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New High Quality Video Codec (h.264)

MacRumors

MacRumors

macrumors bot
Apr 12, 2001
63,537
30,847
MacCentral reports on Apple demoing a new high quality video codec at the NAB conference.

The newest HD codec is called h.264 or "MPEG-4 Part 10" and represents a "flexible and very high-quality codec"

Unlike other codecs, h.264 is scalable, allowing content creators to write their content for everything from the newest 3G phones to HD, and everything in between.
Click to expand...

As an open codec, there were a number of companies demonstrating h.264, though Microsoft was notably absent.
 
jaesk8er

jaesk8er

macrumors member
Jan 30, 2003
52
0
Bay Area
Is there going to be a higher quality DVD comming out I know about the Blue lazer but thought that was for recording HD TV
 
L

lepwisk

macrumors newbie
Jan 13, 2004
14
0
Toronto
This potentially makes me very happy. h.263 has been my favoured codec for a while now. I've found it much better than Sorenson 3 for video with a lot of motion. QT's MPEG-4 implementation has really sucked up until now. It has pretty lousy scanning artifacts, takes a long time to compress from raw DV, and doesn't really compress files any smaller than h.263. Not to mention that MPEG-4 has no compatibility with QT5 or earlier, although it's doubtful that h.264 will either... Backwards compatibility was definitely a strength of h.263

This should necessitate Apple upgrading QT to 6.6. How else to get the codec distributed to everyone? I doubt they'd leave adding such a major enhancement to each users discretion.

cheers, lk
 
nuckinfutz

nuckinfutz

macrumors 603
Jul 3, 2002
5,539
406
Middle Earth
We are desperately in need of a major QT rewrite.

AVC support is a step in the right direction but it's time that QT became
much more modern. QT is the reason why Final Cut Pro can playback 24 tracks of audio but cannot capture more than a stereo track.

I'm hoping to see QT become better at multitasking and it's core revamped. Who cares if it breaks legacy apps to a certain extend. QT 7 needs to be the new foundation for multimedia on Macs.

Apple will also need to support MPEG2 Transport Streams for easy HDV support for Final Cut Pro 5 and other video apps. How about improved scalers and deinterlacing? Audio should be beefed up to handle infinite Audio Ins limited only by hardware.

Hell add OpenGl and the ability to handle overlays and other broadcast effects right in QT. Imagine if QT gave developers the base features to create Home Theater PC applications very easily. That would rock. I have high hope for Apple with QT.

Plus document it very well and push it for developers. You know the first Multimedia wave was a joke by todays standards. We were happy then to have sound video and computer graphics all in one place. Today multimedia means surround sound, 3D and robust video. It's time to get QT caught up
 
nuckinfutz

nuckinfutz

macrumors 603
Jul 3, 2002
5,539
406
Middle Earth
jaesk8er said:
Is there going to be a higher quality DVD comming out I know about the Blue lazer but thought that was for recording HD TV
Click to expand...


You're talking about Sony's Blu-Ray discs. They use a Blue laser of course and hold up to 50GB of MPEG2 data on a disck

http://www.blu-ray.com/

The DVD-Forum however has chosed the HW from Toshiba called AOD which uses smaller discs which are 25GB max I believe but they use a more efficient Codec called AVC to cram 4 hrs of HiDefinition video in the same space it takes Blu Ray 50GB. That's how efficient AVC will be and this is the new codec we're talking about. AVC is the official name for h.264.

This is great news. Apple will have native support for two out of 3 mandatory codecs for the next HiDef specification(these are VC9 from Microsloth, AVC and MPEG2)
 
musicpyrite

musicpyrite

macrumors 68000
Jan 6, 2004
1,639
0
Cape Cod
I think this will lead to QuickTime 6.6/7 and maby, Apple will start shipping PowerMac G5s with the ability to read Blu-Ray disks. Or Apple could ship PowerMacs with the ability to burn DVD9 disks, instead of the lousy DVD5 that only hold 4.7 GB.

What ever happens, this will result in a new QuickTime Pro version, get your credit card ready. :)
 
D

djdarlek

macrumors regular
Oct 10, 2003
130
0
asim said:
my prediction is that quicktime 7 will be released to coincide with the release of the trailer for star wars episode iii...

afc
Click to expand...

along the same lines.. why not a Pixar feature?

:)
 
A

asim

macrumors member
Jun 30, 2003
46
15
charlottesville, va
djdarlek said:
along the same lines.. why not a Pixar feature?

:)
Click to expand...

i think it will coincide with the release of starwars episode iii for a couple reasons

1- more people will watch a starwars trailer
2- the people that will watch it are likely to want to see it enough to download a new version of quicktime to be able to see it
3- i believe that the episode i teaser required quicktime 3 and/or the episode 1 trailer required quicktime 4 (first deployment of quicktime 4)
4- the episode ii teaser/trailer required quicktime 5 (first deployment of quicktime 5)
5- the timing of the release of the teaser (probably this fall) and the trailer (winter) are about right for a major revamp for quicktime

hopefully this will continue... maybe a quicktime 7 surround sound trailer? my fingers are crossed

afc
 
Rincewind42

Rincewind42

macrumors 6502a
Mar 3, 2003
620
0
Orlando, FL
nuckinfutz said:
We are desperately in need of a major QT rewrite.

AVC support is a step in the right direction but it's time that QT became
much more modern. QT is the reason why Final Cut Pro can playback 24 tracks of audio but cannot capture more than a stereo track.

I'm hoping to see QT become better at multitasking and it's core revamped. Who cares if it breaks legacy apps to a certain extend. QT 7 needs to be the new foundation for multimedia on Macs.

Apple will also need to support MPEG2 Transport Streams for easy HDV support for Final Cut Pro 5 and other video apps. How about improved scalers and deinterlacing? Audio should be beefed up to handle infinite Audio Ins limited only by hardware.

Hell add OpenGl and the ability to handle overlays and other broadcast effects right in QT. Imagine if QT gave developers the base features to create Home Theater PC applications very easily. That would rock. I have high hope for Apple with QT.

Plus document it very well and push it for developers. You know the first Multimedia wave was a joke by todays standards. We were happy then to have sound video and computer graphics all in one place. Today multimedia means surround sound, 3D and robust video. It's time to get QT caught up
Click to expand...

You have absolutly no idea how much I agree with you in this statement. Fortunately, Quicktime seems to be recieving a lot of attention from Apple, and I hope that they can managed to do a lot of the work they have planned. Just wish that they would give developers more of a look at what those plans are :( .
 
0

0 and A ai

macrumors regular
Jan 12, 2004
171
0
musicpyrite said:
I think this will lead to QuickTime 6.6/7 and maby, Apple will start shipping PowerMac G5s with the ability to read Blu-Ray disks. Or Apple could ship PowerMacs with the ability to burn DVD9 disks, instead of the lousy DVD5 that only hold 4.7 GB.

What ever happens, this will result in a new QuickTime Pro version, get your credit card ready. :)
Click to expand...

They already ship dual layer burners in the powermacs. The Pioneer A-07 drive has been demonstrated by pioneer as being able to burn dual layer disc with a firmware update that is coming this summer.

The next revision will probably have this as an advertisesd feauture since manufacturers will have these drives shipping in may and june which matches up for wwdc.
 
Mr.Hey

Mr.Hey

macrumors 6502
Jul 17, 2002
370
0
nuckinfutz said:
We are desperately in need of a major QT rewrite.

AVC support is a step in the right direction but it's time that QT became
much more modern. QT is the reason why Final Cut Pro can playback 24 tracks of audio but cannot capture more than a stereo track.

I'm hoping to see QT become better at multitasking and it's core revamped. Who cares if it breaks legacy apps to a certain extend. QT 7 needs to be the new foundation for multimedia on Macs.

Apple will also need to support MPEG2 Transport Streams for easy HDV support for Final Cut Pro 5 and other video apps. How about improved scalers and deinterlacing? Audio should be beefed up to handle infinite Audio Ins limited only by hardware.

Hell add OpenGl and the ability to handle overlays and other broadcast effects right in QT. Imagine if QT gave developers the base features to create Home Theater PC applications very easily. That would rock. I have high hope for Apple with QT.

Plus document it very well and push it for developers. You know the first Multimedia wave was a joke by todays standards. We were happy then to have sound video and computer graphics all in one place. Today multimedia means surround sound, 3D and robust video. It's time to get QT caught up
Click to expand...

I'm sure Apple realizes all this and with user feedback(arm-twisting) we'll get these features RSN. :D ;) Keep sending in your requests.
 
B

Bendit

macrumors regular
Jul 22, 2003
226
0
Toronto, Canada
I'd love to see a brand new version of Quicktime, it's definately my least favourite Apple app. The interface is clunky and it's such a pain to get any of the latest codecs to work with it.
 
stoid

stoid

macrumors 601
Feb 17, 2002
4,312
29
So long, and thanks for all the fish!
QuickTime is definitely in need of a serious overhaul. Anyone have dates on version release dates. It seems that we are due for QuickTime 7 soon here. I think that WWDC would be prime candidate, since that's where Pixlet was announced last time.
 
Windowlicker

Windowlicker

macrumors 6502a
Feb 17, 2003
713
1
Finland
nuckinfutz said:
We are desperately in need of a major QT rewrite.
Click to expand...

yes indeed. what would be great is if H264 could replace Xvid and divx.. I don't know too much about this stuff, but if I understood what people are saying here, the 264 could do this. The fact is that the quicktime mpeg4 is horrible compared to xvid, but I guess they are for a bit different purposes anyway.

My point is (if there really is one) that I'd like Quicktime to be my primary player again (instead of MPlayer, which is nice, but not as nice as quicktime), but I need to be able to encode my movies to a reasonable size (I rather don't use the DVD.. much easier just to doubleclick a file) so that I can still watch them with QT without any hassle.
 
A

asim

macrumors member
Jun 30, 2003
46
15
charlottesville, va
dual layer, not +/-

0 and A ai said:
They already ship dual layer burners in the powermacs. The Pioneer A-07 drive has been demonstrated by pioneer as being able to burn dual layer disc with a firmware update that is coming this summer.

The next revision will probably have this as an advertisesd feauture since manufacturers will have these drives shipping in may and june which matches up for wwdc.
Click to expand...

the a-07 drive can burn 4.7gb dvd-r and dvd+r discs, but macs cannot currently tap the +r technology until this firmware update you mention.

however, these are both single-layer discs. dual layer discs can hold about 9gb of data... the first burners for these are just coming out and have yet to be standard issue in any consumer system offered by apple. yet...
 
A

asim

macrumors member
Jun 30, 2003
46
15
charlottesville, va
T'hain Esh Kelch said:
QT 7.5 maybe. SW Ep. III isnt out until summer 2005.
Click to expand...

episode iii comes out 5/19/05

therefore, a teaser may come out late this fall and a trailer in the winter

that might be appropriate time frame for quicktime 7...

afc
 
I

Ibjr

macrumors 6502a
Jun 29, 2002
513
21
Eastern seaboard
This is great news

The folks at doom9 (sorta like the HQ of the vids for the PC) have looked at this format, we couldn't get it to encode in realtime (VSS has a new one out and they claim it does)), but its quality has been great.

THis is BIG news.
 
mcdermd

mcdermd

macrumors regular
Mar 17, 2004
181
4
asim said:
the a-07 drive can burn 4.7gb dvd-r and dvd+r discs, but macs cannot currently tap the +r technology until this firmware update you mention.

however, these are both single-layer discs. dual layer discs can hold about 9gb of data... the first burners for these are just coming out and have yet to be standard issue in any consumer system offered by apple. yet...
Click to expand...

Au contraier:
cdfreaks.com said:
Pioneer demonstrates dual layer recording at CES, only firmware modification needed
Posted by Jan Willem on 12 January 2004 - 15:33 - Source: AVWatch


Pioneer has demonstrated dual layer burning during the CES, the technology exhibition in Las Vegas. The company succeeded recording to two layers DVD-R in October 2003 and now firstly publicly demonstrated the technology. In the booth of the RWPPI (RW Products Promotion Initiative) they wrote 100 MB to each layer. The discs were read back by a normal DVD player.

Intresting however is that the company used a Pioneer A06 burner with only a modified firmware. According to the company only a firmware modification is needed in order to make a DVD-R drive write dual layer discs. The disc was written at 2 speed. The DVD-R dual layer specifications have not yet been passed by the DVD Forum.

http://www.cdfreaks.com/news/8861
Click to expand...
 
Some_Big_Spoon

Some_Big_Spoon

macrumors 6502a
Jun 17, 2003
855
0
New York, NY
This may have already been written, but the Episode 2 trailer requicked QT5 Pro to view at the"large" setting.. That made soooooo many people unhappy, that they eventually dropped it down to standard QT5 after a time.

asim said:
i think it will coincide with the release of starwars episode iii for a couple reasons

1- more people will watch a starwars trailer
2- the people that will watch it are likely to want to see it enough to download a new version of quicktime to be able to see it
3- i believe that the episode i teaser required quicktime 3 and/or the episode 1 trailer required quicktime 4 (first deployment of quicktime 4)
4- the episode ii teaser/trailer required quicktime 5 (first deployment of quicktime 5)
5- the timing of the release of the teaser (probably this fall) and the trailer (winter) are about right for a major revamp for quicktime

hopefully this will continue... maybe a quicktime 7 surround sound trailer? my fingers are crossed

afc
Click to expand...
 
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