A few days ago I wrote on my blog about the “sorry state of proper h.264 support on the PC”. The bottomline was that if you need some good HD h.264 support for HD videos the solution is Apple’s G5 with Qt 7 PRO, or QuickTime 7 PRO for Windows (whenever this is going to be released). The existing PC solutions (Win or Linux) were ranging from bad to terrible with all-time-worse being mplayer’s support (about 0.3 fps on the 1080p Serenity trailer on a 2.8 GHz P4) and ‘best’ the Elecard Moonlight player that could barely do about 10 fps on a brand new 3 GHz P4-630. However……the Elecard people patiently listened to my gripes and with some swift moves released today version 3.01 of their Moonlight MPEG Player for Windows that now plays HD clips almost full speed (24 fps for the Serenity trailer, about 15 fps for the BBC clip on the 3 GHz P4). QuickTime 7 is still more optimized overall (screenshot from a dual 1.25 GHz G4 Powermac), but I was positively surprised about their quick responses and fixes and hense this mini-article presenting the choices you have if you want some good QuickTime HD h.264 videos on a PC. I have no doubt that future versions of the Moonlight Player will be further optimized.
Linux/FreeBSD are still real bad regarding HD h.264 support (Xine, VLC, Totem crash when loading such a clip, only mplayer handles it – just very slowly and with random trash on the playback screen), hopefully we will see some serious optimizations and fixes soon because that HD h.264 stuff are really exciting!
Yeah you definitely need a G5– as you know, my iBook about which I mailed you handled one video at 1fps and another one at 12fps. For an iBook bought new in october 2004, that’s pretty bad (iBook 12.1″, 1.07 Ghz, 512 MBRAM).
huh? I downloaded some of the HD trailers to watch on my 12″powerbook 1.3 ghz G4 and 768mb ram.
Quicktime played them no problem, on my 18″lcd, with firefox, fire, and itunes open but not running.
What’s the state of VLC’s support?
Peragrin, tell us how many FPS you get on the Serenity HD clip with your powerbook. Open QuickTime 7 and open the “movie info” dialog and it will tell you how many fps it does while playing the clip.
>What’s the state of VLC’s support?
The latest stable VLC crashes when trying to load an HD QTime clip. This is already written in the article. Totem too and Xine too. Only mplayer doesn’t crash, but it’s not usable at all with HD clips (less than 1 fps and many visual artifacts).
Did you try Nero? They seem to know what they’re doing.
They don’t seem to have a demo version to try out (only an update version of an existing purchased one), plus their solution is not really a player but a “player by-the-way-of-burning”.
Mplayer isnt really that bad at H.264 playback, it seems to be the framedropping that causes the playback problems. Hit “D” during playback of one of trailers until framedropping is set to off. Then you’ll see that it can play back H.264-content at decent framerates. The backside is the it will lose sync with the audio. =( Tried this on an Athlon XP 2400+.
I get 12-13fps when playing Serenity HD on a Ti 1Ghz (with 1 Gb)
>Mplayer isnt really that bad
Mplayer performance *IS* bad. When it can only do <1 fps in real time, that’s a TERRIBLE performance.
> until framedropping is set to off
Framedropping SHOULD be ON, because when you just want to watch a movie you need audio syncing. Otherwise, ANY player can deliver when framedropping is off, the point is to do it real time!
The latest MPlayer, MPlayer 1.0pre7: “PatentCounter” was released 4-16-2005 and includes “Many h.264 fixes”.
I haven’t tried it yet. Have you?
Hopefully bitching about it will make a difference.
And don’t forget that this is a 2.8 GHz LinuxCertified P4 laptop that I tried mplayer on. When you have much slower machines that do so much better (about 15 times better for slower Powerbooks/G4s), then there is something real wrong with mplayer’s performance. I would have prefered to see it crash (like VLC, Totem & Xine did) instead of having such a… traumatic experience.
>MPlayer 1.0pre7, I haven’t tried it yet. Have you?
This is exactly the version I tried, yes:
http://www.archlinux.org/packages.php?id=4214
>Hopefully bitching about it will make a difference.
That’s what I am counting on. Usually when I bitch people hate me and fight back, but at the end they do what I was asking anyway. 😉
…maybe altivec is the cause?
Of course, framedropping should be on!!! But there seems too be some problem with framedropping and the H.264-decodeing working together. Probably not so hard for the mplayer-coders to fix!!
BTW, did you even try it?
Well, no, as x86 already has equivelant stuff like MMX, SSE2/3 etc etc etc. It’s up to the developers to properly optimize and architect their solution for their target platform.
Yes, I think you should know that Nero came out on top with the best .264 encoder with their “Nero Recode” software in a codec quality test. Of course, it is maily for windows, but it runs very fast (faster than real time).
http://www.doom9.org/index.html?/codecs-104-1.htm
Now doom9 needs to do a comparison with the new quicktime codec.
>BTW, did you even try it?
Yes, I did.
on an 1Ghz G4 iBook with 640MB Ram and ATI Mobility Radeon 9200
Mplayer performance *IS* bad. When it can only do <1 fps in real time, that’s a TERRIBLE performance.
I’m surprised to read that.
The performance problem is not mplayer, its the codec, and you know it.
Framedropping SHOULD be ON, because when you just want to watch a movie you need audio syncing. Otherwise, ANY player can deliver when framedropping is off, the point is to do it real time!
Framedropping shouldn’t matter. If your hardware is fast enough to handle the bandwidth to play a movie and you aren’t using that hardware for anything else like serving content, virus scanning, etc. Then there should be no problems running without framedrop enabled. But there are several modes to framedrop, so choose what works best for you. I think I leave it enabled because I prefer sync over dropped frames, but it works the same either way for me because my hardware is more than enough to handle MPEG-4.
And don’t forget that this is a 2.8 GHz LinuxCertified P4 laptop
And what makes you think that your 2.8 Ghz laptop would be faster than my 2.0 Ghz non-LinuxCertified desktop? This info is somewhat irrelevant, isn’t it? A 500 Mhz CPU can handle MPEG-4. I don’t know what is required for HD/h.264, but I would assume anything above 1.5Ghz would cover it. But those are PIII, Athlon or PPC Ghz, not Celeron.
I would have prefered to see it crash (like VLC, Totem & Xine did) instead of having such a… traumatic experience.
Sounds like a personal problem.
What good is a codec if you need a G5 to truely enjoy it? I don’t see the point there in trading content size for cpu usage.
If you’re having problems with H.264 playback in a linux distribution here is a digest of the kind of advise you’ll get around here:
1) You’re hardware is too slow
2) Its not the application its the codec
3) Its not the codec its the fact that dev’s work for free and should put up with it.
4) Its not the devs its the fact that no company is making a free codec for everyone else to leech.
5) Linux users are too cool for H.264 anyway.
Just for the record, I used the 720p Senenity trailer not the 1080p when I diabled framedropping. With framedropping off I get somewhere between 10-20 fps with mplayer. The 1080p trailer wouldnt play at all. I just get a black window.
>The performance problem is not mplayer, its the codec, and you know it.
Of course, but it does not matter at the end of the day, does it? Think of it as a “product ready for consuption” and you will see t hat it doesn’t matter if it’s mplayer, the codec or X itself the fault. The point of the matter is that IT’S SLOW and UNUSABLE.
>And what makes you think that your 2.8 Ghz laptop would
>be faster than my 2.0 Ghz non-LinuxCertified desktop
It doesn’t make me think of that. I mentioned this because this is a fast laptop and slower Mac machines are able to do BETTER. That was my point.
>Sounds like a personal problem.
Sounds like you are the one who is taking personally my mplayer remarks and replies in a disguised personal attack towards me. Look pal, currently THERE IS NO REAL SOLUTION ON LINUX FOR HD-h.264. You like it or not, I don’t care, because that’s the REALITY of it.
Instead of taking apart my sentences and write things the way I never intended to be read upon, I suggest you direct this behavior to the mplayer guys (or the codec, or whoever is to be blamed for this poor performance).
>5) Linux users are too cool for H.264 anyway.
Give me a freaking break, will ya?
I just played the Serenity 1080p trailer with CVS Mplayer and despite the audio going out of sync played perfectly on an Athlon 64 3000+
No, it DID NOT. You had framedropping OFF (default), that’s why it FELT good as it was rendering all frames and it was taking its sweet time to do so. That was NOT real time playback!
You have to go to your mplayer’s preferences and turn ON framedropping (so it’s real time, like the other players do it)! And THEN, tell us how fast it is!
“I just played the Serenity 1080p trailer with CVS Mplayer and despite the audio going out of sync played perfectly on an Athlon 64 3000+”
Puck, I think you’re definition of “perfect” is a bit different than most. For most people, perfect play back includes playing back the video without making it look like some cheaply dubbed hong kong flick where the voices don’t match the scene at all.
You are right, making mplayer real time (with framedroppping ON, as you would expect from a media player) it results in very poor performance on my Xeon 2.6 GHz.
>5) Linux users are too cool for H.264 anyway.
Give me a freaking break, will ya?
Looks like h.264 is too cool for me. Guess I’ll be sticking with MPEG-4/ogg until these bugs are fixed and features stabilize.
>The performance problem is not mplayer,
> its the codec, and you know it.
The Elecard Moonlight and WMP players also drop a few frames for some clips. But nobody says that the “mpeg4.ocx” or “mpeg4.dll” are to blame. Of course these are to blame, but nobody says that. People just use the name of their wrapping application, because that’s what has the branding and recognition when reffering to their abilities.
When I say perfect I mean fast enough that it’s watchable. It was a little slower than 30 fps, but completly watchable without framedropping.
Umm… Right…
Is that how you really see things? Wow!
The truth is that nobody really cares about some (currently) obscure video format that still isn’t yet an established standard (except for OSX users that love to show off the mighty power of the Quicktime playback software).
People will start to care when high definition DVD players hit the market, but that’s still *at least* several months from now.
I’ll care when people stop getting excited about patent-encumbered, royalty-driven video and audio “standards” like AVC and AAC.
At any rate: You may recall that OSX was the first to widely adopt AAC and other “cutting-edge” technologies. Ffmpeg-based players always decode them more efficiently, so don’t panic yet. It’s very likely that your h.264 support will improve as well.
>>MPlayer 1.0pre7, I haven’t tried it yet. Have you?
>
>This is exactly the version I tried, yes:
>http://www.archlinux.org/packages.php?id=4214
>
>>Hopefully bitching about it will make a difference.
>
>That’s what I am counting on. Usually when I bitch people >hate me and fight back, but at the end they do what I was >asking anyway. 😉
>
>Direct comment link
Somewhere between 15-24fps for the Kingdom of Heaven 720p trailer on my 1.33ghz 12″ Powerbook. I ran the window a little smaller than its true size so that it would actually fit on my screen… I’m not sure if that affects performance or not. I would love to see it on a G5 with a 30-inch screen. H.264 is pretty damn impressive! 4 minutes of 720p HD video for ~120mb! This codec definitely has a ton of potential, since slower computers could probably smoothly decode resolutions like 720×480 DVD video with very low file sizes.
as it was downloading. Very impressive even at 12 FPS. I don’t care about FPS if I can’t tell the difference.
Powerbook G4 1.33 Ghz, 1.25 GB RAM.
Who would have thought that when Quicktime began over 11 years ago it would unleash this revolution of video streaming. Another pat on the back for Apple -I am not sure if Steve Jobs was at Apple at that time. Luckily, he did not ax this baby after this return!
Aplpe didn’t invent the standard. They were just the first to fully implement it.
You can get a newer sse optimized build here:
http://ffdshow.sourceforge.net/tikiwiki/tiki-index.php?page=Getting…
The place to get info on h.264 on windows and ffdshow is the http://www.doom9.org forum: http://forum.doom9.org/forumdisplay.php?forumid=54
hope this helps
It can open .mov files, and like ffdshow is opensource
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=82303&package…
——–…maybe altivec is the cause?———–
Ever heard of MMX? 3dnow? SSE?(and it’s variants)
*chuckles*
And yes, to all of the extremely technical posters here… I understand that SSE(1,2,3) isn’t exactly the same as Altivec. The end result is the same. They are all brothers/cousins/etc…….
They are all SIMD engines.
Actually, altivec is a superior implimentation of the SIMD engines. Owing mainly to the difference in design between the RISC like 970 processor and x86 (which honestly is crippled in its design) So altivec could cause the performance difference, but I have a feeling its more just unoptimized code in the open-source/windows programs at this point.
anyone tried this on x64 windows? with an x64 version of a app to see if it plays better?
I just did. It’s only a bit faster than mplayer (~2 fps) with the SAME visual artifacts! Nowhere near QuickTime or the Moonlight player!
With the latest version of the Moonlight player, while videos are still choppy, the quality is amazing. Just seeing the green rating screen at the start in HD is nice. I’m waiting to see what QT 7 on Windows looks like, should be swell. Compression artifacts and the like are not noticable, far better than, say, WMV at hi-def.
(Note: 1GB RAM, Athlon XP 2700+ CPU, 9800 Pro video. The HD trailers are very viewable, but they slow pretty badly at some parts. The resolution is worth it, though.)
On a 466Mhz G3 “special edition” original ibook and the Kingdom of Heaven trailer: 0 fps in all sizes, but the audio played great in them all :-).
11 to 13 fps for Serenity and 24fps for Kingdom of Heaven.
If Apple can combine elements of QTSS, iTMS except for video and some type of device like an Airport Express with video out then Apple has another winner.
I know that these devices already exist but it would be interesting the level of integration that they can do.
Paid music downloads existed before the iTMS, hardly an original concept but the execution of the iTMS seems to be better than all of its competitors so far.
Linux/FreeBSD are still real bad regarding HD h.264 support (Xine, VLC, Totem crash when loading such a clip, only mplayer handles it – just very slowly and with random trash on the playback screen), hopefully we will see some serious optimizations and fixes soon because that HD h.264 stuff are really exciting!
Please learn to distinguish between transport encapsulation and a/v elementary streams. One does not have to encapsulate H264 video streams in a .MOV transport. I have source material of H264 done in a MPEG2 transport that plays fine on VLC.
To answer another question, slow computers will not benefit from a codec that requires multiple times more processing power. Why is it that people do not understand the fact that the right way to handle these new codecs is via adding a DSP to the system. Example: H.264 is not being considered for e.g. mobile phone use because of the high power consumption required for decoding.
If anyone attended NAB last month you would have seen dozens of DSP and silicon-embedded H.264 solutions. Apple is not the first.
BTW the screenshot is *not* displaying a decode of true 1080p even though it is labeled as such. As per spec, the vertical component must be 1080 lines. The fact that the image is at 2.35:1 aspect ratio and has been cropped means you are cheating on decode cycles. A true 1080p decode in this frame ratio would display as 1920x1080p anamorphic.
Sounds like you are the one who is taking personally my mplayer remarks and replies in a disguised personal attack towards me. Look pal, currently THERE IS NO REAL SOLUTION ON LINUX FOR HD-h.264. You like it or not, I don’t care, because that’s the REALITY of it.
I assume you mean for consumer use, because for professional use I would lose count of all the settopboxes, reference platforms, development tools and codec SDKs for H.264 that are *linux only*.
And don’t forget that this is a 2.8 GHz LinuxCertified P4 laptop.
2.8Ghz is not enough to decode H.264 1080p. 3.5Ghz may be pushing it still.
>2.8Ghz is not enough to decode H.264 1080p. 3.5Ghz may be pushing it still.
The Mac can do it with a single 2 GHz G5. If the Mac can do that, a 2.6 GHz P4 should be able to do so too with no major pain.
with 1.25Gb’s of RAM (Radeon 9600) – yes, it does hit 24fps in places…
Example: H.264 is not being considered for e.g. mobile phone use because of the high power consumption required for decoding.
The last I heard, it was being considered for mobile phone use, because whilst it requires a lot of processor power, it requires less bandwidth for the quality you get (or higher quality for the same bandwidth).
Read what Apple says – http://www.apple.com/mpeg4/h264faq.html – “Internet-sized content (40kbps – 300kbps) will run on the most basic of processors, like those in mobile phones and consumer-level computers … And in the mobile arena, H.264 has been adopted by the 3GPP (for GSM) organization and is under final consideration with the 3GPP2 (for CDMA2000) organization.”
The Mac can do it with a single 2 GHz G5. If the Mac can do that, a 2.6 GHz P4 should be able to do so too with no major pain.
1080p30? Unfortunately not. As for the Mac, Motion and QT both spec *dual* 2Ghz G5s for 1080p as a minimum. Is there something you know that we don’t? If you don’t know and haven’t tested it first hand, why do you open your yap?
The last I heard, it was being considered for mobile phone use, because whilst it requires a lot of processor power
Note where I said *power* consumption, not processor usage. MPEG4 ASP is the current candidate until these problems are solved. You get your facts from a FAQ on Apple’s site – I get mine from engineering folks at Siemens and others working on handset prototypes for 3GPP, DVB-H and so forth. Which one has more validity? Marketing?
I’ve seen H.264 decode @320×144 on a 400Mhz ARM pocketpc reference platform – the framerate is 7-10fps with the CPU clipped. Nuf said.
Who the hell care about Apple and h264. I got my divx.
>Who the hell care about Apple and h264. I got my divx.
People who want to download the latest Star Wars movie in better quality and at half the time than your divx can.
I’ve seen H.264 decode @320×144 on a 400Mhz ARM pocketpc reference platform – the framerate is 7-10fps with the CPU clipped. Nuf said.
No, not really.
The entire point of this thread is that Apple’s decoder uses way less processor time (and yeah, the above quote is referring to processor time) than anyone else’s. So why not for mobile too? That mobile decoder that you saw could probably do with heavy optimisation.
In the future, the limiting factor will probably be bandwidth, not processor usage (i.e. a similar situation to wired networks and PCs). So something like H.264 is definitely something to be considered.
I’m going to assume you meant to say “the latest Star Wars movie” trailer. 😉
Does anyone know how much Apple ofloads this onto the GPU? That may be something the Linux and Windows alternatives don’t do very well yet. Also, how optimized is it for dual processors? Anyone got a powermac to check how much each processor is being utilized?
I have a dual G4 powermac, but it’s turned off now, I will check it tomorrow.
No, not really.
Processor time does not equal power consumption levels. What part of this don’t you understand? The example has nothing to do with the power consumption issue, but rather the soft-decode issue on small platforms.
In the future we will come to our senses and offload this decoding from the host CPU. Heck, the hardware and chipsets are already available (Equator, etc.).
It seems crazy that any movie format should play so slowly on such high end hardware. I can play back DVDs and movies encoded with DivX, XviD, etc. on a 533Mhz Celeron. I know that h.264 is much higher quality, but is the difference enough to justify such slow speed?
When is Quicktime 7 for PC coming out, anyway??
in a few weeks i guess.
Sounds like half-baked technology too me. If the incredibly slow rate of playback is only due to badly implemented codecs then of course the blame lies at the doorstep of those who write the codecs-but if significant optimization work has been done on codecs by people who have full access to the range of specification for said protocol/format then one must rule that the protocol/format itself is simply bunk. On the other hand one must lament that PC manufacturers should have been pursuing strategies for offloading things from the cpu and using specific hardware for specific functions(ie.dsp)-from this vantage point, architecturally, things like the old amiga’s and atari’s were superior to their PC brethren from day one.
h264 could be interesting, snow is more.
( http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=84593&highlight=s… )
How do you download the HD trailers from Apples site from an PC? The Click to Play link only gives you on error message or an very short .mov file.
Processor time does not equal power consumption levels. What part of this don’t you understand? The example has nothing to do with the power consumption issue, but rather the soft-decode issue on small platforms.
I didn’t talk about power consumption, but to be clear, let’s set that aside and focus solely on processor time.
Visit http://blogs.shintak.info/articles/4567.aspx – that has benchmarks on video decoding rates on Palm OS (there’s a similar page there for Pocket PC). For example, the Treo 650 (if we’re talking smartphones) can handle LQB (that’s 320×176 DivX at 250Kbit) at 240% of realtime, or about 57fps.
H.264 is more complicated than DivX, but you’re claiming that it’s something like 5-6x as slow. I doubt it’s that much more complicated.
I have a dual G4 PowerMac. H.264 works great for me. I have to be honest and say that the audio seems to be a tad out of sync with the video. Otherwise it works great and the quality of the image is simply superior. And that’s on a generic monitor, not an Apple monitor [it must be really sexy on an Apple monitor].
@Karl
If the Amiga had been allowed to continue to thrive and innovate at the level it had when it was first introduced, it would smoke anything you cared to mention. A truly superior machine. Power to the end user for so little money it was hilarious.
The guys who made the Amiga were lightyears ahead of the rest of the pack.
No use crying over spilled milk but I adored that puppy
.
The PC world should not be too disheartened. You’ll get H.264 soon enough.
The Linux world will have to sacrifice a goat to Linus probably, but they will get there too, eventually, some day. Doesn’t have to be this decade. It’s just a codec, don’t hyperventilate about a coded.
Them’s mighty purty pitchurs tho’.
>How do you download the HD trailers from Apples site from an PC?
The Serenity and BBC clips are available for downloading as .zip files, just look at their pages at apple.com.
The Serenity and BBC clips are available for downloading as .zip files, just look at their pages at apple.com
I only see the 1080p versions being available for download. Some people talked about playing the 720p trailers: how did they download them? I tried several urls derived from the 1080p zip files, but no luck.
“Dropped frames”??? Maybe on your PC, sister, but my measly Athlon 64 2800+ running MCE 2005 chews up H.264 and spits out a smooth 24 fps. I’m sorry to be so contrary on my very first post, but, after years of lurking (and enjoying) OSnews, I can’t keep my mouth shut on this one.
It makes me furious to see such an ill-informed claim, when I have been happily encoding and decoding H.264/AVC at HD resolution on my Windows boxes for *MONTHS* before Apple saw fit to release QT7. Nero AVC and x264 are both fine encoders, and Nero and FFDshow have no trouble with decoding. Just go to doom9.org and look back through the zillions of posts regarding H.264 by people who know what they are talking about.
I am no PC “fanboy”, I have a Mac, too, and I am glad that Apple has finally jumped on the bandwagon. But when I have serious video encoding/playback or home theater tasks, there is no question that a PC is the best tool for the job. My iBook is fine for checking my email at Starbuck’s or playing a DVD on a plane, but that’s about it.
I’m simply sick and tired of seeing Apple and it’s supporters act like they invented everything, when PC folks have been slogging in the mud doing the dirty work of testing for months, even years before an Apple release. Hell, I was compiling the JM H.264 reference encoder over a year ago, when QT7 wasn’t even a rumor yet. Apple pulled this same crap with MP4 audio, outrageously claiming to be “first” with AAC, when peeps like me were encoding/decoding with Psytel, FAAC/FAAD, Nero, etc. on our PCs for AAC support for *YEARS* before Apple delivered. Unbelievable!
I suggest you read the discussion before posting this. I already said that I did not use Nero because there is no free demo available to try, I do not own that proprietary software.
As for ffdshow, I already tried it and it uses the same trick like mplayer for HD videos: has framedropping OFF (meaning that it DOES drop frames when used realtime). Also, ffdshow has visual artifacts on the Apple clips, just like mplayer does.
Please note that this article was based on Apple’s HD clips, not on other h.264 formats. Download the Serenity .zip file, play it with your Nero and then tell us how well it performs.
When you say your PC chews up h264…. are you talking about HD content? I could also play h264 content with VLC on my PC as long as I kept lower (divx-like) resolutions. Playing 1080p is not the same as the usual 640×200 you get on downloaded movies or so.
Right now, h264 is already a good solution to replace divx at the same resolutions. You get a smaller file and a higher quality.
You’re comparing Granny Smiths to Crab apples.
To get a closer comparison try some of these 720p Divx files.
http://www.divx.com/hd/
Note the recommended spec 2.4 Ghz PC, 384 MB RAM, 64 MB Video RAM
The recommended 720p spec for h.264 is
For 1280×720 (720p) video at 24-30 frames per second:
1.8 GHz PowerMac G5 or faster Macintosh computer
At least 256 MB of RAM
64 MB or greater video card
Sorry for the lame question:
Where can I find that wallpaper (in your screenshot)?
Very cool. Thnx!
Check out this thread to see how I played back a couple of the new Apple trailers (lazyn00b’s 3rd post):
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=534980&pe…
Both the ones I tried were 720p, I’ll try one of the 1080p ones and report back. Note that the FFDshow is the very latest from 04/06/2005, and I had to remux the streams into Matroska (MPC was choking on the .mov).
I suggest you read the discussion before posting this. I already said that I did not use Nero because there is no free demo available to try, I do not own that proprietary software.
But you own Mac OSX and Quicktime. You would need Quicktime Pro to actually encode H264.
Are all of the above mentioned pieces of software free and open source?
If not, would you care to explain why you choose to exclude Nero for being “proprietary” but not OSX / Quicktime?
>You would need Quicktime Pro to actually encode H264.
You are wrong. h.264 works with QuickTime 7 for Mac. No PRO is required.
>If not, would you care to explain why you choose to exclude Nero for being “proprietary” but not OSX / Quicktime?
I DID NOT exclude it for this reason. Neither I excluded it in the first place. I simply DO NOT have a demo of it! I am not going to buy that software just to try out the Serenity Trailer. Some common sense please!
If Nero wants me to try it out for this article, they should send me an evaluation version and I will more than happily try it out.
Just played serenity 1080p on my 2×2.5GHz G5. Awesome picture on the HD Cinema display 🙂
24frames, no trouble at all, both CPU’s around 60-65%
Okay Eugenia, I just tried serenity_1080p and batman_begins_1080p with both the FFDshow and Nero decoders, with MPC as the player. All tests were done with H.264 stream only (not the audio) remuxed into an .mkv file.
Results: FFDshow crashes on both after a few crap frames; Nero does fine, no artifacts at all, averaging about 23 fps at near 100% CPU usage. One dropped frame per second is not to be noticed, but surely your 3 Ghz P4 could squeak out that last frame
>Please note that this article was based on Apple’s HD clips, not on other h.264 formats.
Wouldn’t it better to use a neutral file source for a comparsion?
Maybe those files are specialy encoded to run on Apples only, or at least much better.
Another thing ist that 1080p resolution.
Does you own a display with a resolution of 1920×1080 pixel?
If not, playing 1080p files doesen’t make any sence and performance lack maybe influcend by the downsizing of the video.
Most HD Displays needs 2 Graphics Cards for the full resolution. Have you testet it with 2 gfx boards?
Btw., does Apple support SLI?
Also i agree to the statement that you pointed out Nero as proprietery (and therefore not useable) but QT7 not.
Nero comes with most CD/DVD Burners for nothing. So most people own it already.
Btw.: How widely is H.264 used for HDTV?
I tried out a view HDTV trailers a few month ago and they played very smoothly, just like a normal DVD, with Power DVD on Windows. But i don’t know which codecs where used in those samples.
Frankly, some of these post sounds like the world is going to end because PC have currently inferiors codec for H264 ?
Come on, I know this forum is full of people very interested in technology, but who *really* cares if the codec on PC catchup in 6 months? a year?
It isn’t as if the current quality of video codec that we have is poor, they’re very good!
H264 is even better on Apple?
Great for them, but very, very few people really care.
Apple pulled this same crap with MP4 audio, outrageously claiming to be “first” with AAC, when peeps like me were encoding/decoding with Psytel, FAAC/FAAD, Nero, etc. on our PCs for AAC support for *YEARS* before Apple delivered. Unbelievable!
Sounds like you have a pretty big chip on your shoulder. Your whole post seems to scream “I did this”, and “I’ve done that”, and “I’m so sick of others getting credit”…
Maybe you should look into why this bothers you so much, rather than attacking others whoo didn’t give you the credit you seem to feel you deserve (oh… you and other “peeps” such as yourself, of course). This thread is simply a debate… Not an attack on you personally (although that may change, based on the tone of your post).
And as much as Eugenia can get off track sometimes, you’re the one out of line here! She clearly stated she didn’t use Nero in her post. Maybe you should read more next time before exploding with your “me, me, me” posts, and attacking others points of view.
>And as much as Eugenia can get off track sometimes, you’re >the one out of line here! She clearly stated she didn’t >use Nero in her post.
But the headline and the first part of the text (whis is visible at the main page of OS News) says clearly that it PC Support for H.264 ranges from bad to terrible.
This is simoply not true, if the the probably best player for the pc isn’t tested.
What about the h.264 supprt of the Mac without QT7?
I didn’t read anything how good or terrible the support is with older QT’s or other player on the mac.
To write a comparsion, without the apps widely used by the users and then come to the conclusion that one platform is better than the other one, is simply stupid.
I’ll give some some H.264 a try by myself when i am at home, to see it for myself.
Frankly, some of these post sounds like the world is going to end because PC have currently inferiors codec for H264 ?
Come on, I know this forum is full of people very interested in technology, but who *really* cares if the codec on PC catchup in 6 months? a year?
Exactly. In fact, HD H.264 will be irrelevant until PCs, HDTV video players with hardware codecs/ASIC or even Mac Minis will play them back correctly. Of course, those who bought a 2000$ PowerMac will have the bragging rights for being the first to play HD content but it’s not like I really care.
people are confusing HD and h.264. You don’t need sweet hardware to play h.264 content. You do need sweet hardware to play 1080p video encoded with h.264. But if you have a screen big enough for that, I imagine you’ve got sweet hardware. And, it doesn’t matter what codec you’re using if you want to play 1080p video, you’re going to need some muscle.
Mplayer OS X does not “remember” the playlist file location properly. just open it, insert some files in playlist and play, then close the app, reopen and try to double click on playlist files, its a no-go.
other than that, it seems it plays slower eg. worse the same xvid files that played fine under panther. the hardware is poor (g3-500) but the change is noticeable very much
can anyone confirm this incompatibilities and maybe have some solution? (apart from waiting for next mplayer os x build)
talking about the build from http://mplayerosx.sourceforge.net/
H.264 is more complicated than DivX, but you’re claiming that it’s something like 5-6x as slow. I doubt it’s that much more complicated.
Wow. Our discussion is over.
So, Apple finally came out with HD video. I was wondering when they would get around to it. Sure took them awhile.
Microsoft came out with their own WMV HD standard some time ago. Check out the following link for trailers & details:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/content_provider/film…
The DivX group has a 720p HD version too.
http://www.divx.com/hd/
Not sure what all the excitement is about. Is Apple HD better than the others? Or probably because it is new? Now we will have WMV, MOV, & DivX HD formats to view. More choice for people.
Even WMV 1080p has fairly high system requirements (check link above) – compared to Apple 1080p requirements. You better have a top end system to view 1080p clips – no matter if Mac or x86.
*720p HD video appears to have somewhat reasonable hardware requirements for viewing & probably what most will choose to use.
why are companies never learn?
Why they are fighting for every new file format?
It would be much better for all of us if they use or define open standard formats.
Microsoft provides “their” HD Videos as .EXE files, just to make people think that it is possible to view such content with windows only.
what a bad world.
I’m anxiously awaiting this release, but if you goto quicktime.com and look at the alt text for the “Quicktime 7 for Windows Coming Soon” graphic, it says “Windows PREVIEW Coming Soon”. Sounds like we may be getting a beta to start? I hope not.
The best H.264 encoder/decoder resides within Nero 6.6 — it won the various doom9 tests.
Hi.
I have a Pentium 4 HT 3Ghz with 1 GB ram and a Geforce 4 TI4200, running XP SP2.
Using this build of MPlayer win32:
http://oss.netfarm.it/mplayer/gui/mplayer-gui-rtm-cvs-20050430.zip
(already with GUI, the same as in Linux)
And this codec pack for MPlayer:
http://www1.mplayerhq.hu/MPlayer/releases/codecs/windows-all-200504…
I was able to play almost perfectly the Batman Begins 720 trailer. The only quick I noticed were some sound issues, in parts when the sound increases. Maybe it’s a problem with the codec or the file, I don’t know…
If you can’t, like me, wait for Quicktime 7 PC, I suggest you try this player.
Sorry about my admittedly aggressive post. Any emotion therein comes from the painful thought that thousands of people may read Eugenia’s verdict on the “sorry state of proper h.264 support on the PC” and conclude that they must rush out and spend hundreds/thousands of $ on a Mac if they want decent H.264 playback – simply on the basis of a casual and incomplete test of a couple trailers (made more difficult by Apple’s stubborn insistence on using their proprietary MOV container format).
Did anyone even consider that Apple’s 1080p trailers may contain non-conformant streams to begin with, thus the blame might not lie with FFDshow’s or mplayer’s decoders? In any case, Nero’s decoder is perfectly serviceable for playing 1080p H.264, even on a system slightly slower than Eugenia’s, and a whole lot cheaper than throwing out your P4 and buying a new Mac. To say that the state of H.264 playback on the PC is “sorry” is simply a misrepresentation of the facts. Nero has been excellent in providing PC users with proper H.264 encoding (and decoding) of HD material for quite some time now – Nero deserves a bit more credit than has been shown here.
Edit:
Add the trailers for Serenity and Kindgom of Heaven (both 720). Flawlessly with MPlayer.
> Hi.
>
> I have a Pentium 4 HT 3Ghz with 1 GB ram and a Geforce 4
> TI4200, running XP SP2.
>
> Using this build of MPlayer win32:
> http://oss.netfarm.it/mplayer/gui/mplayer-gui-rtm-cvs-20050430.zip
> (already with GUI, the same as in Linux)
>
> And this codec pack for MPlayer:
> http://www1.mplayerhq.hu/MPlayer/releases/codecs/windows-all-200504…..
>
> I was able to play almost perfectly the Batman Begins 720
> trailer. The only quick I noticed were some sound issues,
> in parts when the sound increases. Maybe it’s a problem
> with the codec or the file, I don’t know…
>
> If you can’t, like me, wait for Quicktime 7 PC, I suggest
> you try this player.
>Add the trailers for Serenity and Kindgom of Heaven (both 720). Flawlessly with MPlayer.
No, the article is based on the **HD** version of the trailers, not the 720p and the smaller h.264. This article is about HD more and foremost. I also installed the windows mplayer you linked and tried my HD trailer of Serenity and it has the EXACT SAME problems as it has under Linux! 1 fps (when framedropping is ON) and it’s full of visual artifacts!
Please try the HD version of the trailer, the one contained in the .zip file at apple.com
720p is detailed in the ATSC standards as a valid HD resolution. A little reading at http://www.atsc.org would make for a more informed article, methinks.
I don’t care if it’s valid or not. What I tested was 1080p (and that’s the format I am interested in more than the 720p). My tests were based on that.
Unfortunately for you, the format that will likely be used most for digital broadcasts will be 720p.
For the next issue, what you tested (1920×816) was not true 1080p.
First problem – your 1920×816 resolution file is missing almost 25% of the pixels for a true 1920x1080p image. Usually 1920x1080p at 2.35:1 aspect ratio is anamorphically encoded allowing full frame size. So your tests are completely inaccurate.
Second, it was also in the MOV transport which is not what digital broadcasters are/will be using for H.264 (and also requires more CPU power to parse than an MPEG TS).
Last, you slam Linux decoders because they do not accurately reproduce your incorrect test methodologies. And then you say you don’t care if your facts are incorrect (ala 720p not being HD).
Please read the specifications (like TS 101 154 at http://www.etsi.org) before spouting nonsense.
Yes, this review was for 1080p, because it needs higher system requirements than 720p. Both 1080p & 720p are high definition.
For Microsoft WMV HD,
720p – 2.4Ghz Cpu, 384MB Ram, 64MB Video
1080p – 3Ghz Cpu, 512MB Ram, 128MB Video (probably R 9500+ or GF 5600+)
I believe these requirements will hold true for Apple HD too. Will see for sure once QT for Windows is released, because right now there really isn’t a very good way to play HD MOV files in Windows (my opinion). Hope QT does it better than the current solutions.
“Just played serenity 1080p on my 2×2.5GHz G5. Awesome picture on the HD Cinema display 🙂
24frames, no trouble at all, both CPU’s around 60-65%”
Ok, someone with a dual processor G5 Mac played the 1080p version. Assume he averaged 62.5% on both cpus. 2 cpus @ 2.5Ghz = 5Ghz (total) * 62.5% = 3.13Ghz (to play the 1080p trailer) on a Mac. Think about it. Took close to 3.13Ghz processing power to play a 1080p clip on the Mac.
So, I’m not sure how well a P4 3Ghz will do it when QT for Windows comes out, but we’ll just have to see. And I hope it has identical requirements to WMV HD.
“Right now, h264 is already a good solution to replace divx at the same resolutions. You get a smaller file and a higher quality.”
Can it be play on a standalone player?
I can play HD divx video on my divx player.
I just played this in full screen mode on a 733Mhz Digital Audio machine with 1.5GB Ram. I run at 1920 x 1200 on a Sony 24$ using an ATI retail 9800 board. I still have 10.3.9 on this machine with Quicktime 7 Pro. this is 1280 x 532
Perfect!
NASA Shuttle 1280 x 720 stutters.
BBC 1080p stop action. Too many dropped frames.
On a digital Audio w/ dual 1.8Gig 7447, also 1.5 GB Ram, 10.3.9:
Fantastic Four Perfect.
NASA shuttle Perfect.
BBC stutters. Not too bad.
Eugenia, try MPlayer from CVS and the visual artifacts will disappear. I can’t comment on speed, because my Athlon XP 2400+ is certainly not fast enough.