[Zero1]

Originally Posted by lamer_de

Great, I'm all for abandoning mkv. I somehow doubt "people that have been in the DVD rip community" will agree here, though

It would be bad to see MKV abandoned as such, since it's an awesome project with great flexibility. I mean I use it for muxing crap I split from transport streams (DVB), which means I save a ton of space, and can watch and transcode my stuff without whacky MPEG splitters/demuxer conflicts, or lacking features.

Originally Posted by lamer_de

That's a good point already, because with the different profile levels, you already have a messed up situation again. Most if not all standlaone devies like the ipod or psp don't support high and extended, yet everybody uses it for encoding because the features offered there are the interesting ones.

It's not a messed up situation when you think about it, in fact it's no better or worse than it is with MPEG-4 Visual. The reason profiles exist is to place a limit on which encoding "tools" (features might be a better word) can be used, which invariably affects the complexity of the file. If you use baseline, it means no CABAC or B-frames, which of course reduces the decoding requirements. This is suitable for handheld devices with limited battery and CPU power, among other things such as RAM. It's not as desirable as encoding using High profile, but it's required if you want such puny devices to play H.264. The biggest thing you will notice is that even with the lowest settings, they will struggle or refuse to play full resolution stuff (assuming 480p), which usually means transcoding to a lower resolution anyway. So even if the device could handle high profile, it's likely you would need to re-encode it anyway, owing to the complexity of it.

People use high profile because it offers increased effeciency at the cost of CPU power. Profiles and levels practically don't exist in a PC environment (or fansubbing) and never will do, because there isn't an upper limit to what can be decoded. PC's are always becoming faster, so there is no need to cripple an encode for "compatability" (at worst you will isolate some leechers who invariably are due an upgrade). If you are encoding for hardware devices though, you have constrained paramaters that you should stick to, to ensure a file will be playable.

Originally Posted by lamer_de

So, you have a file that is "spec compliant"(H264 high+aac inmp4) but can't be played back anywhere and a "non-spec" compliant (xvid+bframe+vbrmp3 in avi) one that can. Why should people switch?

As mentioned before, chances are, even for ASP+B-frames+VBR MP3, you would need to reduce the resolution and re-encode it. Also, you may even have to reduce the number of B-frames or turn them off. These two actions alone could mean that an encode falls within a lower Profile and Level, so using baseline for H.264 is really no different, you just have a common name for it now (since no one seems to bother with MPEG-4 Visual Profiles).

Basically, (as you know) people encode fansubs for PC users, which does not have a profile or level since it's impossible to grade them due to how much the abilities of two computers can differ. Encoding for a hardware player like a PSP or iPod is different, since you have a set processor speed and platform. Set capabilities. These capabilities are "graded" and deemed able to decode a given profile and level combination. Any encode that conforms to this given profile or level, will be decodable on that hardware device. If you encode things how you want, disregarding profiles and levels, one encode of yours might play (if it has low motion and low complexity) but another encode using the same settings might push the hardware too far and be undecodable in real time.

Profiles and levels eliminate this "it might" area as far as hardware is concerned. Again, with PCs it's a grey area.

It would make trouble shooting a whole lot easier though, if for instance you knew what the CPU was capable of.

"Oh you have a Duron 750 which is capable of High@L3, you can't play X group's encode because it is a little more complex at High@L3.1. You need a minimum Duron 900 or P3 1.2GHz to decode High@L3.1"

Heh, ideal worlds eh? Well I guess if a system like that ever existed that a group could choose the minimum CPU speed they are willing to support, and encode to those levels, "Our encodes are High@L3, therefore the minimum CPU you can use to decode this is a Duron 650"

It would sure be nicer than, "You can decode group A's encode on a P3 1GHz, but then again a Duron 750 might do" or "Group B's encode stutters on my P3 1.2GHz!". Ah well...

Anyway, I'll drop this table in which I put together for my guide. Maybe it would be interesting for some of you to glance at just out of curiosity. I might get round to adding the Profiles and tools sometime.

Originally Posted by lamer_de

For example, the Blue-Ray specs (or were it the HD DVD ones?) don't mention anything about AAC. They'll use some dolby stuff like DTS EX. So, no support for spec-compliant files either (Although I'd guess that there will be MP4/AAC capable standalone players in the future because of the support of Nero).

The idea that widely spread files of a certain type do set a status quo is true, but anime has way too little "market penetration" to achieve that. You could bring that argument when the movie scene had adopted h264, but apparently that's not the case.

It was bluray, and I couldn't care less really. Sony have this way, they come up with a potentially killer app, and do something retarded and cripple it. Think back to their first Harddrive walkman... It was ATRAC-3. No support for even MP3 (until pissed off customers voiced their opinion and got a firmware upgrade and new versions).

Then the PSP. It "supports" Main@L3, which is pretty decent, but you have stupid Sony limitations such as framerate and resolution, even though the PSP is capable of more on paper, unless Sony is bullshitting, which I wouldn't put it past them since they claimed the HD walkman had MP3 compatability, but failed to mention the compatability is in the software which converts it to ATRAC-3.

You now have bluray, I don't read into it much, but I heard a while ago that they had jumped ship from using H.264 on pre-recorded discs to MPEG-2.

Some Sony bigshot, Don Eklund said, "Advanced (formats) don't necessarily improve picture quality. Our goal is to present the best picture quality for Blu-ray. Right now, and for the foreseeable future, that's with MPEG-2."

Consider that MPEG-2 at 1080p resolutions will typically require 25-35mbps (even up into the 40's for HQ), and H.264 6-10mbps. Now consider that a single layer HD-DVD is typically 15GB, compared with a single layer Bluray which is 25GB. Hold on, something isn't working here...

25/15=1.6 recurring. Bluray has 1.6r x more storage than a comparable HD-DVD, yet lets take the bitrates.

25/6=4.16 recurring.
35/10=3.5

Hmm, so a HD MPEG-2 movie requires approx 3.5 - 4x the bitrate of it's H.264 counterpart, but the storage media for the MPEG-2 version has only 1.6x as much storage the medium used for the H.264 version. I won't insult people by drawing a conclusion for you.

Actually I just fired up my bitrate calculator for amusement:

15GB HD-DVD - LQ 1080p H.264  = 5 hrs 30mins  @ 6130  kbps video and 224 kbps audio
15GB HD-DVD - HQ 1080p H.264  = 3 hrs 30mins  @ 9760  kbps video and 224 kbps audio

25GB Bluray - LQ 1080p MPEG-2 = 2 hrs 15 mins @ 25660 kbps video and 224 kbps audio
25GB Bluray - HQ 1080p MPEG-2 = 1 hrs 40 mins @ 34730 kbps video and 224 kbps audio

4.7GB DVD   - LQ 1080p H.264  = 1 hrs 40 mins @ 6040  kbps video and 224 kbps audio
4.7GB DVD   - HQ 1080p H.264  = 1 hrs 00 mins @ 10220 kbps video and 224 kbps audio
4.7GB DVD   - LQ 1080p MPEG-2 = 0 hrs 25 mins @ 24845 kbps video and 224 kbps audio
4.7GB DVD   - HQ 1080p MPEG-2 = 0 hrs 18 mins @ 34595 kbps video and 224 kbps audio

That said, things are subject to change, but it doesn't look like a smart move so far.

BTW, I loled at 1080p MPEG-2 on standard DVD.

As for market penetration, don't you believe it. Fansubs probably make up a large chunk of online video distribution. It's also a fact that the XviD and x264 devs are fellow anime fans; coincidence?

Fansubs, no matter how insignificant you regard their numbers, spread the usage of formats such as H.264 + MPEG-4 Visual, it's a fact. It also gets spread by word of mouth too, so one fansub viewer might tell a guy he knows about this codec he needs to be able to see new videos etc.

Originally Posted by Sides

As far as i see, none of the HD formats will support "the" mp4 contanier,
as defined by the ITU and the MPEG group, anyway (maybe supported as streaming thou).
HD-DVD are using *.EVO and blu-ray something else.
The situation will be like the DVD era, where mpeg2 is supported only
via vob container (players that plays mpegiso are not really standard players).
I reckon nero will later offer authouring methods for h264 into EVO.

So personlly i don't see a point to support mp4 or even any industrial standards.

Btw AAC is pretty useless, if you can have dts-ex and dolby whatever (truehd ?).

Whether or not bluray or HD-DVD will use different containers for their program streams is possibly a non issue:

Originally Posted by Zero1

What with the Nero/KiSS player talks a while back (and Nero selling software that can create .mp4 files), I would say it's highly likely that at least Nero/KiSS players will support MP4 (Think about it, it's a selling point for both the software and hardware). In fact I hate to make such an assumption, but I wouldn't be surprised if MP4 was supported by default by most if not all HD/Bluray players (Kind of like how (some/most?) DVD players also play MP3 files burned as a data disc, and also (S)VCDs & Photo CDs).

While no one is making any guarantees, I would be quite happy to take this for granted. Think of it as a side function that will be integrated that is set to become common place. The hardware is capable, it's just the case of adding a .mp4 parser to the ROM or whatever, virtually at no extra cost.

So it's an extra selling point for almost no cost. I can't see that any sane company would turn that down. Especially how MP4 is gaining limelight what with mobile phones, iPod and PSP supporting it. Even the non tech savvy are coming into contact with mp4 files. Give it some time and it will eventually be almost as commonplace as mp3.

Anyhow, suitable replacements for DTS might be MPEG-4 SLS or even ALS, so don't rule out MPEG-4 formats so soon.