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How well does BBC's Dirac codec relate to Theora?

Its performance these days doesn't seem very encouraging, though it's early in development. It has some hefty competition, though - such as the Snow codec, which also uses wavelets for its compression algorithms.

Overall, the promise of wavelet codecs is high, but their quality to compression ratio vs. traditional MPEG-4 solutions (like XviD and H.264), and the convenience of encodes (Dirac lacks very many useful encoding tools outside of command line) at present leaves much to be desired.

Its performance these days doesn't seem very encouraging, though it's early in development. It has some hefty competition, though - such as the Snow codec, which also uses wavelets for its compression algorithms.

Overall, the promise of wavelet codecs is high, but their quality to compression ratio vs. traditional MPEG-4 solutions (like XviD and H.264), and the convenience of encodes (Dirac lacks very many useful encoding tools outside of command line) at present leaves much to be desired.

It's reported that the RIAA's lawyers have taken action.

...and it's gone

I got a phone call from a big local lawyer office (no fake, I checked the caller ID and the phone number really belongs to a lawyer office). They have been hired to make me stop distributing the DVD-A tools. It was a reasonably big talk, but I can summarize it with

They: we are giving you two choices, either you remove all references to those tools from your site now, or we'll have to take you to court.

Me: I'm already removing!

They: Thank-you for your cooperation.

It HAS been cracked. http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=89243

Here's an MP4 FAQ.

I was immensly disappointed with the Tom's Hardware article. It was incredibly shallow and vague, a significant change for them. It was more marketing/press release than it was informative and objective review or introduction. If I wanted that I would read the information on divx.com. For those of you who want a mor technical and in-depth discussion, look no further than the Doom 9 Forums

Well, I'm afraid that it _is_ limited to the quality of the video. If it's some bootleg fansub of highly dubious quality.. Ya, good luck. You could always re-encode it to something more standard. I backup all of my DVD's to 1 disc XVID using AutoGK, they come out beautifully. I suspect that your problem comes from either: 1) not using square pixel aspect ratio 2) subs too far towards the bottom of the screen. Television sets cut off all the way around, that's the nature of the tech. Check out http://www.doom9.org/ and http://www.videohelp.com/ for help on re-encoding. One might wonder... What kind of TV set are you using? Have you tried a television color calibration tool?

X264 has just enabled High-Profile encoding. See http://www.doom9.org/ for more information. I mention this 'cause the main drawcard of QT7 seems to be AVC/H.264.

OT, but the last DVDDecrypter 3.5.4.0 is still at http://www.doom9.org/

Alternatively, it's here: ed2k://|file|SetupDVDDecrypter_3.5.4.0.exe|899414| F2AC534A2A37C33BF0634382318FE527|/

Middle finger to the assholes I guess.

I do know that in order to transcode MPEG2, you need at least a full GOP (group of pictures) in order. You obviously can't send frame 1 to cpu 1, frame 2 to cpu 2, etc due to P-frame and B-frame limitations. It seems to me that it might work in a distributed fashion if the program breaks the DVD at I-frames. Then you might have to worry about closed vs. open GOPs and all that jazz.

I'd see what the guys at Doom9 think before committing to anything.

Saying I am a dumbass is a fallacy of logic. http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/ad-homine m.html/ He's not resisting. He obviously gave up and settled. Doesn't that kinda make him a coward? They're not trying to control what you can and cannot download. That would be impossible. They just don't want people to distribute their copyrighten material. They're not trying to create some radically new laws. No, they're just enforcing old ones. How much effort does it really take to rip a dvd and spread it over the internet? Next to nil. A quick trip to http://www.doom9.org/ reveals that there are millions of different rip packs and tools designed to rip dvds making it almost effortless to rip a dvd.

Isn't divx a codec that might be contained within MPG files?

As I understand it, matching wavelets with motion compensation is very computationally intensive.

Snow (cached) is the most promising attempt.

Of traditional block-based MPEG codecs, Nero Recode's H.264 implementation is by far the best for low bitrates.
For high bitrate archival purposes, XviD might be better.

As I understand it, matching wavelets with motion compensation is very computationally intensive.

Snow (cached) is the most promising attempt.

Of traditional block-based MPEG codecs, Nero Recode's H.264 implementation is by far the best for low bitrates.
For high bitrate archival purposes, XviD might be better.

As I understand it, matching wavelets with motion compensation is very computationally intensive.

Snow (cached) is the most promising attempt.

Of traditional block-based MPEG codecs, Nero Recode's H.264 implementation is by far the best for low bitrates.
For high bitrate archival purposes, XviD might be better.

I wouldn't bother with ArsTechnica. For the definitive guide to capturing analog video and digitally archiving it, you would want to read this guide on Doom9. Plus, they have many other video-related guides on that site and a forum that is second to none in terms of the sheer amount of expertise exhibited by the users there.

Take a look at the intent of each of the popular formats available today and then consider what will be expected of your visitors in terms of installed software.

MPEG1 is a universal tried and true standard, but you can do better when it comes to streaming. MPEG2 was not designed for low-bandwidth transmission. I'm assuming you would like to maximize quality as well as support dial-up visitors.

MPEG4 is designed and intended for transmission on low-bandwidth devices, and would be equally suited to streaming over the Internet. I would say that this is the preferred format for streaming video. Now you need to choose an implementation of MPEG4.

WMV9 is easily the lowest common denominator if you figure that most visitors are on Windows, but obviously that would lock out a lot of other people, which you don't want to do. On the upside, developing WMV9 video is cheap, easy, and fast. The tools are all free. The Windows Media Video 9 Series Encoder can accomplish a lot in a single pass than. It can be a pain to work with in Virtual Dub though, so for batch encoding I'd recommend some of River Past's video tools as helpers. Real Media is good, but some people may have objections to using the RealPlayer software due to some of its features (popups, cookies, etc. etc.). Not every computer I come across has it installed. Unfortunately, I often have .RM files that aren't video files at all, but pointers to videos online that have long since been removed. Admittedly, I never learned to make the most of Real Media, but I believe You can also do better than this. QuickTime, except QT is very solid with great quality even at lower bitrates. However, I have always found the QuickTime implementation on Windows to be piss-poor as compared to how it is on the Mac. Maybe others would agree. Still, I wouldn't write off QT totally. I've never seen many questions concerning optimizing Real Media or WMV-9, or QT for that matter, so I can't comment about your support options with these codecs.

Xvid offers great video quality at low bitrates. It is open-source, you can count on it being around a long time, but it's not as well known outside the OSS and videophile communities. You'll want to provide a link to a binary install of the codec to make things easier on your visitors. DivX also offers great video quality at low bitrates. DivX is cross-platform with a codec available for Mac, Linux, and Windows. It appears that Xvid has beaten DivX on live action videos (films, television, etc). I believe DivX is better on animation though. The player is a small download. The software is pretty reliable. There are a growing number of certified DivX playback devices, so if you support DivX, you might be offering your visitors some added value in giving them a video format they can take with them.

On the downside, Xvid and DivX both require more time and attention to the transcoding process than does WMV9. You could easily do a single pass transcode with either, and the results will be okay, but DivX really doesn't hit its sweet spot (min. size and max. quality) unless you do a triple-pass. I don't know if Xvid does any better after a second pass. The DivX encoder will cost a small fee, but then you are free to use it all you want. You also get more tweaking with Xvid and DivX than with WMV-9 and (in my opinion) QT, but that means you may spend more time per video than you want in order to perfect things. On the upside, I believe DivX offers a tool for helping you to churn out fast high-quality videos, and both the Xvid and DivX communities are filled with people who are more than willing to offer tips and suggestions. 3ivx is the lesser known MPEG4 codec. It is a great suite that includes MPEG4 tools as well as an AAC encoder. For a more thorough comparison of these last three codecs, see the Doom9 website:

http://www.doom9.org/index.html?/codecs-104-1.htm

Avoid Microsoft's ASF/MPEG4 VKI codec entirely.

If there's ever anything you want to know about video encoding, Doom9 is a good place to go.

If there's ever anything you want to know about video encoding, Doom9 is a good place to go.

I use Auto Gordian Knot. It lets you use either MP3 or AC3 for the audio track.

As others have mentioned XviD is a good choice. It's compression and quality is the same as, or slightly better than, WM9 according to Doom9 (codec comparison). It's open-source, but on the downside, it requries you to install a codec and PCs don't come installed with it "out of the box".

Another good option is VCD-compliant MPEG-1. Nearly every modern PC/OS with a GUI comes equipped to support/play it "out of the box", and you can burn it to a VCD and watch it with most DVD-players. On the downside, the compression and quality is not nearly as good as the more modern codecs such as RM10, WM9, XviD, MPEG-4, etc.

As others have mentioned XviD is a good choice. It's compression and quality is the same as, or slightly better than, WM9 according to Doom9 (codec comparison). It's open-source, but on the downside, it requries you to install a codec and PCs don't come installed with it "out of the box".

Another good option is VCD-compliant MPEG-1. Nearly every modern PC/OS with a GUI comes equipped to support/play it "out of the box", and you can burn it to a VCD and watch it with most DVD-players. On the downside, the compression and quality is not nearly as good as the more modern codecs such as RM10, WM9, XviD, MPEG-4, etc.

These produce very high quality along with very good compression.

For some intro how-to's, check out Doom9.org

XViD is on:
- Win32 (MSVC, cygwin, mingw)
- GNU/Linux x86/ppc/sparc/ia64
- MacOSX
- *BSD
- Solaris 8 Ultra Sparc
- BeOS

That covers most of the major operating systems that your users will encounter.

For those too lazy to click the above link, here's the content of the first post:

"I think a new thread is a more fitting place to discuss about the Snow codec. :) If someone wouldn't know what is it, it's an experimental wavelet codec made by the ffmpeg developers, which borrows a lot of tools from h.264, and while it's still early in the development, it's already giving very good results, far surpasses other wavelet codecs (rududu, dirac) and imho Xvid too, quality-wise. Unfortunately it's only usable with mplayer/mencoder right now, but i think the next ffdshow will include it, so the testing will be more easier. [Update: The latest ffdshow build provided by Celtic_druid have Snow support]

I've played with the settings, and so far this command-line gives the best result:

code:mencoder in.avi -o out.avi -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=snow:vstrict=-1:vqscale=3:qpel:v4mv:cmp=1:s ubcmp=1:mbcmp=1:pred=1

This gives ~600-800 kbps, depending on the source, and the quality is excellent imo.

vqscale is the quantizer, if it's not included it in the command line, Snow will compress losslessly.

So far my opinion about the different settings: qpel always increases the quality - recommended v4mv - i would only recommended it at lower quantizers (max 4-5), above that the stronger artifacts it causes like ringing can hurt the quality xxxcmp=1 (using SSE comparison method instead of SAD) slows down the encoding, but prevents the color mismatches, which can occur otherwise (anyone who tried rududu codec can remember to that). using pred=1 or 2 (different wavelet functions instead of the default) can increase the quality, but these make the encoding (and pred=2 the decoding too) much slower."

Wavelet-based encoding definitely sounds like a great idea. It's only too bad that it isn't universally usable (it can't compress certain images well, either), and requires a fast CPU. At least it gives that Athlon 64 3500+ you just got something to do :)

x264 is a free (GPL) implementation done by one of the French guys of the videolan team (who made the VLC player).
http://www.videolan.org/x264.html
MPlayer-pre6 now supports it. You just need to compile the x264 codec, and compile MPlayer with the x264 libraries linked (see ./configure options).

I tried it, it is very promising.
Apparently it also works with transcode and has a Win32 version too.

See alsothis thread about using mencoder and x264:
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?threadid=830 39

in this order . .
http://nonags.com/
http://www.pricelessware.org/thelist/index.htm
http://www.doom9.org/ (click on the download button on the left)
http://theopencd.sunsite.dk/
http://www.komando.com/shareware_index.asp
http://www.techsupportalert.com/best.htm

Do I need to mention sourceforge and freshmeat?

Not sure if http://skype.com/ is listed in the above lists - it is surely worth mentioning but sometimes requires a USB headset purchase to tweak it, which is well worth the expense since this software often rivals Vonage service in quality when calling pots lines (non-free) and blows away anything when calling pc to pc (free).

http://grouper.com/

http://www.ultravnc.com/ is almost always my preference over tightvnc.

Realplayer is not that bad if it is tweaked - you have to look for the setting that disables automatic ownership of filetypes.

http://kerio.com/ is my firewall preference over ZoneAlarm and Sygate, although the windows xp built-in is is usable. Kerio keeps an eye on changing files via an md5 hash.

http://grisoft.com/, in most cases, would be my recommendation for AV software.

http://www.apple.com/itunes/ is great if you have the connection for it.

And if you want more free software then download emule.

um uh . . erase that last line

I use VirtualDubMod (http://virtualdubmod.sourceforge.net) and AVISynth (http://www.avisynth.org) extensively for video processing. They're the two big reasons why I keep a Windows XP partition on my computer.

You can find a large collection of AVISynth filters at http://www.avisynth.org/warpenterprises/. I don't do much filtering in VirtualDubMod (I use it mostly for viewing AVISynth output, writing AVISynth scripts, performing compression, and muxing), but you can find a good starting list of VirtualDub filters at http://neuron2.net.

The doom9 forums for AVISynth development are also a good place to look for software and hints.

Most of the really good avi/mpg editors and filters for Windows are open source. Virtualdub as previously mentioned, but VirtualDubMod is the current version of the app. Avisynth is the perfect complement to Vdubmod, it acts as a frameserver giving you access to a plethera of filters. Both apps should have made it to the Open CD. There are howtos on both programs here and here. Both sites have PHPBB forums that offer support. Good luck, there is a pretty steep learning curve to AVISynth.

CAD
Good IDEs
Movie/animation editing
Professional DVD menu editing (Look, it's complicated)
Graphical LOGO
Macromedia Flash or Shockwave editor (or editor of something similarly good)
Vector-based drawing

Or something like that anyway. The good people over at the Doom9 Forums will probably be able to help you further.

Matt...

h.264 (now formally known as AVC, the video-equivalent of AAC) is maturing. Well, at least Ahead's Nero Digital implementation of h.264 is maturing. The marketing spin has it called Nero Digital, but it's fully h.264 compliant. And the results are impressive - beta testing shows comparable quality of XviD at half the bitrate.

Where did you ever get that idea? If that were true broadcast TVs and DVD would look exactly the same. I mean if broadcast TV is already better than a TV could support, how could DVDs possibly improve the picture? I would think anyone who has ever watched a DVD on their television has already empirically proved your statement incorrect.

In fact, broadcast TV is a far lower resolution than your TV can support (525 scanlines, of which 480 is picutre information, of which 330 is the theoretical max that will be displayed). Rather than try to explain it myself, some very good technical explanations of how it all works can be found here and here.

Check out this guide on DVD playback from a hd.

I thought it was really more blatently pointed out in that thread then it actually is. RealMedia Directshow filter (splitter)

If Real can crack the iPod, then someone should be able to make tools for converting unprotected .rm formats to .mp3 because that doesn't circumvent any copy protection and shouldn't be subject to the DMCA according to Real's argument. Does anybody know of any?

i.e. Playback of RealMedia in the Windows media player of your choice. You can even transcode RM files with it.

There is of course a catch, the DShow Filter does not come with the Real codecs. You can get the codecs by installing RealPlayer (you don't have to use it) or by getting the codecs installed by other means. As I mentioned in that post though, the install has been cleaned up and the player behaves nice, you can read further at this link.

You say that there are problems with using XVID due to patents?

Is this true?

From the FAQ they say:
"XviD is Free Software (licensed under the GNU GPL), open to third-party contributions and aims for standard's compliance, portability and interoperability, high processing speed and superior quality."
and
" We believe that XviD is the best currently available MPEG-4 video codec solution and additionally XviD is free software!"

So, are there actual problems with using XVID or not?

I personally love XVID as a compression codec... I use the wonderful GordianKnot application which makes encoding video just SOOO easy. This makes it wonderful to take my DVDs and rip them to XVID for use on my media server for when I feel the need to do such things...

[goes away to dig further]

Hmmm, seems you are right. Sorry about the semi-snide comment, but my initial search didn't show anything that would indicate that lavc was nothing more than a wrapper around a bunch of codecs, and nothing indicated that the "mpeg4" in its list of dozens of codecs was in fact an original implementation.

From what little I've found, it seems that everyone agrees that lavc and xvid easily beat DivX5, but people have differing opinions about lavc and xvid quality, although many believe lavc is faster in the encode.

Here's one quote - "It seems that libavc gives a (very) little more detailed image. On the other hand, XviD has an excellent processing at high bitrate and shows less 'blocks'."

Is lavc available on Windows for encoding? Sounds like it would be interesting to try, especially wrt it's encode speed for a home PVR solution.

Oh wait, think I answered my own question - ffvfw (http://ffdshow.sourceforge.net/ffvfw.html). Oddly enough, doom9 shows ffvfw encoding *way* slower than xvid, and in reading through their test scenes and comparisons, I think xvid comes out pretty well ahead of ffvfw in terms of quality. http://www.doom9.org/index.html?/codecs-203-5.htm

Of course if I was using Linux, I bet that would make choosing libavcodec a lot easier :)

Oh quit whining will you?

They have a perfectly good reason for not providing a binary directly from their homepage, and finding it on other sites like doom9 is very easy.

This is a place where using linux pays off. Because if you only need decoding, your favorite movie player already has built in support for it.

DiVX ;-) was first "project mayo" (codename) - mayo because its difficult to make, and pretty much hit or miss - divx was first a hacked mpeg-4 codec (m$ .asp actually - really ment for streaming high quality video over broadband, hacked to work offline and "standalone"), and contained "hot" code. so divx 3.11, the version that really first took off, was illegal. the codec really exploded with the file sharing boom namely morpheus and kazaa. next release , they got rid of the stolen code, and all was good, the codec had even better quality and many of the audio syncing problems had been taken care of. by this point i had ~150 gb of video at ~300 hrs.

then, with the next release (5.x), and even more popularity, divx went commercial, and at first, i was upset, but they were pretty good about it, they had 3 versions, the one with no ads, but "play only", one with adware + encoding, and then the full $30USD one that let you do everything without ads. i thought, well these guys deserve some money for all the work that went into this great codec.

xvid was one of the spinoffs from projectmayo, and has become my favorite codec since i started using it. it seems to have the best "feel" to it, and is really really really good for animated films (to be fair, divx and the rest are really really good at animated films too, most codecs do, easy lines for the encoder to pick up and even out between frames). there are two main developers for xvid (its open so there are different builds) kopei, and nic. they both have their pros and cons, but you would be hard pressed to find them "in real life."

most of this info can be gathered from the mentioned sites, with a little digging. if im wrong about any of this, meh. its pretty right on, though. some great resources for these codecs are the forementioned www.doom9.org is really one of the best collections of encoding how-tos and other doodads. should be required reading for any video DIY noobs. another great resource is www.divx-digest.com you can get all kinds of codecs and players there, try em all, its the best way to learn (divx-digest is a sister site to www.digital-digest.com) like i said, i really dig xvid, and divx's commercial ventures are really starting to pan out (featured in a couple of computer games/video games (lord of the rings pc maybe?), hopefully soon will be built in to dvd players- think 2+ movies in hi-res on one dvd!). please please please dont use wmv. i cant play wmv, as many non M$ people cant, and they take more cpu to decode (looks pretty and is easy though).

before divx was known as divx, there was another company that released a project by the same name, where you would rent this cd/dvd disc thing and buy it to unlock it and watch it whenever you wanted, neat idea, poor execution, i only knew one persone that used it. they came in these little cardboard jewel cases. (before dvd players were all over, you had to get one that could play this divx )

batteries not included, bad grammar and spelling included. see side label for details

D'oh, I forgot to preview.

Several resources:
1) You can go to doom9.net and check out the Guides section.
2) Go here: XviD FAQ and check out the section called "What do all the different options mean." Note that a lot of the provided links are outdated now, but that should give you an idea for a lot of the settings.

So how do I encode my old Cinepak-encoded animation work, which I have as an Adobe Premiere project, without encoding it twice with two different codecs, with all the attendant problems.

A senior engineer from Real explains how to get RealPlayer 10 to act nicely on one's system. I followed the instructions, and it works quite nicely. However, if one has Real Alternative installed previously, one has to remove it completely using instructions found further down the page.

Here's a step-by-step guide on how to install RealPlayer 10 with all the nagging features turned off. And the guy who wrote it should know - he's a senior engineer for RealNetworks.

Let me get this straight.

1. They start working heavily with the open source community through Helix, including making a free Linux player that handles real (which, btw, is probably where the people who made the Real Alternative got the material to make the codecs).
2. They remove the bloat and ads from their software as a direct result of people's complaints. Not only that, they let you turn off all their popups. Name 3 other free closed source softwares that allow you to do that.
3. They're working with the Doom9 community, which is probably the biggest internet community about audio/video matters.

And none of this is good enough? Christ, that's as pig-headed as idiots who keep chanting that Linux is just a hobbiest server OS and will never be useful on the desktop.

For the record, I hated Real too, but since they seem to be genuinely giving it a real effort, I figured I'd give them another try. So I downloaded and installed Real 10 just now. Fiding the free download off their website was trivial -- it was in big bold blue letters on the side of their downloads page. Who would have trouble finding *that*? Yah, it's not as big as the big graphic showing their pay version, but hey, they have employees to pay. Get over it.

Install was easy -- It did ask to take over all my media files, but I just turned them off, then went into advanced, and turned on DVD playback for Real -- Real does a much better job on DVDs than WMP, for sure. Only other annoyance during install was they asked me to register. This is not unlike other media players that I use regularly, so I did. A quick click to turn off the popups from their quick-launch app, and I'm done. Not exactly the nightmare of previous Real installations.

So yeah. I can see people complaining about Real because of what they did in the past, but jesus, they're giving it an honest effort here, and remember, any time Real wins, Microsoft LOSES. =)

First, I'm going to have to agree with a lot of the other posters and say that this is a poor question for Ask Slashdot; it shouldn't have been hard to research on your own.

Second, Slashdot is not the best place to ask. The quality of your responses would be much better from forums that focus on video capture, such as Ars Technica's Audio/Visual forum and doom9.org's DV forum.

Now, back to your question:

With most DV camcorders, you should be able to feed a composite or s-video source into the camcorder, and then you can use whatever DV software you normally use. I've heard that there are a handful of DV camcorder models that require you to record to tape first, but I don't think they're Sony's. Unfortunately, there will be significant latency.

As for some of the other Slashdot responses so far: No, you don't need a Mac, and no, you don't need Premiere. If you're using Windows and want a lightweight DV capturing app, try Scenalyzer Live! (~$40) or WinDV (free).

Heck, on Windows, a DV camcorder should show up as a DirectShow capture device. If you don't care about recompressing the video stream (e.g. for machine vision), then you can use any DirectShow-based TV/capture app. There are a number of open-source ones out there (e.g. Virtual VCR).

Not quite one click, but AutoGK is pretty easy and has good documentation.

AutoGK site

a thread in the forum has just been started to talk about the comparison. There were only a couple posts when I linked to it, but I'm sure there'll be more interesting critiques later.

Well, seeing how bad ET's iTunes Bad, WMA Good article was, I figure Doom9's codec comparison is better than this.

And yes, Doom9's comparison includes XViD.