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Streaming DVD Video over the Internet
Sexy Commando writes "According to this article on ZDNet, the new codec, H.264, is able to stream DVD quality video using bandwidth as little as less than 1Mbps. The new codec requires 3 to 4 times as much CPU power than MPEG-2 to process the video. Now we can have two movies on 1 CD. Cheers."
Quote:
[..] making the size of video files a top hindrance to Hollywood's Internet video-distribution plans.
Yeah Right. Just like the Music Industry's plans for Internet music-distribution...dream on.
Moderation: +4. Modded 70% Funny and 30% Overrated. 100% Saturated.
Average film > 2 hours = 7200 seconds; assuming constant bandwidth @ 1Mbps gives a size >=~ 858 MeB per film. I suppose you could go lower than DVD quality, but personally I just dump VOBs to my harddisc, as ripping to a compression algorithm like DiVX takes far too long, so 'two movies on 1 CD' sounds, well, a bit far fetched...
James F.
how much processing power did divx and mpeg2 require compared to good old mpeg, anyway?
the ones encoding always have time to wait a little longer, and mpeg2/divx already requires quite a lot of processing power for playback...
what people want is a quality:space ratio as high as possible, and considering the fact that very many actually have a new pentium 4 or athlon xp anyway, they don't mind watching good quality movies.
remember moore's law...if this codec is getting widespread adoption 3 years after mpeg2, the processing power availible is already 4x what it was...
Although two movies on a cd sounds farfetched, even a single dvd-quality movie on a cd would be a big jump. Yes there have been lots of improvements in Divx, but on single-disc movies it's still quite clear at times that you're watching a divx and not a dvd.
The way I see it, Divx needs 3 things before it becomes a major threat to DVD.
1-Players capable of playing multiple soundtracks, for multiple languages and/or commentary.
2-Componant Divx Players, or more likely DVD players that can also play DIVX content. People want to watch movies on their tv, not their computer, and only geeks have good tv-output capabilities.
3-Able to fit even longer movies on a single cd with near dvd-quality. No one like changing (or flipping) disks in the middle of a movie.
Meet these demands and allow even a layman to pop a DIVX disk into their dvd player and sit back with a bowl of popcorn, and the MPA has a major problem on their hands.
-Chris
--an unbreakable toy is useful for breaking other toys--
I like watching dvd's when i want and how i want, and they're already an affordable 9 bucks at alot of stores.
What i want to see is Launch.com use this for high quality VIDEOS as i'm sick of vivendi pushing the crap they want us to see and luanch.com is an awesome place to see videos of the songs we love.
I don't thinkk the CPU is going to be the issue, more likely that the patent license terms will make or break it. If the holders try the stupid stuff they did for MPEG4 then this is going to be Dead on Arrival.
Problem is that people get this idea 'people are going to use my stuff and make $$$$ so I should get $$$'. Only thing is that if you want $$$ and there is an alternative only half as good that costs only $$ then you are going to get 0$.
I suspect that MPEG2 is going to be acceptable for some time yet and that there will be no switchover until acceptable license terms are offered.
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I'm going out of a limb here, but I'm guessing that they really aren't all that concerned with the ripping/P2P crowd. Instead this is intended for media companies that'll make one master digital MPEG4p10 stream, and cable companies can use it for PPV streams/movies on demand, etc. Digital boxes right now are being sent dozens of streams in, I believe, MPEG2, and the bitrate cannot keep up with fast action, and there are significant artifacts in parts. By going to the new codec, not only will they improve the video, they'll lower the bitrate as well, allowing them to fit more "channels" in a given frequenecy.
Do you think that "Joe Computer Geek" is going to be able to get his hands on this to stream his own DVDs? Probably not. There will probably be some sort of DRM built in because the MPAA (as well as the RIAA) is too busy focusing on a few potential lost sales vs. the big revenues that could be had if they just opened their stuff up to internet distribution. They are looking at everything through an outdated selling concept. Not everyone thinks this way though... Peter Gabriel has his entire new album (UP) available to listen to in a streamable format as well as the video for his first single. The quality is low, so it encourages people to buy the real deal, but it's the entire album, so it allows for "try before you buy". The same could be applied to DVD pre-release and this technology would be great for it. But, it's still not going to be something that you or I can legitimately use to stream our own DVDs unless there are a LOT of restrictions. I for one am no longer sure of the legality of me streaming my MP3s to myself at work with icecast and not paying the RIAA those stupid broadcaster's fees. Discuss amongst yourselves.
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
we'll have the bandwidth and storage to make it unnecessary
.wav files. However, I still get them as mp3s, because a tenth as long is a tenth as long.
That's like saying mp3s are unnecessary if you have broadband.
Yes, I'm perfectly capable of downloading (and storing) most of the songs I want as
Also, if we're talking p2p distribution, the bandwidth hog has an UNLIMITED appetite. If movies are a tenth as big you can get ten times as many.
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
There has been a lot of research in deriving 3d models from motion video. This would of course lead to dramatic reduction in bandwidth requirements by sending down a 3d model of the set to a renderer and then transmitting only motion through the set along with variations from the set projected to 2d. This requires huge amounts of processing up front but very little at the decompression/rendering end compared to a lot of other methods. The MPEG4 3d modeling codecs seem to be an after-thought based on provision of manually constructed 3d models (often the examples given are of rendering human faces from 3d models which is almost the opposite of what should be going on with motion video compression -- the sets should be 3d modeled leaving more problematic features like faces to the residue ) not a fundamental aspect of automatically constructed 3d models during compression.
Seastead this.