Results tagged “H.264” from Stream #0

As could probably be predicted, there's been a lot more press around WebM over the last ten days or so. A few articles are worth noting.

In August 2009, Google acquired codec developer On2 Technologies for a rumoured $106 million. The flagship On2 codec was VP8 and it was also rumoured at the time that Google may open source this technology in the future, although a number of challenges lay ahead.

Several months ago we posted an article about the Magic Lantern firmware for the Canon 5D Mark II video DSLR. This open source software adds functionality to the 5D that Canon didn't provide out of the box. There has been quite a lot of progress on Magic Lantern over the last few months. The latest release is version 0.1.6, but even since then further enhancements have been made, including Autoboot.

The originating creator of Magic Lantern, Trammell Hudson, recently participated in an interview available on the Cinema5d website. Here are some short excerpts from Trammell's responses:

4. What plans do you have for the new 5d firmware update? Can we expect anything beyond 24p/25p?

You would have to ask Canon about their plans...  I'll update my code to work with their new firmware once it is available.  It would really please me if Canon incorporated all of the features from Magic Lantern into their firmware.

On my roadmap for upcoming Magic Lantern releases:

* 1080i HDMI output (still having technical problems)

* SMPTE timecode jamming

* Scripting

* USB control from the Impero remote follow-focus

* Waveforms and vector scope

* Autoboot (now available)

5. On your Wikia Page you describe the Magic Lantern as " an enhancement atop of Canon's firmware that makes your 5D Mark II into the 5D Mark Free" What exactly do you mean?

Most equipment is "closed" in that what you buy is what you get. Sure, you can put it on rails, add a follow focus and mattebox, but you can't really change what is going on inside the box.  With Magic Lantern, however, the internals of the camera have been opened up so that it is possible to add new features that the manufacturer might not have ever imagined.

Read the full text of the interview over at Cinema5d.

A potentially useful enhancement to the Magic Lantern firmware would be the ability to change the codec used in the 5D Mark II. Currently, content is stored as H.264 at around 40Mbps. While this provides for some very nice high quality footage, it'd be nice if additional open source options were included, like Lagarith and Dirac Research. The Magic Lantern Wikia Discussion page has a few comments around this idea already.

In an interesting, and to be applauded, move from the BBC, they are now releasing a technology based television programme under a Creative Commons non-commercial attribution licence. R&DTV's first episode is now available for free download in a number of file formats. There is a full 30 minute version available, a shorter 5 minute highlight version, as well as a complete Asset Bundle, which includes rushes that may not have made it into the final programme versions.

The BBC's RAD blog has a launch announcement about this, followed up by another post 24 hours later outlining some small fixes.

The programme is PAL 720x576. The aspect appears to be 14:9 anamorphic. The little person inside me who wants the greatest and the best all the time, wonders why the filming wasn't done in HD, even HDV would do.

I thought the "formats" described on the R&DTV website were a bit vague. What does QuickTime format and Matroska format really mean? Sure, I know about QuickTime and Matroska containers, but this doesn't say anything about the video and audio essence contained therein. The best way to find out about this is to download each video and let FFmpeg take a look.

QuickTime Format (461.3MB):

Input #0, mov,mp4,m4a,3gp,3g2,mj2, from 'RDTV_ep1_5mins.mov':
Duration: 00:05:59.08, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 10777 kb/s
Stream #0.0(eng): Audio: pcm_s16le, 48000 Hz, stereo, s16, 1536 kb/s
Stream #0.1(eng): Video: h264, yuv420p, 720x576, 25 tbr, 25 tbn, 50 tbc

That's H.264 video with PCM audio. Strange they didn't use AAC audio in a QuickTime file. Looking at that 10Mbps bitrate though, I'm guessing perhaps the BBC is expecting people to use this version for editing. But then why use H.264, rather than something that's I-Frame only like IMX50? There's also an Uncompressed version and another QuickTime version, which we'll come to later.
 
Matroska Format (28.4MB):

Input #0, matroska, from 'RDTV_ep1_5mins.mkv':
Duration: 00:05:59.04, start: 0.000000, bitrate: N/A
Stream #0.0(eng): Video: mpeg4, yuv420p, 720x576 [PAR 1:1 DAR 5:4], 25 tbr, 1k tbn, 25 tbc
Stream #0.1(eng): Audio: aac, 48000 Hz, stereo, s16

Generic mpeg4 video this time (Xvid perhaps) and here's our AAC audio!

MP4 Format (65.4MB):

Input #0, mov,mp4,m4a,3gp,3g2,mj2, from 'RDTV_ep1_5mins.mp4':
Duration: 00:05:59.10, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 1526 kb/s
Stream #0.0(eng): Video: h264, yuv420p, 720x576 [PAR 1:1 DAR 5:4], 25 tbr, 48k tbn, 50 tbc
Stream #0.1(eng): Audio: aac, 48000 Hz, stereo, s16

H.264 video again and AAC audio again. When opening this file with Totem to view, the Comments section says "HandBrake 0.9.3 2008121800". Nice to know the BBC is using Open Source software for at least some of their video transcoding.

AVI Format (63MB):

Input #0, avi, from 'RDTV_ep1_5mins.avi':
Duration: 00:05:59.04, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 1470 kb/s
Stream #0.0: Video: mpeg4, yuv420p, 720x576 [PAR 1:1 DAR 5:4], 25 tbr, 25 tbn, 25 tbc
Stream #0.1: Audio: mp3, 48000 Hz, stereo, s16, 160 kb/s

Generic mpeg4 video again, but this time with mp3 audio.

FLV Format (37.4MB)

Input #0, flv, from 'RDTV_ep1_5mins.flv':
Duration: 00:05:59.07, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 844 kb/s
Stream #0.0: Video: vp6f, yuv420p, 1024x576, 716 kb/s, 25 tbr, 1k tbn, 1k tbc
Stream #0.1: Audio: mp3, 44100 Hz, stereo, s16, 128 kb/s

VP6 for the video codec and mp3 for the audio. No surprises there then. The bitrate is quite low though for VP6 content, quality will suffer.

Ogg Format:

Input #0, ogg, from 'RDTV_ep1_5mins.ogg':
Duration: 00:05:59.08, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 683 kb/s
Stream #0.0: Video: theora, yuv420p, 720x576, PAR 1:1 DAR 5:4, 25 tbr, 25 tbn, 25 tbc
Stream #0.1: Audio: vorbis, 48000 Hz, 5.1, s16, 516 kb/s

Theora for the video and vorbis for the audio, again no surprises there. 5.1 audio is a nice touch though. However, again, the bitrate is very low. Why would the BBC do this? The MP4 version, with H.264 video at a higher bitrate, is going to look far superior.

QuickTime 2 Format (155MB):

Input #0, mov,mp4,m4a,3gp,3g2,mj2, from 'RDTV_ep1_5mins_2.mov':
Duration: 00:05:59.08, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 3627 kb/s
Stream #0.0(eng): Audio: pcm_s16le, 48000 Hz, stereo, s16, 1536 kb/s
Stream #0.1(eng): Video: h264, yuv420p, 720x576, 25 tbr, 25 tbn, 50 tbc

H.264 video and PCM audio. This second QuickTime file is found only on the FTP site and not linked to directly from the main page. The bitrate is much lower than the previous QuickTime file.

QuickTime Uncompressed Format (7GB):

Input #0, mov,mp4,m4a,3gp,3g2,mj2, from 'RDTV_ep1_5mins_uncompressed.mov':
Duration: 00:05:59.08, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 167428 kb/s
Stream #0.0(eng): Audio: pcm_s16le, 48000 Hz, stereo, s16, 1536 kb/s
Stream #0.1(eng): Video: rawvideo, uyvy422, 720x576, 25 tbr, 25 tbn, 25 tbc

There we go, raw video in the 4:2:2 colour space at 165Mbps, with PCM audio again. I wonder whether the content was filmed at anywhere near this resolution. Given that the programme is only SD, I'm guessing that the highest quality recording would have been done direct to Digital Betacam, which is only the equivalent of 90Mbps, unless of course the whole thing was done tapeless, which I must admit to doubting.

One last puzzlement is why a Dirac version wasn't supplied, given that this is the BBC's own R&D developed codec.