WebM Exciting New Video Standard with VP8, Vorbis, Matroska

[colinhunt]

Reading Dark Shikari's technical analysis now, and I get a strong feeling that Google spent a s***load of money on a load of s***.

[sneaker_ger]

So, what do I have to do to play around with it? I downloaded the sample from Dark Shikari's blog and installed the DS filters from google's site but MPC won't play it. The new mmg build refuses it, too.

[Mosu]

Originally Posted by sneaker_ger

So, what do I have to do to play around with it? I downloaded the sample from Dark Shikari's blog and installed the DS filters from google's site but MPC won't play it. The new mmg build refuses it, too.

That's because the vp8.mkv sample is not a Matroska/WebM file despite its file extension (it doesn't start with an EBML signature etc). Maybe it's a raw bitstream. Those are not supported yet by mkvtoolnix, mostly because the official tools only output into Matroska/WebM anyway.

[Keiyakusha]

Works nice for me. However I tried DS encoder. Not sure how to tweak settings in it and on defaults it looks like mpeg1

[colinhunt]

I'd love to hear DS or someone else equally knowledgeable comment on the x264/VP8 comparison video on On2's website, http://www.on2.com/index.php?599.

Oops, I guess this was already covered in the other VP8 thread. My bad.

[Dark Shikari]

Originally Posted by Mosu

That's because the vp8.mkv sample is not a Matroska/WebM file despite its file extension (it doesn't start with an EBML signature etc). Maybe it's a raw bitstream. Those are not supported yet by mkvtoolnix, mostly because the official tools only output into Matroska/WebM anyway.

Oops, you're right, it's a raw bitstream, not MKV.

[clsid]

Here is a sample file from Opera:
http://lachy.id.au/lib/media/elephan...0p-Stereo.webm

Unfortunately the audio does not decode properly with CoreVorbis or ffdshow.

Edit: audio works properly with Haali's splitter (new version released today)

[Blue_MiSfit]

I think we may be missing a crucial piece by comparing VP8 to x264. The latter is clearly superior. What if we compare it to Mainconcept SDK or Ateme?

~MiSfit

[STaRGaZeR]

Originally Posted by clsid

Here is a sample file from Opera:
http://lachy.id.au/lib/media/elephan...0p-Stereo.webm

Unfortunately the audio does not decode properly with CoreVorbis or ffdshow.

Edit: audio works properly with Haali's splitter (new version released today)

What video decoder are you using?

[iwod]

1. WebM is about the worst name you could ever get, Both as a Name and an Extension.

2. VP8 doesn't have a Spec........ ( A Reference Encoder is not a Spec )

3. Vobris and MK is about as good as it gets for Audio and Container.

What we need now is Google to publish / revise / clean the spec. So the communities can implement a decent encoder. As history teaches us, Most of the best Audio Video Decoder comes from Open Source / Community work.....

[CruNcher]

Did somebody allready tested what happens in a low bitrate short gop situation visualy i mean that's what they advertised the most with that it stays stable no i-frame pulse effect ?
iwod we gonna see encoder optimizations the implementation of some psy mostly but no big changes to the current bitstream for this stage, but the base for VP9 is here and VP9 will be the first one where much more improvements will go into, the time is to short hardware is being produced for the current spec (code) so no go it is like it is but it's no bad start @ all.

[stax76]

Great news for MKV, I have doubts however in this whole HTML5 thing, appear to be a titanic mess like C++.

[BDX]

http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail...ay/047795.html

Any comments?

[MfA]

I've often found near identical algorithms in papers published a decade apart by people who did both obviously do a fair bit of literature research ... there's just so much literature out there and even the mighty google can miss some things. Also corporations, even big ones, do prior art themselves occasionally.

Any way, the big example of patented tech was directional intra prediction right? AFAICS that came from Nokia's MVC coder, when was that first disclosed and what patent number exactly covers it?

I can find Q15-J-19 as disclosure, published in 2000 ... and patent 7289674 with priority dates in 2002. So it does seem Nokia prior arted itself.

I think anyone who wants to make an argument about infringement on the part of VP8 at least has to present patent numbers. Assuming that the patent office looked for prior art is one thing (a very bad assumption, but meh) but just saying "hmm, that's probably patented" is a bit too lazy.

[wiak]

Originally Posted by Mosu

They're _basically_ Matroska but with certain intentional limiations. One of those limitations is that at the moment only Vorbis is supported. However, the project is open to other audio codecs as well -- probably as long as they're free as well (which would mean FLAC or WavPack).

there is a reason for some restrictions, why? webm is made for the web, so it should play regardless of browser, so why add flac when its not needed atm, it will make everything alot more confusing for the average user, if you want flac, use matroska with video or better .flac without video

You can call webm container Matroska Web Lite

atm, webm is the best bet when it comes to open video, it has a good video codec, a great audio codec compared to mp3 and a open container that is based on matroska, and most matroska splitters and muxers include webm support

Haali just released a updated splitter
mkvtoolnix includes webm muxing
there is also a reference splitter & muxer at webmproject.org

so atm when you put a video online, like on you took in a zoo or something, and you want the best viewers, what do you do?

1. put it out as webm so everyone with Firefox, Chrome, Opera, IE with VP8 dshow filter on both Windows, Linux, OS X can play it natively
2. put it out in h264+aac, and only play it on chrome, safari and internet explorer, and later on pay royalty when MPEG LA changes their mind...
3. wait what?

anyway, webm is a win-win for everyone
h264 will still be the biggest offline codec anyway due to blu-ray/itunes other online stores etc, and good current hardware support

to last, if you want open online video, go webm, if you want offline, just use h264

[clsid]

Originally Posted by STaRGaZeR

What video decoder are you using?

The VP8 decoder from the WEBM site. You can find a DirectShow filter set there. Only the decoder is needed.

[Daiz]

Originally Posted by Mosu

Maybe it's a raw bitstream. Those are not supported yet by mkvtoolnix, mostly because the official tools only output into Matroska/WebM anyway.

I'd say ivfenc is an official tool (they use it in the encoding examples on the webm project site!) and that only outputs raw .ivf streams. Getting support for IVF input in mkvtoolnix would in my opinion be a pretty high priority. Right now I can't mux these ivfs into anything so I have to use ivfdec to make raw YUV out of the encoded streams before I can compare them :/

[Mosu]

Originally Posted by Daiz

Getting support for IVF input in mkvtoolnix would in my opinion be a pretty high priority.

I agree, and that's the next feature I'm going to implement. This will have to wait until the weekend or early next week though due to other real life issues.

[Turnpike]

Originally Posted by clsid

The VP8 decoder from the WEBM site. You can find a DirectShow filter set there. Only the decoder is needed.

The official decoder+latest Haali splitter+MPC work fine on XP.But it seems that I couldn't get the decoder registered on 64bit Win7?

[Keiyakusha]

is there somewhere compiled ivfenc?