The H.264/AVC/MPEG4 discussion thread

[Eeknay]

Lemme cook something up real quick.

EDIT: http://www.sendspace.com/file/nvhkuv

Nothing fancy, some upconverted concert.

[Zero1]

Originally Posted by Nicholi

I call a dog a dog...because technically it is a dog. Lawl. Though more PAFF samples would be interesting. I have one from a Sony HDR camera currently. Perhaps if we can flood ffmpeg with requests and paff samples they will succumb...bwahaha.

Yeah, that was the one I tested.
GZ.Sony.HDR-SR1.H264.PAFF.1440x1088.15mbps.m2ts

Originally Posted by Zero1

Also, a kind person PMed me with some PAFF source. It plays perfectly in TS.

Originally Posted by Eeknay

Lemme cook something up real quick.

EDIT: http://www.sendspace.com/file/nvhkuv

Nothing fancy, some upconverted concert.

Plays perfect. No problem whatsoever.

Also I got the service menu for my TV and reduced the overscan. Looks pretty win now.

[Potatochobit]

MP4 makes it easier for people with Ipods to watch right? they can play it without having to convert anything?

but normal subtitles are too small? is there really a large enough anime fansub watcher base to warrant making more Ipod friendly releases?

[Zero1]

No, iPod requires very low complexity video, so it must be re-encoded.

However there's nothing to say that perhaps in a year or two we will be seeing very power efficient hardware H.264 decoders for use in portable devices. This DVD player runs on only 20W, which is lower than Apple TV (48W), and about the same as a Wii. For the record, Apple TV uses a 1GHz Intel CPU and is waaay less capable than the KiSS 1600 (Apple TV only supports Main profile without CABAC, at a very low level). The Wii of course is said to be 729MHz, which is quite impressive because as we all know, you would struggle to watch HD fansubs on an equivalent CPU.

Well back to hardware decoding, I have a Nokia N95 mobile phone, and believe it or not, that has H.264 hardware acceleration too.

With regard to the screen, I'm not sure how big iPod's screen is, but on my phone it's very clear and legible even at 320x240. I believe the phone's screen is about 2.5" or 2.6" across, and I think that's about the same as the iPod. A simple CRF20 encode really does look good.

[adrianmak]

How about editing??
many video editing support avi, then mkv ? I can't find any video editing can edit (cut/merge) mkv directly.

[Zero1]

This isn't a thread about MKV.

Though you might want to google for MKVmerge and associated tools, or try the support forums/doom9.

[xat]

Just thought I'd give a little update on the status of the PS3. The next firmware update is scheduled for a release in a few days, and enables support for AVC High Profile.

[martino]

Zero1, now I don't exactly remember what kind of video files you tested on the KiSS, but what about the "extreme" stuff? What I mean by that is 119.88 fps XviD/DivX in AVI, h264 in AVI and so on...

[Potatochobit]

around what is the minimum PC spec requirement to play H264 videos?
lets say with a pentium III or older processor.

also what would it be about for xvid?

[Sylf]

There's no single answer to that.

640x360 would be far less demanding than 1280x720, for example. Even less for even smaller files, like transcoding for portable devices, possibly with less than 24fps frame rate.

Then there are number of different options you can use for both h.264 and xvid that require different level of CPU power to process.

Obviously, files with softsub require extra processing power. Audio codecs too.

Then there's the question about the host computers - how clean of a system are we talking about? A freshly installed PC? Or averagely tainted PC with some background processes?

Running windows? Linux etc? With what software? ffdshow? CoreAVC?

My first fansubbing PC was P-II 400mhz, and that's what I was watching divx3 and xvid releases with for a while. I've heard of reports of being able to watch hardsubbed h.264, 704x400, on P-III 733mhz using VLC. I've had some trouble watching 640x480 h.264, hardsubbed, on P-III 866mhz using geexbox. I could just barely watch 1280x720 h.264 anime on Athlon XP 2400+, using TCPMP and experimental AVC decoder plugin. I've also read about people having trouble getting a smooth playback of 704x400 h.264 stuff on either P-4 2ghz or athlon XP 2000 or something thereabout.

[edogawaconan]

Originally Posted by Sylf

My first fansubbing PC was P-II 400mhz, and that's what I was watching divx3 and xvid releases with for a while. I've heard of reports of being able to watch hardsubbed h.264, 704x400, on P-III 733mhz using VLC. I've had some trouble watching 640x480 h.264, hardsubbed, on P-III 866mhz using geexbox. I could just barely watch 1280x720 h.264 anime on Athlon XP 2400+, using TCPMP and experimental AVC decoder plugin. I've also read about people having trouble getting a smooth playback of 704x400 h.264 stuff on either P-4 2ghz or athlon XP 2000 or something thereabout.

I'll rereport (everything is my own system, personally tried and plays smoothly)
On P-III 733 Ghz:
- 704x400 h264 24fps soft sub with CoreAVC and inloop deblocking disabled
- 640x360 h264 24fps hard sub with CoreAVC and inloop deblocking enabled
- 640x480 h264 24fps in avi (evil thing!) with ffdshow and inloop deblocking enabled

On Pentium M 1.4 Ghz:
- 1280x720 h264 (probably VFR) soft sub with CoreAVC and inloop deblocking disabled

On Athlon XP 1800:
- one of older gg's release which is 1280x720 h264 soft sub with ffdshow and inloop deblocking enabled

4 cpu killers I know are: opening/dark/explosive scenes; inloop deblocking; soft subs; high-frame-rate in VFR (60fps+)

[martino]

Originally Posted by edogawaconan

On Pentium M 1.4 Ghz:
- 1280x720 h264 (probably VFR) soft sub with CoreAVC and inloop deblocking disabled

If it is 23.976fps, with some 29.97 sections. If it is all 29.97 then it won't play well at all. I have that exact same CPU btw.

/me shows fist to Hayate no Gotoku

[Kurth]

This Hayate no Gotoku HDTV released by Eclipse is a pain in the ass to decode even using CoreAVC 1.3 with Overlay Mixer on my Athlon XP 2400+ I cant play it the processor usage stay at 100% all the time.
How much Ghz do you think that can be able to play this heavy release?

[dj_tjerk]

It's not above 30% with libavcodec and a E6600 (the Q6600 is about 266 dollars right now?). I'd consider upgrading your pc, it looks very nice

[Nicholi]

As I recall the entire show is 30fps, and Eclipses is 720p H.264 righto? This = supah pain at decoding. First its H.264 (1 mark against the CPU), second its 720p HD (2 marks), and finally its 30fps rather then typical 24fps (3 marks ;-; ). So you are decoding frames faster then usual, they are huge, and in H.264.

With an Athlon64 3200+ I've had no issues with most 720p stuff and using ffdshow even. If they were 30fps (don't have Hayate no Gotoku on hand to test or anything else at that framerate) I don't think they'd be much of an issue. So anything decently old by today's standards would be enough if you are going to get a faster CPU. You may/may not be able to do the next level of 1080p though (even with CoreAVC) unless you get something a little more up to date. I can barely do 1080p with the above and CoreAVC.

[edogawaconan]

Originally Posted by Kurth

This Hayate no Gotoku HDTV released by Eclipse is a pain in the ass to decode even using CoreAVC 1.3 with Overlay Mixer on my Athlon XP 2400+ I cant play it the processor usage stay at 100% all the time.
How much Ghz do you think that can be able to play this heavy release?

Your PC should be able to handle it. I suspect your configuration, background running programs etc is the culprit

[Sylf]

Originally Posted by edogawaconan

Your PC should be able to handle it. I suspect your configuration, background running programs etc is the culprit

Actually, Athlone XP 2400+ is really on the edge of "capable processor" for 720p H.264 materials with popular options used by fansub encoders. I know I have some problems (frames skipping) while playing those same files trying to play it on Xubuntu/MPlayer on the same processor.

[edogawaconan]

Originally Posted by Sylf

Actually, Athlone XP 2400+ is really on the edge of "capable processor" for 720p H.264 materials with popular options used by fansub encoders. I know I have some problems (frames skipping) while playing those same files trying to play it on Xubuntu/MPlayer on the same processor.

since he's saying that he uses coreavc, the problem should be the configuration. Or maybe turning off deblocking will help...

[Sylf]

Originally Posted by edogawaconan

since he's saying that he uses coreavc, the problem should be the configuration. Or maybe turning off deblocking will help...

By saying "Xubuntu," I implied I was playing it on a lean linux machine. I don't know how much difference there are, but between linux/mplayer and windows/coreAVC, I don't think there's much difference.

And I've also attempted other 720p H.264 materials on the same machine with CoreAVC beta and 1.1, and I struggled on those files just as much, and that was 24fps, I believe. (***** Sheep's Juuousei)

If you have to set your system to JUST RIGHT condition if you're using Athlon XP 2400+, then I really don't call that a "good enough system to play such file" for anyone, or generalize it as "being able to handle it."

[edogawaconan]

Originally Posted by Sylf

By saying "Xubuntu," I implied I was playing it on a lean linux machine. I don't know how much difference there are, but between linux/mplayer and windows/coreAVC, I don't think there's much difference.

And I've also attempted other 720p H.264 materials on the same machine with CoreAVC beta and 1.1, and I struggled on those files just as much, and that was 24fps, I believe. (***** Sheep's Juuousei)

If you have to set your system to JUST RIGHT condition if you're using Athlon XP 2400+, then I really don't call that a "good enough system to play such file" for anyone, or generalize it as "being able to handle it."

I don't really know the difference. (I still think windows/coreavc is faster though)
But since my Pentium M 1.4 Ghz can play it ('it' in Eclipse's Hayate no Gotoku) with CoreAVC and deblocking off, and that processor is roughly equal to Athlon 1800+, another 600+ should help in deblocking.
or I missed something here?
anyway, YMMV