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Eug · Apr 9, 2007, 11:46 PM

When is QuickTime supposed to get High Profile support for H.264 / AVC? Once Leopard is released? Anyone know? I don't think I've seen this discussed anywhere.

hmurchison2001 · Apr 10, 2007, 10:58 PM

I don't know but to freshen folks up on the Profiles. From Wikipedia.com

Profiles

The standard includes the following seven sets of capabilities, which are referred to as profiles, targeting specific classes of applications:

Baseline Profile (BP): Primarily for lower-cost applications with limited computing resources, this profile is used widely in videoconferencing and mobile applications.

Main Profile (MP): Originally intended as the mainstream consumer profile for broadcast and storage applications, the importance of this profile faded when the High profile was developed for those applications.

Extended Profile (XP): Intended as the streaming video profile, this profile has relatively high compression capability and some extra tricks for robustness to data losses and server stream switching.

High Profile (HiP): The primary profile for broadcast and disc storage applications, particularly for high-definition television applications (this is the profile adopted into HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc, for example).

High 10 Profile (Hi10P): Going beyond today's mainstream consumer product capabilities, this profile builds on top of the High Profile — adding support for up to 10 bits per sample of decoded picture precision.

High 4:2:2 Profile (Hi422P): Primarily targeting professional applications that use interlaced video, this profile builds on top of the High 10 Profile — adding support for the 4:2:2 chroma sampling format while using up to 10 bits per sample of decoded picture precision.

High 4:4:4 Predictive Profile (Hi444PP): This profile builds on top of the High 4:2:2 Profile — supporting up to 4:4:4 chroma sampling, up to 14 bits per sample, and additionally supporting efficient lossless region coding and the coding of each picture as three separate color planes.

In addition, the standard now contains four additional all-Intra profiles, which are defined as simple subsets of other corresponding profiles. These are mostly for professional (e.g., camera and editing system) applications:

High 10 Intra Profile: The High 10 Profile constrained to all-Intra use.

High 4:2:2 Intra Profile: The High 4:2:2 Profile constrained to all-Intra use.

High 4:4:4 Intra Profile: The High 4:4:4 Profile constrained to all-Intra use.

CAVLC 4:4:4 Intra Profile: The High 4:4:4 Profile constrained to all-Intra use and to CAVLC entropy coding (i.e., not supporting CABAC).

Thinine · Apr 11, 2007, 12:48 AM

I would imagine QT would eventually get the capability, but there's no telling when that'll happen. It'll probably show up first in the Final Cut Suite and then become part of the general QT capability sometime later.

Eug · Apr 11, 2007, 01:08 AM

Originally Posted by Thinine

I would imagine QT would eventually get the capability, but there's no telling when that'll happen. It'll probably show up first in the Final Cut Suite and then become part of the general QT capability sometime later.

So, it's not in Final Cut either then, but they'd add it first in Final Cut? Hmmm... I guess that'd make sense... and Final Cut is probably gonna get updated this weekend.

However, I do note that High Profile is required for H.264 in both Blu-ray and HD DVD (as noted in hmurchison2001's post above), so it would seem that 2007 would make H.264 High Profile almost mainstream. Thus, one might think Apple may want to add it to QT sooner rather than later. Or is that just wishful thinking?

hmurchison2001 · Apr 11, 2007, 01:14 AM

I want CABAC.

Eug · Apr 11, 2007, 09:27 AM

I don't claim to understand the math or even how it works, but FWIW, CABAC is available in x264.

While you can't encode with CABAC in QT, I assume QT should play back x264 encoded stuff with CABAC just fine.

Is there an x264 encoder plug-in for QuickTime?

EDIT:

Yes there is.

Headshot · Apr 11, 2007, 11:20 AM

Avchd???

Eug · Apr 11, 2007, 12:29 PM

Originally Posted by Headshot

Avchd???

Good point. The AVCHD format used by some recent camcorders is High Profile H.264, and it doesn't work with QuickTime (or iMovie or Final Cut).

mduell · Apr 11, 2007, 01:30 PM

I doubt it will be added to Quicktime in the near future... the video iPod and AppleTV only support low complexity and baseline profiles, so it would add confusion and incompatibility there.

Quicktime didn't even support main profile before it was deprecated by high profile.

I think the best shot for seeing it is in FCS, since those users could understand it and know when to use it.

Thinine · Apr 11, 2007, 01:31 PM

And it's likely that DVD Studio Pro will be getting full HD-DVD and Blu-Ray support, so it would have to support the High Profile encoding. Which means that the other pro apps will support it to some extent or other. Whether they include it as part of an updated QT or just part of the apps I don't know.

Eug · 11:01 AM

Originally Posted by mduell

I doubt it will be added to Quicktime in the near future... the video iPod and AppleTV only support low complexity and baseline profiles, so it would add confusion and incompatibility there.

Quicktime didn't even support main profile before it was deprecated by high profile.

I think the best shot for seeing it is in FCS, since those users could understand it and know when to use it.

Well, the iPod and AppleTV have their own specific automagic settings in QuickTime, so it's irrelevant. I mean QuickTime already has support for a bazilion other codecs but that doesn't confuse iPod owners in the least. Furthermore, as you pointed out, the iPod doesn't even support main profile, but it's already in QuickTime.

Originally Posted by Thinine

And it's likely that DVD Studio Pro will be getting full HD-DVD and Blu-Ray support, so it would have to support the High Profile encoding. Which means that the other pro apps will support it to some extent or other. Whether they include it as part of an updated QT or just part of the apps I don't know.

That's exactly what I'm thinking. I just hope it's across the board, including QT and not just Final Cut (including FCE) and DVD Studio Pro.

I also predict that iDVD '07 will get Blu-ray and/or HD DVD support, but that may be irrelevant since there's no absolute need to support High Profile in iDVD. It would be nice though.

mduell · Apr 21, 2007, 04:34 PM

FYI, HandBrake now supports H.264 High profile.

Eug · Apr 21, 2007, 07:52 PM

Excellent. I'll have to try this on my Xbox 360 after it gets the H.264 update in May.

Too bad there's still no QT playback (or encoding) support for it though. I was hoping we'd see it at NAB.

nerd · Apr 22, 2007, 09:55 AM

QuickTime MPEG support has bugged me for a long time. We use Axis network cameras here at work and QT can't even decode one of the Advanced MPEG 4 profiles that the camera will output. Sorry, I don't remember the level but all I can say is I share the same frustration.

I didn't know QT won't decode AVCHD, glad I read this thread because I've been eyeing a camera. I'll probably stick to HDV do to that.

-Brad

Headshot · May 17, 2007, 08:42 AM

No Updates on the AVCHD issue in the last month eh?

nerd · May 27, 2007, 01:31 PM

Try this guys codec. MyCometG3 It's using the x264 codec but it appears to support more profiles then the other one linked earlier. He has the avc1Decoder 0.6.6 which says it'll decode some high profile videos.

I've been playing with his x264 encoder and getting really good results at with compressing up DV footage at 3mb and it's a lot faster then Apples codec.