Re: [backstage] Users just want video to work. You Mozilla people are such idealists?
On 27-Jan-2010, at 16:19, Dave Crossland wrote: Well exactly, there are THREE main desktops, and one doesn't and wont have h264 preinstalled. This wouldn't be a problem if The Guardian and other news broadcasters stopped bystanding and made the videos they publish available in Xiph formats earlier; they continue to squander their significant influence in the contingent present. Well, this has got me thinking… What happens to news.bbc.co.uk when the number of users who DON’T have Flash support is significant? i.e., measured in hundreds of thousands? What about iPlayer? What happens when the in-browser DRM option ceases to exist? M. - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] Users just want video to work. You Mozilla people are such idealists?
On 31 January 2010 20:35, Mo McRoberts m...@nevali.net wrote: What happens to news.bbc.co.uk when the number of users who DON’T have Flash support is significant? i.e., measured in hundreds of thousands? What about iPlayer? What happens when the in-browser DRM option ceases to exist? Hell freezes over? Or http://www.bbc.co.uk/info/policies/syndication.shtml perhaps. People have been wishing Flash out of existence since version 2 on the old Microsoft Network that came with Windows 95 v1. I would have a play with get_player on the command line, that shows what other format there really out there. M. - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/ -- Brian Butterworth follow me on twitter: http://twitter.com/briantist web: http://www.ukfree.tv - independent digital television and switchover advice, since 2002
Re: [backstage] Users just want video to work. You Mozilla people are such idealists?
On 31-Jan-2010, at 20:58, Brian Butterworth wrote: Hell freezes over? Or http://www.bbc.co.uk/info/policies/syndication.shtml perhaps. The latter was what I had in mind… I would have a play with get_player on the command line, that shows what other format there really out there. I’m well versed with get_iplayer (though I actually get the FLV, then transcode, because it’s the best-quality version there…) :) 90% of the TV we watch is from the BBC; about 1% of that is watched via linear broadcast; another 1% or so is watched via the iPlayer site itself. The rest goes through a maze of twisty-turny passages before it ends up on my Apple TV encoded as H.264 baseline+AAC-LC at ~3.2Mbps. Backstage folks may be interested in http://nevali.net/post/336574970/my-iplayer-statistics-dump - and the actual data, http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AiL4KfT07LDldEE1OU5KendLZ3ZZWEQ3bTZrZ3dCemchl=en (note the “fetched” date is often completely screwy, ’cos that data got reset a few times). - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] Users just want video to work. You Mozilla people are such idealists?
On 31 January 2010 21:47, Mo McRoberts m...@nevali.net wrote: On 31-Jan-2010, at 20:58, Brian Butterworth wrote: Hell freezes over? Or http://www.bbc.co.uk/info/policies/syndication.shtml perhaps. The latter was what I had in mind… I would have a play with get_player on the command line, that shows what other format there really out there. I’m well versed with get_iplayer (though I actually get the FLV, then transcode, because it’s the best-quality version there…) :) 90% of the TV we watch is from the BBC; about 1% of that is watched via linear broadcast; another 1% or so is watched via the iPlayer site itself. The rest goes through a maze of twisty-turny passages before it ends up on my Apple TV encoded as H.264 baseline+AAC-LC at ~3.2Mbps. I ended up with a few batch files (of all things), was feeling the need for a bit of teletype to offset the AV experience. Two lines are needed, one to update the internal cache of items, the second to do the dirty download deed. perl.exe get_iplayer.pl --output C:\\iPlayer --type tv nul: perl.exe get_iplayer.pl --output C:\\iPlayer --get --type tv --modes *flashhd *--force --url %1 for my Michael Portillo in HD and perl.exe get_iplayer.pl --type radio nul: perl.exe get_iplayer.pl --output C:\\iPlayer --get --type radio --force --url %1 For things that should be podcasts and aren't. I'm sure there's a *--type iphone* - but the only other options I use is this for SD TV, don't care, just get it. perl.exe get_iplayer.pl --output C:\\iPlayer --type tv nul: perl.exe get_iplayer.pl --output C:\\iPlayer --get --type tv --modes * flashhd,flashvhigh,flashhigh1,flashhigh2* --force --url %1 Backstage folks may be interested in http://nevali.net/post/336574970/my-iplayer-statistics-dump - and the actual data, http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AiL4KfT07LDldEE1OU5KendLZ3ZZWEQ3bTZrZ3dCemchl=en(note the “fetched” date is often completely screwy, ’cos that data got reset a few times). - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/ -- Brian Butterworth follow me on twitter: http://twitter.com/briantist web: http://www.ukfree.tv - independent digital television and switchover advice, since 2002
Re: [backstage] Users just want video to work. You Mozilla people are such idealists?
2010/1/26 Kieran Kunhya kie...@kunhya.com For 720p25 you might need more than 3.5Mbps for more demanding scenes. (Except increasing the bitrate or using a better encoder will make iPlayer look better than the broadcast...) You do get an awful lot better results when you are not compressing in real time, of course, because you can use all the MPEG4 forward references, the ones you don't get when you real time encode. - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/ -- Brian Butterworth follow me on twitter: http://twitter.com/briantist web: http://www.ukfree.tv - independent digital television and switchover advice, since 2002
Re: [backstage] Users just want video to work. You Mozilla people are such idealists?
On Wed, Jan 27, 2010 at 08:20, Brian Butterworth briant...@freeview.tv wrote: You do get an awful lot better results when you are not compressing in real time, of course, because you can use all the MPEG4 forward references, the ones you don't get when you real time encode. that's a good point: I wonder how much of the broadcast output *is* encoded in real-time? all of it? after all, live programming is in the minority on BBC1-4, and assuming things sit on sensible boundaries and are pre-packetised, you shouldn't *need* to... in theory. I can envisage some nasty workflow issues, mind, especially if chunks of the chain pre-date DVB's deployment. ...or is this one of the (secondary) goals of the tapeless production project? M. - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] Users just want video to work. You Mozilla people are such idealists?
For 720p25 you might need more than 3.5Mbps for more demanding scenes. (Except increasing the bitrate or using a better encoder will make iPlayer look better than the broadcast...) You do get an awful lot better results when you are not compressing in real time, of course, because you can use all the MPEG4 forward references, the ones you don't get when you real time encode. Real-time encoding with Bi-predictive frames (B-frames) in H.264 doesn't work like that. There's a frame delay in order for B-frame encoding to take place. Most encoders worth their while also have a lookahead for deciding frame-types and bit rate allocation. (Sometimes this is called 2-pass realtime, which is a bit of a misnomer for marketing reasons. Some marketing people for manufacturers seem to spread this myth that more passes is always better). Using x264 with a recent CPU, if you ran it at realtime even at 720...@3mbit you'd most likely do better than the £50k+ broadcast encoder at 1080i merely because we're generations ahead of most (if not all) of the H.264 hardware and software out there. Naturally, with 2-pass you can allocate bits more efficiently but the benefits aren't as significant as they once were. - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
RE: [backstage] Users just want video to work. You Mozilla people are such idealists?
From: Brian Butterworth On DVB-T it is everything. BBC One used to have reserved bandwidth, but is now statmuxed with everything else. My assumption is the BBC delivers motion-JPEG to the regional encoders and the services are statmuxed from there. Don't know the gory technical details, however in areas which have undergone digital switchover, the opt outs are now sent from the National and Regional centres down the pipes to the Central Coding and Mux in London, then encoded with the rest of the mux and sent back up the relevant transmitters. I presume areas which are awaiting digital switchover are still using the previous method whereby opt outs are inserted at the national and regional centres as you say (have absolutely no idea about formats used)
Re: [backstage] Users just want video to work. You Mozilla people are such idealists?
Kieran Kunhya wrote: For 720p25 you might need more than 3.5Mbps for more demanding scenes. (Except increasing the bitrate or using a better encoder will make iPlayer look better than the broadcast...) You do get an awful lot better results when you are not compressing in real time, of course, because you can use all the MPEG4 forward references, the ones you don't get when you real time encode. Real-time encoding with Bi-predictive frames (B-frames) in H.264 doesn't work like that. There's a frame delay in order for B-frame encoding to take place. Most encoders worth their while also have a lookahead for deciding frame-types and bit rate allocation. (Sometimes this is called 2-pass realtime, which is a bit of a misnomer for marketing reasons. Some marketing people for manufacturers seem to spread this myth that more passes is always better). Using x264 with a recent CPU, if you ran it at realtime even at 720...@3mbit you'd most likely do better than the £50k+ broadcast encoder at 1080i merely because we're generations ahead of most (if not all) of the H.264 hardware and software out there. Naturally, with 2-pass you can allocate bits more efficiently but the benefits aren't as significant as they once were. wouldn't it be 'easy' to statmux across channels - by using psuedo multipass? You two encoders per channel - one whatever frame depth in front of the other, and use the ideally required bitrate on each channel to inform the 'real' codec of its bandwidth allocation? For sufficiently high values of easy of course. This should work well, especially with 1997 films starring Bruce Willis. - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] Users just want video to work. You Mozilla people are such idealists?
On 27 Jan 2010, at 08:31, Mo McRoberts wrote: that's a good point: I wonder how much of the broadcast output *is* encoded in real-time? all of it? I believe so. after all, live programming is in the minority on BBC1-4, and assuming things sit on sensible boundaries and are pre-packetised, you shouldn't *need* to... in theory. I can envisage some nasty workflow issues, mind, especially if chunks of the chain pre-date DVB's deployment. There are some sutbleties I think (other than the fact that big chunks of the broadcast chain would need replacing) - like ensuring that the receiver's buffer doesn't over- or underflow at programme boundaries, and retiming all the stream components (which are currently synchronised to the PCR in the video coder, IIRC). Also, I'm not sure how well pre-encoded and real-time encoded video would play nicely with each other in a statmux - but it's not really my area of expertise. ...or is this one of the (secondary) goals of the tapeless production project? It's a nice idea, but not a very good fit to the way DVB is broadcast at present. I don't think that the DMI project is looking into it, but again - not an area I know a lot about. :-) S - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
RE: [backstage] Users just want video to work. You Mozilla people are such idealists?
On 27 Jan 2010, at 08:31, Mo McRoberts wrote: that's a good point: I wonder how much of the broadcast output *is* encoded in real-time? all of it? I believe so. Not unless they've changed their previous policy of ingesting popular / headline shows prior to their airing, then making them availably almost immediately after broadcast has ended (shows such as Top Gear etc) I'm sure a Beeber detailed all of this on the list previously, I can dig through archives to find it if people cba to look for it themselves ;) - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] Users just want video to work. You Mozilla people are such idealists?
On 27 Jan 2010, at 11:59, Christopher Woods wrote: On 27 Jan 2010, at 08:31, Mo McRoberts wrote: that's a good point: I wonder how much of the broadcast output *is* encoded in real-time? all of it? I believe so. Not unless they've changed their previous policy of ingesting popular / headline shows prior to their airing, then making them availably almost immediately after broadcast has ended (shows such as Top Gear etc) That's on-demand content, not broadcast. The two are encoded via separate systems. S - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
RE: [backstage] Users just want video to work. You Mozilla people are such idealists?
That's on-demand content, not broadcast. The two are encoded via separate systems. Were we not talking about the iPlayer videos?... derp sidles off - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] Users just want video to work. You Mozilla people are such idealists?
Well exactly, there are THREE main desktops, and one doesn't and wont have h264 preinstalled. This wouldn't be a problem if The Guardian and other news broadcasters stopped bystanding and made the videos they publish available in Xiph formats earlier; they continue to squander their significant influence in the contingent present. On 26 Jan 2010, 9:58 PM, Tom Morris bbtommor...@gmail.com wrote: On Mon, Jan 25, 2010 at 16:57, Ian Forrester ian.forres...@bbc.co.uk wrote: Somewhat related to ... What I don't understand is that of the three main desktop platforms Firefox gets installed on - Windows and Mac - both have H.264 decoders *on the machine already* in the form of Windows Media and QuickTime APIs. Microsoft and Apple have presumably solved whatever licensing problems exist for H.264 decoding. Urgh. This kind of stuff shouldn't be a problem. Really. So, to watch one type of video online, I use Firefox and to use another type of video online I use Safari or Chrome. And because standards bodies, browser manufacturers and patent holders cannot resolve their differences sensibly, it's back to the good old days. Paul Downey (@psd) nails it when he says that standards are peace but the standards process is war. -- Tom Morris http://tommorris.org/ - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage...
Re: [backstage] Users just want video to work. You Mozilla people are such idealists?
On 25 Jan 2010, at 18:59, Barry Carlyon wrote: (have they finished the HTML 5 Spec yet?) The definitive answer to this common question is here: http://www.w3.org/html/wg/#sched The short answer is no. But that doesn't stop people from implementing bits of it in browsers of course, despite the associated issues for web developers and end users. S - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
RE: [backstage] Users just want video to work. You Mozilla people are such idealists?
Open source H.264 isn't pursued by MPEG-LA anyway. The issue of encoders is fine, you just use x264 (which is the project I work on), which is the best H.264 encoder in the world in the majority of use-cases. - You work on the x.264 project? Tell us more... I've always been interested how x.264 and h.264 related to each other and co-exist. Is its simply a case like how Divx and Xvid work together or is there more ? - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] Users just want video to work. You Mozilla people are such idealists?
On Tue, Jan 26, 2010 at 12:48, Ian Forrester ian.forres...@bbc.co.uk wrote: I've always been interested how x.264 and h.264 related to each other and co-exist. Is its simply a case like how Divx and Xvid work together or is there more ? [the question wasn't directed at me, but...] I'm not sure I follow? x264 is an encoder, H.264 is the specification. Just like Schroedinger/Dirac, or LAME/MP3. M. - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
RE: [backstage] Users just want video to work. You Mozilla people are such idealists?
OH I see :) hummm, for reason I thought there was also a codec based on H.264 call x.264 Secret[] Private[x] Public[] Ian Forrester Senior Backstage Producer BBC RD North Lab, 1st Floor Office, OB Base, New Broadcasting House, Oxford Road, Manchester, M60 1SJ -Original Message- From: owner-backst...@lists.bbc.co.uk [mailto:owner-backst...@lists.bbc.co.uk] On Behalf Of Mo McRoberts Sent: 26 January 2010 12:55 To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk Subject: Re: [backstage] Users just want video to work. You Mozilla people are such idealists? On Tue, Jan 26, 2010 at 12:48, Ian Forrester ian.forres...@bbc.co.uk wrote: I've always been interested how x.264 and h.264 related to each other and co-exist. Is its simply a case like how Divx and Xvid work together or is there more ? [the question wasn't directed at me, but...] I'm not sure I follow? x264 is an encoder, H.264 is the specification. Just like Schroedinger/Dirac, or LAME/MP3. M. - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/ - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] Users just want video to work. You Mozilla people are such idealists?
The H comes from the CCITT (now ITU-T) subcommittee that defined the standard. The H committee was for multimedia, as I recall. They also had the X standards (X400, X500), Q standards like ISDN, E for telephone plans, the PSTN cloud is Signalling System number 7, named after the Q.7 committees, JPEG was from the T committee and so on. Aside from this XVID is DIVX backwards. This is because all the ITU-T standards are DECODING standards, not encoding ones. This is to allow commercial operators to create their own encoders, with the decoding being in the public domain. 2010/1/26 Ian Forrester ian.forres...@bbc.co.uk OH I see :) hummm, for reason I thought there was also a codec based on H.264 call x.264 Secret[] Private[x] Public[] Ian Forrester Senior Backstage Producer BBC RD North Lab, 1st Floor Office, OB Base, New Broadcasting House, Oxford Road, Manchester, M60 1SJ -Original Message- From: owner-backst...@lists.bbc.co.uk [mailto: owner-backst...@lists.bbc.co.uk] On Behalf Of Mo McRoberts Sent: 26 January 2010 12:55 To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk Subject: Re: [backstage] Users just want video to work. You Mozilla people are such idealists? On Tue, Jan 26, 2010 at 12:48, Ian Forrester ian.forres...@bbc.co.uk wrote: I've always been interested how x.264 and h.264 related to each other and co-exist. Is its simply a case like how Divx and Xvid work together or is there more ? [the question wasn't directed at me, but...] I'm not sure I follow? x264 is an encoder, H.264 is the specification. Just like Schroedinger/Dirac, or LAME/MP3. M. - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/ - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/ -- Brian Butterworth follow me on twitter: http://twitter.com/briantist web: http://www.ukfree.tv - independent digital television and switchover advice, since 2002
Re: [backstage] Users just want video to work. You Mozilla people are such idealists?
On Tue, 26 Jan 2010 15:17:34 +, Brian wrote: snip Aside from this XVID is DIVX backwards. This is because all the ITU-T standards are DECODING standards, not encoding ones. This is to allow commercial operators to create their own encoders, with the decoding being in the public domain. Re DivX and Xvid ... while it is true that the spelling is reversed ... my recollection is that this is not because decoding is the reverse of encoding. I thought it was a joke name because of the open source community unhappiness with DivX Inc (used to be DivXNetworks Inc) withdrawing source code from the OpenDivX project that they started. Paul - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] Users just want video to work. You Mozilla people are such idealists?
There should have been another sentence in my post, sorry. Yes, xvid being divx backwards is a geeky joke. 2010/1/26 Paul Webster p...@dabdig.com On Tue, 26 Jan 2010 15:17:34 +, Brian wrote: snip Aside from this XVID is DIVX backwards. This is because all the ITU-T standards are DECODING standards, not encoding ones. This is to allow commercial operators to create their own encoders, with the decoding being in the public domain. Re DivX and Xvid ... while it is true that the spelling is reversed ... my recollection is that this is not because decoding is the reverse of encoding. I thought it was a joke name because of the open source community unhappiness with DivX Inc (used to be DivXNetworks Inc) withdrawing source code from the OpenDivX project that they started. Paul - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/ -- Brian Butterworth follow me on twitter: http://twitter.com/briantist web: http://www.ukfree.tv - independent digital television and switchover advice, since 2002
RE: [backstage] Users just want video to work. You Mozilla people are such idealists?
There should have been another sentence in my post, sorry. Yes, xvid being divx backwards is a geeky joke. Of course DivX ;-) in itself was a sly homage to a doomed-to-fail industry attempt :D And before XviD, once upon a time its parent was called Project Mayo... Remember that heady time of multiple competing codecs, MS-MPEG4 ASP, DivX ;-), XviD, 3ivX... How did we all manage before ffdshow? ;)
Re: [backstage] Users just want video to work. You Mozilla people are such idealists?
What I don't understand is that of the three main desktop platforms Firefox gets installed on - Windows and Mac - both have H.264 decoders *on the machine already* in the form of Windows Media and QuickTime APIs. Microsoft and Apple have presumably solved whatever licensing problems exist for H.264 decoding. Only Windows 7 has native H.264 (which isn't actually compliant in a few places last time I checked). XP/Vista don't however. Older macs without H.264 hardware acceleration also have a very basic version of the spec through Quicktime because Apple don't seem to fix any bugs with it. - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] Users just want video to work. You Mozilla people are such idealists?
On 26-Jan-2010, at 20:19, Kieran Kunhya wrote: Older macs without H.264 hardware acceleration also have a very basic version of the spec through Quicktime because Apple don't seem to fix any bugs with it. It’s not just older Macs. Basically, if you don’t restrict yourself to Baseline you’re asking for trouble at the moment. Now, for a lot of web video, Baseline is absolutely fine, though for higher-resolution stuff a different profile would probably be preferable. QuickTime X, shipping with Snow Leopard, and providing the accelerated H.264 abstraction and video / support works well in all of my tests. That’s the easy part. iTunes links against QuickTime 7, which is what Leopard and Tiger users (anybody on a PPC Mac, or the rapidly shrinking proportion of people who *won’t* upgrade anyway), and this has noticeable issues with Main content. The Apple TV, which technically runs Tiger, also has problems, to the point that I can reproducibly cause mine to reboot by feeding it iPlayer content retrieved via RTMP and swapped out from its FLV container to ISO media (and I’ve jumped through enough transcoding runs to be pretty sure that it’s Main which trips it up, rather than some container oddities). That said, most PPC Macs will struggle with HD content whatever the profile and decoder, so there’s a limit to the woes in a roundabout way. I haven’t experimented with Win7’s decoder yet, but I suspect that for the time being the answer is to stick with Baseline. [For what it’s worth, all of my encoding tests have been with ffmpeg+x264]. Having said all that, my entirely subjective conclusions at the moment are that the 720p video I get out of ffmpeg+x264 when encoded as Baseline at around 3Mbps[0] compares extremely favourably to the iPlayer HD content (which is High profile, if memory serves) at the same bitrate. I don’t know whether this is down to me not being able to spot the difference from 10 inches away from the screen, whether it’s that x264 is a better encoder than whatever Red Bee uses, or whether it’s simply the case that High Profile is used because Flash can decode it more efficiently[1] than if it were Baseline. Also, noting that at 720p25, 3Mbps ought to be enough! M. [0] Combined audio+video. 160Kbps audio in my tests. Can’t recall what iPlayer HD uses. [1] I’d dread to see Flash decoding that video less efficiently… - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] Users just want video to work. You Mozilla people are such idealists?
Having said all that, my entirely subjective conclusions at the moment are that the 720p video I get out of ffmpeg+x264 when encoded as Baseline at around 3Mbps[0] compares extremely favourably to the iPlayer HD content (which is High profile, if memory serves) at the same bitrate. I don’t know whether this is down to me not being able to spot the difference from 10 inches away from the screen, whether it’s that x264 is a better encoder than whatever Red Bee uses, or whether it’s simply the case that High Profile is used because Flash can decode it more efficiently[1] than if it were Baseline. Also, noting that at 720p25, 3Mbps ought to be enough! x264 is almost certainly better than whatever Red Bee use though I think the keyframe interval in iPlayer is lower than the x264 defaults. (and the ffmpeg presets aren't very good) In theory High and Baseline should have approximately the same decode complexity since the High Profile features should reduce bitrate. The overhead of High Profile should then be cancelled out by this lower bitrate. iPlayer does disable CABAC which is an easy way of reducing Flash performance. For 720p25 you might need more than 3.5Mbps for more demanding scenes. (Except increasing the bitrate or using a better encoder will make iPlayer look better than the broadcast...) - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] Users just want video to work. You Mozilla people are such idealists?
On Mon, Jan 25, 2010 at 16:57, Ian Forrester ian.forres...@bbc.co.uk wrote: Web video has never really been open, unencumbered and free. We've had Real Networks RM format, Apple's QuickTime, Microsoft's Windows Media Video (now standardised as VC-1), the DivX and XviD codecs, and Adobe Flash among others. There might never be one open standard, simply because some content owners will want to include DRM (Digital Rights Management) copy restrictions. However, the web would benefit from having an open, unencumbered and free video format that enabled HTML programmers to include a video as easily as they now include a headline or a photo, wouldn't it? How do we get to that? Not the way Mozilla is going about it, that's for sure - they're trying to solve all of the problems at once, but without any support from the people who _need_ to support this stuff in order for it to be effective. Without the likes of Microsoft and Apple getting behind Theora and giving it a clean bill of health, patent-wise (and in Apple's case, making use of silicon which decodes it), it's going to go nowhere fast and people will abandon Firefox for Chrome if they want video. The way I suspect this will, eventually, play out is that under pressure from stakeholders, software *decoders* for H.264 will become exempted from the patent regime by the MPEG-LA. This still leaves the thorny issue of encoders and the sites streaming the content, but that's far less of an issue for the end-user, and another battle for another day. Dirac, as lovely as it is, doesn't have the traction, and doesn't (in its current form) seem to be too well-suited to the vast range of applications that H.264 is used for. In the meantime, though, Firefox is going to get left behind. Some sites will go to the trouble of transcoding to Theora, but mostly they'll just run with H.264 + Flash or QuickTime fallback (which works pretty well in my testing, if done carefully). M. - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] Users just want video to work. You Mozilla people are such idealists?
Web video has never really been open, unencumbered and free. We've had Real Networks RM format, Apple's QuickTime, Microsoft's Windows Media Video (now standardised as VC-1), the DivX and XviD codecs, and Adobe Flash among others. There might never be one open standard, simply because some content owners will want to include DRM (Digital Rights Management) copy restrictions. DRM isn't the issue for proprietary formats in my opinion since that's generally a container-level issue as opposed to a codec level issue. (MKV had support for DRM and there are various incarnations for .mp4. You could also say Flash RTMP is an (albeit large) extension of .flv) Because of the way video codec standardisation works and flaws in the software patent system all video codecs have features which are patented. In spite of what Xiph/Mozilla might say Theora almost certainly has patented features; nobody has done an exhaustive search because of the cost in time and money. However, the web would benefit from having an open, unencumbered and free video format that enabled HTML programmers to include a video as easily as they now include a headline or a photo, wouldn't it? How do we get to that? Reform of the patent system. open, unencumbered, free etc. is just Xiph/Mozilla propaganda. Not the way Mozilla is going about it, that's for sure - they're trying to solve all of the problems at once, but without any support from the people who _need_ to support this stuff in order for it to be effective. Without the likes of Microsoft and Apple getting behind Theora and giving it a clean bill of health, patent-wise (and in Apple's case, making use of silicon which decodes it), it's going to go nowhere fast and people will abandon Firefox for Chrome if they want video. A clean bill of health is near-impossible because *trivial things* are patented in video compression. The silicon is already out there for H.264 in millions of devices so reinventing the wheel is silly. Perhaps Xiph/Mozilla stood a chance in 2003 but this is far too late. The way I suspect this will, eventually, play out is that under pressure from stakeholders, software *decoders* for H.264 will become exempted from the patent regime by the MPEG-LA. This still leaves the thorny issue of encoders and the sites streaming the content, but that's far less of an issue for the end-user, and another battle for another day. Open source H.264 isn't pursued by MPEG-LA anyway. The issue of encoders is fine, you just use x264 (which is the project I work on), which is the best H.264 encoder in the world in the majority of use-cases. Dirac, as lovely as it is, doesn't have the traction, and doesn't (in its current form) seem to be too well-suited to the vast range of applications that H.264 is used for. Wavelet video compression still isn't ready for prime-time so to speak. In the meantime, though, Firefox is going to get left behind. Some sites will go to the trouble of transcoding to Theora, but mostly they'll just run with H.264 + Flash or QuickTime fallback (which works pretty well in my testing, if done carefully). Now that Flash 10.1 has hardware acceleration anyone requiring content security will still use Flash. Quicktime is the only decoder which manages to be worse than Flash in terms of features and performance. - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] Users just want video to work. You Mozilla people are such idealists?
In the meantime, though, Firefox is going to get left behind. Some sites will go to the trouble of transcoding to Theora, but mostly they'll just run with H.264 + Flash or QuickTime fallback (which works pretty well in my testing, if done carefully). Surely tho some clever person will write a plugin for Firefox to enable the H.264 codec, assuming they can get a version that will plugin/addon nicely I'd be more than happy to direct users to a site to download said plugin if and when I get around to adding HTML5 Video to my project site (have they finished the HTML 5 Spec yet?) -- Barry Carlyon Located Between Al-Jazeera and BBC Radio 1 SRA Chart Officer Webmaster: http://LSRfm.com - Leeds Student Radio http://barrycarlyon.co.uk mobile: 07729 048 443 office: 0113 380 1281 skype: barrycarlyon email: ba...@barrycarlyon.co.uk msn: ba...@barrycarlyon.co.uk
Re: [backstage] Users just want video to work. You Mozilla people are such idealists?
On 25-Jan-2010, at 18:59, Barry Carlyon wrote: Surely tho some clever person will write a plugin for Firefox to enable the H.264 codec, assuming they can get a version that will plugin/addon nicely As far as I know, FF provides no plugin interface for video and audio codecs. It’s been suggested, numerous times, mostly in the context of… I'd be more than happy to direct users to a site to download said plugin if and when I get around to adding HTML5 Video to my project site (have they finished the HTML 5 Spec yet?) Short answer: “mostly” Long answer, it doesn’t matter: it could be finished, locked, done, never-changing and be completely irrelevant, or it could be in a state of comparative flux but be well-supported enough that it’s a big deal. I think it sits somewhere between the two: just as with CSS3, you need to know what support is out there and how to degrade gracefully, and browsers don’t really implement stuff (at a basic level) which is subject to heavy amounts of change without explicitly making it clear that it’s incompatible (like with -webkit-border-radius and -moz-border-radius vs. border-radius in CSS). There are things that implementations certainly need to shore up, especially in the brand new things like video and audio, but this may well come about by consensus and end up in HTML 5.1 rather than anything else. There’s a lot of good stuff in HTML5, though, even aside from the contentious bits, and some of it is quite well-suported already. I’m a big fan of the HTML5 form elements, for example. M. - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
