VP7 Free For Personal Use : 7.0.10.0

[On2Tech]

Download VP7 Now (http://www.on2.com/cms-data/downloads/on2_vp7_personal_edition.exe)
A new version of VP7 (v7.0.10.0) is now available from our web site. The main changes are as follows:-

Version 7.0.10.0
=======================================
- Improved overall quality
- Improved speed on best quality mode
- Fixed a problem in one of the blitters that caused
color artifacts for some interlaced clips.
- Fixed a bug that caused spatial re-sampling to crash for some specific
source image sizes and resample ratios.
- Faster first pass encode.
- Improvements in 2 pass rate control.
- Significant changes to the motion search algorithm to improve detection and
tracking in high motion scenes. These changes affect both the first and second pass.


This release removes a previous limitation that prevented the encoder from detecting and tracking motion of greater than 31 ¾ pels. We were keen to address this problem without hurting average encode speed and to this end we have made significant changes to the motion search strategy. As a result, for most of the clips we have tested the new release is actually a little faster.

Obviously the biggest gains are for clips that contain a lot of very high motion. Though this is not very common, there are exceptions and for these the improvement can be dramatic. We have seen some clips where the improvement in overall PSNR was as high as 0.75db and isolated sections where it was much higher.

Even on low motion clips, however, the changes seem to have helped. For example, the HPII trailer previously used by Saggitaire was at the low end of the spectrum but we still saw a small improvement in psnr and an improvement in SSIM ranging from 0.3 at best quality through to about 0.5 at good quality speeds 4&5.



Earlier release notes:

Version 7.0.9.0
=======================================
- fixed bug that produced artifacts in faster speeds ( 2,4,5) when image
size not multiple of 16
- better quality video across wide range of video
- fixed problem in which video offset by 1 pixel when using noise reduction
- improvements to live encoding


Version 7.0.8.0
=======================================
- Improved post processing speed
- added Direct Show Decoder
- added slider which controls how much filtering to do
- added macroblock deblocker
- free for personal use version
- improved quality encode and decode

Version 7.0.7.0
=======================================
- Improved decode speed significantly
- Improved best quality mode
- Improved quality at speed for encode
- solved problem on non intel machines that shut off mmx optimizations of decoder
- solved issue when calling from dshow
- Improved quality of real time encode

[Sharktooth]

:eek:

[IvS]

That's good. Now how about removing the terrible step no one ever wants which is submitting your email address just to download a file? Others don't do it, you shouldn't either. Also, that's nice, VP7 is yet again the best video codec in the universe according to you. So were VP6, VP5, VP3...

[Sharktooth]

They were... but thechnology evolves... rapidly...

[Matrics]

On2Tech, is it possible to host "On2 VP7 Personal Edition.exe" file on our server?

We can state that VP7 Personal Edition license entitles you to create and publish video for personal use only. Also, a link to License Agreement could be included in software's page.

[Sirber]

I asked once and I got a "yes" if I include the license too.

[On2Tech]

Now how about removing the terrible step no one ever wants which is submitting your email address just to download a file? Others don't do it, you shouldn't either.

We've now done this... Get it Here: (http://www.on2.com/software/on2_vp7_personal_edition.zip)

[LordRPI]

Awesome =]

[Sirber]

Any comparison?

[Sharktooth]

wow, i did a couple of test encodes and i must say vp7 is becoming the real and only commercial (and now also free for personal use) AVC competitor...
the decoder is great, expecially the "Keep CPU use below xx%" option.
even the encodes made with old versions look better with this one.
great stuff.

[LordRPI]

I just finished with a test encode of some 720p material. The playback looks great, although I cannot achieve full frame rate on a 2.8 ghz P4, even when I uncheck "Keep CPU use below xx%" option. It looks like I'm getting better frame rates with MP AVC, but I'm guessing either my system is b0rked or I've done something wrong in encoding =]

This is really nice though. How far along has the porting to an AD Blackfin gone?

Edit: Just found the User Guide (Which is great and to the point) =] I'm doing another encode at the moment so I'll see how the changes in the PP affect playback.

[riggits]

Thanks! I've been waiting to test this out :D

[darkavatar1470]

this is great!
I've been a big fan of VP6, but wasn't able to try out the new VP7, good job, On2 !!

[CruNcher]

I don't want to sound disrespectfull in any regards, but it was just a matter of time :)
im happy that it happened so fast, now it would be the hit if you would provide Xiph with a updated OSL of VP6 or why waiting so long and don't try to catch momentum right away and go strange ahead with VP7 (non comercial open source use) and at the same time submit it for standardization process ?
Im not sure about the status of EVD but seems like it failed expectations On2 had for it so the time is right "Let's share VPX with the World Today" ;)

PS: Bond yeah i know im dreaming but sometimes you have to ;D

[B.F.]

I test VP7 and x264 on Van Helsing traler.
x264 version look better and VP7 work mutch slower.

[On2Tech]

I test VP7 and x264 on Van Helsing traler.
x264 version look better and VP7 work mutch slower.

Can you post the settings you used for both codecs? We'd like to duplicate your results.

[neo_anderson]

i kindly request the guys here @ doom9 to please post a guide for dvd to vp7 conversion, as there must be many people like me who have neva used it and do not know which settings to use!

[Sharktooth]

I test VP7 and x264 on Van Helsing traler.
x264 version look better and VP7 work mutch slower.
i tested the usual spiderman 2 trailer and, except the fact i had to lower the bitrate a bit coz it didnt hit the wanted filesize, the result looks great.
i still have to decide which one looks better for me, but the first impression is vp7 improved a lot.

[bond]

I don't want to sound disrespectfull in any regards, but it was just a matter of time :)
im happy that it happened so fast, now it would be the hit if you would provide Xiph with a updated OSL of VP6 or why waiting so long and don't try to catch momentum right away and go strange ahead with VP7 (non comercial open source use) and at the same time submit it for standardization process ?
Im not sure about the status of EVD but seems like it failed expectations On2 had for it so the time is right "Let's share VPX with the World Today" ;)

PS: Bond yeah i know im dreaming but sometimes you have to ;Dword ;)

[IgorC]

Quality is great.After some encoding I should say VP7 is a nearest competitor of family codecs H.264 in quality terms. I won't judge what is better. It's hard to say.
There some bugs like when I'm openening VP7 in virtual dub sometimes 20 windows of IE are opening. Decoder still wastes Intel CPUs a lot even when I try to put CPU 50% or even lower.

[Peter1234]

I tested VP7, fmeg (xvid), and X264 at 720x480 30fps using 900 kbps video encoding rate with the same test clip. VP7 was a clear winner. It had the fewest macro blocks and the sharpest image. The X264 encode was the worst since it would skip frames on fast action scenes and was jerky when played back (on 3GHz P4).

EDIT:

ONE PASS ENCODE TIMES on 3 GHz P4 (30 second video + mp3
audio)

Xvid = 30.3 sec
X264 = 1 min 32 sec
VP7 = 3 min 30 sec

[B.F.]

Can you post the settings you used for both codecs? We'd like to duplicate your results.

Van Helsing traler
1:26 long, 720:400, only fast motion action scenes.
Video bitrate 400 Kbit.
Two pass max quality encoding.
Vp7 7.0.8
x264vfw.revision280

Encoding time almost the same (Vp7 faster in 1st pass but slower in 2nd pass).
Vp7 decoder eat more cpu power to decode video.
Vp7 too slowly react on the scene change and picture look less detaled than the x264.

[neo_anderson]

pls, can anyone tell me what should be the estimated bitrates, sharpness settings, etc. for a 2-hr. dvd movie to vp7 encode, please on2 dude, pls give some help!

[On2Tech]

Regarding you first question, I am sorry if this sounds obvious but the rate you choose depends on how big you want the final file to be. If you want a 2 hour DVD to fit on a single CD then about 750Kbits/sec is a good starting point and should give you something eminently watch-able, as most real movies are overall easier to encode than movie trailers, which tend to have 50% of the action crammed into 2-3 minutes plus tons of scene cuts, fades etc.

It is always possible to get some improvement in metrics or psycho visual characteristics by fiddling with the various VBR settings, sharpness settings and preprocessing level, especially on short clips, but we have set what we believe to be reasonable defaults that should give you reliably good results.

Things like sharpness are a bit of a matter of personal taste. The default value of 0 will usually give the best metrics response but some people are willing to accept some increase in the level of some artifacts in return for more sharpness. I would not recommend that you try and tune this on a clip by clip basis, particularly if you are going to encode at best quality (note that good quality speed 0 is almost as good on most clips and about twice as fast), because you will waste a lot of time. Find a value that suits your preferences and stick with it.

I would keep the pre-processing set to 0 unless you have a very noisy source. Pre-processing / noise reduction techniques can help improve the visual quality if the source is noisy but will always tend to hurt metrics numbers.

For coding a movie at around 750K I would avoid temporal or spatial re-sampling. These really only come into their own at much lower rates.

CBR (or “Stream from Server”) is designed for case where you want to stream your video over a fixed bandwidth link and it enforces strict buffering constraints. If you are going to play back off something like a CD or hard drive then VBR or “Local File Playback” is your best option.

In general I would suggest that you de-interlace you video before you encode it rather than encoding the raw interlaced video using “interlaced mode”. If you have to encode interlaced video then the interlaced mode optimization switch will help, but interlaced video is always harder to encode than progressive scan material, so avoid it if at all possible.

There are others on this board much better qualified than I to advise on the process of getting the video off the DVD in the first place so I will not go into that here. However, the next version of the On2Compi encoder (available as part of the paid for “On2 Personal Video Solution”) will include direct support for VOBs and AVS scripts.

Note that the personal use video solution also includes the On2 Java video decoder that allows you to publish VP6 clips on a personal web site.

I hope this is helpful.

Regards On2Tech.

[Sharktooth]

On2Tech what is VP7VFW_beta7-0-9.exe in your public ftp?

[On2Tech]

On2Tech what is VP7VFW_beta7-0-9.exe in your public ftp?
We gave a pre version of the codec out prior to this release to a customer who had trouble getting to our ftp site. Its been removed.

Thanks for pointing it out to us.

[Sharktooth]

np. just another question about it. it was 7.0.9 and dated 07/07/2005 (IIRC). is it different from the 7.0.8 personal version?and since i downloaded it i wish to know if it is a commercial version. In that case i'll delete it from my HD.

[On2Tech]

np. just another question about it. it was 7.0.9 and dated 07/07/2005 (IIRC). is it different from the 7.0.8 personal version?and since i downloaded it i wish to know if it is a commercial version. In that case i'll delete it from my HD.

Its a version of a codec that was sitting on my hard drive that had some of the improvements that got into the released version of 7.0.8 but maybe not all. There is nothing more commercial about it than 7.0.8 and its probably worse.

It was named 7.0.9 because at the time I couldn't remember what version number we had released, not because its better.

On2Tech

[Sharktooth]

so i can delete it.
thanks for the reply:)

[Manao]

Peter1234 :

> The X264 encode was the worst since it would skip frames on fast action scenes and was jerky when played back (on 3GHz P4).

With what did you played it back ? Because 3 GHz is far more than enough to play back FULL@900kbps in h264.

[Sharktooth]

however vp7 decoding without PP and film grain approximation is lighter than h.264...

[Josef.Bilek]

VP7 seems really nice. I did couple of tests and VP7 seems really fully comparable with H.264. Sometimes better, sometimes worse.
I am curious what is the intended usage of this codec. I am using MDA device with Mobile Windows 2003 and TCMP player (by my opinion the best player in PDA world). Sometimes I tried convert some trailers to this device and the most difficult was select the proper audio and video codec due to the fact, that computing power of these devices is simply low. I am using standard H.263 Xvid with Ogg Vorbis in Matroska containter. Typical bitrate 150 kbps and resolution 320 x 240. I am looking for any option to this codec, but H.264 (X264) has the problem with computing power. Is there any plan, for example, to develop a VP7 plugin for TCMP optimized for StrongARM processors to use this codec on these devices?
It would be fine, because it seems that with bitrate 100 kbps is there the same level of details as in case of Xvid with 150 kbps. And SD cards have limited size.

[Peter1234]

Mano,
I encoded with X264 281A VFW codec using default Advanced settings except Partition Decision Quality was 5(High Quality) which may not have been the default. All tests played back with Windows Media Player 8 and WinDVD 4 (same results). Gspot shows that the Nero DVD filter was used for decoding X264 whereas Xvid was decoded with Xvid mpeg4 video decoder. Gspot shows that VP7 plays back using the VP7 video decoder filter. Source was 4:3 720x480 at 29.97fps mpeg2 9000 kbps originally from DV camera and encoded for DVD. Source was not de-intrlaced and I think I read somewhere that X264 can not use interlaced video, so that may have been the problem. This is the first time I have used X264, it was used to provide a comparison for VP7. I plan to do some more testing with it when I get some more time. Is there an X264 decoder for Windows that I should have installed? Is interlaced video a problem for X264?

EDIT:
I de-interlaced the source with AviSynth before feeding it to the X264 encoder and the results were still not good.

EDIT 2:
X264 playback problems were due to players. I installed VLC 0.8.2 player and the X264 video plays OK in it.

[Irwin]

Strange. On my cpu (pIII 500mhz) vp7 required about twice more power then h264 (with cabac). 640x272 700kbps h264 plays smooth, this same file in vp7 -> jerky like hell (even 480x192).

[Peter1234]

TEST UPDATE (720x480 900 kbps):
X264 playback problems were due to lack of H264 decoder. When H264 decoder was installed VP7 and X264 quality was about the same (X264 seemed slightly better). X264 did have some minor problems if source video was interlaced and thus needs an external deinterlacer whereas VP7 has built-in deinterlacer.

[Sharktooth]

Strange. On my cpu (pIII 500mhz) vp7 required about twice more power then h264 (with cabac). 640x272 700kbps h264 plays smooth, this same file in vp7 -> jerky like hell (even 480x192).
Disable post processing and noise grain reproduction options in the decoder.
however a p3 500 is not enaugh for those new generation codecs.
just "forget about it".

[jrb]

i've followed the vp* codecs for a while, usually they're pretty interesting, and i've had some good results in the past - i look at codecs from encoding gaming movies, which pushes codecs in a totally different way to the usual film or cartoon type material. my last movie had to have a vbr rate 3400 in xvid to attain the quality i wanted - 21 minutes, plus 5 audio streams meant the resulting file was getting towards cd sized.

so, i was quite looking forward to trying out vp7, especially after reading the comments by other posters here. The issues about slow encode speeds, especially on the second pass of a 2 pass encode didn't really bother me, i'm personally in favour of quality for the viewer over encoding time for me. :)

i got bored of waiting for the movie to encode after 3-4 hours, and it had only completed around 50% of the job. I was also upset to find that i had a couple of unexpected results
- parts of the far left of the image were appearing on the far right
- the chroma layer appeared to be mal-aligned
- quality, in parts, not as good as my zoned xvid encode. (although i was using 3000, not 3400 for vp7).

I'll post some screenies when i get home, for comparison - along with the actual settings i used.

I've not tested encoding the same source with x264 yet, so i can't compare with that codec.

[On2Tech]

i've followed the vp* codecs for a while, usually they're pretty interesting, and i've had some good results in the past - i look at codecs from encoding gaming movies, which pushes codecs in a totally different way to the usual film or cartoon type material. my last movie had to have a vbr rate 3400 in xvid to attain the quality i wanted - 21 minutes, plus 5 audio streams meant the resulting file was getting towards cd sized.

so, i was quite looking forward to trying out vp7, especially after reading the comments by other posters here. The issues about slow encode speeds, especially on the second pass of a 2 pass encode didn't really bother me, i'm personally in favour of quality for the viewer over encoding time for me. :)

i got bored of waiting for the movie to encode after 3-4 hours, and it had only completed around 50% of the job. I was also upset to find that i had a couple of unexpected results
- parts of the far left of the image were appearing on the far right
- the chroma layer appeared to be mal-aligned
- quality, in parts, not as good as my zoned xvid encode. (although i was using 3000, not 3400 for vp7).

I'll post some screenies when i get home, for comparison - along with the actual settings i used.

I've not tested encoding the same source with x264 yet, so i can't compare with that codec.

This seems very odd. Can you give us details of exactly what you did plus if possible a short section of source material that exhibits this problem.

Thanks

On2Tech

[On2Tech]

TEST UPDATE (720x480 900 kbps):
X264 playback problems were due to lack of H264 decoder. When H264 decoder was installed VP7 and X264 quality was about the same (X264 seemed slightly better). X264 did have some minor problems if source video was interlaced and thus needs an external deinterlacer whereas VP7 has built-in deinterlacer.

VP7 has a mode switch that is designed to improve the quality when coding interlaced material but unless you want your output to be interlaced I would still reccommend that you de-interlace the source first.

On2Tech

[jrb]

okay, as promised, here's some screenshots. Just a couple of things to note
- the frames were chosen based on keyframes in the vp7 encode (to save scanning time in vdub), and therefore should paint vp7 in a better light than xvid
- the xvid shots are taken from a version encoded over a year ago, with, as far as my memory serves me right, version 1.0
- the source material really pushes most codecs, and as yet have been running my own tests with every stable codec worth investing time in (i need to add x264 to this list) - as yet xvid comes out on tops for consistent quality
(if you're into this kind of thing and want to check out the xvid encode, it can be found here (http://www.own-age.com/vids/video.aspx?id=1950) - (sorry for the self pimping))
- the input lossless file is a huffyuv v2.1.1 encoded file, in 24bit rgb format

http://shaolinproductions.org/images/13796-lossless.png
http://shaolinproductions.org/images/13796-xvid.png
http://shaolinproductions.org/images/13796-vp7.png

http://shaolinproductions.org/images/14296-lossless.png
http://shaolinproductions.org/images/14296-xvid.png
http://shaolinproductions.org/images/14296-vp7.png

http://shaolinproductions.org/images/5852-lossless.png
http://shaolinproductions.org/images/5852-xvid.png
http://shaolinproductions.org/images/5852-vp7.png

http://shaolinproductions.org/images/vp7-settings-01.jpg
http://shaolinproductions.org/images/vp7-settings-02.jpg

[DeathTheSheep]

Hmm... yeah. I've been having some problems with this too:

- parts of the far left of the image were appearing on the far right

This is with "noise reduction" enabled. When disabled, it seems to disapear.

Source specs: Complexity: High, Type: Anime, Title: "Naruto intro 2: Haruka Kanata", Length: 1:28, FPS: 11.988.
OK, specs of machine: intel 3ghz 512ram 533fsb, etc...

VP7.0.8.0 -- 1-pass max quality, CQ=50

With Noise Reduction:
http://www.xsquared.matzoo.com/Cheatman/Noise_Reduction.avi
Without Noise Reduction:
http://www.xsquared.matzoo.com/Cheatman/No_Noise_Reduction.avi

And of course, a comparison to x264 (the only competitor, lol) at the closest possible filesize, CQ=36.
Baseline profile, no B-frames, but MAXED OUT on everything else.
http://www.xsquared.matzoo.com/Cheatman/x264_smaller_file.avi

And finally, a comparison with THEORA for demonstration/laughing/checking-on-progression purposes:

http://www.xsquared.matzoo.com/Cheatman/theora.avi
Note: Link may not appear for another few minutes. Bear with me here.

AND a few more noise tests for the heck of it with VP7.0.8.8beta:
Denoise 1:
http://www.xsquared.matzoo.com/Cheatman/Blur.avi
Denoise 7:
http://www.xsquared.matzoo.com/Cheatman/Fixed.avi

For the server:
Username: doom9
Password: on2tech

There ya go. It's the least I can do (for only an 88 second clip, lol).
Good stuff. Just ask if you need anythin'

DeathTheSheep

[jrb]

oops.
thanks for pointing that out, :-)

i was going to try that anyway as i found some of my frames were losing too much textural detail - which i put down to noise reduction at first, but i think it may've been down to the quantize settings. re-encoding at the moment, but a preliminary test shows that turning noise reduction off also irradicates the chroma offset issue i was getting too.

i'll post some re-vp7'd shots when it's done.

[B.F.]

If you disable sharpness encoding speed will be mutch faster.
I don't find any difference in quality.

[SeeMoreDigital]

Is it just me......

I don't seem to be able to play any of my old VP6 content with the new VP7 DSdec filter :(


Cheers

[dimzon]

on2tech
is any chance to view open source VP6/VP7 decoder (may be LGPL) ?

[On2Tech]

oops.
thanks for pointing that out, :-)

i was going to try that anyway as i found some of my frames were losing too much textural detail - which i put down to noise reduction at first, but i think it may've been down to the quantize settings. re-encoding at the moment, but a preliminary test shows that turning noise reduction off also irradicates the chroma offset issue i was getting too.

i'll post some re-vp7'd shots when it's done.

JRB and DTS

It certainly looks like there may be a problem with the noise pre-processing. Thanks for pointing this out, we will look into it.

In general I would not recommend noise pre-filtering unless the source is very noisy. Certainly at the higher rates that you are using JRB there is a good chance it will make things look too soft. Try with noise filtering off. I suspect the results will be better.

On2Tech

[Sgt_Strider]

Are there any ways to view VP7 encoded content on the Pocket PC / Windows Mobile 2003 SE platform?

[DeathTheSheep]

As of yet, a VP6 decoder for the Pocket PC is under development, but a VP7 decoder hasn't yet been announced.

But I cross my fingers! :p

[Phanton_13]

on2tech
is any chance to view open source VP6/VP7 decoder (may be LGPL) ?

For this case is beter to use a license like the license used in "UnRAR source code", for stuf like this is very interesting.

[iwod]

Well....... Surely Vp7 is very good......... but why is on2 and macromedia still bunding VP6 with the Flash 8?

If Flash 8 support Vp7 you surely have the Largest viwer base possible. And We dont have to suffer in poorer quality in Vp6 compare to Vp7.

[Sgt_Strider]

As of yet, a VP6 decoder for the Pocket PC is under development, but a VP7 decoder hasn't yet been announced.

But I cross my fingers! :p

Then I guess this codec has no use for me :(.

[the Mad Duke]

Well....... Surely Vp7 is very good......... but why is on2 and macromedia still bunding VP6 with the Flash 8?

If Flash 8 support Vp7 you surely have the Largest viwer base possible. And We dont have to suffer in poorer quality in Vp6 compare to Vp7.

I've written to On2 and they said that it is up to Macromedia as to when VP7 will be in Flash. I've written to Macromedia and they said that the CPU usage in VP7 is too high at this time. Ironically there is an article on On2's website that was just put up proclaiming that H.264 is too complex for todays CPU per NVIDIA & ATI.

[iwod]

I've written to On2 and they said that it is up to Macromedia as to when VP7 will be in Flash. I've written to Macromedia and they said that the CPU usage in VP7 is too high at this time. Ironically there is an article on On2's website that was just put up proclaiming that H.264 is too complex for todays CPU per NVIDIA & ATI.

That is why i thought as well. But surely VP7 support VP6 decoding. It will be up to the author to decide whether to make a VP7 video or not.
I suppose Macromedia dont want to get lot of stick for High CPU usage. As they are already getting a lot from badly written Flash.

[IgorC]

No, VP6 can't be decoded by VP7. On Intel CPUs VP7 with PP turned off still requieres more CPU than H.264 High Profile.

[Sharktooth]

on what cpu?

[IgorC]

Celeron 2 GHZ (sse2)
720x432 23.976fps is maximum resolution for realtime decoding of x264 HP and H.264 HP on 2 ghz (Nero decoder PP off). While for VP7 video I can't get a realtime decode already for 720x400 whatever I tried to do with decoder options.

[neo_anderson]

which container is recommended for vp7 video?

[dimzon]

On2Tech, can you answer on my quesion (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=694425#post694425)
Thanx!

[On2Tech]

on2tech
is any chance to view open source VP6/VP7 decoder (may be LGPL) ?
At this time I am aware of no plans to go open source with a VP6 or VP7 decoder.

May I ask why you wish that this were not so? I think we are willing to discuss access to the source code in specific situations. Contact me via pm if you have a project you'd like to talk about?

[stephanV]

which container is recommended for vp7 video?

Its just VFW, so AVI would do fine. But so would Matroska.

[dimzon]

At this time I am aware of no plans to go open source with a VP6 or VP7 decoder.
Thanx for Your answer.

May I ask why you wish that this were not so?
Absence of the OpenSource (or at least reference) VP7 decoder is a reason preventing from VP7 usage for long-term video backup. Really I have no warranty to found acceptable HW/SW (x86/Win32) in 2015 (ten years later) to decode my own backup using existing proprietary decoder implementation. In other way existance of OpenSource (or at least reference) decoder give me a chance to found a sourceport or at least to make sourceport myself.
I hope You understand me (sorry for my crappy english, I'm very confused).

[E-Male]

vp7 doesn't decode vp6 on my system
shouldn't it do that?

[SpaceV]

If there is no open sourced decoder avail then if I make backups of my home videos and want to watch them in 20+ years on the successor of the successor of Longhorn then who guarantees me that I can still play them?

Maybe everyone will be using Linux by then (hehe). With the decoder source there is at least a chance someone will be able to port the code.

Whats On2 stand point on this?

[dimzon]

If there is no open sourced decoder avail then if I make backups of my home videos and want to watch them in 20+ years on the successor of the successor of Longhorn then who guarantees me that I can still play them?

Maybe everyone will be using Linux by then (hehe). With the decoder source there is at least a chance someone will be able to port the code.

Whats On2 stand point on this?
100% agreed (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=696623#post696623)

In commercial aspect MPEG4-like licensing scheme is more sutable IMHO.

On2Tech, please, inform Your Marketers and Managers. Proprietary decoder is deterrent for wide usage of Your really nice codec. And it's one of the reason to choose H264 family!

[Irwin]

h264 and mpeg4 asp is playable on for example Windows Mobile platform. Vp6 or Vp7 = forget it.

[dimzon]

On2Tech
Can You comment this posts: 1, 2, 3, 4

Thanx!

[stephanV]

He answered there were no plans to do this. What more do you want to know?

[On2Tech]

We understand your concerns. All I can say is that we are not aware of any plans to open source the decoders or encoders for VP6 or 7 at present.

However, On2, have, as I am sure you are aware, made significant contributions to the open source community in the past and it is not beyond the realms of possibility that we will make further such contributions in the future.

It seems to me your comments / concerns could equally be applied to, for example, RV10. Any codec in fact where the source code is not freely available.

You are no doubt aware that VP6.2 is the new codec in Flash 8 and MacroMedia also have rights to use VP7 at a later date. Perhaps the huge distribution that this implies may alleviate some of your concerns.

On2Tech

[dimzon]

It seems to me your comments / concerns could equally be applied to, for example, RV10.
Yeah, 100% agreed!
Any codec in fact where the source code is not freely available.
At least not source code but full bitstream specification.

[Sirber]

It seems to me your comments / concerns could equally be applied to, for example, RV10. Any codec in fact where the source code is not freely available.Why opensource them? Both VP7 and RV10 can be played in mplayer on every OS using win32 dlls. :)

[dimzon]

Both VP7 and RV10 can be played in mplayer on every OS using win32 dlls. :)
Unfortunally You need at least x86 CPU architecture to play VP7 and RV10 using win32 dlls. Who can guarantee that You will be able to find x86 compatible CPU 10 or 20 years later???

[Irwin]

Unfortunally You need at least x86 CPU architecture to play VP7 and RV10 using win32 dlls. Who can guarantee that You will be able to find x86 compatible CPU 10 or 20 years later???

Yes! you right. I have Intel pxa270 (xscale, strongarm architecture) and win32 dll is useless already.

[neo_anderson]

come on , i love VP7, it decodes and encodes perfectly on my p4 2.4 ghz, 512 mb ram pc!i hope some good encoding software which is something like recode 2 is soon released by on2!

[Sirber]

Unfortunally You need at least x86 CPU architecture to play VP7 and RV10 using win32 dlls. Who can guarantee that You will be able to find x86 compatible CPU 10 or 20 years later???
You can't already play DX5 and DX6 games... Thanks to M$! Also, in 10-20 years, you'll just need to keep an old box, which will be probably in linux. No one force you to upgrade.

[edit]

Why pink? :scared:

[stephanV]

There is no guarantee for 20 years later anyway? Who guarantess that my CDs still will play, or even my DVDs? Who guarantees that I can still connect my USB devices to my computer in 20 years? Who guarantees that there are still compilers for C and C++ code in the future. Who guarantees that anyone will actually port this code to a new OS and/or architechture? I'm sorry, but I find this discussion a little bit academic and not serving any other purpose than poluting this thread now the question has been answered that it won't happen any time soon.

[Sirber]

:goodpost:

[celtic_druid]

We could also all be dead in 20 years.

[dimzon]

We could also all be dead in 20 years.
:goodpost:

[Wilbert]

Well, i don't agree with stephanV. I think the point dimzon is making is very important.

Who guarantess that my CDs still will play, or even my DVDs? Who guarantees that I can still connect my USB devices to my computer in 20 years?
That's hardware related, imo not really relevant when discussing the accessibility of movies/docs/music/whatever files themselves.

Who guarantees that there are still compilers for C and C++ code in the future.
Open source compilers won't vanish suddenly.

Who guarantees that anyone will actually port this code to a new OS and/or architechture?
The main point is that it is possible because it's open source. Whether someone does it is just a detail (an important detail of course).

[bond]

imho the point is on2 doesnt want to make it opensource and also not openformat.
obviously they think they can make more money if the keep it closed (and i think they are right with such an opinion).
and for them it also propably doesnt matter what in 10 or 20 years is, because at that point, if the company still exists, they will propably have released vp20 already and dont care about vp6/7 anymore

nothing wrong with that. thats capitalism...
does this also mean that its the best for the consumer? no. but than again i have been know as a supporter for open standards a long time already

so to make it short this discussion leads to nothing imho

[stephanV]

Ok... last post about this from me, unless this discussion gets split from the VFW VP7 topic.

That's hardware related, imo not really relevant when discussing the accessibility of movies/docs/music/whatever files themselves.
I would say the accessibility of files is very much hardware related certainly if you are discussing time spans of ~20 years. Unless you are willing to transfer your files from storage medium to storage medium every X amount of years (which might be a good idea anyway though, since the reliability of burned CDs and DVDs is probably not that high). But they were just examples of things with which compatibility might be broken somewhere in the future and maybe are indeed not specificaly related to the issue at hand here. I was only stating that when it comes to technology it is not unusual that every now and then compatibility with past devices/software/OSs/standards is broken. I'm not cheering about this or anything, but it's a fact we have to deal with and for me 20 years from now requires too much fortune telling to make any assumptions on what we might be doing then.

Open source compilers won't vanish suddenly.
Well no, but they might start supporting other things than C (or whatever language the code is released in). Come to think it, what you want is not source, what you want is a bit stream specification.

The main point is that it is possible because it's open source. Whether someone does it is just a detail (an important detail of course).
Sorry thats not the main point. In 20 years the amount of people that are still interested in any codec technology that exists today (maybe codecs with good HW support should be excluded from that, MPEG1 seems to hold out still and is appoaching the 20 year boundary) will be very close to 0. The amount of people that still possess VP7 files will also be very close to 0. So the chance there is a. someone skilled enough and b. has the incentive to make a VP7 decoder is even closer to 0. So while you could compare something like MPEG1 to VHS, it is better to compare VP7 to V2000 (sorry On2 ;) ). It just does not have the wide acceptance as MPEG codecs. Now you could make a chicken-egg debate out of that and say On2 has no wide acceptance, because their specification is closed... and quite honestly, I have no good argumentation against that. But all I know is that having an open specification is not a guarantee for anything. You can take the development pace of Theora as example for that.

Basically On2 has already acknowledged that VP7 is not meant for long time archiving by not giving in to the request. They probably don't even intend it to be. But it's not like this doesn't count for a whole bunch of other (related and unrelated) things we use today.

[DeathTheSheep]

Cool..........

I love topics about where we'll be in 20 years.... I had it for a French journal question once, and the class went wild with all the stuff they came up with! :)

Try it with your folks, guys, hehe. You'll see their views are just a bit different from yours (in all likelihood, that is).

C'mon people. This ain't a discussion 'bout what will happen in 20 years. Although it's often nice to contemplate such things, So much may change in 20 years that this whole forum would be useless.

<> Consider this: 20 years ago, VHS tapes were quite a novelty. Now, who still has their VHS videocassettes?

<> 20 years ago, in 1985, how many of you guys even had computers? Exactly how much of the vast world of computers has changed since then? Who still has a floppy-disk slot on their computer?

<> What's to say you'll use even similar technology to that which we use now? Remember the SLOOT compression system which could make movies 1KB in size? What happens if this comes about? DVDs would already be pointless by then.

[IgorC]

Some people find sharpness setting not enough flexible. Sharpness 0 is smooth , sharpness 2 is less smooth but artefatcs appear. Other codecs have a psy mode or custom matrix. Maybe it will be more conviently to introduce some settings like psy mode. User will select what psymode to use personally.

[SpaceV]

Hey I can remember that someone did reverse engineer the decoder form
the VP6 java viewer. So by decompiling that code,I guess its obfuscated, but nevertheless, it would still be POSSIBLE to use that as source, kinda.
(with tons of deobfuscating work)

What do you guys think?

Or,

On2 agrees to put the source into an escrow account and in the case of the Company going out of business or being taken over, that code gets released into public domain :) Hows that?

[Sirber]

On2 agrees to put the source into an escrow account and in the case of the Company going out of business or being taken over, that code gets released into public domain :) Hows that?
When your compagny thinks about going out of business, well, it's not good. Usualy, another compagny buy them.

[DeathTheSheep]

Exactly. And then what happens after being bought? Maybe that new big company would mess everything up for the codec and toss the code (remember Hardees?). Or maybe they simply wont be able to help much and the code (at least for the decoder) would be released anyway in desperation to attract more people.

But as of right now, as you might recall, On2 is most certainly alive (and reading/posting in this very thread) and speculation of what may be headed our way in 20 years (look 4 posts above), while fun, may not truly accomplish much.

On the other hand, as far as I can see it, if sales in the immediate future looked as if they had the potential to dramatically increase for On2 if the bitstream specs/ decoder code were released, then such code would indeed be released (in all likelihood, that is).

The laws of supply and demand, folks. Learn them! ;)

[neo_anderson]

is there any mailing list to which i can subscribe to to know about latest vp7 codec releases? i am using 7.0.8.0! also, recently, i tried 2-pass best quality encoding on a 2-hr. dvd movie with 1294 kbps bitrate, and 2nd pass showed 31 hrs. remianing in vdub, is this normal?

[dimzon]

i tried 2-pass best quality encoding on a 2-hr. dvd movie with 1294 kbps bitrate, and 2nd pass showed 31 hrs. remianing in vdub, is this normal?
yes, it's normal

[Sharktooth]

is there any mailing list to which i can subscribe to to know about latest vp7 codec releases? i am using 7.0.8.0! also, recently, i tried 2-pass best quality encoding on a 2-hr. dvd movie with 1294 kbps bitrate, and 2nd pass showed 31 hrs. remianing in vdub, is this normal?
best quality is SLOW...
how to get faster (twice or more) speed with almost the same quality? :search: !!!

[DeathTheSheep]

Or you could simply encode with "Good Quality Fast Encoding," and use speed 2 or 3. It's still pretty darn good (by any standards, much less my own sight). Good luck.

[neo_anderson]

personally, i think vp7 is a better video compression solution than avc right now, as avc is still being developed and some annoying stuffs such as blocking still make it a little less awesome!

[Sirber]

personally, i think vp7 is a better video compression solution than avc right now, as avc is still being developed and some annoying stuffs such as blocking still make it a little less awesome!In my tests VP7 had more blocking than AVC.

[DeathTheSheep]

The new version of VP7 (7.0.8) has a much better deblocker; perhaps your tests are from a slightly older version.

[Sirber]

pre 7.0.8.

[Sirber]

I made a test. Q is is better but it oversized by 33% compared to AVC. :(

[Sharktooth]

uh? weird... with 7.0.8 i had LESS oversizing problems.

[DeathTheSheep]

Woah. Solution: narrow the quality range (only let the codec step between 10 or so quantizers).

Well, maybe not solution but still a viable option for tighter control.

Still, yeah, I haven't had ANY over-/undersizing problems. Hm... maybe I'm just lucky. :p

[Sirber]

Well, my clip is the intro of one piece... not very long :) It should be ok over a full file.

[SpaceV]

who of you guys think we will see VP8, 9 etc and MPEG5 etc...

I personaaly think, we might very well be at the end, unless there is somethink completely different based on different technology but the
increase in bandwidth and storage will make a better video compression
basically useless. Once you get a 100mbit or 1gb connection at home and
the basic Dell PC comes with 1-2 TB of storage, who will need to fit a Movie onto less than 1GB?

[Manao]

SpaceV : you're forgetting the move made toward high resolution / framerate / quality : tomorrow, HD DVD / bluray will be encoded at one / twice the framerate, and two / four time the resolution of the current DVD. Ripping that movie without too much losses ( to a DVD for example ), will need a powerful codec, and actual VP7 / h264 might not be up to that task.

Also, I've noticed that a hard drive is never big enough, so any bits that can be spared are welcome :)

Anyway, I'll stop there the OT

[IgorC]

As confirmation of under and oversize problem of VP7.0.8.0 is here http://multimediacom.free.fr/Download/Test.rar . I tried to compress this source at 900 kbit/s. Nero H.264 gived 886 kbit/s (excelente for high motion source) and x264 with 3 passes gived desired size.
VP7.0.8.0 gives 811 kbit/s instead of proposed 900 kbit/s. The result on some scenses is bad. VP7.0.8.0 isn't stable enough even for long time movie. For 2 hours movie there are also some under/oversize problems.

[*.mp4 guy]

who of you guys think we will see VP8, 9 etc and MPEG5 etc...

I personaaly think, we might very well be at the end, unless there is somethink completely different based on different technology but the
increase in bandwidth and storage will make a better video compression
basically useless. Once you get a 100mbit or 1gb connection at home and
the basic Dell PC comes with 1-2 TB of storage, who will need to fit a Movie onto less than 1GB?

Yes, and 640K is enough memory for anyone.

[neo_anderson]

when's da nu version coming?

[Sirber]

what "new" are you waiting for?

[DeathTheSheep]

I assume neo is referring to On2's customary incremental releases, which have been rather rapid at first but now seem to have tapered off a bit due perhaps to VP7's increased stability and performance, which may have temporarily reached a peak and is therefore limiting the speed at which new versions/revisions of VP7 are released.

Consider, if you will, the following quote, which may or may not be of assistance:
I assume neo is referring to On2's customary incremental releases, which have been rather rapid at first but now seem to have tapered off a bit due perhaps to VP7's increased stability and performance, which may have temporarily reached a peak and is therefore limiting the speed at which new versions/revisions of VP7 are released.
Despite the fact that you may not ever have come upon the source from which this quote is derived, pray tell, is this not the very longest and most convoluted sentence you have yet seen?

I rest my case.

[Sirber]

Quoting ourselve is very lame, in the very same post ;)

[DeathTheSheep]

I know :D

[neo_anderson]

I assume neo is referring to On2's customary incremental releases, which have been rather rapid at first but now seem to have tapered off a bit due perhaps to VP7's increased stability and performance, which may have temporarily reached a peak and is therefore limiting the speed at which new versions/revisions of VP7 are released.


Exactly my point! i was hoping on2 would be releasing a new build!

[On2Tech]

Exactly my point! i was hoping on2 would be releasing a new build!

A new build will be coming along soon.

Please excuse the longer than usual interval between new builds, but a good deal of our effort in recent weeks has been focused on dealing with specific customer related issues and getting things like the flash 8 encoder products ready for launch.

On2Tech

[neo_anderson]

thanks On2 Dude! by the way, VP7 ROCKS!

[Josef.Bilek]

And what about a support for Pocket PC? :-) Is it possible in next release? TCPMP plugin.

[JoeBG]

Can a VP7 Video get muxed into Matroska? As I understand so far it only works in AVI? Any other container possible?

[Sirber]

It can, like many VFW codecs.

[movax]

Chances are, almost any media file you drop into MMG has a muxing module present for it. :)

[Sirber]

Can'y merge WMV :p

[movax]

Fah, it barely qualifies as a sane container :) , especially for processing wmv streams, thanks to the lack of a VFW interface so VDub can use it. Yay for Directshowsource().

[JoeBG]

It can, like many VFW codecs.

Which tool can make this?
:) Thanks for your help :)

[Sirber]

install mkvtoolnix 1.5.6, comes with a GUI. You drag&drop and you are all set :)

[JoeBG]

install mkvtoolnix 1.5.6, comes with a GUI. You drag&drop and you are all set :)

Thanks :)

[DeathTheSheep]

And what about a support for Pocket PC? :-) Is it possible in next release? TCPMP plugin.

Hehe, my thoughts exactly. Well, anyway, I know you're busy with flash, so I'll be patient ;-).

[On2Tech]

Hehe, my thoughts exactly. Well, anyway, I know you're busy with flash, so I'll be patient ;-).

I cannot discuss specifics I am affraid, beyond saying that optimised playback on hand held / mobile devices remains on our agenda.

[postech]

On2Tech, If it posible to see VP7 in camera like Miniket in future?

( I'am a little dissapointed of quality ( MPEG4 ASP ) in this type of cameras even at 5000 kbit/s VGA@30fps movies look worse ( Z750,MINIKET ... ), cameras that have B-frames ( ZORAN COACH 7 based cameras ) have are better compession ( like Samsung i5 but have problem with stream IPBBPBBPBB - last frame is B! ) but also look worse sometimes )

[SpaceV]

hope you can answer some:

1. What improvements will there be in future VP7 releases? Faster or better quality / detail or other features? Where does On2 think it is right now towards a 100% best possible VP7? At 70%, 85%, 95%?

2. I would like to speed up my encodes and probably buy an AMD64 X2 dual core CPU. Does VP7 use both cores or would I be able to run 2 encoding apps in parallel each using 1 core? Are there any benchmarks?

3. Are there plans for VP7 HighDef Camcorders or still cameras with video functionality?

[Selur]

btw: would be really nice if it would be also free to use the on2 java applet as a private person :)

[aeternitas]

<> Consider this: 20 years ago, VHS tapes were quite a novelty. Now, who still has their VHS videocassettes?

I do. None of my VHS cassettes burst iinto flames or dissapeared yet.

<> 20 years ago, in 1985, how many of you guys even had computers? Exactly how much of the vast world of computers has changed since then? Who still has a floppy-disk slot on their computer?

You give very bad examples. You should of given motherboards or ISA slots as an example. The floppy disk is still widely WIDELY used as windows still required it for some RAID setups to name one thing. BIOS updates for a second.

<> What's to say you'll use even similar technology to that which we use now? Remember the SLOOT compression system which could make movies 1KB in size? What happens if this comes about? DVDs would already be pointless by then.[/QUOTE]

1. that will never happen.
2. There is more to DVDs than video storage.

[fight2win]

me waiting eagerly for a new vp7 build!

[fight2win]

is VP7 MPEG-4 Compliant?

[stephanV]

no, its a completely different codec from mpeg4

[fight2win]

:confused: i am really missing VP7 new builds!

[Sirber]

O.T. I miss smaller signatures :p

[fight2win]

O.T. I miss smaller signatures :p
abe e shaane, goggle utaar, duniya dekh, sab cheez badi ho reli hai, aur tu ab tak ro rela hai!

[Sirber]

abe e shaane, goggle utaar, duniya dekh, sab cheez badi ho reli hai, aur tu ab tak ro rela hai!
Rule 13: The official language is English. Outside the translator forum English is the only allowed language.

:devil:

[IgorC]

offtopic
In hindi (language of the north indians) it means : take off your glasses fool and look around you, everything is getting bigger in this world, and you are still sitting and cribbing. Hm, I can also insult on 4 languages but not going to do that.

[fight2win]

hey igor, do u know hindi, or did some indian friend of yours helped u in translating? and also, this was not meant to insult anyone, it was just an out of the box expression, to be taken in a humorous manner! ;)

[On2Tech]

Our apologies for not posting much recently.

Things at On2 have been rather hectic over the last 2-3 months and pressure on resources has made it difficult to make new releases of the free version of VP7 as often as we would like.

However, we are hoping to get another release out in the next week or two.

This release will fix a couple of bugs that have been identified both internally and by people on this board and as with previous releases there will also be improvements in the quality and quality/speed trade off.

There have been a number of questions recently about plans re. Unix, pocket PC etc. Unfortunately I am not allowed to say much about future plans or work in progress in advance of any official release we may make. Sorry.

On2Tech

[the Mad Duke]

Our apologies for not posting much recently.

Things at On2 have been rather hectic over the last 2-3 months and pressure on resources has made it difficult to make new releases of the free version of VP7 as often as we would like.

On2Tech

Does that mean that is there another version of VP7 that is for customer/client use such as Skype, Fastrend etc. or am I just interpreting your message wrong? Thanks.

[Sirber]

www.on2.com

maybe their new softwares :)

[SpaceV]

where is the promised VP7 update?

Whats happening with the Nintendo SDK? I read that a few days a go
a company chose to go with a different video SDK for the DS?

How many FPS does VPx do on the DS with fullscreen/dualscreen? 30/15?

[IgorC]

If be precise : However, we are hoping to get another release out in the next week or two. They still have time untill end of this week. But if they will late with a new build a week more is it so annoying or somethin will change?

[Sirber]

Is the oversize (for AMD?) problem fixed in 7.0.8.0 ?

[Sharktooth]

yep...

[SpaceV]

On2 guys, where is the new VP7? Whats going on with Skype and XM???

[SpaceV]

Just read that ATI's AVIVO technologie on the new X1xxx cards will speed up H264 encoding by 5x. That is great, any news if VP7 and On2 codecs are sped up as well?
Is On2 working with ATI on that? Would surely be great to use with Skype or AOL IMs and Flash if the encoding is hardware accelerated. Would probably allow bigger resolutions on the IM as well.

[Sirber]

Bugging devs won't speed up things ;)

[On2Tech]

where is the promised VP7 update?

Whats happening with the Nintendo SDK? I read that a few days a go
a company chose to go with a different video SDK for the DS?

How many FPS does VPx do on the DS with fullscreen/dualscreen? 30/15?

Its finally here. Check out first post in this method

Download it here (http://www.on2.com/cms-data/downloads/on2_vp7_personal_edition.exe)

Many of the changes relate to realtime compressions, but we've made it generally and across the board better.


Release Notes:

Version 7.0.9.0
=======================================
- fixed bug that produced artifacts in faster speeds ( 2,4,5) when image
size not multiple of 16
- better quality video across wide range of video
- fixed problem in which video offset by 1 pixel when using noise reduction
- improvements to live encoding

[Sharktooth]

nice one on2tech :)

[CruNcher]

jep not bad :)

[fight2win]

thanks dude!

[Josef.Bilek]

Any chance for TCPMP plugin to PDA world? Nice X-mas present. :-)

[IgorC]

I noticed that vp7 often produces some blur on high-motion. Is it issue with ratetol?
There is a high motion short clip. Even Xvid did better on high motion. x264 hasnt any problem with high motion nor on this short clip and provides a sharp image.
Source. http://www.steves-digicams.com/2005_reviews/s2is/samples/MVI_0371.AVI

http://rapidshare.de/files/9173528/test.zip.html


VP7.0.9 2500 kbit/s 2pass best quality . Shaprness 2. Decoder options : sharpest
http://img516.imageshack.us/img516/5346/vp70df.png

Xvid 1.1 december 2005 build. PP2 Ffdshow
http://img264.imageshack.us/img264/5875/xvid0rw.png

[SpaceV]

Wow, sad that VP7 did not make the final round of the codec comparison, but its obvious from the screen shots that it did not have the same detail as the AVC codecs. That and the encoding speed let me agree to have it dropped. Well, we will have to see if they can still improve VP7 to the level of H264 or if we have to wait for VP8.

[Sagittaire]

Certainely a RC limitation: test with 100% for variability and 10/1000

[IgorC]

Certainely a RC limitation: test with 100% for variability and 10/1000

It doesn't help. VP7 is still laking details. It's serios issue.

[Sirber]

Any doc how to configure "bSettings" in the registry?

I'm willing to add VP7 VFW in RealAnime LE. A CLI version could be better...

[On2Tech]

I noticed that vp7 often produces some blur on high-motion. Is it issue with ratetol?
There is a high motion short clip. Even Xvid did better on high motion. x264 hasnt any problem with high motion nor on this short clip and provides a sharp image.
Source. http://www.steves-digicams.com/2005_reviews/s2is/samples/MVI_0371.AVI

http://rapidshare.de/files/9173528/test.zip.html


VP7.0.9 2500 kbit/s 2pass best quality . Shaprness 2. Decoder options : sharpest
http://img516.imageshack.us/img516/5346/vp70df.png

Xvid 1.1 december 2005 build. PP2 Ffdshow
http://img264.imageshack.us/img264/5875/xvid0rw.png

Sorry for the delay responding. I just got a chance to look at your clip.

The problem here is that in the current VP7 encoder the default maximum radius for motion searches is 31 3/4 pels. This is plenty for most clips (sustained motion at this speed is quite rare) but not quite enough in this case. For example starting around frame 4 there is horizintal motion of around 40 pels per frame and I suspect it goes even higher when the dog is running right across the front of the camera.

I will look into the possibility of upping the default or allowing the user to enable longer searches in a future release. In particular, though this level of motion may be rare in std def video and even more unlikely for smaller image formats, I could see it becoming more of an issue for HD.

Thanks for bringing this to our attention,

On2Tech.

Nice dog by the way :)

[dimzon]

The problem here is that in the current VP7 encoder the default maximum radius for motion searches is 31 3/4 pels.
WOW! Very interesting issue!

[On2Tech]

A new version of VP7 (v7.0.10.0) is now available from our web site.

See release notes at the start of this thread.

On2Tech

[dimzon]

@On2Tech
Please, any comments about this topic
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=108936

[Sharktooth]

any chance to have a linux/win32 free-for-personal-use command line encoder?

[On2Tech]

any chance to have a linux/win32 free-for-personal-use command line encoder?

I don’t wish to be obstructive or unhelpful but unfortunately I cannot comment on or discuss future plans.

On2Tech

[Sirber]

any chance to have a linux/win32 free-for-personal-use command line encoder?I don’t wish to be obstructive or unhelpful but unfortunately I cannot comment on or discuss future plans.

On2TechDo you only reply in this thread? :eek:

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=109245

[On2Tech]

Do you only reply in this thread? :eek:

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=109245

No offense intended... I just noticed your thread asking about cli encoders :( The truth is that I do not normally have time to check the forum every day.

I will post a response!

Have you had a chance to try out 7.0.10 by the way? We saw a pretty decent improvement on some anime clips (including a short clip that you sent us a while back).

On2Tech

[Sirber]

Have you had a chance to try out 7.0.10 by the way? We saw a pretty decent improvement on some anime clips (including a short clip that you sent us a while back).No, sorry I didn't try. Since RealAnime 4 doesn't support VFW codecs (v3 did), I don't see the point of trying it since I can't use it everyday.
Same goes for DivX and other VFW codecs.

That's the reason why I'm looking for a CLI :)

[IgorC]

Before I've already reported about high motion inefficiency in 7.0.7 version . I sent some clips to on2tech (pm) but it's seems like guys were busy that time.

Only after posting some high motion clips here of 7.0.9 the issue was fixed.

Anyway, later is better than never :) . Now high motion is improved siginifically.

[the Mad Duke]

I'm glad to see a small company like On2 with only about 30 employees(not all engineers) competing against a patent pooling conglomeration like MPEG LA and also the Evil Empire, Microsoft. Keep up the good work. Without the little guys pushing hard, we wouldn't have choices. :thanks: Also, being a publicly traded company, some of us understand On2's non disclosure agreements that you have with your customers and the responsibility you have not to give too much information out to the public despite how much you would like to be able to. Bring on that VP8!

[Sharktooth]

I'm glad to see a small company like On2 with only about 30 employees(not all engineers) competing against a patent pooling conglomeration like MPEG LA and also the Evil Empire, Microsoft. Keep up the good work. Without the little guys pushing hard, we wouldn't have choices. :thanks: Also, being a publicly traded company, some of us understand On2's non disclosure agreements that you have with your customers and the responsibility you have not to give too much information out to the public despite how much you would like to be able to. Bring on that VP8!
that's why i like the on2 approach... however since i switched COMPLETELY to linux im forced to use wine to run virtualdub or other windows software to encode with VP6/7.
a CLI binary (even for windows) would be the solution...

[Sirber]

:goodpost: :thanks:

[Liisachan]

Have you had a chance to try out 7.0.10 by the way? We saw a pretty decent improvement on some anime clips (including a short clip that you sent us a while back). I did a quick test (http://www.faireal.org/tmp/codec_test/glider/comparison.html) on 2006-03-31 (x264 vs RV10 vs VP7 vs SNOW vs Dirac vs XviD vs Theora). I felt vp7.0.10.0 was about as good as x264 and RV10.

[Sharktooth]

RV10 is not even close to be as good as x264...

[siddharthagandhi]

lol i tested out VP7 and some of the same that Liisachan tested and Ateme stayed at top, but VP7 and x264 didnt perform well (even with anime) whereas RV10 showed excellent results (2nd place).

[Sirber]

@Liisachan

Your site don't work under firefox

[edit]

Also, dunno which bitrate you used but it seems way too high...

[celtic_druid]

Seems to work ok here and I am using firefox.

[Sirber]

http://img220.imageshack.us/img220/6887/cp2jh.th.png (http://img220.imageshack.us/my.php?image=cp2jh.png)
Images aren't blocked by AdBlock

[celtic_druid]

No such problem here.

[Liisachan]

They are just quick tests, could be informative, but not decisive.
I did XviD vs SNOW vs x264 vs VP7.0.8.7 (http://www.fairyland.to/celtic_druid/Media_Player_Classic/codec_test/snow.html) in 2005 too,
when testing SNOW (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=708057#post708057).
At that time, I didn't feel VP7 that impressive.
This time I felt that VP7 was not bad.

@Sharktooth
Many people hate RV10 without even knowing how to make a job file,
just because they hate the company,
but I'm talking about the codec, not company nor their player.
If there were double-blind tests,
even those who hate Real would give a high score to RV10,
which I'm very sure.
But you are right, x264 is better (at least safer).
Anyway what I meant was, "VP7 is not bad."
I didn't mean to compare x264 with rv10 here and I know too well that x264 is very good
especially for anime.

@Sirber
I'm a Firefox user, and that page is a Valid XHTML 1.0 Strict.
Maybe your ISP doesn't like it for some reason.
How about this (http://minkymomo.info/~meroko_deathnote/tmp/codec_test/glider/comparison.html)?
It's just one of my random quick tests, so if you can't open the page,
you don't have to. Not that important. Just forget it.

Bitrate is 1100-ish, a very normal one for 233MB/ep,
ie classical 3eps/cd.
2000-3000 is what I would call high bitrate, but that is normal too for high-motion OP.
Maybe your HD is too small. I even have quite a few episodes as CorePNG or Huffyuv (10GB/ep), frame-by-frame manually retouched ones.

EDIT
@Sirber
Oh, I know that bug of Firefox--PNG is shown sometimes like that. Just clearing the cache and reloading should fix the pb.

[Sirber]

http://img209.imageshack.us/img209/3828/cp7vu.th.png (http://img209.imageshack.us/my.php?image=cp7vu.png)

If I alt-tab, all images are gone.

[Liisachan]

This might be just accidental but I must report that this uninstaller of 7.0.10.0 is not robust. After testing VP6 enc/dec VP7 enc/dec side by side, now the vp7 uninstaller says "On2 VP7 Personal Edition has been successfully uninstalled from your machine." but it doesn't uninstall :(
It at least should detect it if an error occurs during uninstalling, not saying "successfully"

Okay but that aside VP7 is obviously better than VP6 :)

[On2Tech]

This might be just accidental but I must report that this uninstaller of 7.0.10.0 is not robust. After testing VP6 enc/dec VP7 enc/dec side by side, now the vp7 uninstaller says "On2 VP7 Personal Edition has been successfully uninstalled from your machine." but it doesn't uninstall :(
It at least should detect it if an error occurs during uninstalling, not saying "successfully"

Okay but that aside VP7 is obviously better than VP6 :)

I will ask someone to look into this.

Thanks.

On2Tech

[bratao]

Liisachan,
Thank you for your test !!!
Maybe can you do a test with a lower bitrate, like 500..

[Sirber]

500 lower? lol

how about 368 ;)

[Liisachan]

I guess it's worth trying, tho I personally don't use such a low rate as 368. The lowest one I actually use is around 450, and in that case afaik RV10 is the best.

@Sirber:
I know RV10 is great, but now I understand why ppl hate RV10 just beause they hate the company.
I've been always supporting RV10 SNOW Dirac VP7, as something that is not MPEG. Then that libvp62 mess. If they hadnt used lawyers, things might have been much better tho. I instantly got unmotivated to support On2.
After reading that coment of On2Tech I started feeling sorry for them too, still...
Sorry for being off-topic, but I really would like them to know how I felt about it.

[siddharthagandhi]

"and in that case afaik RV10 is the best."

Have you tried any AVC codecs? Nero Digital? x264?

I don't hate real. I love their player. I love the format. I hate the quality.

[Inventive Software]

Hey there! I downloaded the new version, cause I wanted to see how it's changed since I last used it. The installer appeared to work, and all the files are where they are meant to be. The entry is in the system.ini file for VP70, but it doesn't appear in VirtualDub. I run Windows 98SE, and have had no problems with other codecs. Any suggestions?

[Liisachan]

"and in that case afaik RV10 is the best."

Have you tried any AVC codecs? Nero Digital? x264? Sure. AVC is usable @ very low bitrate for anime, but I wouldn't do such LQ encoding anyway. Because we have cheap and fast connections (bandwidth) and inexpensive & huge HD here. Many otakus have more than 1TB space, so theres no need to even consider about 450kbps or something pitiful like that.

[On2Tech]

Hey there! I downloaded the new version, cause I wanted to see how it's changed since I last used it. The installer appeared to work, and all the files are where they are meant to be. The entry is in the system.ini file for VP70, but it doesn't appear in VirtualDub. I run Windows 98SE, and have had no problems with other codecs. Any suggestions?


I am sorry you have had problems and will investigate.

On2Tech

[On2Tech]

Hey there! I downloaded the new version, cause I wanted to see how it's changed since I last used it. The installer appeared to work, and all the files are where they are meant to be. The entry is in the system.ini file for VP70, but it doesn't appear in VirtualDub. I run Windows 98SE, and have had no problems with other codecs. Any suggestions?

OK...

I have looked into this and it appears that we no longer test compatibility with / officially support WIN98 in the free for personal use VFW dll. I think the cause of your problem is some system dlls that do not ship with (and may not even be compatible with) WIN98 : (DBGHELP.DLL, APPHELP.DLL and USERENV.DLL).

I have raised this as an issue and we may be able to sort something out at a later date, but I fear that given our current work load it is unlikely to be high on our list of priorities.

Sorry I can't be more help,

On2Tech

[On2Tech]

OK...

I have looked into this and it appears that we no longer test compatibility with / officially support WIN98 in the free for personal use VFW dll. I think the cause of your problem is some system dlls that do not ship with (and may not even be compatible with) WIN98 : (DBGHELP.DLL, APPHELP.DLL and USERENV.DLL).

I have raised this as an issue and we may be able to sort something out at a later date, but I fear that given our current work load it is unlikely to be high on our list of priorities.

Sorry I can't be more help,

On2Tech


I just checked the documentation and it still states support for Win98. My appologies. We will either update the documentation or possibly sort out the problems with Win98 next time we make a new release.

On2Tech

[sp@rrow]

Hello! I need your help :))

I have a problem - bad VP7 file - received at recording from a TV-tuner in real time. After recording I can`t open it (players and VirtualDUB).
After viewing in FAR I found that in a file there is no beginning - the information about video / audio codecs. And the first informations of file was not such as at normal files - most soon there is no information on a stream (frame).
It is possible to recover it or kill and to not be tormented???

Thanks ;)

Excuse for my idiotic English - I from Russia :-))))

[Inventive Software]

I came to the same conclusions Tuesday night. Thanks for investigating. It's sad that more and more software is being built just for XP, and 98 users (i.e me) are being left out in the cold.:(

[GmorG McRoth]

Even microsoft by June 30, 2006 will stop supporting win98, nothing wird that other companies drop support for old OSes. It's time to upgrade to new windows version or change to linux.

[On2Tech]

I came to the same conclusions Tuesday night. Thanks for investigating. It's sad that more and more software is being built just for XP, and 98 users (i.e me) are being left out in the cold.:(

I cannot make any promises but perhaps we will be able to sort this our and "restore" compatibility in a later version.

On2Tech

[Doom9]

and 98 users (i.e me) are being left out in the coldThose that make software for crappy Windows instantiations (such as W9x, ME and to a lesser extent NT) thankfully become fewer and fewer. W98 isn't meant for video encoding, is simply isn't stable enough. And 8 years in software is a lifetime. You don't even need XP, W2K will do fine.. it's stable and halfway modern. The main reason to use XP over it is the added protection via SP2 and faster boot times.

[sp@rrow]

On2Tech can you help me???

[On2Tech]

Hello! I need your help :))

I have a problem - bad VP7 file - received at recording from a TV-tuner in real time. After recording I can`t open it (players and VirtualDUB).
After viewing in FAR I found that in a file there is no beginning - the information about video / audio codecs. And the first informations of file was not such as at normal files - most soon there is no information on a stream (frame).
It is possible to recover it or kill and to not be tormented???

Thanks ;)

Excuse for my idiotic English - I from Russia :-))))

Sorry for the delay but I have had other things on my mind.

I would love to help but it is difficult to be sure exactly what your problem is with so little information.

For example what type of TV tuner do you have, what operating system are you running and what is the machine specification? Have you managed to compress live from it before into VP7 or other codecs. What VP7 settings were you using exactly.

Also, has this just happened once or does it happen whenever you try and record live? Can you record into another format and transcode to VP7. Does that work. In other words is the VP7 installation OK in other respects.

As regards you english... it is much much better than my Russian so you have no need to appologize.

On2Tech

[Liisachan]

Sorry for the delay but I have had other things on my mind. Um, I'm sorry.... I mean it.

@sp@rrow
Have you tried MPC (Media Player Classic)?
If you get this dialog, there is a way to play it.

http://img89.imageshack.us/img89/1962/mpc0to.th.png (http://img89.imageshack.us/my.php?image=mpc0to.png)

[IgorC]

Excuse for my idiotic English - I from Russia :-))))
Hm. The world is changing fastly. Before each russian spoke english at least barely.

a) From Russia
b) Speak english

a and b aren't 2 proceses directly dependent.

I'm sorry for offtopic.

[postech]

On2Tech I have testested VP7 speed, and I have question :
Do you plan add multiprocessor support?

Athlon XP 2500+ @ 2200 MHz - 176 s

A64 X2 3800+ @2500 Mhz - 130s

Intel Conroe @ 2400 Mhz
single channel DDR2-533 - 110s

( I have tested VP7 speed with this clip http://www.steves-digicams.com/2005_reviews/s2is/samples/MVI_0371.AVI
with this setting http://notdoing.googlepages.com/On2VP7.jpg )

[Doom9]

Intel Conroe @ 2400 MhzCan you tell me where I can get a processor that's not to be launched until fall?

[On2Tech]

Can you tell me where I can get a processor that's not to be launched until fall?

Oh Yes... ME TOO PLEASE :D

Re. the question of multi processor support (beyond the observation that I think you will get some boost anyway with tools like Virtual dub assuming it can seperate things like file handling and audio processing onto the second processor).... I am sorry but I am not supposed to discuss details of future development plans. Sorry, I know this may not seem a very satisfactory answer.

One other thing I will say is that in my experience cache can have a big influence of video encoder performance (not so much decoder). I have a 3.2Ghz P4 Desktop and a 1.7Ghz laptop. The laptop is only marginally slower for many encodes (certainly not nearly as much as the clock speed would suggest) despite much slower hard disk etc. The main reason for this seems to be the fact that it has a 2meg cache rather than the 1meg on the desktop. I think the most recent dual core desktop processors from intel (9xx series) actually have 2 meg per core (4Meg total) which might boost things even more. Not sure about the Intel Conroe.. launched or not.

On2Tech

[postech]

Doom9, You cann't get it, it's enginere exsample ( Sorry for my English )

if you understand russian you can read this topic
http://forum.ixbt.com/topic.cgi?id=8:20165

[On2Tech]

On2Tech I have testested VP7 speed, and I have question :
Do you plan add multiprocessor support?

Athlon XP 2500+ @ 2200 MHz - 176 s

A64 X2 3800+ @2500 Mhz - 130s

Intel Conroe @ 2400 Mhz
single channel DDR2-533 - 110s

( I have tested VP7 speed with this clip http://www.steves-digicams.com/2005_reviews/s2is/samples/MVI_0371.AVI
with this setting http://notdoing.googlepages.com/On2VP7.jpg )


For the record, the speed slider only has an effect if you choose good quality (one or two pass) rather than best quality.

The first pass of a two pass run is typically pretty fast (10-20 times faster than best quality)

Good quality speeds typically vary from about x2 for speed 0 to as much as x10 or x15 as fast for speed 5, though this is somewhat material dependent.

For this clip make sure you are using the latest version (v7.0.10.0) as this has some fixes which allow better tracking for high motion.

On2Tech

[postech]

On2Tech, I know this, I always prefer Speed2 and two pass, but as testing clip short, I used Best Quality, yes I used latest version, as you can see in codec setting http://notdoing.googlepages.com/On2VP7.jpg

and I like use VP7 for screen capture, it's nice I don't need reencode screen capture as it small enough

[On2Tech]

On2Tech, I know this, I always prefer Speed2 and two pass, but as testing clip short, I used Best Quality, yes I used latest version, as you can see in codec setting http://notdoing.googlepages.com/On2VP7.jpg

and I like use VP7 for screen capture, it's nice I don't need reencode screen capture as it small enough

My mistake. I did not think to look at the version number in the JPG !!!!!! Silly Me.:D

[sp@rrow]

TV-tuner Aver media 307
PC - P4-2400 / 512mb / Win 2000

Usually for capture I use Huffyuv (lostless) - but this time was not enough place and I have decided to try VP7.
After testing on short fragments (10-30 mines) - all was ОК.
The bad fragment - was 70 minutes.
Before I compressed VP7 - DVD in 2 passes - all was perfectly.
Options were such - Realtime / 2mbit / speed 5 / sharp 3 / VBR / NR 3 / progresiv / all other default.
Basically it is possible to understand because of what appears bad file - but I do not have special desire since the empty seat for Huffyuv has appeared :)
Question in that - it is possible to restore it - if it does not have beginning (the information on the codec and still any information which goes further-??? The information on streams / staff???)
If want I can send you the beginning of a file:-)))

[On2Tech]

TV-tuner Aver media 307
PC - P4-2400 / 512mb / Win 2000

Usually for capture I use Huffyuv (lostless) - but this time was not enough place and I have decided to try VP7.
After testing on short fragments (10-30 mines) - all was ОК.
The bad fragment - was 70 minutes.
Before I compressed VP7 - DVD in 2 passes - all was perfectly.
Options were such - Realtime / 2mbit / speed 5 / sharp 3 / VBR / NR 3 / progresiv / all other default.
Basically it is possible to understand because of what appears bad file - but I do not have special desire since the empty seat for Huffyuv has appeared :)
Question in that - it is possible to restore it - if it does not have beginning (the information on the codec and still any information which goes further-??? The information on streams / staff???)
If want I can send you the beginning of a file:-)))

So things were OK with shorter clips? Well that is something at least.

I will certainly ask if there have been any problems reported by others when capturing live for a prolonged period (> 60 minutes). There could of course have been other factors outside of the codec.... as with all things to do with computers.. the longer they run the bigger the chance that something will go wrong.

As to recovering the file. It "might" be possible to recover some of it but it is probably not practical unless the material is very valuable. Unfortunately it is also possible that it would not be possible to retrieve anything.

Sorry I can't be more help. I will try and investigate to make sure there is not some sort of repeatable problem that occurs after X frames or something like that.

Also if you observe a similar problem again please do let us know. If there is a bug, the first step to solving it is knowing about it!

On2Tech

[Livesms]

For the record, the speed slider only has an effect if you choose good quality (one or two pass) rather than best quality.

The first pass of a two pass run is typically pretty fast (10-20 times faster than best quality)

Good quality speeds typically vary from about x2 for speed 0 to as much as x10 or x15 as fast for speed 5, though this is somewhat material dependent.

For this clip make sure you are using the latest version (v7.0.10.0) as this has some fixes which allow better tracking for high motion.

On2Tech

Can I ask you - is it real to configured On2 VP7 codec for realtime capturing from TVtuner with 768*576 resolution on omy Semrpon 3000 x64.
I would like to get best quality with 1 hour on 2 gb max :)

[postech]

On2Tech I have problem:

I reinstalled Windows XP SP2 and all videoprocesing utilities like VirtulDub stop responding when i try get VP7 configuration windows
the main change that I have been installed Flash 8 PRO may it be a reason
I didn't want reinstall XP ( and WIN2000 because WIN2000 should be installed first to get multiboot system )

I am sure something wrong in registry, but as I don't know what registry key's VP7 read at startup, I can't fix it

[On2Tech]

On2Tech I have problem:

I reinstalled Windows XP SP2 and all videoprocesing utilities like VirtulDub stop responding when i try get VP7 configuration windows
the main change that I have been installed Flash 8 PRO may it be a reason
I didn't want reinstall XP ( and WIN2000 because WIN2000 should be installed first to get multiboot system )

I am sure something wrong in registry, but as I don't know what registry key's VP7 read at startup, I can't fix it

I am not sure what is going on here. I assume that you have tried fully un-installing and then re-installing VP7 using the latest installer?

Outside of the registry keys needed for all VFW codecs (such as the registration of the FOURCC, the main registry entries for VP7 are in "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\On2 Technologies\VFW Encoder/Decoder Settings\vp70". These should be set to default values by the VP7 installer.

I would be surprised if the installation of a Flash 8 product (even if it is not one of our own) would cause a problem, as Flash 8 is based on VP6.2 not VP7, but I suppose anything is possible.

On2Tech

[postech]

On2Tech thank you, I deleted some keys ( I don't remember which only know that it is REG_BINARY type ) and all work

[On2Tech]

On2Tech thank you, I deleted some keys ( I don't remember which only know that it is REG_BINARY type ) and all work

I guess that would be the bSettings key, which stores (not surprisingly), configuration settings.

Glad you got it sorted.

On2Tech

[the Mad Duke]

On2Tech, are there going to be any further updates to VP7 or is version 7.0.10.0 pretty much the last version we'll see? Thanks.

[Sharktooth]

I wish on2 release a CLI version of their encoder and the bitstream specs so 3rd party decoders could be made for linux.

[Sirber]

a CLI version with audio, video and container would be highly welcome :)
or video only, so we can merge in other containers like Matroska.

[ripernh]

Any news?