Author Topic: Why h264?  (Read 23420 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

DashRattleWRX

  • Guest
Why h264?
« on: September 02, 2005, 07:42:45 am »
A lot of people are having trouble with this codec.  In fact, many are entierly unable to play h264 encoded files because it is not currently compatable with all hardware.  Or so I'm told.. fortunately I can watch h264 (ie. Condor Hero ep. 47, other wise I wouldn't even know of the problem).


My point is, why switch to this codec when it is still buggy as hell?  I can understand that it might be better for higher resolution projects, but how high resolution does fansub anime have to be, and does your fan base even care about high resolution releases at the expense of all kinds of trouble(I had to install a whole new media player: VLC 0.8.2) and the fact that it might not even work at all on some systems.



I'm not trying to start isht here, don't get me wrong.  I love your releases; they're great.  I just want some kind of justification for using h264..  why not just go with something everyone can already play?
« Last Edit: September 02, 2005, 07:44:41 am by DashRattleWRX »

Offline bastard-sama

  • Live Evil Members
  • Rakuen Hero
  • *
  • Posts: 311
  • in the middle of nowhere
    • View Profile
Re: Why h264?
« Reply #1 on: September 02, 2005, 08:09:00 am »
well it was up to the encoder to release with h264.. the encoder must have thought it was great.. but forgot that
its will be a pain to get other people to install it.. and condor hero is licensed we dont do it so you should really
figure out where your releases come from...
The resident bastard.

DashRattleWRX

  • Guest
Re: Why h264?
« Reply #2 on: September 02, 2005, 09:05:53 am »
well it was up to the encoder to release with h264.. the encoder must have thought it was great.. but forgot that
its will be a pain to get other people to install it.. and condor hero is licensed we dont do it so you should really
figure out where your releases come from...



I know where I got Condor Hero from; and I know why LE isn't subbing it.  I'm not stupid.

I had just seen that LE was releasing Space Symphony Maetel in h264 now, and I respect LE so much that I was concerned as to why they decided to go that in that dirrection.


I guess if the decision to go with h264 was all up to the encoder, and that person isn't you, then you shouldn't be responding to this thread.

Offline gumbaloom

  • Rakuen Hero
  • ****
  • Posts: 467
  • Gender: Male
  • Resident Sailor Moon Freak
    • View Profile
Re: Why h264?
« Reply #3 on: September 02, 2005, 11:10:00 am »
This is an age old argument. It's happening now and it will happen again.

It happened when people moved from fansub tapes to dvix3. It happened when people moved from dvix3 to divx5. It happened when people moved to xvid and it happened when xvid 1.0 and above.

I've only been around long enough to remember the time when xvid went 1.0. There was on particular situation with a series where the group switched from xvid 0.9 to xvid 1.1. This meant that everyone had to upgrade their codecs. It caused NO END of trouble. However once people stopped complaining and giving up they were able to play the file after having upgraded their codecs.

It's a given fact. H264 is next generation. Fansubbing is always driving the bounds of what is possible with digital media compression and what is possible with textsub. For example how much After Effects stuff did you see a year ago but its exploded.

At some point you have to bite the bullet and make the effort to upgrade and move technology forward. Yes it might involve a bit of effort on the part of leechers but at the end of the day if it leaders to nicer looking encodes isn't that a good thing?.

Trail blazers will always take flak for trying out new things. Live-eviL is not the first group to use h264 and it won't be the last. Just look through recent releases on animesuki and you will see h264 releases cropping up on a regular basis.

Whether you like it or not h264 is here to stay so try to make the effort. In fact look at our earlier Galaxy Express releases - we were using beta releases of xvid.
So...well I don't know what to say apart from h264 is here to stay ^_^;;;;


-gumbaloom
[16:35]  <Scaevolus> hey leechers have to expend lots of effort, it takes almost a dozen keystrokes to leech stuff
[16:37]  <Mamo-chan> go stroke goomb's ego plz
[16:38]  <Professor_Goomba> fansubbing is not about leecher ego stroking
[16:38]  <Professor_Goomba> it's about how much we jizz when w

DashRattleWRX

  • Guest
Re: Why h264?
« Reply #4 on: September 02, 2005, 04:45:19 pm »
I can understand that people will always be resistant to change.  I just didn't understand why make that change when it means rendering some of your releases entirely unwatchable to some of your fans.  BUT, you make a very valid point.  I suppose if so many groups weren't pushing h264, these hardware conflicts wouldn't be exposed (without lots of beta testing), and in turn the stability of the codec wouldn't increase near as fast as it will now.  I guess it comes down to the whole public beta testing issue..


Thank you, I'm satisfied with your answer.  Although I am able to play h264.  People that are continuing to have problems with it might not be so easily comforted.  :-\
« Last Edit: September 02, 2005, 04:46:55 pm by DashRattleWRX »

Mecha_Trueno

  • Guest
Re: Why h264?
« Reply #5 on: September 06, 2005, 01:50:09 am »
just wanna know, is it true that with h264 you can make file sizes smaller without loss of quality? i think i might have heard it somewhere but dunno... cant remember

Offline Tofusensei

  • Admin
  • Rakuen Hero
  • *****
  • Posts: 406
  • Gender: Male
  • Believe in love.
    • View Profile
Re: Why h264?
« Reply #6 on: September 06, 2005, 02:25:32 am »
This is an age old argument. It's happening now and it will happen again.

It happened when people moved from fansub tapes to dvix3. It happened when people moved from dvix3 to divx5. It happened when people moved to xvid and it happened when xvid 1.0 and above.

Small correction: Divx4/5 never really caught on with fansubbers. The big jump was divx3 -> xvid.

And yeah, with h.264 we should be able to see higher quality at smaller sizes (though I imagine 170~ megs will remain the norm ><)

-Tofu
The alpha and the omega of Live-eviL.

Offline ladoga

  • n00b Hero
  • *
  • Posts: 34
  • what is this?
    • View Profile
Re: Why h264?
« Reply #7 on: September 07, 2005, 02:01:19 am »
In linux i get buggy audio with this file. :(

Btw. The video quality is great.

[edit]
On further testing i noticed that this format eats CPU power like hell. I guess i can forget watching movies compressed with it on my 1Ghz duron. :(

Previous episodes encoded with xvid use about 25-35% of my CPU to decode.
All H.264 videos i tried so far get my CPU usage to 85-99%, which might explain choppy audio too.

I guess this might be a good codec for people with 2Ghz+ box or maybe latest G5 Macs. Though id rather waste more of cheap HD space for better quality than invest 500€ to new cpu, mobo and ram. Especially when everything else runs just fine. I built this puter for home media server about a year ago. (i feel bit stupid not anticipating this back then)

Ofcourse (for above reasons) im partial in my opinion that this isn't a best way to go. But none of earlier codec upgrades needed 100% increase in hardware performance to play them smoothly. Encoding has always been CPU heavy stuff, but not decoding. You can even watch most of DivX/Xvid stuff on those little handheld players.

I think many people can't afford buying a new rig every two years.

Here's my system specs:

AMD Duron (Spitfire core) clocked to 1017MHz
640MB of PC-133 SDRAM
ATI Radeon 9800Pro
400GB+250GB+40GB PATA HDs
running Ubuntu (linux kernel 2.6.10-5-686)

« Last Edit: September 08, 2005, 02:31:02 am by ladoga »

Offline Sindobook

  • Maetel Hero
  • *****
  • Posts: 662
    • View Profile
Re: Why h264?
« Reply #8 on: September 07, 2005, 10:47:11 pm »
When encoders first started creating video for computer playback, the standard for high-quality video was MPEG-1 systems.  For .avi, the only codecs out there were things like Intel Indeo and Cinepak.  If people wanted smaller files, they used things like .rm or .vivo but the quality was horrible.

Then microsoft came out with MS-MPEG4v3 which could deliver MPEG-level quality but with better compression.  divx311alpha was a copy of MS-MPEG4v3 that could coexist with some other microsoft products.  This made .avi the de-facto system standard for releases, but, unlike MPEG, .avi is not a real standard.  It is just a legacy windows / microsoft type of file that even microsoft is trying to phase out in favor of .asf and .wmv.  .avi posed several problems for the newer MPEG-4 codecs since it did not support B-frames, variable bitrate audio, etc. 

So going back to an MPEG type standard is long overdue, like MPEG-1 which can be played back on many DVD players, MPEG-4 will ultimately have better cross-platform support for playback on different devices like PSP, standalone players, macintosh, PMP, etc.

Offline ladoga

  • n00b Hero
  • *
  • Posts: 34
  • what is this?
    • View Profile
Re: Why h264?
« Reply #9 on: September 08, 2005, 12:28:30 pm »
Code: [Select]
Playing [AonE&F-B&L-E]Space_Symphony_Maetel_-_[DVD]_06_[C5A3D4F1][h.264].mp4.
ISO: Unknown File Type Major Brand: avc1
QuickTime/MOV file format detected.
--------------
MOV track #0: 3100 chunks, 34095 samples
MOV: AVC decoder configuration record atom (46)!
MOV: Found unknown movie atom btrt (20)!
Image size: 704 x 400 (24 bpp)
Display size: 704 x 400
Fourcc: avc1  Codec: ''
--------------
MOV track #1: 2963 chunks, 0 samples
Audio bits: 16  chans: 2  rate: 48000
MOV: Found MPEG4 audio Elementary Stream Descriptor atom (35)!
Fourcc: mp4a
--------------
MOV: longest streams: A: #1 (2963 samples)  V: #0 (34095 samples)
VIDEO:  [avc1]  704x400  24bpp  23.976 fps    0.0 kbps ( 0.0 kbyte/s)
==========================================================================
Opening audio decoder: [mp3lib] MPEG layer-2, layer-3
AUDIO: 48000 Hz, 2 ch, s16le, 128.0 kbit/8.33% (ratio: 16000->192000)
Selected audio codec: [mp3] afm:mp3lib (mp3lib MPEG layer-2, layer-3)
==========================================================================
vo: X11 running at 1280x960 with depth 24 and 32 bpp (":0.0" => local display)
==========================================================================
Opening video decoder: [ffmpeg] FFmpeg's libavcodec codec family
Selected video codec: [ffh264] vfm:ffmpeg (FFmpeg H.264)
==========================================================================
Checking audio filter chain for 48000Hz/2ch/s16le -> 48000Hz/2ch/s16le...
AF_pre: 48000Hz/2ch/s16le
AO: [oss] 48000Hz 2ch s16le (2 bps)
Building audio filter chain for 48000Hz/2ch/s16le -> 48000Hz/2ch/s16le...
Starting playback...
VDec: vo config request - 704 x 400 (preferred csp: Planar YV12)
VDec: using Planar YV12 as output csp (no 0)
Movie-Aspect is undefined - no prescaling applied.
VO: [xv] 704x400 => 704x400 Planar YV12
mpg123: Can't rewind stream by 173 bits!  29/ 29 49% 11%  1.4% 5 0             
mpg123: Can't rewind stream by 173 bits!  53/ 53 49% 10%  1.5% 5 0             
mpg123: Can't rewind stream by 173 bits!  72/ 72 56% 10%  1.6% 5 0             
mpg123: Can't rewind stream by 59 bits!5  98/ 98 63% 10%  1.7% 5 0             
mpg123: Can't rewind stream by 42 bits!4 189/189 61% 10%  1.9% 5 0             
mpg123: Can't rewind stream by 19 bits!4 196/196 61% 10%  1.9% 5 0             
mpg123: Can't rewind stream by 112 bits! 253/253 64% 10%  2.0% 5 0             
mpg123: Can't rewind stream by 54 bits!7 264/264 64% 10%  2.0% 5 0             
mpg123: Can't rewind stream by 8 bits!76 396/396 69% 10%  2.0% 6 0             
A:  21.3 V:  20.9 A-V:  0.438 ct: -0.639 501/501 73% 10%  2.0% 72 0             

           ************************************************
           **** Your system is too SLOW to play this!  ****
           ************************************************

Offline maziyarutei

  • n00b Hero
  • *
  • Posts: 4
    • View Profile
Re: Why h264?
« Reply #10 on: September 08, 2005, 05:49:53 pm »
err, im not really familiar with this place so please forgive me if it's obvious, how do i know which file is coded using h.264? just want to see the difference between h.264 and XviD. anyway im glad that l-e ambraced h.264, im always up for good crystal clear movie quality. i've just downloaded quicktime 7 for windows, going to see check out h.264 trailers real soon....

3sgte

  • Guest
Re: Why h264?
« Reply #11 on: September 09, 2005, 12:57:48 pm »
Just watched Space Symphony Maetel, encoded using h264.

I was blown away by the quality. Very impressive!

It uses between 11-15% of one core on my A64 X2 4200.
That would be about 22-30% of a single core A64 3500.

I would like to try encoding something with this.
That would require some horsepower!

I will look around, if anyone has any recommended links, I wouldn't object.. ;)

I remember when it would occasionally be asked if a system had enough power to play back a MP3...

Offline JL

  • n00b Hero
  • *
  • Posts: 12
  • Gender: Male
    • View Profile
Re: Why h264?
« Reply #12 on: September 10, 2005, 05:19:11 pm »
Is h264 the PSP codec? If I should ever get PSP will this ep of Maetel play on it? Just about to install the required codec/players for my pc...

JL

Offline Tofusensei

  • Admin
  • Rakuen Hero
  • *****
  • Posts: 406
  • Gender: Male
  • Believe in love.
    • View Profile
Re: Why h264?
« Reply #13 on: September 11, 2005, 04:08:12 pm »
A quick test, not by any means very scientific:

[10:01] * Tofu2 ササ MPClassic ォサ [||||||--------------] [DB L-E] Tsubasa Chronicle DVD version 01 h.264 [8C5BB019] ォサ 07:46 / 25:31 ォサ 768x432 ォサ 23.976 fps ォサ ~111.86KB/s ォサ 167.35MB ォォ X264
[10:02] <Tofu2> CPU Info: (CPU - Intel Pentium 4, 3.20 GHz, L2: 1024KB (20% Load))
[10:02] <Tofu2> 20% of a 3.2 Ghz
[10:02] <Tofu2> for 768x432

[10:03] * Tofu2 ササ MPClassic ォサ [|-------------------] [Live-eviL] Mermaid's Forest - Ep 13 (DVD) ォサ 00:59 / 24:12 ォサ 768x432 ォサ 23.976 fps ォサ ~166.58KB/s ォサ 236.36MB ォォ XviD MPEG-4 codec
[10:03] <Tofu2> CPU Info: (CPU - Intel Pentium 4, 3.20 GHz, L2: 1024KB (22% Load))

The xvid actually used 2% more CPU power to render than the h.264 for the same exact resolution.

20% of 3.2 Ghz is the equivalent of about 800 Mhz, so even a high PIII should be able to render it properly (unless your system is so full of spyware that you have no system resources left, in which case you have more problems to worry about :P).

Anyway, all I am saying is, the idea of h.264 using an insane amount of CPU to render is a myth. It uses no more CPU than xvid :X

-Tofu
The alpha and the omega of Live-eviL.

Offline Hirvine

  • n00b Hero
  • *
  • Posts: 24
  • Gender: Male
    • View Profile
    • World of Shenja
Re: Why h264?
« Reply #14 on: September 11, 2005, 05:30:10 pm »
Anyway, all I am saying is, the idea of h.264 using an insane amount of CPU to render is a myth. It uses no more CPU than xvid :X

-Tofu

That can't be true, because I never had syncronisation problems, wait problems when I hit the timeguage to skip 20 minutes...
It really consumes much more than xVid does, I got a notebook over here and you really see the different.
By the way, if someone knows how to get rid of the synchronisation problem, tell me will ya, because when the opening song ends I just started to see the intro.


[...]
I've only been around long enough to remember the time when xvid went 1.0. There was on particular situation with a series where the group switched from xvid 0.9 to xvid 1.1. This meant that everyone had to upgrade their codecs. It caused NO END of trouble. However once people stopped complaining and giving up they were able to play the file after having upgraded their codecs.

[...]

-gumbaloom

Hehe, your right, I can see why people wants to use this codec, still it's hell to get the right codecs upto date.

For manga, games and programs
Current program, Anime Manga Ost Manager at amo.worldofshenja.com, manage your backups!

Offline Tofusensei

  • Admin
  • Rakuen Hero
  • *****
  • Posts: 406
  • Gender: Male
  • Believe in love.
    • View Profile
Re: Why h264?
« Reply #15 on: September 11, 2005, 06:10:21 pm »
Maybe I'm spoiled by my 3.2 Ghz P4 :X

-Tofu
The alpha and the omega of Live-eviL.

Offline Hirvine

  • n00b Hero
  • *
  • Posts: 24
  • Gender: Male
    • View Profile
    • World of Shenja
Re: Why h264?
« Reply #16 on: September 11, 2005, 10:18:43 pm »
Oh I just found out something very awfull if you install h.264 codec.
So I want to warn people about it.

When you select NORMALIZE (standaard checked) in the install it will normalize your sound 500% (5 times louder) giving a heck noisy sound, change it back to 100% and all is good again.
I don't know why it's standaard on 500%, but it really sound like hell if you just install  and play movies with it without setting normalize back to 100%.

So you have been warned,
« Last Edit: September 11, 2005, 10:21:42 pm by Hirvine »

For manga, games and programs
Current program, Anime Manga Ost Manager at amo.worldofshenja.com, manage your backups!

Offline dr_ishmael

  • n00b Hero
  • *
  • Posts: 20
    • View Profile
Re: Why h264?
« Reply #17 on: September 12, 2005, 09:51:55 pm »
Anyway, all I am saying is, the idea of h.264 using an insane amount of CPU to render is a myth. It uses no more CPU than xvid :X

Hm, that's odd, because I got similar results to ladoga's.  I have an Athlon 64 3000+, and I tracked CPU usage in Task Manager while playing the intro of Tsubasa Chronicle 01 in both xvid (left) and h.264 (right) formats.  Noise (CPU usage when idle) is between 0-2%.



As you can see, h.264 used about 10% more CPU on average than xvid.  Now, the 3000+ only runs at ~1.8 GHz, so that would be a difference of ~180 MHz, with actual usage of around 900 MHz for h.264 playback.

I still agree with Tofusensei that h.264 doesn't take an *insane* amount of CPU, but based on my results, it does indeed take more than xvid.

Offline Tofusensei

  • Admin
  • Rakuen Hero
  • *****
  • Posts: 406
  • Gender: Male
  • Believe in love.
    • View Profile
Re: Why h264?
« Reply #18 on: September 13, 2005, 06:21:47 am »
h.264 DVD version is encoded at a higher resolution than the xvid one. 

h.264 = 768 x 432 = 331776 pixels
xvid = 704 x 360 = 253440 pixels

332776/253440 =1.3130366

so, the h.264 has 31.3% more pixels to decode than the xvid. So according to my math, the h.264 actually uses less CPU to decode. Interesting, huh? :D

-Tofu
The alpha and the omega of Live-eviL.

Offline Hirvine

  • n00b Hero
  • *
  • Posts: 24
  • Gender: Male
    • View Profile
    • World of Shenja
Re: Why h264?
« Reply #19 on: September 13, 2005, 11:51:26 am »
h.264 DVD version is encoded at a higher resolution than the xvid one. 

h.264 = 768 x 432 = 331776 pixels
xvid = 704 x 360 = 253440 pixels

332776/253440 =1.3130366

so, the h.264 has 31.3% more pixels to decode than the xvid. So according to my math, the h.264 actually uses less CPU to decode. Interesting, huh? :D

-Tofu

Sheesh you got me there. I will remember that little math!

For manga, games and programs
Current program, Anime Manga Ost Manager at amo.worldofshenja.com, manage your backups!

evil

  • Guest
Re: Why h264?
« Reply #20 on: September 13, 2005, 01:23:13 pm »
wondering if any1 could help me, I enabled the h.264 on my ffdshow then when i play tsubasa chro. dvd 1 it has gray screens flashing ... is it my hardware prob or wat?

Offline dr_ishmael

  • n00b Hero
  • *
  • Posts: 20
    • View Profile
Re: Why h264?
« Reply #21 on: September 14, 2005, 12:19:23 am »
h.264 DVD version is encoded at a higher resolution than the xvid one. 

Durrr...   ^^;;;;;  Can't believe I missed that...

NagoyaX

  • Guest
Re: Why h264?
« Reply #22 on: September 27, 2005, 12:25:26 am »
If I install CCCP will it work?
caz i cant get it to work using method shown?
will it also work on VLC w/o using setup?

Offline mikala

  • Rakuen Hero
  • ****
  • Posts: 457
  • Gender: Male
  • i wanna be an hero :o
    • View Profile
    • Mikala's Blog
Re: Why h264?
« Reply #23 on: September 27, 2005, 12:35:25 am »
it's working without any problem on a fresh install of windows XP 2 & vlc 0.8.2
Jabber ID : mikala@jabber.littleboboy.net


3sgte

  • Guest
Re: Why h264?
« Reply #24 on: September 27, 2005, 05:30:43 am »
h.264 DVD version is encoded at a higher resolution than the xvid one. 

h.264 = 768 x 432 = 331776 pixels
xvid = 704 x 360 = 253440 pixels

332776/253440 =1.3130366

so, the h.264 has 31.3% more pixels to decode than the xvid. So according to my math, the h.264 actually uses less CPU to decode. Interesting, huh? :D

-Tofu

Thanks for the clarifications.

kokuryu

  • Guest
Re: Why h264?
« Reply #25 on: October 02, 2005, 03:36:58 am »
The reason H.264 does not currently work IS because of super buggy code that is out there.  There are only 3 H.264 decoding codecs that work.  There is only ONE H.264 ENCODING codec that works.  That being said, nobody bothers to follow instructions when doing these encodes either, so the third problem is invalid H.264 encodes all over the place.

So far only ONE fansub group has actually produced a PROPER H.264 encoded file.  Their normal XVID encodes were 220+Mb.  The H.264 encoded file was 85Mb.  Nearly a 3 to 1 ratio in file size difference - for higher quality video and better sound to boot.

That being said, there are some excellent instructions out there to produce a H.264 file PROPERLY and get all the space savings and great video and audio out of it.  If all the fansub groups would use it, then maybe people might take the time to find out what type of install they have to go through to get H.264 to work on their systems.

Here are some tips:
(1) The most recent version of ffdshow wont work properly with it - you need a specific version
(2) MKV requires it
(3) There is a great OGG package that will work properly - if all you ever watch is OGG files
(4) The Satsuki Decoder Pack will do it with a past version, but not a recent version - the ffdshow issue
(5) You need the Microsoft H.264 releases for both Direct Show and VFW - good luck getting them!
(6) Buy QuickTime Pro and let everyone switch to using .MOV files - you can encode H.264 correctly using QT Pro...

Anyway - have fun!  It's a pain in the rear, but you need to support all 3 versions of H.264 that are out there since you won't know which encoder the person used...  Check out the Animesuki forums for their H.264 discussion threads for some definitive websites to visit and directions for encoding.

Shikyo-san

  • Guest
Re: Why h264?
« Reply #26 on: October 04, 2005, 12:54:56 pm »
I´m useing the new ffdshow and the MatroskaSplitter.
Since that i have no problems and for encodeing X264-Full_r291B / x264-274.