[Hawkeye_a]

Well, after hearing word of the new iPod and TV shows on iTMS,, i finally got around to exploring H.264. Ive loved MPEG4 and DivX, so i wanted to see if there were any advantages if any. Being in Australia as i am, there's no possibility for me to use iTMS (Damn you ARIA!).

So i did what anyone would do, i used "Handbrake"(awesome app btw) to rip a movie chapter, and compare it to the video on DVD. I tried to approximate the size and quality of the videos on iTMS.

So here's the environment:
-i have a PowerBook G4 (550, combo, 512MB RAM, QT 7.0.2, Panther)
-i hooked up the PBG4 to my TV. Set the TV resolution to 512X384 millions of colors
-ripping(movie info)
Format:
H.264, 320X176, Millions
AAC, Stereo (L R), 44.100 kHz
FPS:
25
Data Rate: 841.57 kbits/sec

So i took a screen shot of it using Snapzpro -> .PNG file.


I then opened the DVD up in Apple's DVD player, set it to full screen and took a shot of it as well at roughly the same instance.


Actual size:

Result:
watching the h.264 video on TV, looks MUCH better than an MPEG4 or Divx at the same bitrate. and the resolution is TINY compared to my MP4 and DivX files. As faractually watching the movie in H.264, it looks amazing, only a few artifacts when u have a black space. apart from that nothing i noticed.

There's a difference between the DVD and H.264 video... H.264 much much lower bitrate and much lower resolution, but looks just fine on a standard TV. it's probably going to be my codec of choice when ripping my DVDs for my next iPod. wtachig the videos on my PBG4 and TV look fine despite the low resolution, and will also work on the iPod.

I wonder if an MPEG4 movie, at a resolution of 480X384 and the same bitrate as the H.264 video will look the same or worse. im guessing worse, but havent tried it.

Discuss ? Whats your opinions on this ?

Cheers

[Randman]

Be interesting to see the same test with a color film (just to check saturation and vividness).

[qnxde]

841kbps is a bit high for video of that size, you could get almost identical quality in about half of that with h.264.

[Hawkeye_a]

Will try a color movie later.

As far as bit rate, i set it so that the video bit rate was around 650kbps-ish. i forgot to subtract the 128 kbps for AAC Audio before i started encoding.

I beleive the TV shows on iTMS are around 650kbps. So the above was a bit over(by about 128 give or take).

Will post results from color tests later. once it gets done. PBG4 550 is looking kinda old now, thanks to H.264....encoding is VERY slow. hehe

Cheers

[Cubeoid]

That's Gene Wilder, he played Willy Wonka.

[demograph68]

Originally Posted by Cubeoid

That's Gene Wilder, he played Willy Wonka.

No crap.

[Eriamjh]

Frahnk-en-steen!

[ajprice]

Originally Posted by Cubeoid

That's Gene Wilder, he played Willy Wonka.

(Drumroll) No Sh*t Sherlock!! (ba-dum-tsch)

[iDriveX]

How do the h.264 file sizes compare against their other codec counterparts?

[Hawkeye_a]

File sizes are directly proportional to the bitrates(quality of encoding). Increase the quality(bitrate) the file size increases. What dosent stay the same is the quality, which changes depending o nthe codec. (Well at least thats what im trying to compare...with everything constant, is there a noticable difference in quality).

So here's the update:
Ripped a chapter from "The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers".
==============================================
Here are the screen shots:
DVD:

(actual size)


(hlaf size)


For the following, the bitrates were constant(give or take 1kbps), therefore file sizes are essentially the same.
==============================================
MPEG4(480X192 resolution):

(actual size)

==============================================
H264(480X192 resolution):NOT SUPPORTED ON NEW IPOD

(actual size)

==============================================
MPEG4(320X128):

(actual size)

And the same video scaled to 480X192:

(scaled)

==============================================
H.264(320X128):

(actual)

And the same video scaled to 480X192:

(scaled)

==============================================

So i'm trying to descide whats the best balance between quality and filesize here, and which codec is best suited. If bitrates are the same, would a 480X384 (4:3) MPEG4 video look better than a 320X240(4:3) H.254 video, on a Mac, TV and the nw iPod.

Right now, im thinking, the 480X192(actual) MPEG4 is the best quality. Since all the videos have the same bitrate and since this resolution+codec will work just fine on the new iPod, im thinking this is the best balane, but open to suggestions.

Discuss ? Suggestions ?

Cheers

[Eug Wanker]

Heheh. Welcome to H.264 (finally).

Personally, I wouldn't encode anything at less than 640xXXX. In other words, for DVD, I wouldn't change the resolution. However I've decided that doing all this is pretty much a waste of time for the time being. I don't watch my movies 50 times over, and the current iPods don't support 640xXXX anyway. Hell, we don't know if future ones will either. They could just go to 480xXXX (which would look OK on a TV) and stay there. Not to mention that even on my iMac G5 2.0, H.264 encoding takes just about forever.

Anyways, since you asked, I don't think H.264 480x360 x 24 fps looks that great at 700 Kbps, but it looks pretty nice at 1 Mbps. Dunno about MPEG4, because I haven't played with it much. It's so much nicer with H.264.

[dark3lf]

What's the size of your H.264 video video of Young Frankenstein as opposed to the DivX encode?