The H.264/AVC/MPEG4 discussion thread

[Nicholi]

Originally Posted by Zero1

in it's entirety

Alright no I do not mean to flame or say in any way that MP4 just "sucks". I don't believe I have ever said that, since that word is usually saved for formats which really do suck. And just for everyone's benefit then, MP4 is not rubbish. However I just see little to no reason in using it because of what you have said. The only reasons I have seen stated, in your opinion, are that it is a standard and interoperability. Which don't seem to go far on their own as TheFluff noted. It is a standard and a great MPEG one at that for pooling all their old formats together, but that is about it. It does mean it has a more likely chance to be adopted by other companies, but as we can see that hasn't gone far in the video domain yet at least. But where does the interoperability arguement really come in? How are H.264 or even MPEG4 ASP .mp4 fansub files interoperable with anything else? They certainly won't be working on any mobile phones or PSPs unless you encode at extremely low resolutions/framerates. Which is what we are talking about here, MP4 for use with anime fansubs.

Just so you don't think I am evul hidoi flamer, MP4 is a pretty awesome industry standard looking at it all entirely by itself. Which if it does spread through everything will be great to be able to play an ISO compliant MP4 on any device. But anime fansubs are typically going to be starting at Main@3 and up in terms of H.264 at least (but equivalently in ASP), amirite? Which is going to cut off the sizable portion of MP4 devices. Which I happened to go lookup how many SAP players are out there, there are around 10 MPEG4 ASP standalone players which support MP4 (more then I thought). Strangely alot of them support only AAC and not MP3 (as well as many other things). Though I would hope no one is still using MP3 audio in MP4s, I have seen a certain Kaizoku group do it for awhile among others. So really the interoperability stops there, as of today at least. Special software support for MP4? I definitly don't know where you are going with that, at least not on a Windows PC.

Coming back to the real world, MP4 is not alone. There are other alternatives such as Matroska which can do the same and more, at least on a PC. Just as well the future holds lots of things in store, you don't know any more then I if MKV won't be adopted in just as many MP4 devices. Lots of hosers never though Vorbis would make it far either, I don't think they had even dreamed of standalone support back then. But now it has a decent amount of standalone players which can play it, and it was also just a patent free opensource format. Wasn't a zomg "industry standard" or had any interoperability really. Since MKV popularity is only on the rise, now that people are being properly educated about it, I don't see it as completely unlikely that it won't get some hardware support as well, it could possibly take the same path as Vorbis (and in the same spirit MP3) from simple widespread adoptance. And just to comment on only the one thing you said.

Originally Posted by Zero1

Are there some kind of royalties that MPEG has/does that means people who implement and sell products using MPEG get a cut of some description? (In which case it would seem silly to support a format that does not bring any money in). Perhaps they are scared to implement it thinking it may become a dead format, or change significantly? (though I personally give the MKV team more credit than that). And what's with waving this hardware profiles link in front of me; I thought you people didn't care about hardware support? The profiles are a good start, if a little vague. I guess if something did come of MKV hardware support that they would draw up something specific.

Of course there are fees they have to pay. But who in their right mind is going to make a device that is NOT supporting any MPEG formats? Thats just simple krayzie talk. More then anything the device will likely already be supporting MP4, though if it doesn't I don't blame them for not wanting to pay more fees, and if they are supporting MP4 of course they are at least going to have the major MPEG formats already down. I don't at all see MKV as the prime focus of a new hardware player being created, if that is only what you can imagine. It is far too young for that, however it could easily piggy back on most any other ones which support only MPEG4 ASP and the like. Which is still a very sizable amount of videos.

I'm not quite sure who you are jabbing at with vague, it seems pretty straightforward to me. It is only a draft at the moment and the main thing I see it completley missing for the "standard"-centric people would be the H.264 levels? Is that the only thing? The minimum bitrate, resolution almost do a valid job of that on their own, but ohnoes it doesn't say! I doubt many current MP4 devices even have such a specific list of what/what not can be played. However a few simple numbers can be added to list the H.264 level to make it less "vague".

Unless you want to continue explaining why "MP4 is a standard and has tons of interoperability" (complete paraphrasing by a hoser) it is a good choice for fansubs, lets drop it. I see from your last post you are taking it worse then I meant it to be, and your opinions far more then some peoples I do respect. We could at least talk of other things which are MP4 related which I did just learn about.

MP4Box has for sometime added support for muxing Vorbis streams. Which is of course compliant in that MP4 allows for non-ISO streams to be muxed and defined as a particular track ID. Now I'm just thinking in terms of how that can lead to just as many problems, or possible advantages. Would that mean muxing Vorbis into MP4 is muxer dependent, or is the track ID something universal for each particular format? I mean that has to be just one of the major drawbacks for lots of people is, no native support of Vorbis in MP4. However if the track ID was a universal identifer and not something arbitrarily chosen by the muxer developer, that would make it pretty easy for Vorbis support in MP4 to be furtherly adopted. If it's not, painful futures await us with MP4 if more muxers become majorly used and are not doing the same thing. Just newbly thinking here.

[Ronbo]

As far as h.264 becoming more acceptable, (this reasoning being due to a lack of complaints) I’m more inclined to think that those opposed to it have come to the same conclusion that I have. It’s like beating a dead horse to further complain about it.
Instead I’m waiting for someone to come up with a SAP that will play these files!
I am capable of watching anything released on my PC, but I prefer to watch Anime in comfort as it was intended, in my living room, on a TV!
Currently I have 1 SAP (XBOX) that plays absolutely anything thrown at it except H.264/MKV files. It will play H.264/MP4 files if the encoding does not exceeded the limits of it’s capabilities.
I recently hooked up a D-Link DSM-520 SAP that I wanted to try out as an alternate and found it lacking. (as compared to my Xbox running XBMC). Although it will play the most common industry standard formats (AVI, WMV, MP4) at resolutions up to 1080i, it will not play MKV files or H.264.
As of right now my only options are to re-encode H.264 files into a format that will play on either of these 2 players or force myself to watch these releases on my computer. Neither of which is a big deal using Nero Recode or RealAnime.
I’m hoping that Apple’s SAP will incorporate the H.264/MP4 format and fan sub groups that are currently using H.264 as their only codec will eventually accept MP4 as a viable container. Until then I will just continue to do as I have been doing.

On the other hand! If anyone can provide me with a link to an non DVD (network capable) SAP that plays HD (1080i/1080p) H.264/MKV files and is not an MPPC (HTPC) please do so!

[Mentar]

I can't help myself but point out one hilarious discrepancy

It's evident that most of those people vociferously arguing for .mp4 as the allegedly more SAP-friendly format happen to originate from groups which fancy themselves to be "ethical" fansubbers, as in "stop distribution when licenced", "don't touch DVD material" etc.

Contrary to that, most people supporting the mkv container come from "evil wareZsubber" or "ripping" groups. They on the other hand, care very little about burn-swap-and-forget, and are more concerned about video quality issues.

Talk about ironies

Ronbo, as usual you're wrong. It's not the container - the xbox can play mkv releases just fine, as long as they're imposing the same limitations as nowadays mp4 releases: Hardsubbing (so no softsubs or attached fonts) and not too much of a strain on the CPU (so either ASP like xvid or very low AVC settings like no deblocking or cabac). In fact, many .mp4 releases out there aren't h.264 at all, contrary to what they may seem. Therefore, the evil isn't the container, it is the used featureset and the CPU requirements of the codec.

I guess the next SAP with full-fledged mkv softsub support will be a hacked xbox360. After all, the latest mplayer builds already support font extraction, and SSA/ASS support is also maturing. Or just pick any small shuffle computer with a DVD drive, which can be easily morphed into a full-fledged media center without ANY quality degradation.

Just a matter of time.

[mog08]

Originally Posted by Eeknay

Hey, I have a wild and outlandish idea! How about we encode episodes based on how well we feel they compress and our judgement on how much bitrate they need rather than just aiming at stupidly low filesizes "just because"!

50-90MB will usually not be enough for the average anime, even with h264 at l44t settings. I know checkers and Fluff have dabbled with the insane arts of low bitrates with seemingly decent results, doesn't mean all our episodes should consistently hit that target every time. That's just stupid.

if you get an episode down to 70mb, that's 10 eps per CD. or 50mb for a full seaon on one CD. I know we shouldn't be looking at CDs nowadays but, is the usual 175mb/Avi/Xvid/mp3/hardsubbed not good enough?
if it's good why would we need mp4/mkv of same thing 50mb more fragmentated, H.264 (500% more cpu usage), softsubbed (less variety/ more trouble), and is nearly always less popular than the avi version over p2p, for a little better image quality? we've been stuck on average-high quality XviD encodes for so long, why suddenly change to a ultra high quality that almost looks like lossless coded just because a new/better codec is availiable?

[TheFluff]

Wow, that's either a very good troll, or a really stupid comment. In either case I feel obligated to reply.

Originally Posted by mog08

I know we shouldn't be looking at CDs nowadays

Then why are we still doing it?

Originally Posted by mog08

is the usual 175mb/Avi/Xvid/mp3/hardsubbed not good enough?

No

Originally Posted by mog08

H.264 (500% more cpu usage)

Use CoreAVC and it's 10%, if that.

Originally Posted by mog08

softsubbed (less variety/ more trouble)

Go back and try them again with a working renderer. Also, HARDSUBBED TS/KARAOKE! DO YOU USE IT!?!

Originally Posted by mog08

for a little better image quality?

Get better eyes

Originally Posted by mog08

we've been stuck on average-high quality XviD encodes for so long

Your concept of "average-high" is not the same as certain others', who think a majority of encodes has sucked. And that a majority still does.

Originally Posted by mog08

why suddenly change to a ultra high quality that almost looks like lossless coded just because a new/better codec is availiable?

1. BECAUSE WE CAN HAVE THAT QUALITY.
2. BECAUSE WE WANT THAT QUALITY.
3. BECAUSE PROGRESS ISN'T BAD, YOU TECHNOPHOBE.

Finally: if you want this changed, go learn encoding and start help out some fansubbing group. It's apparent that the current fansub encoders don't agree with you.

[mog08]

AnimeSuki, "Is downloading anime illegal? Technically yes."
To remain as a lawful citizen,
you must not download RAW animes (unless you own the originals). if you have, remove them within 24hrs.
You must not download fansubs either. Likewise, you should not download music that you do not own either.
You must buy the DVDs (licensed or not) or watch TV. but the Dvd subtitles suck or no english subs.
If it's licensed (US) fansubbing is to be stopped and distribution is to be terminated (self rule) so you can't get previously fansubbed versions ever.
In short, watching animes on a regular basis is impossible in the US (unless you are rich).
Fansub groups are only recognised within fans. Up-to-date fansubs are not cheap substitutes for expensive Dvds. Fansubs are not here to bring you 1st class digital medias so that buying the original dvds is not needed.

Spending an excessive amount of time, putting so much quality into something that is not legally recognised and being at the risk of losing every effort that you put in are a bit overdoing as few see it.

Now putting all the above aside, better quality is highly welcome but,
speed > quality
if you were hungry, after shopping with your lovely imouto who's eager to share a strawberry milkshake with you, would you go to Mcdonald's which is 5 steps away, or would you rather drive 2 blocks for an Italian resteraunt. disagree all you want to if you were to.

Compared to hentai anime fansubbing, most regular animes are pretty high quality. not to mention TVs, youtube, etc.

Why no softsubbing? scripts might be stolen. some things have to be hardsubbed in the first place. no perfect image? buy the original DVDs. Softsubs suit hentai animes better.

In the short term, i still believe that old xvid 175 encodes > very high quality avc in trade for some extra tens thousands kbytes.

What's "troll" mean?

[Starks]

I hate how long the transition from Xvid to H.264 is taking... I also hate the sloppy manner in which conformist encoders are misappropriating bandwidth and filesizes in the dual releases... It looks so foolish.

[Quarkboy]

Originally Posted by mog08

...

What's "troll" mean?

That.

[Arimfe]

Originally Posted by mog08

why use it if it doesn't beat XviD?

It does, as long as the encoder isn't total newbie. I don't care about filesize as long as it's under 500 MB for a 24 minute episode. As much as it pains people like you, I'm glad there are people like Mentar and TheFluff who cares about high video quality. And as much as people like you like to force lowest possible video quality down the throat of the masses, I still prefer to enjoy the show in highest possible quality and I'm glad there are VERY high quality encodes out there.
To me, the existence of big h264 files is not a failure. It's a good thing.

Originally Posted by mog08

is the usual 175mb/Avi/Xvid/mp3/hardsubbed not good enough?

If it's the only choice then i guess it has to be.

Originally Posted by TheFluff

1. BECAUSE WE CAN HAVE THAT QUALITY.
2. BECAUSE WE WANT THAT QUALITY.
3. BECAUSE PROGRESS ISN'T BAD

I very much agree with this way of thinking.

When I can, I always opt to download the highest possible quality, and h264 does a good job helping in that department.
Softsubs are preferred and comes second to the encode quality.
Vorbis vs AAC are both good to the point I can't hear difference.
.mkv vs .mp4 is irrelevant to me as long as the encode has all the nice features like VFR and chapters. I can be pretty superficial about certain topics, but to have a filename preferrence like I have seen most downloaders have is just... <insert negative word>. I don't care if it's .mp4 or .mkv or .zulu or .whacky or .n3w3s7sh17 as long as it has those advanced features on board chances are I'll pick it over .avi depending on which encode is best.
Encode quality >>> .mp4 vs .mkv vs .avi issue in my opinion.

[checkers]

Originally Posted by Eeknay

Hey, I have a wild and outlandish idea! How about we encode episodes based on how well we feel they compress and our judgement on how much bitrate they need rather than just aiming at stupidly low filesizes "just because"!

50-90MB will usually not be enough for the average anime, even with h264 at l44t settings. I know checkers and Fluff have dabbled with the insane arts of low bitrates with seemingly decent results, doesn't mean all our episodes should consistently hit that target every time. That's just stupid.

Your sarcastic statement at the beginning is a bit of a non sequitur. This is exactly what currently happens. Encoders pick one filesize out of three: 175, 233 and occasionally 350mb <-- used to say 250mb. What I'm looking at is an entire spectrum of available filesizes from 25mb right up to 125mb if needed. Just because my public tests have been 25 and 50mb does not mean my mind is firmly focused on those two sizes.

One of the reasons I wish filesizes this size were used more is because in many cases the quality drop is negligible compared to a full sized encode. Honey and Clover obviously looks good even if you throw it in a blender and encode 1080p into 33mb, but that makes it perfect fodder for a tech demo. If you're after a bit more hard proof that significantly smaller filesizes can be achieved, I'll post in a few days an encode of ~100mb of infinite ryvius - probably the hardest to compress anime series I've personally played with. Add to this the source will be a field-blended PAL release, ie even less compressible, hopefully this will provide some concrete proof that 'fansub quality' can be achived with significantly less than what people have grown to expect.

One of the main reasons I feel that encodes of the size range I look at are unpopular with many is because people have some notion that "if the filesize is half that of a normal encode, the quality will be half". This is thankfully untrue. The quantizer system effectively implements a law of diminishing returns on the quality/filesize scale. The higher the quality starts at, the more bitrate you can shave off for less quality loss. Most anime eps are on the very upper end of the scale, and as I've shown it's little trouble to shave significant amounts off them without a noteiceable quality drop. In fact, I'd guess the latest H&C encode I did last page is better quality than solar's 175mb xvid rip - it's certainly at least equal.
Anyway, rambling aside, what I mean to say is I propose exactly what you incorrectly assume to be occuring now. Any advent of smaller episode filesizes will not herald the end of HQ episodes, but it will begin to truly use h264 in the two ways it's useful: same quality, smaller filesize; or higher quality, same filesize. Personally, I can't wait

[Eeknay]

Hey, you don't need to convince me! I know full well the magic and dance of anime that compresses extremely well. If the encoder feels that 100MB or under is a comfortable fit, then go for it!

What I'm against is consistently using low filesizes with no regard to the anime at hand, as the fellow I was replying to above seems to be aluding to. "50-90MB is usually enough" is a blanket statement that many don't take kindly to, myself included.

If you thought I was attacking your tests or knocking low filesizes as a whole, that wasn't my intent. I'd personally rather see hilariously large filesizes to get my HQ fix rather than the "lower, same" approach which is dubious depending on the situation, but then I've been diagnosed by multiple encoders as "crayzie".

[Starks]

I'm just sick and tired of the superficial use and bandwagoning of H.264. You either do it right and use it to its full potential, or you don't use it all. Doing things half-assed doesn't help accelerate the transition at all...

[jfs]

Now, I just wish encoders would stop aiming for specific sizes and start using quality-based encoding instead.
(Burning episodes to CD/DVD and stuffing them away in a corner there they'll rot within the next 5 years is just stupid. If one really feels a need to store stuff for eternity, harddisks are getting cheaper by the week and are much safer for storage.)

[Alizar]

Originally Posted by Starks

I hate how long the transition from Xvid to H.264 is taking... I also hate the sloppy manner in which conformist encoders are misappropriating bandwidth and filesizes in the dual releases... It looks so foolish.

I'm not quite sure what you mean by "conformist" encoders.

To be honest, I'd happily switch to H.264 entirely. But as of right now, it still leaves some people in the cold. So I can understand why groups want to release two versions.

And really, if they're providing the bandwidth, why on earth does it hurt you?

As for your later comment: What do you mean, "to its full potential"?

[NoSanninWa]

Originally Posted by checkers

If you're after a bit more hard proof that significantly smaller filesizes can be achieved, I'll post in a few days an encode of ~100mb of infinite ryvius - probably the hardest to compress anime series I've personally played with.

While I appreciate the sentiment, Infinite Ryvius is licensed. If you were to post this here, I would have to ban you.

[Nicholi]

Don't hurt him!!! ;-;
You know how giddy he gets when talking about his super low filesize stuff. I'm sure he meant something totally not already licensed for years....right chequers?!

[Starks]

Why are encoders wasting bitrate on larger filesizes? I've said it before and I'll say it again: WHY ARE WE SO GODDAMN AFRAID TO GO SMALLER?!?!?!

I'm sick of Xvid and H.264 encodes being released together and sharing a common filesize (like 175MB) and I'm also sick of the stubbornness of certain encoders who stupidly choose to make the Xvid release the smaller and the H.264 the larger of the two releases.

[Medalist]

1080bitrate is about 170mb worth of h264 into mkv....on estimate on a straight forward setting.
800-900bitrate for 170mb on xvid in avi. -- tested results.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Not afraid, just accustomed.
that'd be like...in my opinion, "hey, dur da durrrr, let's put xvid in .rmvb and have some 100-120mb files"-"Dur Da Durr, so great, yeah i'm tired of this crap avi hur hur ha"
(no offense)

[Alizar]

Originally Posted by Starks

Why are encoders wasting bitrate on larger filesizes? I've said it before and I'll say it again: WHY ARE WE SO GODDAMN AFRAID TO GO SMALLER?!?!?!

I'm sick of Xvid and H.264 encodes being released together and sharing a common filesize (like 175MB) and I'm also sick of the stubbornness of certain encoders who stupidly choose to make the Xvid release the smaller and the H.264 the larger of the two releases.

Perhaps because I would rather give a 170-175 MB file size, which everyone has bee perfectly happy with for some time, and give a higher quality visual experience? There are some series (and I stress *some*) that will live happily with <170 MB H.264 at SD resolutions. But you can still put the bitrate to practical good use up to ~q=2 (xvid), ~q=18 for H264. If you show me someone going above that for more than some I-frames here and there, I'd call that a waste of bitrate.

Not everyone shares the same standards, either for visual or audio quality. So if you want to do smaller encodes, feel free. I don't see anyone stopping you.

[checkers]

eek, forgot it was licenced. Well, for the record I'm looking at around crf 24 for 100mb, which looks a lot better than it sounds (although the field blending doesn't help). Are screenshots allowed?

As for the comment "some series (and I stress *some*) that will live happily with <170 MB H.264 at SD resolutions", I think you underestime the power of h264 . As I (nearly) just have shown, even hard to compress anime series can fit comfortably below the 175mb threshold, which was as far as I know, picked purely because of the fact it fits nicely onto a cd. I think a fansub group already does all their releases at 125mb (frozen layer or something?), so I think there's plenty of proof that any old' fansubbing froup can fit what they do now into far smaller packages.

postscript, please don't assume I'm anti-HQ. The 'high quality experience" has yet to arrive in the fansubbing scene in my opinion, and the h264/xvid dual releases I have seen have looked eerily similar. Said quality won't disappear, it will just be better packed