Re: [videoblogging] Re: Apple TV and iPod clash
Hey everybody, Excuse me if this has already been covered on this topic - I haven't had time to read all. Handbrake recently released a new update which allows 640x480 H264 iPod compatible conversion, so I asked them what the secret sauce was for their ffmpeg. They pointed me to the post linked below. It's 7am and I went to bed at 3.30, so there's no way I can look through it with any intelligence, but I thought one of you might want to. A Handbrake user called Audley provided the new Handbrake team with the ffmpeg patches, and posted them here: I wondered whether it might be possible for someone smart to find the relevant parts that make it work - uuid atom or whatever - and use some of the dev tools provided by Apple to make it work in Quicktime. Perhaps make a custom export setting which is downloadable and installable into Quicktime, like 3ivx? http://handbrake.m0k.org/forum_old/viewtopic.php?t=2581
Re: [videoblogging] Re: Apple TV and iPod clash
File size is always an issue. Especially so if you think a 10 min. 120 megabyte file ain't no thing. With a 1.5 megabit connection the download will take 10:40 - ASSUMING you can use all your available bandwidth for the download (not going to happen). More realistically you will get downloads in the 80-90 kilobytes/second range (which is what I'm usually getting from video services). In that case the download will take 23 minutes (230% of the video duration). From blip.tv I rarely get more than 50 kilobyte/sec (and my connection is a 1.5 mbps cable connection. Very common here). Then the download is a 41 minute download (ie. it takes 4 times as long to download as it takes to watch). To avoid the click-wait problem you will have to encode at a decent bitrate. 50 kb/s (700kpbs) is a good target. That would make your 10 minute video be 30 megabytes. A much more realistic scenario if you don't want your viewers to wait for your video to download. - Andreas Den 24.04.2007 kl. 00:23 skrev Bill Cammack [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Why exactly is it that you're worried about file size? If you're talking about a 120mb file, and it's a 10-minute episode, it's NOT going to take 10 minutes to download the 120 megs, so there's no significant loss in the viewer's quality of experience. Are you concerned that the file won't play until it's downloaded? What's the negative issue for the viewer if your files are that size for that program length? -- Bill C. BillCammack.com --- In videoblogging@yahoogroups.com, wazman_au [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Guys guys guys, Are you really content with imposing such a bloated file format on your viewers? Does 120MB for a 10-minute episode seem reasonable, for example? Not to me it doesn't, when it's about six times the size of what I've been putting out so far - and when my source videos aren't hi-def or anything, just garden variety Mini-DV at 4:3. I have managed to produce a 640x480 video that is 10 minutes long and takes up about 50 megs but because of this baseline low-complexity issue it won't iPod. There are such simple ways of chopping down the size - such as changing sound from stereo to mono - if you can control the parameters, which you can't with Export to iPod in QT Pro. Waz --- In videoblogging@yahoogroups.com, Bill Cammack BillCammack@ wrote: Good call, Bill. That's right along the lines of what I was thinking. -- Bill C. BillCammack.com --- In videoblogging@yahoogroups.com, Bill Shackelford bshackelford@ wrote: My video feed enclosures support ipod,iphone,itv and quicktime.. I just use iPod .m4v format. So in quicktime export to ipod and get a 640x480 video that anyone can watch. The only thing that *might be worth while to instead of .m4v would be .mp4 video that you can play in all of apples stuff in addtion to PSP... but .mp4 videos kinda suck to playback over the web in my opinion. My feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/billshackelfordcompod All my links in my podcast rss file point to flash video on my site and the enclosures are the .m4v files. I have also been provideing .3gp video.. but no no one has been looking at those. my mobile site: http://m.billshackelford.com --- In videoblogging@yahoogroups.com, Bill Cammack BillCammack@ wrote: Steve: That's precisely what I was thinking. Subscribe to the feed that works for you. http://JetSetShow.com , for instance has about 6 feeds. Waz: Personally, if I were concerned about a video being playable on iPods as well as AppleTV and having only one feed for the reasons you mentioned, I'd aim for the lowest common denominator. I haven't looked into AppleTV, so I'm not sure this is possible, but the data rate for iPods is lower than the data rate for AppleTV, so I'd make a video to iPod spec and test it through iTunes to make sure it also runs on AppleTV. You might lose some resolution that way, but if you insist on having only one feed, that's the only way I can see it working. Again, assuming there IS a LCD that you can encode to. -- Bill C. BillCammack.com --- In videoblogging@yahoogroups.com, Steve Watkins steve@ wrote: I guess the assumption would be that your viewers would subscribe to one feed or the other, depending on which hardware they owned. Its not ideal but it may be ideal for some viewers, depending on how fussy they are about getting the best possible qualiy on their device. Unfortunately these issues are unlikely to vanish. Because for all my evangelising about mpeg4 and h24 standards, this is unlikely to boil down to one common subset of h264 just so long as theres so much variation in decoding power between devices. Battery life is a big issue for mobile devices and high-def TV's arent
Re: [videoblogging] Re: Apple TV and iPod clash
The difference in framerate was HUGE for our show. We do a lot of high energy, high velocity action footage. I thought it looked good on 15fps, but then someone here said that moving to 29.97 wouldn't double the file size, or double the bitrate (I think it was you Elbows...). I did and our footage was much more appealing. I think we got a 25% or so file size increase, but it's more than worth it. Of course, if you're sitting in front of your camera, or otherwise not moving a lot, it shouldn't matter. See for yourself: 15FPS: http://blip.tv/file/get/K9disc-theArtOfK9DiscRememberTheSun514.mov http://blip.tv/file/get/K9disc-theArtOfK9DiscRememberTheSun514.flv 29.97FPS: http://blip.tv/file/get/K9disc-RememberTheSun2997Fps973.mov http://blip.tv/file/get/K9disc-RememberTheSun2997Fps973.flv I don't know if the FLV versions pick up the same quality change. I have not checked them. Cheers, Ron Watson On the Web: http://pawsitivevybe.com http://k9disc.com http://k9disc.blip.tv On Apr 24, 2007, at 12:57 PM, Steve Watkins wrote: The effect of changing framerate isnt quite that straightforward, as most web formats use temporal compression. Instead of each frame being compressed in full, only keyframes contain the full image info. The frames that arent keyframes, just contain info about what has changed since the previous frame. This can be a highly effective technique, and means that how often you have keyframes will likely determine the necessary bitrate more than your frames per second will. This is one reason why I have always suggested people try experimenting with higher framerates in their vlogs, dont assume that it will make the compression articfacts twice as bad if you double the framerate, or that you need to make the bitrate twice as high to compensate for having twice as many frames. Nor should twice the framerate automatically be assumed to require twice as much CPU power, battery power etc to decode. Its also another example of Apples advice differing from the historical advice given by most in this group. Apple have never recommended using 15fps but thats often been the advice here. Certainly I couldnt declare 'everyone should use 25 or 29.97 or 30 fps' because 15fps is going to work better for some under certain circumstances, there is no 'right answer' although I expect higher framerates will become the norm eventally, as most portable devices can handle them ok there is no hardware barrier to this, more perception than anything else) Cheers Steve Elbows --- In videoblogging@yahoogroups.com, Bill Cammack [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:Your only way around that is to encode at a lower FPS so that you retain quality at the expense of smooth, fluid motion, say, coming down from 30 fps or 29.97 to 15fps. That way, you could get twice as much data per frame because you're outputting half the number of total frames in the same amount of time. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Re: [videoblogging] Re: Apple TV and iPod clash
I will be interesting to see what the blip transcoding to AppleTV/ iPod results in. If I upload a 600 kbit/sec file to blip, and the magicians at blip translate that to a 1500-1800 kbits/sec Apple TV file (assuming its the same bitrate as the pre-fab settings here in FCP / Mac OS world) -- then that will be a poor result: all the long download times without any of the high-quality. [once data is thrown away, it cannot be gotten back -- for those of you who believe the TV spy shows that show zooming in on video -- that's not possible!] The debate, to me, is not 640x480 vs. 320x240 -- the debate is 600 kbits/sec data rates vs. 1500 kbit/sec. Using the freevlog advice, I can get files that will start playing immediately (on U.S. 'broadband' connections) and still be the highest quality possible. At 1500, people _would_ have to wait several minutes _if_ they were trying to watch the file from a web browser -- a far too long a wait / most people would give up and leave. BUT I'm not going to stop encoding at 600 kbit/s for the website itself -- I'm just going to add a 1500 kbit/s video for the iTunes feed. People aren't expecting to watch the video right away from the iTunes environment. And a bit rate that is three times wider is going to result in some beautiful footage. I can only expect Apple did all kinds of market research / planning / thinking about wait times vs. files sizes vs. image quality when deciding to move all of their TV shows and movies to this new bitrate. I do love that these files Apple is making look great when blown up to two or three times the original size (to fill the HD screens). You just cannot do that with a 600 bkit/sec file! The biggest disadvantage I think of the wider bitrate is the fact people's harddrives are going to get full 3 times faster. And that Apple TV harddrive is awfully small. But that problem comes long after the viewer has already downloaded and watched your show -- it's not going to stop them from subscribing in the first place. I download two to four 45 minute files at 1500-1800 kbits/sec every week from the iTunes store, and I have no problems with waiting. It all happens in the background, and I'm excited to get the content every time. So I say: let's embrace the Apple settings / 1500-1800 kbit/second! I was avoiding it based on Verdi + Ryanne's advice, but once I poked at the files and started figuring out what Apple is up to, I got excited about Apple's choices. The are trying to get us to all do one thing (not 50,000) and have it work as best as possible. I plan to use this for all iPod / Apple TV feeds. (And NEVER for files that are played straight from the browser.) I just hope the Blip transcoding does not use the higher bitrate, since (if people are uploading 600 kbit/sec source files) the quality will not reflect it. If Blip can get an Apple TV / iPod compatible 640x480 or 640x360 sized video going at the regular 600 kbits/sec rate -- that will be an incredibly useful tool. Small files for those who want it. Larger physical size. Works on the iPod/TV devices -- this is what is not possible right now, at least not from Quicktime / iMovie / FCP. The other option for Blip, I would guess, is to have users upload high res videos -- DV? / High-bit rate mpeg-4 files? -- expressly for the transcoding into multiple formats. Including a normal Quicktime format at a rate people can watch from the blip site / the creators website without waiting. Jen Jen Simmons [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://jensimmons.com http://milkweedmediadesign.com 267-235-6967 On Apr 23, 2007, at 4:32 pm, Mike Hudack wrote: Hey Waz, I'm afraid the secret sauce includes a dozen pages of signed legal documents and some custom code :) not sure what kind of file size we're talking... -Original Message- From: videoblogging@yahoogroups.com [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of wazman_au Sent: Monday, April 23, 2007 1:29 PM To: videoblogging@yahoogroups.com Subject: [videoblogging] Re: Apple TV and iPod clash Mike, Great. How about sharing the secret with those of us who'd like to encode the vids ourselves??? What sort of file size are we talking? Let's talk megabytes per minute at 640x480. Waz --- In videoblogging@yahoogroups.com, Mike Hudack [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Waz, Blip pro account holders soon won't have to worry about this :) We're hoping to have transcoding to an Apple TV + iPod compatible format available for pro users in our next release (about two weeks away). Yours, Mike -Original Message- From: videoblogging@yahoogroups.com [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of wazman_au Sent: Sunday, April 22, 2007 3:30 PM To: videoblogging@yahoogroups.com Subject: [videoblogging] Apple TV and iPod clash Stupid bloody Apple, why do they DO things like this Folks, this is a tough one, and yes, I've read
Re: [videoblogging] Re: Apple TV and iPod clash
What matters is mb per min what's the math with division involved? jen On Apr 24, 2007, at 7:11 pm, Bill Cammack wrote: BTW, Today's http://Galacticast.com : AppleTV version = 203 mb. iPod version = 98 mb. 3gp version = 17 mb. -- Bill C. BillCammack.com --- In videoblogging@yahoogroups.com, Andreas Haugstrup Pedersen [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: File size is always an issue. Especially so if you think a 10 min. 120 megabyte file ain't no thing. With a 1.5 megabit connection the download will take 10:40 - ASSUMING you can use all your available bandwidth for the download (not going to happen). More realistically you will get downloads in the 80-90 kilobytes/second range (which is what I'm usually getting from video services). In that case the download will take 23 minutes (230% of the video duration). From blip.tv I rarely get more than 50 kilobyte/sec (and my connection is a 1.5 mbps cable connection. Very common here). Then the download is a 41 minute download (ie. it takes 4 times as long to download as it takes to watch). To avoid the click-wait problem you will have to encode at a decent bitrate. 50 kb/s (700kpbs) is a good target. That would make your 10 minute video be 30 megabytes. A much more realistic scenario if you don't want your viewers to wait for your video to download. - Andreas Den 24.04.2007 kl. 00:23 skrev Bill Cammack [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Why exactly is it that you're worried about file size? If you're talking about a 120mb file, and it's a 10-minute episode, it's NOT going to take 10 minutes to download the 120 megs, so there's no significant loss in the viewer's quality of experience. Are you concerned that the file won't play until it's downloaded? What's the negative issue for the viewer if your files are that size for that program length? -- Bill C. BillCammack.com --- In videoblogging@yahoogroups.com, wazman_au elefantman@ wrote: Guys guys guys, Are you really content with imposing such a bloated file format on your viewers? Does 120MB for a 10-minute episode seem reasonable, for example? Not to me it doesn't, when it's about six times the size of what I've been putting out so far - and when my source videos aren't hi- def or anything, just garden variety Mini-DV at 4:3. I have managed to produce a 640x480 video that is 10 minutes long and takes up about 50 megs but because of this baseline low- complexity issue it won't iPod. There are such simple ways of chopping down the size - such as changing sound from stereo to mono - if you can control the parameters, which you can't with Export to iPod in QT Pro. Waz --- In videoblogging@yahoogroups.com, Bill Cammack BillCammack@ wrote: Good call, Bill. That's right along the lines of what I was thinking. -- Bill C. BillCammack.com --- In videoblogging@yahoogroups.com, Bill Shackelford bshackelford@ wrote: My video feed enclosures support ipod,iphone,itv and quicktime.. I just use iPod .m4v format. So in quicktime export to ipod and get a 640x480 video that anyone can watch. The only thing that *might be worth while to instead of .m4v would be .mp4 video that you can play in all of apples stuff in addtion to PSP... but .mp4 videos kinda suck to playback over the web in my opinion. My feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/billshackelfordcompod All my links in my podcast rss file point to flash video on my site and the enclosures are the .m4v files. I have also been provideing .3gp video.. but no no one has been looking at those. my mobile site: http://m.billshackelford.com --- In videoblogging@yahoogroups.com, Bill Cammack BillCammack@ wrote: Steve: That's precisely what I was thinking. Subscribe to the feed that works for you. http://JetSetShow.com , for instance has about 6 feeds. Waz: Personally, if I were concerned about a video being playable on iPods as well as AppleTV and having only one feed for the reasons you mentioned, I'd aim for the lowest common denominator. I haven't looked into AppleTV, so I'm not sure this is possible, but the data rate for iPods is lower than the data rate for AppleTV, so I'd make a video to iPod spec and test it through iTunes to make sure it also runs on AppleTV. You might lose some resolution that way, but if you insist on having only one feed, that's the only way I can see it working. Again, assuming there IS a LCD that you can encode to. -- Bill C. BillCammack.com --- In videoblogging@yahoogroups.com, Steve Watkins steve@
RE: [videoblogging] Re: Apple TV and iPod clash
Hey Waz,
I'm afraid the secret sauce includes a dozen pages of signed legal
documents and some custom code :) not sure what kind of file size we're
talking...
-Original Message-
From: videoblogging@yahoogroups.com
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of wazman_au
Sent: Monday, April 23, 2007 1:29 PM
To: videoblogging@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [videoblogging] Re: Apple TV and iPod clash
Mike,
Great. How about sharing the secret with those of us who'd like to
encode the vids ourselves???
What sort of file size are we talking? Let's talk megabytes per minute
at 640x480.
Waz
--- In videoblogging@yahoogroups.com, Mike Hudack [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Waz,
Blip pro account holders soon won't have to worry about this :) We're
hoping to have transcoding to an Apple TV + iPod compatible format
available for pro users in our next release (about two weeks away).
Yours,
Mike
-Original Message-
From: videoblogging@yahoogroups.com
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of wazman_au
Sent: Sunday, April 22, 2007 3:30 PM
To: videoblogging@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [videoblogging] Apple TV and iPod clash
Stupid bloody Apple, why do they DO things like this
Folks, this is a tough one, and yes, I've read through the
Casey-initiated thread. Good start
but sadly optimistic.
The question is, how do we pump out vids that are 640x480 and have the
baseline low-
complexity profile, thus being both iPod and (presumably) Apple TV
compatible?
Baseline can be selected when exporting with your own settings, but
the
low-complexity
sub-option cannot. According to Apple's developer spec, low-complexity
has been defined
by Apple for the iPod, and it seems to be restricted to the Export for
iPod option, which
cannot be configured.
When exporting an iPod video, QuickTime chooses automatically whether
to
use baseline
or baseline low-complexity - in a nutshell, anything upwards of
320x240 gets low-
complexity. Gory details here:
http://developer.apple.com/technotes/tn2007/tn2188.html
Three possible workarounds. I am not in front of QTPro right now so
will
try later:
1) Use the Export for iPod option with the source vid sized at 640x480
-
this will goad
QTPro into using low-complexity - and then find some way of saving the
resulting video
_again_ with a chopped-down bitrate, perhaps by doing a Save as ...
but without re-
encoding.
2) Do it the other way round - export at the bitrate etc. that you
want,
then run it through
the iPod export. The developer spec suggests QT iPod exporter using a
640x480 source
file will pick its own bitrate according to a complex formula (DR = {
(nMC * 8 ) / 3 } - 100
I kid you not, check out the developer link above) between 700 and
1500kbps. But maybe
if the source file is already lower, it won't jump up the bitrate too
shockingly. The MC in
the equation stands for macroblock and if the number of these can be
reduced in the
source file (how? Dunno) then, doing the maths, you are headed for a
smaller result.
3) Resize your source video to 640x480, whack it through Export for
iPod
and hope the
filesize is not too bloated. As in the formula above, this should
produce something
between 700kbps and 1500kbps, although Apple doesn't say whether the
audio is
included in that bitrate (AAARGH!).
I found to my horror this afternoon that my carefully crafted 640x480
recipe with
meticulously pared down video and sound bitrates that delivered a file
of 5MB/minute that
looks alright on the telly via laptop S-Video cable doesn't work on
the
iPod.
I am just about ready to tell Apple where to shove their TV box ...
and
all of the above still
leaves the question unanswered: will the aforementioned oblong
suppository PLAY H.264
BASELINE LOW-COMPLEXITY???
Anyone got one of these boxes?
That's all for now. I know none of the above is tested but I thought
I'd
post now while my
blood is up, and to give others the chance to look for a solution.
Waz from Crash Test Kitchen
http://www.crashtestkitchen.com
Yahoo! Groups Links
Yahoo! Groups Links
Re: [videoblogging] Re: Apple TV and iPod clash
Good points which suggest that there are really 2 kinds of solution sets that have variable best case scenarios. Also, some users may sync their iphone for high quality files, but others may enjoy lower res files that could be d/l over a slow EDGE network. We already have 2 phone 3g files for low and high speed networks due to demand. Sent via CrackBerry -Original Message- From: Steve Watkins [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Mon, 23 Apr 2007 01:29:38 To:videoblogging@yahoogroups.com Subject: [videoblogging] Re: Apple TV and iPod clash I think people stick to 4:3 most often because they are shooting in that aspect ratio. And whilst its true that it seems a shame to waste the screen real-estate of th widescreen devices out there, 16:9 stuff on a 4:3 display like the built in ipod could also be seen as wastefu and selfish because some of that 4:3 screen is now wasted with black bars, or cutoff part of the image and wonder if missing anything important. I love 16:9 but I think 4:3 has an important place for a good while longer, and theres plenty of footage that doesnt benefit too hugely from being widescreen. Also I guess when it comes to ipod playback, 16:9 is actually going to be a smaller res than 4:3, assuming ipod encoding takes 640 as the maximum width, regardless of aspect ratio, and then picks the right vertical res to match the aspect ratio? ie 16:9 footage will end up at 640x360 as opposed to 4:3 being at 640x480? Cheers Steve Elbows --- In videoblogging@: mailto:videoblogging%40yahoogroups.com yahoogroups.com, andrew michael baron [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The only reason NOT to go with separate files, in my opinion, is based on ranking in the charts. For instance, if you have 2 or three dif quicktime feeds, it starts to divide your itunes audiences and then you dont get reported on any charts. There is some discovery loss for people who browse itunes. Im new to TVs myself, but aren't most HD TV's optimized for wide- screen viewing? And isn't the iphone widescreen as well? So why 3:4 letterbox that much of the screen real-estate? It would have to be a pretty selfish reason, no? And if someone is going to watch on just an iPod, Id rather spend the selfishness on saving the bandwidth because the increase in quality doesn't seem substantial enough for a small ipod screen unless an audience member is a rare audiophile type or collector. Everyone is different, though it seems logical and not unfamiliar to provide multiple feeds and file formats. Format options seem to be expanding, not narrowing. Drew p.s. It would be interesting to ask Scott S. about this: I recall the publicly distributed info about the possibility of a single cross platform file format (i.e. a 640x480 file for ipod, tv and some other devise) that came out just before the iphone was introduced. Interestingly enough, I heard from David Pogue - based on his interview with Jobs - that Apple used tactics to fool, hide and divert info from their employees and their partners in order to keep the iPhone secret up until the last minute. Thus, the inference that there would be no widescreen anything was made. Kinda of a far fetched casual proposition as to why people are stuck with 3:4 a consequence but you never know :) Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/videoblogging/ * Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional * To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/videoblogging/join (Yahoo! ID required) * To change settings via email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
