Is XVID still used?

[hello_hello]

Originally Posted by StainlessS

HH,

Switch on here in UK was in 1955:- https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/FM_b...ting_in_the_UK
I guess in Australa, take up was delayed as FM is more suited to short range, and Australia being Australia, would find longer range more useful.

I did unintentionally lie to you. When I said EON FM was our first FM station, I should have said "our first commercial FM station".
I don't actually remember the ABC having an FM station earlier than the 80's, but apparently ABC Classic FM began broadcasting to a non-existent audience in 1974.

I have a vague memory the government body responsible for broadcasting at the time made a decision on FM frequency usage that triggered a government enquiry, and I think a new broadcasting body was formed, or something....
No doubt FM radio also had to wait for TV to get out of the way. Channel 0 moved to 10 in Melbourne, but I'm sure it broadcast on both frequencies for a fair while. Around that time Murdock bought Channel 0, which triggered a government enquiry into media ownership.

After the commercial Channel 0 moved to 10 the new multicultural TV station SBS was given Channel 0 to use for a year or three. SBS broadcast simultaneously on Channels 0 and 28 initially, so anyone interested in watching the soccer would have plenty of time to buy a TV with a UHF tuner, assuming their current set lacked one.

I'm sure there was also some fuss over a country TV station having to make way for SBS because they were close to Melbourne and already broadcasting on Channel 28. Aside from all that though, I don't think the general public really had much interest in FM back then. Possibly because the majority of cars still had AM-only radios. Remember the "push button" tuning?

[SeeMoreDigital]

Originally Posted by SeeMoreDigital

Here in the UK all BBC radio stations and many major commercial radio stations still use basic DAB (MPEG-1 Layer 2)!

Actually... all 'first generation' DAB is MP2

[StainlessS]

Just be happy that it aint MP1 [layer 1].

[SeeMoreDigital]

Originally Posted by StainlessS

Just be happy that it aint MP1 [layer 1].

Indeed...

That being said, back in the day I had an Technics DCC (Digital Compact Cassette) player/recorder, which I used to copy audio CD's to MP1 (Mpeg-1 layer 1).... They sounded pretty good.

But I preferred the greater flexibility and size of MiniDisc.

[GAP]

I knew of MP3s but not MP1s. I am not that old as I was a kid in the nineties.

[StainlessS]

Not sure but think maybe it used extender something like, mpa1, mpa2, mpa3 or [mp3],
for mpeg 1 layers 1, 2 and 3.
I'm also a kid, just a bit older than you. [when you get as ancient as me,you dont know that you are
ancient, except for comments from young fellas that seem to think that it aint ever gonna happen to them]
[in a few eye blinks, but it does and will].

mobile:

EDIT: Make the most of it, there are no "re-does".

[FranceBB]

Originally Posted by StainlessS

when you get as ancient as me,you dont know that you are ancient, except for comments from young fellas

Guilty :P

Originally Posted by StainlessS

that seem to think that it aint ever gonna happen to them, but it does and will. Make the most of it, there are no "re-does".

Oh... :'(

[Liisachan]

For those who are curious, here's an actual sample clip [ xvid+mp1234.mkv ], using xvid 1.1 (!) from about 15 years ago + the same audio in 4 formats (MP1/MP2/MP3/AAC). The default Audio is Apple AAC, created today via qaac. The other tracks are ancient. There may be a small click noise at the start of the MP1 track.

[rwill]

I have no clue about audio compression but to me Mpeg Audio Layer 2 sounds more "complete" to me than MP3 and AAC. I read something on Wikipedia about some difference between MP2 and MP3 with frequency bands but don't know if thats the root cause.

[StainlessS]

I think that MPA2 was/is legal in DVD VOB, but think MP3 not legal. [???]

Think i remember that MPA1 could be pretty awful recording rain or shower, could sound like broken glass fragments raining from sky.

[SeeMoreDigital]

Originally Posted by StainlessS

I think that MPA2 was/is legal in DVD VOB, but think MP3 not legal. [???]

Yep

Originally Posted by StainlessS

Think i remember that MPA1 could be pretty awful recording rain or shower, could sound like broken glass fragents raining from sky.

I noticed some weirdness when generating a few recordings. The only thing I could put it down to, was that the MP1 audio encoder had become overloaded. As the, "turn it off and on again" trick would resolve such issues...

[Katie Boundary]

Originally Posted by Blue_MiSfit

But H.264 hardware decode...

There is a world beyond hardware decoding.

[j7n]

Since the complexity of x264 is scalable with options such as CAVLC, I don't see a point in using Xvid. Although nobody seems to produce fastdecode H264 files. x264 is much easier to use from command line in single pass compared to Virtual Dub.

In the 1990s I had only a medium/long wave radio powered by AA batteries in a paper tube. There were two modern pop stations, one local, and one from Ireland. It was receivable at night along with several others that didn't interest me at the time. FM certainly did exist, but I could not own a receiver.

Mediumwave radio used to be better. a) The bandwidth was not cut off at 5 kHz. Channels could overlap. b) There were no switching mode power supplies. I lived in a wooden house and reception was always clear. Now it is a hell inside reinforced walls when the power is on, especially in daytime. Every piece of electronic, digital garbage radiates through wires and walls up to around 8 MHz. Curiously, when power gets cut for repairs, the building does not impede reception. Orientation of the antenna for best reception matches outdoors. I am surprised that broadcasters still exist if people in cities can't hear them. c) There were not single frequency networks where distant transmitters interfere with one another. d) transmitters had more power, a megawatt was common.

My memory of reception quality has certainly faded. My ears were better then and expectations lower. But I remember the sound quite sharp and clear. I wonder if it was practical for a government back in the 1980s to broadcast interference through building walls to disrupt foreign broadcasts, as effectively as it happens now.

Later I got a big old radio with vacuum tubes that could receive FM, but the reception faded as the device heated up. It also had a different frequency range. But due to a malfunction could also receive the "western" band overlapped. VHF TV channels had a very strong mono signal compared to audio only.

MP3 from online sources often is encoded with poor settings and sounds bad than the AAC alternative. For downloadable content and physical media enough bitrate can be used that MP3 is completely fine.

[StainlessS]

On radio reception, here part quote from some time ago in another thread

Originally Posted by StainlessS

So basically 'Heat Haze'. [I'de never heard the term Fata Morgana, looked Heat Haze up and it got me to Wikipedia Mirage:- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirage].
I would not have any idea how to simulate heat haze.

Regarding the wikipedia Mirage link, Fata Morgana paragraph, "atmospheric duct" hilited popup, I think I once experienced that myself.
Back in 1981, I was stayng at a guest house in Bedfordshire countryside, about 5 of us were watching an Italian movie on analogue TV.
Due to weird atmosperic conditions, we could not pick up UK TV, only a single Italian TV station (maybe due to 'atmospheric ducting' which
probably acts similar to microwave WaveGuide used in Radar and microwave communications). the Italian movie of course had no subtitles
(as it was broadcast for Italians, not Brits), so we asked the Swiss girl with us to translate (she spoke Swiss German, Italian, French and English),
and we all sat there transfixed as she translated for a good 10 minutes, at which point she realised that nobody was watching the movie,
we were all fixed upon her. I said something like, "Enough of the French, how about giving it to us in English".
Some additional quite strange linguistic ducting had occurred.

Woz well weird. [EDIT: We normally (never) could not pick up any foreign TV stations at all]

[kurkosdr]

Originally Posted by StainlessS

Apparently so,
quite often, in this [where this is posted, ie MPEG-4 ASP] forum, there are way - way more forum visitors than anywhere else on the D9,
so yes, ASP/XVID/DIVX is still quite popular, but I cannot say nor understand why.

Lots of car DVD players and lots of small TVs with integrated DVD players out there which support MPEG4 ASP but without support for H.264, and which still serve their owners faithfully. So, most people in this situation will download the H.264 version (usually MP4 or MKV) for their big screen TVs and the AVI file for those other devices. With a 30Mbit connection, downloading the AVI file takes like 3 minutes (disclaimer: I am talking about legal downloads yadda yadda).

[kurkosdr]

Originally Posted by FranceBB

That's odd... but hey, apparently there are still people using it for... compatibility purposes?
I don't know...
Besides, I thought MPEG-2 was far more common than Xvid, not just for DVDs that are still being produced for some odd reason, but also for all the SD 480i or 576i TV channels out there that are still on air and also HD/FULL HD standards like XDCAM which just don't wanna die...
It feels weird to talk about these things in 2021, but hey, they're still a thing...

MPEG-2 is still big in the world of broadcasting due to all those SD receivers out there (and the reluctance of governments to tell the owners of such receivers it's time to move on). For example, in the UK there is a grand total of 8 HD channels, a couple of H.264 SD channels, and several dozen MPEG-2 SD channels that are broadcast at a very low bitrate and with lots of artifacts. I am talking about major channels that people actually watch that are only broadcast in crappy MPEG-2 SD.

However, MPEG-2 was never big on the internet, due to the fact it can only do widescreen at 720x480/576 resolution in its most common form (DVD-Video), which in turn forces high bitrates (together with the usual inefficiency of MPEG-2). And let's be real, nobody wants a file with mediocre SD video that weighs 4 frickin' gigabytes at minimum. So, MPEG4 ASP in AVI (aka Divx/Xvid) is the lowest common denominator on the internet. Sure it looks bad, but at least it's small and it plays even on most non-H.264 standalone players. Of course, it's always a good idea to also provide an H.264 version of the content.

[kurkosdr]

Originally Posted by FranceBB

MP3 is a different thing: it's so bad that even MPEG actually begged users to please stop using it a few years ago. I mean, it was ok for primitive devices, portable MP3 players I used to use when I was a young lad and I was going to school, listening with crappy old earphones, but I mean, nowadays AAC is widely supported everywhere: smartphones, cars, stereos etc. It's so supported that it's the de facto standard for DAB and DAB+, so I would very much like AAC to be adopted by everyone and I would love to see MP3 die once and for all. It's a crappy codec with a crappy psychoacustic model based on the filterbank polyphase that just has to die and has no meaningful use case in the modern world...

Nope, MPEG didn't actually say anything of the sort, a patent pool responsible for licensing the patents essential to MP3 did because the patents had just expired.

Also, the problem with MP3 is not quality but space. A bitrate of 320Kbps with a good encoder can give a result that easily covers most audio setups out there, but with M4A (aka AAC-LC) you could get the same result with 192kbps. And let's be real, "golden ears" will use FLAC anyway. The real problem is that MP3 players without M4A support are still being made today, and there are lots of car MP3 players out there without M4A support that can't be easily upgraded, so most people will download the MP3 and maybe the FLAC version and call it a day.

[rwill]

Originally Posted by kurkosdr

However, MPEG-2 was never big on the internet, due to the fact it can only do widescreen at 720x480/576 resolution in its most common form (DVD-Video), which in turn forces high bitrates (together with the usual inefficiency of MPEG-2). And let's be real, nobody wants a file with mediocre SD video that weighs 4 frickin' gigabytes at minimum. So, MPEG4 ASP in AVI (aka Divx/Xvid) is the lowest common denominator on the internet. Sure it looks bad, but at least it's small and it plays even on most non-H.264 standalone players. Of course, it's always a good idea to also provide an H.264 version of the content.

1. Necro
2. Mpeg-2 and Mpeg-4 ASP are not far apart in regards to compression efficiency if both encoder employ the same strategies. Mpeg-4 having the edge obviously.

[kurkosdr]

Originally Posted by rwill

1. Necro
2. Mpeg-2 and Mpeg-4 ASP are not far apart in regards to compression efficiency if both encoder employ the same strategies. Mpeg-4 having the edge obviously.

1. Don't care.
2. As previously said, the problem with MPEG-2 is that, in its most common form (DVD-Video), it forces you to use 720x756/480 resolution if you want widescreen. This means you are looking at a 4GB file at minimum for an ordinary movie.

[SeeMoreDigital]

Originally Posted by kurkosdr

2. As previously said, the problem with MPEG-2 is that, in its most common form (DVD-Video), it forces you to use 720x756/480 resolution if you want widescreen. This means you are looking at a 4GB file at minimum for an ordinary movie.

Actually you are wrong.

In the case of MPEG-2 DVD or DTV the 720x756/480 or 'D1' pixel frame size is always encoded along with either 4:3 or 16:9 DAR (ie: aspect ratio signalling). It is never distributed at 1:1...