or (b) annual fee starting at $2,500 for > 100,000 HH rising to maximum $10,000 for > 1,000,000 HH
- Free Internet Broadcast (not title-by-title, not subscription) – no royalty during first term (through 2010; not greater than free television thereafter)
- Enterprise cap: $3.5M/yr 2006-07, $4.25M/yr 2008-09, $5M/yr 2010
- Royalties begin January 1, 2006

source: page 9 of hhttp://www.mpegla.com/avc/avcweb.ppt

So this would mean since the first term is from August 1, 2002 to December 31, 2010 Free Internet Broadcast of ac material should be free. :D

Are there use fees for MPEG-4 Audio?
No. License fees are due on the sale of encoders and/or decoders only. There are no patent license fees due on the distribution of bit-stream encoded in an MPEG-4 Audio format, whether such bit-streams are broadcast, streamed over a network, or provided on physical media.
source: http://www.vialicensing.com/products/mpeg4audio/MPEG-4_Audio_FAQ.html#Q6

=> so putting up free material on a homepage would be license free


Cu Selur

[stephanV]

So this would mean since the first term is from August 1, 2002 to December 31, 2010 Free Internet Broadcast of ac material should be free. :D


Are you sure you are an end-user?

BTW - the audio-codec for VP6/7 is AVC (confusing I know), but its all on their website.

[Selur]

"Are you sure you are an end-user?"
I guess so, I mean I'm the end user of the software (e.g. Nero Express2) company form which I bought the software to create the content/transcode the content and as long as I use 'Free Internet Broadcast' it should be no problem,..

But, liike I said before:
If someone can correct me, plz do so, I'm too not too sure, I just read the stuff and try to make sense out of it. :D

Cu Selur

[stephanV]

bah... too early for me... you might actually be right :)

[Selur]

"you might actually be right "
thats the spirit :p

[Elias]

MPEG-1 is pwnage stuff. If you raise the bitrate and resolution, it can look pretty good too. MPEG-4 in mp4 is nice stuff, but not all people have QT/VLC etc installed. So, MPEG-1 is the winner here. Personally, I would never use Micro$oft codecs. That's like the most stupid decision a person can make. I used wmv back in 2002 when I didn't know anything about digital audio/video, but now that I know better, to hell with wmv/wma etc.

[Selur]

"That's like the most stupid decision a person can make."
Why ? Some reasons behind such a claim would be nice.

Cu Selur

[Elias]

Originally posted by Selur
"That's like the most stupid decision a person can make."
Why ? Some reasons behind such a claim would be nice.

Cu Selur It's Micro$oft, can't be played on Linux (that's plain evil not making it able to play on Linux), proprietary in the worst way, can't be edited, can barely be watched in VLC. And in my opinion, the quality sucks. If Micro$oft decides to shut this codec down, forget support for it. Not an open format (like mp4). There are a lot more reasons.

[Selur]

"It's Micro$oft"
and linux is linux, so?

"can't be played on Linux (that's plain evil not making it able to play on Linux)"
Are you really sure? iirc mplayer and xine can playback wmv files and by using mozplugger as plugin linux should be able to playback wmv files on homepages

"proprietary in the worst way"
So, all proprietary software is evil or what you want to say.

"can't be edited"
so you can edit on2, real, etc. suff ?

"can barely be watched in VLC."
and vlc is the scale that counts?

"And in my opinion, the quality sucks."
So what would you promote to be a good alternative for a webpage?

"If Micro$oft decides to shut this codec down, forget support for it."
same goes for a lot of other codecs too,..

"Not an open format (like mp4)."
yup, that's true. :)

"There are a lot more reasons."
Sorry, but please name them, people tend to say that when they don't know anything. (<= hope this doesn't come out offensive; since my english isn't the best I'm not sure if I picked the right words. I'm not intending to hurt anybodies feeling,..)

Cu Selur

Ps.: @mods:if this is turning into a flamewar or something like that, plz just delete the discussion about wmv and don't close the thread. thx.

[Elias]

Originally posted by Selur
"It's Micro$oft"
and linux is linux, so?Linux is open source and I believe GPL too. That's awesome for an OS. As far as Micro$oft goes, it is a greedy corporation, at least that's the conception I've gotten from them through the years.

Originally posted by Selur
"can't be played on Linux (that's plain evil not making it able to play on Linux)"
Are you really sure? iirc mplayer and xine can playback wmv files and by using mozplugger as plugin linux should be able to playback wmv files on homepagesActually I'm not sure about this, but from everywhere else I've read, and even in this thread, that's what I hear.

Originally posted by Selur
"proprietary in the worst way"
So, all proprietary software is evil or what you want to say.No, far off actually. But Micro$oft is worse in this case. For instance, MPEG-1 is proprietary if I'm not mistaken, still though, in practice it works almost like an open source/gpl codec. You know what I'm saying? Not much restrictions, free etc.

Originally posted by Selur
"can't be edited"
so you can edit on2, real, etc. suff ? I don't use real, on2 etc. Real must be the codec I hate most on this earth. MPEG-4 is pretty nice for editing if you know what you're doing though :)

Originally posted by Selur
"can barely be watched in VLC."
and vlc is the scale that counts?No. But it is a good and very nice player. Same goes for ffdshow since it uses a lot of the codecs found in VLC. And ffdshow is pwnage stuff :)

Originally posted by Selur
"And in my opinion, the quality sucks."
So what would you promote to be a good alternative for a webpage? I just did. MPEG-1 for compatibility, and MPEG-4 for quality. Ogm/ogg and matroska are very nice too. It's just too bad they don't have much hardware support. If they did, I don't think I'd bother with MPEG-4.

Originally posted by Selur
"If Micro$oft decides to shut this codec down, forget support for it."
same goes for a lot of other codecs too,..Not all. Many codecs have their specifications released, which means people can still develop them. For instance: ogg vorbis.

Originally posted by Selur
"Not an open format (like mp4)."
yup, that's true. :) Yeah :)

Originally posted by Selur
"There are a lot more reasons."
Sorry, but please name them, people tend to say that when they don't know anything. (<= hope this doesn't come out offensive; since my english isn't the best I'm not sure if I picked the right words. I'm not intending to hurt anybodies feeling,..)No offence taken :) Well let's see here, I can't edit wmv in VirtualDub, which is easily the best video encoding tool out there. Same goes for BeSweet for the audio part. This is where we can pay homage to Micro$oft and their "proprietary in the worst way." Remember when VirtualDub had asf support? Lousy hardware support, editing tools are restricted to bad software like Windows Movie Maker etc. wmv is not a tweakable codec, that is, you can't use cool stuff like b-frames etc (even though it's based on MPEG-4). Bad community support (which means a lot for the codec if it's going to have a future).

Originally posted by Selur
Ps.: @mods:if this is turning into a flamewar or something like that, plz just delete the discussion about wmv and don't close the thread. thx. It won't turn into a flamewar :)

[Selur]

"MPEG-4 is pretty nice for editing if you know what you're doing though"
how do you edit mp4 files with avc&he-aac in it. Especially the cutting and merging would interest me. :D

"I can't edit wmv in VirtualDub, which is easily the best video encoding tool out there."
you also can't edit mpeg1 or mp4 material in Virtual Dub,....

"you can't use cool stuff like b-frames etc "
ehmm, afaik wmv main profile uses b-frames

Cu Selur

[Elias]

Originally posted by Selur
"MPEG-4 is pretty nice for editing if you know what you're doing though"
how do you edit mp4 files with avc&he-aac in it. Especially the cutting and merging would interest me. :D

"I can't edit wmv in VirtualDub, which is easily the best video encoding tool out there."
you also can't edit mpeg1 or mp4 material in Virtual Dub,....

"you can't use cool stuff like b-frames etc "
ehmm, afaik wmv main profile uses b-framesIt might be true that wmv uses b-frames, but how many options does wmv have in comparison with, say, XviD? I just demux the audio/video with MP4Box and then edit them in VDub/MPEG4Modifier/QT6/Dumpster etc. Cutting and merging if I'm not wrong exist commandlines in MP4Box for that type of stuff, I've heard something about that it's still buggy though. I believe QT6 has support for this too. Either way, QT7 will most likely handle mp4 editing pretty good, and is due for release very soon. You can encode MPEG-1/MPEG-4 (video) in VDub, that's a lot more than you can say about wmv. And not to mention the legions of other tools like TMPGEnc etc that can edit MPEG-1.

[Selur]

"Cutting and merging if I'm not wrong exist commandlines in MP4Box for that type of stuff, I've heard something about that it's still buggy though."
buggy = not useable atm afaik :)

"I believe QT6 has support for this too."
nope, only for mpeg-4 profile 2 video streams

"Either way, QT7 will most likely handle mp4 editing pretty good, and is due for release very soon."
for mac yes, but up to now I haven't heard about a release for windows and linux

"You can encode MPEG-1/MPEG-4 (video) in VDub, that's a lot more than you can say about wmv."
no, you can encode wmv (windows media video) in Virtual Dub :)

"And not to mention the legions of other tools like TMPGEnc etc that can edit MPEG-1."
Yeah, but who got the bandwith to stream mpeg1 video?

Cu Selur

[Elias]

Originally posted by Selur
"Cutting and merging if I'm not wrong exist commandlines in MP4Box for that type of stuff, I've heard something about that it's still buggy though."
buggy = not useable atm afaik :)

"I believe QT6 has support for this too."
nope, only for mpeg-4 profile 2 video streams

"Either way, QT7 will most likely handle mp4 editing pretty good, and is due for release very soon."
for mac yes, but up to now I haven't heard about a release for windows and linux

"You can encode MPEG-1/MPEG-4 (video) in VDub, that's a lot more than you can say about wmv."
no, you can encode wmv (windows media video) in Virtual Dub :)

"And not to mention the legions of other tools like TMPGEnc etc that can edit MPEG-1."
Yeah, but who got the bandwith to stream mpeg1 video?mpeg-4 profile 2 = MPEG-4. It doesn't have to be avc/he-aac for it to be MPEG-4. I haven't read anywhere either that QT7 will be released for Windows, but I seriously doubt that they would exclude Windows since QT7 would barely be used by anyone. After all, 90% or something have Windows installed. On top of that, very few have Mac OS since Linux and other OS have their share of the market too. And bond said in some thread that QT7 would be released for Windows as well. I believe that Apple aren't mentioning Windows as a way of making people believe that their "awesome" player will be released for Mac only and that way, people will buy Mac... you know, cheap way of fooling people. I just tried to open a wmv in the latest build of VDub... no way it didn't work. Not everyone has the bandwidth to stream MPEG-1, but still though, there are sites that do. For instance, check gamespot.com, you can download MPEG-1 files from that site. Since MPEG-1 is free, that way, you can put the money on the bandwidth instead of paying royalties to MPEG-LA for using their codec for streaming. Same goes for wmv.

[Selur]

"mpeg-4 profile 2 = MPEG-4. It doesn't have to be avc/he-aac for it to be MPEG-4."
yup, but if you won't at least use mpeg-4 asp your quality will be far worse than wmv and iirc quicktime and real both don't support mpeg4 asp but only simple profile. (I know it's a shame.)

Cu Selur

[Elias]

Originally posted by Selur
"mpeg-4 profile 2 = MPEG-4. It doesn't have to be avc/he-aac for it to be MPEG-4."
yup, but if you won't at least use mpeg-4 asp your quality will be far worse than wmv and iirc quicktime and real both don't support mpeg4 asp but only simple profile. (I know it's a shame.)I disagree. The quality is pretty good with Simple Profile. It all depends on the source material and how compressable it is. A movie with lots of dark scenes will look good either way if it's SP/ASP/AVC. Sure, you might get some extra quality if you use ASP or AVC, but in my opinion, it's nothing special. I've many times gotten much better quality than any wmv codec by using MPEG-4 Simple Profile. If I'm not wrong, wmv can't do 2pass? That's a huge con. Last time I checked Micro$oft's wmv9 site, they were boasting about how their wmv9 codec could fit a 2 hour movie in 1 GB. That's like no problem with MPEG-4 SP.

[Selur]

"wmv can't do 2pass?"
it does,...

And at Datarates around 300-150kBit/s (and below) wmv definitly beats mpeg-4 simple profile,... (just did a bunch of encodes at these bitrates for a webpage)

Cu Selur

[Elias]

Originally posted by Selur
And at Datarates around 300-150kBit/s (and below) wmv definitly beats mpeg-4 simple profile,... (just did a bunch of encodes at these bitrates for a webpage)That might be so. Although data rates as low as that might be better with wmv, I'd personally never ever encode anything and use such low bitrates. However, I don't encode for streaming purposes either :D I mean, I just don't like deteriorating my encodes.

[vlada]

Hello all,

I'd like to reopen this discussion I started already quite long time ago. Now I believe I will do it this way:

The videos should be streamable, but you should also be able to download them. I plan to use 3 formats with different quality. RealMedia for lowest quality/bitrate, WMV9 for middle quality and MP4 for highest quality. The first 2 videos will be playable in RealPlayer and WMP. But what about MP4 (MPEG-4 AVC/AAC PS), how can I play it? I believe QuickTime should support it. And with correct splitter and decoders WMP too. Am I right? What are your experiences with VLC plugin?

It should work at least in Firefox, Opera and IE. I would be good if it worked in Safari and Konqueror. But I believe 90% of users will have MS IE 6.

How should I embed the video in a webpage. I know there is a tag <embed> do you have any idea how to use it. How do I tell the computer what plugin to use for a certain file. Or does it work automatically?

And now for the formats. Creating WMV is not a problem. MPEG-4 AVC can be created with MeGUI for example. But how to best compress sound and mux it in MP4? I heard WinAMP AAC plugin is quite good and I can use it with BeSweet. But is there a tool which would automate transcoding of DV AVI to the correct sound/video formats and mux it in MP4? I want be doing it myself so I need the simplest possible way. And what about RM, is there a free tool to produce such video? How is it with distribution of RM files, any restrictions?

I'm sorry for so many questions. I want to do it the right way and I don't want to bother users with downloading any playback software if possible. This is why I chose WMV as one of the formats.

I'm looking forward for your comments,
Vlada

[Selur]

I plan to use 3 formats with different quality. RealMedia for lowest quality/bitrate, WMV9 for middle quality and MP4 for highest quality.
=> a bunch of licences need to be payed ;)

But what about MP4 (MPEG-4 AVC/AAC PS), how can I play it?
Quicktime 7

What are your experiences with VLC plugin?
never used it

But how to best compress sound and mux it in MP4?
MeGUI+BeSweet+Nero AAC dll

But is there a tool which would automate transcoding of DV AVI to the correct sound/video formats and mux it in MP4?
iirc MeGUI should be able to handle it, if you write the right avs script

And what about RM, is there a free tool to produce such video?
Helix Producer&Co, see Real Video section

Cu Selur

Ps.: since afaik real isn't free and I don't really know what licenses one needs I would just stick to mpeg4asp+he-aac in mp4 shell + wmv

[Sharktooth]

well... why bothering with all those formats?
h.264/AVC is the best in every field. if you want to pay less licensing fees contact an on2 representative for a similar solution...

[Selur]

h.264/AVC is the best in every field.
if the resolution is low enough older machines should also be able to playback the files if the necessary codecs/filters are installed ;)

[vlada]

Sharktooth> I don't think I'll have to pay any licence fees for MPEG-4. As Selur already posted here before, I can use it for distribution for free unless there is more then 100.000 downloads or the clip is longer then 12 minutes. This won't happen. Also we have no SW patents in Czech Republic, so I don't have to worry about it.
The problem with MP4 is, that users will have to download a QT player or a directshow MPEG-4 AVC decoder, MPEG-4 AAC decoder and MP4 splitter. So for people with WMP 9 or 10 WMV is a really good solution and I believe I should offer it. It should be for free AFAIK.
Do you have any ideas if there are similar limits for Real as for MPEG-4? If I cannot use it for free I won't use it and I'll stay with MP4 and WMV.

[postech]

MPEG-1 is pwnage stuff. If you raise the bitrate and resolution, it can look pretty good too. MPEG-4 in mp4 is nice stuff, but not all people have QT/VLC etc installed. So, MPEG-1 is the winner here. Personally, I would never use Micro$oft codecs. That's like the most stupid decision a person can make. I used wmv back in 2002 when I didn't know anything about digital audio/video, but now that I know better, to hell with wmv/wma etc.
resources are limited don't forget it and MPEG1 is the worse choise
for me VC1,VP6,AVC clear winners:
AVC suported in any platform
VP6 also in any platform
VC1 - Win32 Platform have the biggest market share ( if user want to wanch they can dowload WMV9 codec and watch video without Wmp installed in any windows player ) and VC1 opensource decoder are developed ( for VLC and others )

[postech]

and what about Flash8 ( VP6 inside )

[Sharktooth]

@potech: yeah. that could be a nice solution.

@vlada: VideoLan client could be your solution for AVC+AAC in mp4. Just avoid the AAC High Profile. Also VLC is a completely free multiplatform solution, supports streaming and doesnt need codec/filters/splitters etc...
Supported media formats: http://www.videolan.org/vlc/features.html

[sbeyer20]

Hi,

don´t forget the license fees for Mpeg-4 Part 1 System. You all are just discussing over Part 2,3 and 10 but forgot Part 1.

I think MPEG LA handles this......

[mgh]

Two pass WMV encoding has been possible by using MS command line encoder since the days of WMV8. There were a couple of guis available.
The WMV9 version for avis also allows two pass encoding.

[vlada]

sbeyer20> What is MPEG-4 part 1?

Does anybody has any experiences about embedding video in a webpage? I tried it, but it doesen't seem to work correctly. WMV plays well, but I can't make any other plugin then VLC to play MP4 (h.264/AAC) files. Although WMP plays them correctly from local disc.

[Selur]

the following works fine with a 320x240 mp4 clip (not AVC, but mpeg4 sp)
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1">
<title>DSL 320er sample - 300kBit/s</title>
</head>
<body style="top:0px;left:0px;margin:0px;padding:0px;background-color:#000000;">
<table width="100%" height="100%">
<tr>
<td align="center">
<embed src="test_av320_300.mp4" type="video/mp4" controller="true" autoplay="true" height="256" width="320"></embed>
</td>
</tr>
</table>

</body>
</html>

How did you create your mp4 file? (is it 'hinted' ?)

Cu Selur

[sbeyer20]

What is MPEG-4 part 1?

Part 1 ist the System, where Objectdescriptors and so on are standardizised (is this word right?). It could be possible that you have to pay a fee if you use the MP4 Container as format. But I don´t know. If anyone can figure this out - it would be interesting to know.

CU

[Elias]

Part 1 ist the System, where Objectdescriptors and so on are standardizised (is this word right?). It could be possible that you have to pay a fee if you use the MP4 Container as format. But I don´t know. If anyone can figure this out - it would be interesting to know.Standardized. I seriously doubt that MP4Box is paying a fee.

[Selur]

just because someone else isn't paying doesn't mean anything,.. ;)

[Elias]

just because someone else isn't paying doesn't mean anything,.. ;)Are you implying that MP4Box is illegal software?

[Drachir]

Are you implying that MP4Box is illegal software?

GPAC is only available via source and France Telecom is involved in Mpeg 4 Systems. ( http://www.mpegla.com/m4s/ ) But I am not a patent expert.

MP4Box is a nice tool to create Mpeg 4 System content.

[IvS]

The MP4 container is completely free to use, period. This has been discussed too many times already. The fact that it's a part of a standard (been around long ago and only standardized pretty recently) doesn't necessarily mean you can't use it without paying a fee. Apple's patent (here (http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=/netahtml/srchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=6,134,243.WKU.&OS=PN/6,134,243&RS=PN/6,134,243)) does cover one thing, streaming (but not the MP4 container itself). However, that patent is so ridiculous that there's very little chance it could ever be used against anyone.