[Mp4-tech] MPEG-4 compression

[Steve Wright]

Hi,
Thanks, this agrees with my understanding that an H.264 codec will require
2-3 times the MIP's of an MPEG-4 codec to do a good encoding job and produce
compliant bitstreams so in many applications (eg most mobile devices) there
will not be enough processing power to provide any benefit over MPEG-4.
As H.264 hardware implementations are years away and DSP's cannot provide
enough processing power it seems that H.264 will be limited in application
to expensive high-spec PC's for now and MPEG-4 is therefore the best choice
for the widest range of applications and markets.
Steve
-----Original Message-----
From: Gary Sullivan [mailto:garysull windows.microsoft.com]
Sent: 30 October 2023 19:34
To: s.wright indigovision.com; bfelts envivio.com; Tourapis Alexandros;
Serge GEDEON
Cc: mp4-tech lists.mpegif.org; sunx
Subject: RE: [Mp4-tech] MPEG-4 compression
The basic answer to your question is that the statements about part 10
(AVC) being better than prior standards *are* made under the assumption
that a sufficient amount of processing power is available to do a good
job of using the standard.
The complexity of decoding AVC/H.264 video is higher than MPEG-4 SP
decoding.  Probably at least double the complexity.
The complexity of encoding it is up to the discretion of the encoder.
It is possible to make a very-low-complexity AVC-compliant encoder (i.e.
an encoder that does not use non-zero motion vectors) with *lower*
complexity than an equivalent-quality MPEG-4 SP encoder (because the
transform in AVC has lower complexity than the transform in MPEG-4 SP).
However, a *good quality* encoder for AVC is probably more complex than
a good quality MPEG-4 SP encoder.  Probably at least 3 times the
complexity.
A key distinction is to recognize that in order to conform to the
standard, a decoder must accept any conforming bitstream as its input,
while an encoder only needs to do what it wants to do.
Best Regards,
Gary Sullivan
+> -----Original Message-----
+> From: Steve Wright [mailto:s.wright indigovision.com]
+> Sent: Thursday, October 30, 2023 3:58 AM
+> To: bfelts envivio.com; 'Tourapis Alexandros'; 'Serge GEDEON'
+> Cc: mp4-tech lists.mpegif.org; Gary Sullivan; 'sunx'
+> Subject: RE: [Mp4-tech] MPEG-4 compression
+>
+>
+> Boris, when you say that MPEG-4 part 10 is probably the best
+> codec available
+> do you mean in the situation where unlimited MIP's are available for
+> processing? If for example you can only load a processor by
+> 200MHz is a part
+> 10 codec still better than SP?
+>
+> Thanks
+> Steve
+>
+> -----Original Message-----
+> From: Boris Felts [mailto:bfelts envivio.com]
+> Sent: 28 October 2023 21:35
+> To: 'Tourapis Alexandros'; 'Serge GEDEON'
+> Cc: mp4-tech lists.mpegif.org; 'Gary Sullivan'; 'sunx'
+> Subject: RE: [Mp4-tech] MPEG-4 compression
+>
+>
+> Thanks for your precisions Alexandros.
+>
+>   To answer Serge's questions:
+>
+> - The version of Envivio Encoding Station (2.1) released at that time
+> was using MPEG-4 part 2, more exactly it supported ASP level 5.
+>
+> - There has been few more releases of the product, still based on the
+> syntax and constraints of ASP. The current version is 2.5 and the
+> quality has improved since 2.1. Also, the quality of the
+> encoded results
+> highly depends on the set of prefilters, encoding parameters and
+> postfilters used for the considered job. This may require some
+> optimization.
+>
+> - You will find some other proprietary or standard codecs
+> which can do a
+> better job for a particular target. MPEG-4 part 2 enables a
+> fairly large
+> amount of applications and the decoder syntax has been frozen for a
+> while. Conformance insures compatible and backward
+> compatible products,
+> but may prevent from the latest technological advancement additions.
+>
+> - MPEG-4 part 10 is now part of our products, and shows significant
+> quality improvement over other legacy or proprietary codecs. It is
+> probably the best codec available. You will find (hopefully!) many
+> MPEG-4 part 10 implementations, but you need to be attentive to the
+> different profiles supported and the constraints respected by each
+> encoder to assess their quality.
+>
+> Best Regards
+> Boris Felts
+> Envivio.
+>
+> > -----Original Message-----
+> > From: mp4-tech-bounces lists.mpegif.org [mailto:mp4-tech-
+> > bounces lists.mpegif.org] On Behalf Of Tourapis Alexandros
+> > Sent: Tuesday, October 28, 2023 12:03 PM
+> > To: Serge GEDEON
+> > Cc: mp4-tech lists.mpegif.org; Gary Sullivan; sunx
+> > Subject: RE: [Mp4-tech] MPEG-4 compression
+> >
+> > According to the system's specifications seen here :
+> >
+> > http://www.visiblelight.com/mall/products/envivio/docs/ees.pdf
+> >
+> > this coding station only supports Advanced Simple Profile
+> MPEG-4, and
+> does
+> > not claim support for MPEG-4 part 10. It is claimed that both
+> realnetworks
+> > and microsoft codecs (which were developed after MPEG-4 part 2) are
+> > considerably better than this profile (but not better than
+> MPEG-4 part
+> 10).
+> >
+> > Alexis
+> >
+> >
+> > -----Original Message-----
+> > From: Gary Sullivan [mailto:garysull windows.microsoft.com]
+> > Sent: Tuesday, October 28, 2023 2:19 PM
+> > To: sunx; Serge GEDEON
+> > Cc: bfelts envivio.com; mp4-tech lists.mpegif.org
+> > Subject: RE: [Mp4-tech] MPEG-4 compression
+> >
+> >
+> > One thing to keep in mind is that standards do not specify how to
+> encode
+> > video -- only how to encode it.  There is a great deal of freedom
+> > provided in the standards that allows encoding designs of vastly
+> > differing quality.  You should never look at the quality
+> decoded from
+> > some particular implementation of an encoder using a particular
+> standard
+> > and assume that this quality is the only quality (or the
+> best quality)
+> > that is possible to obtain when using that standard.  You should
+> > definitely not expect the quality produced by all products
+> to be the
+> > same.  Not only is there freedom allowed in the design of
+> pre-processors
+> > and encoders but there is also freedom allowed in
+> post-processing and
+> > display aspects after decoding.
+> >
+> > Another aspect implicit in Sunx's response is that there
+> are a number
+> of
+> > different syntaxes that fall under the term "MPEG-4
+> video".  There are
+> > somewhere around 20 profiles in MPEG-4 part 2 and three profiles in
+> > MPEG-4 part 10.  For ordinary camera-view video, the most efficient
+> > syntax design currently in MPEG-4 is in the Main profile of MPEG-4
+> part
+> > 10 (a.k.a. AVC a.k.a. ITU-T H.264).  Serge did not specify which
+> profile
+> > was implemented in that Envivio product.
+> >
+> > And of course the RealNetworks codec that Serge referred to is not
+> even
+> > constrained by conformance to any standard.  The quality
+> it produces
+> is
+> > constrained only by the product's implementation resources, the
+> > expertise of its designers, and the deadlines of its
+> design project.
+> >
+> > Best Regards,
+> >
+> > -Gary Sullivan
+> >
+> > +> -----Original Message-----
+> > +> From: mp4-tech-bounces lists.mpegif.org
+> > +> [mailto:mp4-tech-bounces lists.mpegif.org] On Behalf Of sunx
+> > +> Sent: Tuesday, October 28, 2023 8:35 AM
+> > +> To: Serge GEDEON
+> > +> Cc: bfelts envivio.com; mp4-tech lists.mpegif.org
+> > +> Subject: Re: [Mp4-tech] MPEG-4 compression
+> > +>
+> > +>
+> > +>
+> > +>
+> > +> On Tue, 28 Oct 2003, Serge GEDEON wrote:
+> > +>
+> > +> > Dear All,
+> > +> >
+> > +> > I am currently comparing different compression solutions
+> > +> for streaming pedagogical multimedia contents over the Internet.
+> > +> >
+> > +> > But with the software I am using (Envivio coding station
+> > +> 2.1) to encode MPEG-4 content,
+> > +> > I can't reach the same quality with the same bitrate as
+> > +> with Real 9. Real 9 compression is better, the thing that I
+> > +> find a bit odd.
+> > +> >
+> > +> > Could anyone help me in this? did anyone do such a
+> > +> comparison? may it be the soft that I am using? could anyone
+> > +> advise me with another soft?
+> > +> > or may it be the parameters that I am using, I ve tryed
+> > +> aproximatly all the combinations possible!!!
+> > +> >
+> > +>
+> > +> I believe one major reason that MPEG-4 is better than MPEG-2
+> > +> is that it
+> > +> has better motion compensated coding, which is especially
+> > +> true in H.264.
+> > +> My suggestion is that maybe you need to tune those paramters
+> > +> of control
+> > +> PVOP and BVOP coding carefully. Real format is modified from
+> > +> MPEG-2 (?),
+> > +> so MPEG-4 should at least achieve the comparative performance in
+> most
+> > +> cases.
+> > +>
+> > +> >
+> > +> > Thanks in advance,
+> > +> > Serge GEDEON
+> > +> > Ph.D. Student
+> > +> > Paul Sabatier University - Toulouse, France
+> > +>
+> > +> _______________________________________________
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+> > +>
+> >
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