I just noticed, that the Mencoder using GPL h264 codec has passed Ateme 'by a hair'
http://developers.videolan.org/x264.html
For test details you may visit
http://www.doom9.org/index.html?/codecs-final-105-1.htm

There is a very nice writeup mostly written by Andrew Lynch in the forum:

http://mysettopbox.tv/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=6043&highlight=h264

It would be nice to have a deb package on KnoppMyth to let people choose whether to install stable Mplayer or CVS version of Mplayer H.264 enabled.

Cons and pros??

Regards,

Fiete

Thanks!

cesman, cecil, would you please move this thread out of "installation" and into "hints and tips", "HDTV", or "HOWTO" so we can safely discuss this without straying off topic?

Thank you.

Andrew Lynch

A codec winning an "award" does seem rather off-topic.

I think the main problem preventing what you suggest is that x264 has not released any versions yet. As their website warns, it is still in early development and only offer a SVN snapshot. If and when they ever release a beta or a stable version (like xvid codec does) hopefully we will see x264 start to be included in the baseline MPlayer releases or at least as part of their codec package.

MPlayer H.264 support is nice but, IMO, what we really need is a MythTV adoption of x264 but that is probably not going to happen until x264 releases a version either.

You can work with SVN snapshots to experiment with MPlayer and see that it works. x264 has grown quickly and is becoming more feature complete everyday. However, I do not expect it to be included in any other software, outside of those few applications built specifically for the codec, in the near future.

If you read the x264-devel archives you can see they have a list what features remain incomplete before a version is released. It is going to be a while. In the meantime, the only way I know of to experiment with H.264 is to compile your own CVS version of MPlayer with the x264 SVN snapshot.

Feel free to compile your own, run your own tests, and prove me wrong (or right). I'd certainly like some discussion on the MythTV H.264 topic. It seems to me the video format of the future. The results of the x264 codec now are simply AMAZING. I can't wait until it stabilizes.

Thanks!

Andrew Lynch

PS, I have read rumors that xvid will be releasing an AVC version called "xvid avc" in early 2006. Keep your fingers crossed. Having multiple open source H.264 compliant codecs can only be a good thing.

Hi Andrew,

Thanks for your respons. I understand that the complete codec (codingdecoding) is not yet released under GPL licence. I'm a patient person, so I will wait for the first release. I think, that the most interesting part for end-users is the decoding capability and optimalisation. Correct me if I'm wrong. A few broadcast companies in Europe have started broadcasting using H.264 / AVC via satellite. I wonder whether the decoding part is unstable.

I managed to compile and install Cinelerra 2.0 with H.264 encoding support on a SuSE distro. I remember that the estimated time of encoding H.264 of a 5 GB movie was about 24 hours. A few days ago I tried the GPL h264 codec and the estimated time to encode was about 6 hours, which is quite a difference. Do you have recent experience with SVN versions of the codec?

Thanks,

Fiete

Yes, the x264 codec is really just an encoder not a complete codec. MPlayer uses the ffmpeg project's libavcodec/libavutil/libavformat libraries for H.264 decoding. So in that sense, MPlayer is combining two partial implementations for a H.264 "codec". From the x264-devel mailing list, it seems that the developers are pretty happy working on the encoder side and since ffmpeg has done a good job on the decoder I suspect that is how it is going to stay for quite a while.

The result though is I can see why the MythTV developers are not jumping on H.264 bandwagon because it would be a nasty integration with x264 on the encode side and ffmpeg libraries on the decode side. Not too mention that x264 is evolving literally every day.

Fortunately, ffmpeg is LGPL, x264 and MPlayer are both GPL so at least licensing is not a huge issue. I am fairly sure that x264 is patent encumbered which is not going to help it be included in a lot of Gnu/Linux distributions but I think it is free for personal usage.

I think you can use the MPlayer with ffmpeg to decode H.264 right now but you still have to build from the CVS version.



The version I was using is a couple of months old and it was slow encoding but not too bad. I didn't see anything like 24 days to encode anything though. Good gracious, that is way S L O W. My transcodes (2 pass) ran for several hours on a 3.2 GHz P4. I am sure settings would affect run times but not that much!

One major drawback on x264 is that it does not support interlaced video. You can work around it using MPlayer/MEncode to deinterlace prior to x264 encoding but it makes for some seriously clunky integration. I read that interlaced support is in the works but is months away. Not having interlaced video may not a problem if most of you video is not interlaced but in the US interlaced video NTSC dominates.

I have found during my experiments that H.264 is definitely the video format of the future and has awesome potential. It is great as long as you are willing to use MPlayer as the "glue" that binds all the different components into a working whole. However, IMO popular acceptance and usage of H.264 in free/open source software is going to have to wait until most or all these funky issues are solved (different and separate coders and encoders, incomplete support for relatively common video formats, etc).

Best of luck!

Andrew Lynch

If anyone is interested in H.264 and the xvid avc developments here are some links to read. As usual, take all this with a grain of salt.

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=104513

http://www.doom9.org/index.html?/codecs-main-105-1.htm

Personally, I am thrilled with xvid adding AVC capability to their codec because xvid is already an great product and extending it to include H.264 will make adoption of the new standard a whole lot easier.

It doesn't directly help MythTV as I believe they use ffmpeg/libavcodec only. However, there appears to be a lot of crossfeed between the free/open source codec projects and I believe adding a xvid avc to the mix is going to help.

In all, 2006 is shaping up to be an exciting year for free/open source H.264 codecs. If and when it going to make its way into MythTV, we'll just have to see but I'd expect it is at least months, possibly years, away.

Thanks!

Andrew Lynch