On2 Releases VP6 video codec

A reader writes:"On2 Technologies, the folks who brought you the open-source VP3 video codec (now managed by Theora.org), have released our latest codec, VP6. Highlights include hi-def support with no encoder restrictions, real-time encoding at full D1 resolution, and substantial performance & quality improvements over VP5. Best of all: no "patent pooling" restrictions or external licensing fees, a la MPEG-4."

Comments

This ad paid for by On2

[Anonymous Coward]

On2 Technologies, the folks who brought you the open-source VP3 video codec (now managed by Theora.org), have released our latest codec, VP6.

Glad to see people can just submit press releases.

Re:This ad paid for by On2

[fobbman]

On a positive note, PR folks tend to send their releases through spell-checkers before they publish them.

Hmm

[afree87]

This will be a rather hard codec to propagate, given that many people don't even know or want to know how to install XviD.

Re:Hmm

[TrekkieGod]

many people don't even know or want to know how to install XviD

Right up to the point where they download their first XviD video file. Then, like anyone else, they'll pay the price and install the darn codec (after posting on countless message boards asking why the heck their video won't play).

It's a necessity thing. Nobody wants to install what they don't need. However, the people who *make* videos experiment all the time to get the best quality they can...and once that happens, the others are forced to follow. Heck, if I can be made to install RealOne on my computer, anybody can be made to install anything. It was the hardest compromise of my principles I've ever made.

Re:Hmm

[Bulln-Bulln]

Right up to the point where they download their first XviD video file.

There are no XviD video files. Currently most video files are:
AVI Container
MPEG-4 Video Track
MP3 Audio Track

The difference between DivX files and XviD files is the FourCC ("Four Character Code" or something).
DivX and XviD are just differernt encoders, not different formats. Just like LAME and FhG MP3Enc are differend encoders, but produce the same format.
If you change the FourCC from ''XVID'' to ''DIVX'' the normal DivX codec should be able to play it (I've never heard of any problems).
That's why I think, the people who encoded the video file should change the FourCC to DIVX, try to decode the file using DivX, and (if it works without problems) release the file with the DIVX FourCC.
This way you can reach a wider audiance.

Licensing

[Wesley Felter]

Sure, VP6 has simpler licensing because it is completely proprietary, but H.264 is supposedly patent-free and it has the advantage of being a published standard with mulitple competing implementations.

NOT Free

[Dot.Com.CEO]

People, this codec is not free, it is not open source and I'm not even sure that it will be a free download. Even though VP3 was indeed open-sourced and is as free as can be, VP6 is not. It does not have MPEG4's licencing limitations but it is not open-source. It is, for all intents and purposes, as free as WMV and Real.

Doom9 codec tests

[fluor2]

I would really recommend reading this codec comparision by doom9:

http://www.doom9.org/index.html?/codecs-103-1.ht m

Doom9 shows us very nice screenshots from non-keyframes. The conclusion is still: XViD is the best codec around. I hope people understand that whatever other companies claim (e.g. "50% better compression") you should never underestimate what doom9 says: all codecs out there now are VERY similar. None of them is really outstanding.

Re:Doom9 codec tests

[Ishin]

Doom9 is a good site to get news on about what codecs and applications are new, or releasing new versions. It's also a good place for discussion with the developers of many open source applications and codecs/video containers. However, I'd recommend that if you read their video codec reviews, you keep several things in mind. Firstly, the review is very subjective, and though I agree with the conclusion (xvid does the best job in my experience) the reviewer isn't exactly doing a normal comparison. Secondly, they're not very open to criticism, constructive or otherwise, and seem to have the attitude that they are THE EXPERTS on video encoding and codecs, and are thus beyond reproach, although, from what I can tell, the site owners aren't actually actively involved in the development of any codecs or applications. The main two flaws of the review are: A. they use post processing in all of their comparison screenshots and the reviewer used post processed shots to determine which he thought looked best. That in itself pretty much invalidates the results, as the actual output of the codecs isn't the only thing being tested, but also the perceptual quality of their respective post-filtering schemes. B. he was using a special version of xvid that's not available to the public, and that many of the people involved in xvid didn't even realize existed, which, once again completely invalidates his results for the rest of us. So, like I said, good site, great news, even greater discussion, questionable codec review.

Re:Doom9 codec tests

[real_smiff]

don't be silly.. neither of those things "completely invalidate the results". postprocessing - it's a real world test of how these codecs are going to be used by most people. "special version" - there are thousands of "special versions" of Xvid, every build by every person who releases builds is a special version... it's in development, that's what CVS is for. You can pick up a build of Xvid now and get results like he got there, there's no fraud like you seem to imply. Having said all that, i think Doom9 is probably biased towards Xvid, but for good reasons. It's forum is really the 2nd home of Xvid.

Install ffdshow and other video tools mentioned

[McQuaid]

Ffdshow is a filter for most mpeg4 codecs. Works with divx 4,5, xvid and other mpeg4 implementations. If all you do is playback, no codec required. Also if use alpha xvid codecs and it doesn't playback properly with ffdshow, you know that your vid isn't mpeg4 compliant. Btw, I capture/encode shows all the time in windows and would like to do this in linux, but it seems really lacking. First off, avisynth is an indispensable tool for dealing with video. What first attracted me to it was the best ivtc plugin by Donald Graft. This processes telecined sources back to their original film frame rate which I use on toons/film sources.

But the versatility goes way beyond that. Here's an animated menu I made for batman tas for a vcd I was working on, which btw I authored with videopack 5 to include animated menus, galleries with audio and chapter selection (I love pimpin that :) ).

Also worth mentioning is Tmpgenc, probably the best mpeg 1 encoder, which is free. And not to shabby mpeg2 encoding. Also of course is virtualdub, which has come in handy on many occasions.

So where are the comparable linux equivalents? I couldn't find them. I'd love to see a write up on video encoding on linux, maybe I'll do one myself.

Re:and what of H.264

[pla]

I understand XviD's implementation of MPEG-4 is based on H.263.

XviD follows the MPEG-4 ASP (advanced simple profile) spec. Virtually all of the current major video codecs out there use some minor variant of this.

H.264 usually refers to the MPEG-4 AVC (advanced video coding) profile. This promises a 2-4x size improvement at similar quality to the ASP. However, it has one major problem...


So is anybody (including XviD) considering implementing it? I understand it isn't patent-encumbered. I could be wrong...

Yes, an AVC implementation exists, but it provides its own demonstration of why no one uses it yet despite the improved size and/or quality... Namely, 30-45 seconds per frame at encode time. For a full-length movie, that comes out to two or three days for a single-pass encode.

Additionally, even if you feel inclined to wait that long for the sake of quality (personally, I would), the link I gave above points to more of a proof of concept than a "real" viable codec. It needs quite a lot of tweaking just to make it compare to existing ASP codecs such as XviD.

This is likely to be VASTLY expensive.

[almaw]

Another poster pointed out that this codec isn't free, and is just as commercial and proprietry as Real and WMV. They're wrong - it's actually much worse than those in terms of cost and lock-in.

Now, I don't know what the terms are for VP6, but our company investigated implementing VP5 a while back. To encode in realtime, you needed dedicated hardware ($15,000 per license). To encode offline, you need software at $10,000 per license. This is licensed on a rolling annual basis - i.e. $10,000 a year. You then additionally need to license the TrueCast on-demand server to distribute content, which is similarly priced.

I'd expect VP6 to be similarly priced to VP5. You'd better be encoding an awful lot of video and saving an awful lot of bandwidth to make it worth your while.

OTOH, the quality of VP5 was extremely good for a given bandwidth (much better than xvid).

Re:Install ffdshow and other video tools mentioned

[Joe Tie.]

Ffdshow is an easy replacement, as it's based on a Linux project, ffmpeg.

The extent of my encoding comes from recording TV or VHS tapes and throwing a few filters at them for cleanup and encoding. So I've never had a chance to become familiar with what features avisynth has. Some people over at Doom9's Linux forum have mentioned getting Avisynth running in wine.

Tmpgenc should be a pretty easy replacement. Transcode seems to be a favorite for mpeg2 encoding. There was a problem when I first started using Linux, which slowed mpeg encoding to a snails pace for a while, and I've never found a chance to get back to see how it works when fully functional. A lot of peoplel swear by it though, and it's feature list is pretty impressive. Avidemux, as well as quite a few other programs also provide mpeg1 encoding, I think through ffmpeg.

Everything in VirtualDub/VirtualDubMod except video capture should work fine under wine and that's what I used for quite a while before Avidemux appeared. The design and functionality are very similar to virtualdub, and it also includes encoding to mpeg1.

One of the two best media players for Linux, Mplayer, should be noted to have better support for matroska, in cvs, than is available for the format under windows. And these tools can be used for creation and editing of matroska files.

For capture from a tv card, I use nuppelvideo, and then use avidemux to edit and convert to a smaller format.