MPEG-4 - Worth the trouble?

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MPEG-4 - Worth the trouble?

Postby AthenAltena » Fri Aug 18, 2006 10:42 pm

Recently I remastered a video of mine using an MPEG-4 codec (it was originally an Xvid and in my opinion looked horrible) but I discovered that only my VLC player could play it before installing a new codec. I put a note in the video info about this to avoid complaints, but it got me wondering whether having a video that it takes a new download to play is really worth it.

My basic question is whether people have found quality to be more valuable than ability to get it to people especially those who don't know too much about the advanced stuff, codecs and the like. What's your take on it?
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Postby BasharOfTheAges » Fri Aug 18, 2006 11:09 pm

I'm going to start releasing an Xvid version on local and an x264 version through a friend with web hosting to spare. It'll be a slow transition, but eventually MPEG4 is going to be the new norm so it's best to start help getting people used to using it.
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Postby AthenAltena » Fri Aug 18, 2006 11:17 pm

BasharOfTheAges wrote:eventually MPEG4 is going to be the new norm so it's best to start help getting people used to using it.


That's a good way to think of it. I wasn't actually aware that it was becoming more popular, it just looked best out of the different ones I tried.
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Re: MPEG-4 - Worth the trouble?

Postby trythil » Fri Aug 18, 2006 11:59 pm

AthenAltena wrote:My basic question is whether people have found quality to be more valuable than ability to get it to people especially those who don't know too much about the advanced stuff, codecs and the like. What's your take on it?


I started encoding videos in x264 using Matroska and MP4 in March of last year, and I haven't looked back. The compression gain, as well as the new possibilities the new containers and codecs allow for, is absolutely worth it, IMO. I've only received about four complaints.

Unfortunately, all those complaints were of the form "can't play this video", which is (1) weird, since I point out players that can handle the video in the video information, and (2) completely useless for diagnosis. So I've done the only thing I can do, which is to ignore them.

By the way, XviD and x264 are both part of the giant mass known as "MPEG-4". It is probably more appropriate to refer to XviD as an MPEG-4 ASP (or H.263) implementation, and x264 as an MPEG-4 AVC (or H.264) implementation.
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Re: MPEG-4 - Worth the trouble?

Postby AthenAltena » Sat Aug 19, 2006 10:21 am

trythil wrote:By the way, XviD and x264 are both part of the giant mass known as "MPEG-4". It is probably more appropriate to refer to XviD as an MPEG-4 ASP (or H.263) implementation, and x264 as an MPEG-4 AVC (or H.264) implementation.


Oh, right. I'd forgotten that. :shock: I don't recall the specifics of the new one I'm using but it requires the 3ivx package to play and looked better than the Xvid version.
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Re: MPEG-4 - Worth the trouble?

Postby elvirasweeney » Sat Aug 19, 2006 2:56 pm

trythil wrote:Unfortunately, all those complaints were of the form "can't play this video", which is (1) weird, since I point out players that can handle the video in the video information, and (2) completely useless for diagnosis. So I've done the only thing I can do, which is to ignore them.

I have found that most people who "can't play" my H.264 MP4 files simply won't download the recommended media players. (I recommend VLC Player.) Some of them apparently expect everything to play in Windows Media Player, and so when WMP won't play something, they complain, "I can't play this video."

I won't concern myself over viewers who think that everything must play in WMP (and of course they should not be expected to install any codecs, like for XviD), especially after I've taken pains to specifically tell them that other players (VLC) will work fine.
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Re: MPEG-4 - Worth the trouble?

Postby AthenAltena » Sat Aug 19, 2006 3:48 pm

elvirasweeney wrote:I won't concern myself over viewers who think that everything must play in WMP (and of course they should not be expected to install any codecs, like for XviD), especially after I've taken pains to specifically tell them that other players (VLC) will work fine.


I try to do that as much as I can. My father refers to it as "Idiot proofing" but that's beside the point. Although I would like some of my friends (even some of my adult ones) to be able to see it. Unfortunately some of them freeze up as soon as they have to do anything besides click to open, but I try to keep a backup version for those folks.
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Re: MPEG-4 - Worth the trouble?

Postby elvirasweeney » Sat Aug 19, 2006 7:20 pm

AthenAltena wrote:I try to do that as much as I can. My father refers to it as "Idiot proofing" but that's beside the point. Although I would like some of my friends (even some of my adult ones) to be able to see it. Unfortunately some of them freeze up as soon as they have to do anything besides click to open, but I try to keep a backup version for those folks.

I know what you mean. I am experimenting with "lowest common denominator" formats (really meant more for those with old computers), and have been using the MPEG-1 format. (I got this idea from some Final Cut Pro forums.) The MPEG-1 file does not look very good, but it will play on anything, just about. I make it clear that it's a "last resort" format; not meant to be very good, and simply provided as an alternative to nothing.

I suppose I could make a WMV file, but my web stats have told me that when I do that, many will jump on the WMV and won't try to get the H.264 or XviD files to play, even though their quality is much, much better. (And converting over to WMV is a hassle on my Mac, and not without expense.) So making a WMV pretty much guarantees that most people won't bestir themselves to see the other files. They'll go for a low-res, crummy quality WMV over a high-res, sharp quality H.264, almost every time. So, no WMVs for me. If I go that route, I might as well forget about making any other file format, or struggling to try to get sharp, high-res picture. Most will not see it.

I hope I'm making sense there. Anyway, I favor H.264 MP4 files, but also like XviD as well. I'm using H.264 and will continue to do so.
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Postby Shazzy » Sat Aug 19, 2006 10:48 pm

After MPEG-4 takes over, the next step is to convert all you Windows people to H.264 in QuickTime MOVs. :wink:
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Postby Willen » Sun Aug 20, 2006 1:40 am

shazzy wrote:After MPEG-4 takes over, the next step is to convert all you Windows people to H.264 in QuickTime MOVs. :wink:

You mean convert all you Mac people to standard h.264 in MP4 (farewell MOV, it was nice knowing you). :wink:
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Postby trythil » Sun Aug 20, 2006 4:49 am

shazzy wrote:After MPEG-4 takes over, the next step is to convert all you Windows people to H.264 in QuickTime MOVs. :wink:


Doesn't really matter: the MP4 container and MOV container are close relatives.

I'd rather see Apple fix Quicktime so that its decoder and encoder handle the features necessary to have it really handle H.264 Main and High Profiles. As it is, x264 and NeroDigital AVC have it beat by, say, a few dozen megaparsecs.
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Postby Zero1 » Sun Aug 20, 2006 5:31 am

BasharOfTheAges wrote:I'm going to start releasing an Xvid version on local and an x264 version through a friend with web hosting to spare. It'll be a slow transition, but eventually MPEG4 is going to be the new norm so it's best to start help getting people used to using it.

Be sure to use .mp4 ;p

trythil wrote:By the way, XviD and x264 are both part of the giant mass known as "MPEG-4". It is probably more appropriate to refer to XviD as an MPEG-4 ASP (or H.263) implementation, and x264 as an MPEG-4 AVC (or H.264) implementation.

Stricltly speaking ASP is not H.263. H.263 is developed by ITU for video conferencing and MPEG-4 Visual (a huuuge set of profiles that cover standard video content, 2D and 3D meshes etc) is developed by MPEG. MPEG-4 SP can be backward compatible with H.263; I think you need what they refer to a short header mode (not entirely sure on this).

AthenAltena wrote:Oh, right. I'd forgotten that. Shocked I don't recall the specifics of the new one I'm using but it requires the 3ivx package to play and looked better than the Xvid version.

3ivx is horrible software, it doesn't even have full support for ASP last I remember. The best way to play H.264 or ASP in MP4 is via FFDShow and Haali media splitter. You can find a pre-configured installer for those at www.cccp-project.net.

elvirasweeney wrote:I have found that most people who "can't play" my H.264 MP4 files simply won't download the recommended media players. (I recommend VLC Player.) Some of them apparently expect everything to play in Windows Media Player, and so when WMP won't play something, they complain, "I can't play this video."

If you point them in the direction of CCCP, once they install it they can play most common encodes in WMP. This includes MKV and OGM.

trythil wrote:Doesn't really matter: the MP4 container and MOV container are close relatives.

AFAIK the only thing taken from MOV was it's structure, in as much that it uses atoms and such; but I haven't looked into it that much. MP4 is significantly different and improved from MOV, but yes, does share some roots. It's still preferable to store MPEG encodes in MP4 since it's defined by MPEG. They don't mention anywhere that it's Ok to use MOV. And really, why would anyone want to use MOV and be tied to Quicktime? (there is QT alternative, but that is beside the point)
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Postby trythil » Sun Aug 20, 2006 5:47 am

Zero1 wrote:Stricltly speaking ASP is not H.263. H.263 is developed by ITU for video conferencing and MPEG-4 Visual (a huuuge set of profiles that cover standard video content, 2D and 3D meshes etc) is developed by MPEG.


Right, I keep forgetting about the separation of ITU-T and MPEG.

trythil wrote:Doesn't really matter: the MP4 container and MOV container are close relatives.

AFAIK the only thing taken from MOV was it's structure, in as much that it uses atoms and such; but I haven't looked into it that much. MP4 is significantly different and improved from MOV, but yes, does share some roots. It's still preferable to store MPEG encodes in MP4 since it's defined by MPEG. They don't mention anywhere that it's Ok to use MOV. And really, why would anyone want to use MOV and be tied to Quicktime? (there is QT alternative, but that is beside the point)[/quote]

The similarity that caused the "relatives" statement is that if you use (say) mplayer to play back an MP4, it will actually use its MOV parser (in libmpdemux) to play back the file.

The parser seems to operate along the same code paths for both MOV and MP4 files and just checks against the appropriate identifiers for MP4 stuff. This seems to work fine for files containing just audio and video streams; not yet sure if it breaks on more complex files, though.
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