Announcing Project Rémoulade [DivX H.264 codec]

[Ajax_Undone]

My question is a simple one! I was wondering if the next version of the Divx codec will have both x64 and x86bit architecture...

[delacroixp]

Originally Posted by BlackSharkfr

All this 4:4:4 stuff interests me a lot since i'm about to start making some stereoscopic 3D videos, and anaglyph videos would really benefit a lot from 4:4:4 .

I'm also a major enthusiast of stereoscopic 3D .

Do you use shutter-glasses or some kind of 'strap-on display' ?
A ferw links would be usefull !


It's all good.


Pascal

[delacroixp]

Originally Posted by sparky

A while ago I needed to do a test comparing, among other things, x.264 and DivX MPEG-4 encoder. Obviously, x.264 beat DivX in terms of overall PSNR.
Less obviously, x.264 beat DivX in terms of PSNR at fixed encoding frame rate. One area where DivX was far superior was maximum encoding speed.
With a 640x352 source, DivX exceeded 200 fps in two fastest modes, and the fastest combination of features I could find for x.264 could only reach ~42 fps (albeit with higher PSNR).
My conclusion was that x.264 was never targeted at high-speed encoding.

Suppose that we come out with an encoder that can do reasonable-quality H.264 at the maximum speed that is five times what x.264 can achieve
(equivalently, an encoder that can encode in real time in 5 times the resolution) .

Is there any market for encoding at those kinds of resolution, ie over 1 megapixel (640x352 = 225 kp) ?
720p HD is only 0.9 megapixels.

Most HD material is already released in H264 (perhaps a little TV-broadcasting and semi-professional camcorders in HD Mpeg2).
I can't see much use in transcoding (downsizing) to anything more than 576p which is less-than 0.6 megapixels.

It's all good.



Pascal

[Dark Shikari]

Originally Posted by sparky

With a 640x352 source, DivX exceeded 200 fps in two fastest modes, and the fastest combination of features I could find for x.264 could only reach ~42 fps (albeit with higher PSNR).
My conclusion was that x.264 was never targeted at high-speed encoding.

I know this is a bit of an old post, but current x264 exceeds 200fps by a wide margin on fastest settings at 640x352 on a single-core Core 2 system

I'd say that x264 is the only encoder in existence targeted at high-speed encoding; maybe you can lay claim to the title when yours is fast enough to transcode three or four 1080p streams in realtime on a Core 2 Quad.

[BlackSharkfr]

Originally Posted by delacroixp

I'm also a major enthusiast of stereoscopic 3D .
Do you use shutter-glasses or some kind of 'strap-on display' ?
A ferw links would be usefull !
It's all good.

Pascal

i used to have shutter glasses but since i abandonned my crt display i'm now stuck with anaglyph.
I consider buying a passive polarised 3D display next winter. Either iz3d or zalmann not sure yet.
There is a s-3d advocacy group gathering many 3d enthusiast at www.mtbs3d.com you'll find almost all interesting s-3d stuff there.

The thing with anaglyph is that it's the cheapest and most broadly used way to display stereo-3d images, and colour subsampling causes a lot of crosstalk artifacts (aka ghosting) so that's why i asked about 4:4:4.
I guess we'll have to wait ultil stereo-3D is much more popular. There are very few cases for 4:4:4 H264 to be really interesting, x264 authors probably have some much more important features to add for everbody at the moment (like psy rd0, speed improvements, the big x264 GUI)

[DigitAl56K]

Originally Posted by soresu

If I am to understand DivX business practise, then the encoder and decoder are not so much targeted at us enthusiasts but at the regular consumers to dont know ffdshow from squat, and would recognise and trust the DivX brand for using with their work.

...

Of course, that's not to say it wont still be interesting to compare them to the open source competitors!

We're striving to create a high quality encoder and decoder. On the encode side as with the ASP encoder it won't be open-season on every possible parameter - we do have to limit the bitstream properties to be compatible across a wide range of CE implementations. Hopefully we can find a solution that "just works" for the typical user and also provides the performance to satisfy enthusiast users. It's a tough job, but that's the goal.

Originally Posted by IgorC

Threading isn't everything. For example ffdshow ASP decoder is faster on single core than Divx's. Threding doesn't matter here.
While for multiple cores Divx's ASP decoder is very optimized. But it doesn't matter that much. Where is practical approach if ASP 1080p is easy decodable on enough fast 1 core?

This is a bit off-topic, so I won't delve into it too much but do please try the latest build vs FFDShow with no post-processing.

Originally Posted by IgorC

The point is Divx AVC decoder has higher timecodec fps numbers because it can load cores at 100% while ffdshow can't. But during the real playback there is no need for 100% load always. That's why Divx isn't that faster for real playback than ffdshow if you check real cpu load.

That depends of course on the properties of the stream (e.g. rate and features), and the power of the CPU. Because the DivX H.264 decoder has more comprehensive multithreading you should be able to play clips on multi-core systems in cases where FFDShow struggles.

Originally Posted by Sophocles

Sometimes an enthusiast has to drop a buck or two to get the most enthusiastic product. I paid $19.95 years ago for DiVx and then upgraded a few years later with an even smaller sum. That might seem a lot to those who rely on free products most of the time. Yet I've given perhaps three times that much to donations towards Imgburn.

Thanks for supporting us We try to provide good software at pretty low price points and we've also had many giveaways. Unfortunately we do have licenses to pay, our developers enjoy a meal occasionally, and these days there are even shareholders to think about so we can't always get the prices down to zero but we do try For about $30 someone starting out on DivX 5 could have had every Pro codec through 6.8, which is not bad for 7 years of updates IMO.

It would be nice if there was a beta 3 decoder release, and a beta anything for H.264 DiVx encoder.

Almost there Bug fixing and testing has taken a little longer than we'd have liked. We regularly have to make the call on "do we just put this out to get some eyeballs, or do we hold it and fix these half-a-dozen things that might make it painful to use?". Make sure you've applied to be a Project Remoulade group member if you want to be notified and have access to downloads as soon as they're available.

Originally Posted by Dark Shikari

Apparently DivX doesn't work with the "new" lossless either (High 4:4:4 Predictive profile, profile_idc 244). I implemented this in x264 and confirmed that it works through JM.

Thanks, I've downloaded the clip(s) and filed a bug/RFE.

I don't have any non-JM decoder to test this on though... if DivX knows of one that can be considered "reliable," I'd love to know what it is.

I personally am not aware of one. If we find one I'll let you know.

@pitch.fr WRT Reclock: I'll log it, I think the renderer is just not being passed information about the frame rate, similar to the ASP decoder which could also be improved.

Originally Posted by Ajax_Undone

My question is a simple one! I was wondering if the next version of the DivX codec will have both x64 and x86bit architecture...

I wish that was a simple one! DivX 7.0 is currently planned to deliver 32-bit native binaries. Beyond the .0 release I can't say when 64-bit native binaries fall into the roadmap but I will personally push to prioritize them.

Originally Posted by delacroixp

I'm also a major enthusiast of stereoscopic 3D

I started looking at some 3D-dedicated sites last month. Oh if only I had more money in my bank account and some time to pick up OpenGL again!

[Ajax_Undone]

Awesome Great to hear

[Disabled]

I don't know if it has been mentioned, so I do. I found a file with a resolution of 1024x563 that does not play correct with divx, but does with core and ffdshow (vlc). I always thought mod2 was needed, but what do I know. It was in .mov but as I don't know how to cut that, I made a sample in mkv here. The original was from IBM devs, but I can't find the download link anymore.

[SeeMoreDigital]

Hi Disabled,

Actually, it looks like the .MKV samples video properties are incorrect.

The elementary AVC video stream has a resolution of 1024x564 pixels. But for some reason the .MKV container has been set to 1024x563 pixels!

I would suggest it's not good practice to select "odd" pixel values for the vertical resolution anyway.

[Disabled]

Its not a file i created. I just had it lying around and tried to play it with DivX and it didn't work out as it should, so I reported it. I guess it was produced with quicktime, as that was the original container. I just ran it through mmg to cut a sample from it.
I don't know if its spec compliant, but if it is it should be supported.

[delacroixp]

Originally Posted by BlackSharkfr

i used to have shutter glasses but since i abandonned my crt display i'm now stuck with anaglyph.

The thing with anaglyph is that it's the cheapest and most broadly used way to display stereo-3d images
[colour subsampling causes a lot of crosstalk artifacts (aka ghosting)]

Pity about shutter glasses needing CRT displays ... awesome technology (also used by IMAX 3D).

Originally Posted by DigitAl56K

I started looking at some 3D-dedicated sites last month. Oh if only I had more money in my bank account and some time to pick up OpenGL again!

Well... I guess DivX Inc. will get their act together again soon and all the shareholders can go out and buy a Farrari !
I hope you have at least a few shares (good time to buy) ?


It's all good.


Pascal

[IgorC]

Originally Posted by DigitAl56K

This is a bit off-topic, so I won't delve into it too much but do please try the latest build vs FFDShow with no post-processing.

???
I did
Ffdshow was faster than the last 6.8 on single core (without postprocessing)
Right now I have no time to install system on my old Celeron 2 Ghz (sse2)

I thought that you as developer knew about difference in performance on different hardware. Or it is widely constant on every PC as Divx AVC is faster than Coreavc because of your tests on your PCs?

[Sophocles]

Does anyone use single core processors anymore? I have a problem when the debate is about how a decoder is faster on single core but can't keep up with multicore somehow makes it better? For all you single core owners use what works! I've been hoping that I will be able to use X264 with quad core, because dual core and transcoding from HD DVD to or compressing BD is a very long process even with dual core. With a single core it would be unthinkable.

[Ajax_Undone]

Originally Posted by Sophocles

Does anyone use single core processors anymore? I have a problem when the debate is about how a decoder is faster on single core but can't keep up with multicore somehow makes it better? For all you single core owners use what works! I've been hoping that I will be able to use X264 with quad core, because dual core and transcoding from HD DVD to or compressing BD is a very long process even with dual core. With a single core it would be unthinkable.

Well x264 does use quad processors...

[Sophocles]

Well x264 does use quad processors.

I'll look into it. The last time that I checked I seem to recall that quad core support was still a work in progress, but I am quite happy to be wrong on that account.

[Dark Shikari]

Originally Posted by Sophocles

I'll look into it. The last time that I checked I seem to recall that quad core support was still a work in progress, but I am quite happy to be wrong on that account.

x264 supports basically an unlimited number; when using B-adapt and very fast encoding settings it can bottleneck at around 4 though.

[Sophocles]

x264 supports basically an unlimited number; when using B-adapt and very fast encoding settings it can bottleneck at around 4 though.

Thanks for the info, I'm looking at picking up a quad core for high definition encoding. I'd been waiting for Nehalem to hit the market which should bring current processor prices down a little.

[komarovsky]

Does anyone use single core processors anymore?

Of course plenty of people do! not everyone upgrades their computer every few months and has 6GB of RAM. i don't encode high definition, but ripping my dvds works fine on this few year old computer with fairly high settings. i can also decode 720p video fine (1080p, not so much) with just VLC. I should check out 1080p decoding on some of these faster decoders though.

[Ranguvar]

Yeah; libavcodec (ffdshow is good), MPC-HC if you have a good videocard, otherwise the DivX beta or CoreAVC.

[IgorC]

VLC and mplayer should perform better than ffdshow.