Behind the creation of a high-definition Windows Media 9 film

Ken Hodson · October 29th, 2003, 02:21 PM

Anyone who NEEDS to see your movie: Movie executives, distributors, film festival organizers, ect.. will have access to a high level PC and WM9 would be excellent to promote your flick. And by this time next year a AMD or Intel 3000 will be a low end PC!
If its general mass distibution you want then anamorphic DVD it is. WM9 set-top boxes will have market penetration in 2 years at best.
Ken

Yang Wen · October 29th, 2003, 02:50 PM

<<<-- Originally posted by Alex Raskin : <<<-- Originally posted .

I wrote Bill Gates about the need of set-top machines for WMP9, but haven't heard anything back as of now.

Hope MS pushes this thing (they already submitted WMP9 as SMPTE standard) on the hardware level as fast as possible. I'd love to move away from D-VHS as a distribution media, and back to the standard red laser DVD-ROMs, provided that manufacturers mass-produce WMP9 players as set-top boxes. -->>>

Well actually, MS is currently having their WM9 technology up for approval by SMTPE. If it gets approved, we can expect to see new DVD players, DBS receivers and mobile systems to playback HighDef WM9 files. It ought to be great!!!

Lisa Lee · October 29th, 2003, 05:10 PM

Exactly Alex...we tried the T2 HD DVD on our PC which is a P4 3.06 1gb ram, ATI 9800 pro machine and you would think that would be sufficient, but we still had stuttering and slowdowns while playing the DVD. Transfering the entire DVD to the hard drive helped a little but it was still very noticable. Though that was at 1080p.

Steve Mullen · October 29th, 2003, 06:03 PM

And I had no luck with a 2.8 and a RAID with 720p30. I'm not convinced yet.

Worse, WM9 is part of MS and their Rights Management System. No thanks.

Blu-ray is the right answer and is supported by Sony, Pana, and JVC.

Remember these input MPEG-2 Transport Stream.

Shoot MPEG-2 TS and distribute MPEG-2 TS.

David Newman · October 29th, 2003, 06:17 PM

We have no problems creating WM9 720p30 (exported from Premiere and Apsect HD) that will play on any 2.something Ghz PC. Our WM9 6Mbit demo loop that we use at tradeshows runs on a 2.2Ghz portable PC (i.e. nothing special here.)

Alex Raskin · October 29th, 2003, 08:43 PM

<<<-- Originally posted by Steve Mullen : Worse, WM9 is part of MS and their Rights Management System. No thanks.

Blu-ray is the right answer and is supported by Sony, Pana, and JVC. -->>>

Are you against copyright protection in principle, or against Microsoft just because it's fashionable to hate Bill Gates?

Sony has its own content protection even with MP3s.

Almost all DVD and VHS movies are Macromedia-protected.

All this is fine.

But mention MS, and you see a knee-jerk reaction.

I'm not affiliated with MS in any way, but as objective person, it's tiresome to see casual Gates-bashing just because the guy makes more per hour than most of us are making a year.

Let's rather stay open and give all platforms a fair chance!

(On the lighter note, click here:
http://www.quuxuum.org/~evan/bgnw.html)

Lisa Lee · October 30th, 2003, 12:08 AM

"Worse, WM9 is part of MS and their Rights Management System. No thanks."

If we distribute on WMP9 DVDs in the future do we owe them money? Or are they taking it from just the DVD player producers.

Steve Mullen · October 30th, 2003, 07:59 AM

<<<-- Originally posted by Alex Raskin : Are you against copyright protection in principle, or against Microsoft just because it's fashionable to hate Bill Gates? -->>>

I think copyprotection is important. But through huge lobbying efforts (read $$$$ to politicians) we will soon lose all consumer rights.

Bill's system is a cave in to these special interests that give them total control of media you have bought and own. This is his pact with the devil in an effort to get their backing of WM for HD DVDs.

My belief is that WM9 supports low data rate devices at the loss of video quality in exactly the same way MP3 does for audio. In fact that's how I think of it. MP3 for video.

And, I'm prticularly concerned about feeding WM9 with very highly compressed MPEG-2. Lossey + lossey doesn't sound good to me. And adding Pixlet or Wavelet in the middle of these two -- not a good idea IMHO.

Alex Raskin · October 30th, 2003, 09:21 AM

<<<-- Originally posted by Steve Mullen : I'm prticularly concerned about feeding WM9 with very highly compressed MPEG-2. Lossey + lossey doesn't sound good to me. And adding Pixlet or Wavelet in the middle of these two -- not a good idea IMHO. -->>>

Steve, I admit that I have no idea how Mac people process HD10's videos.

But in Win world (and WM9 is for Windows only) you always have to put in-between codecs while editing m2t files that come out of the camera.

Examples: Aspect HD, as I understand, recompresses m2t into its own wavelet-based format.

Or say you do what I do and software-convert m2t into AVIs - the same thing, I'm recompressing using a different codec like HUFFYUV for instance.

Even if you go the old-fashioned way and just capture analog 1080i output directly from HD10's Component out and via some HD PC card, you are still putting the signal through the chain of hardware-based DA, then AD conversions (all that add imprefections to the signal) plus you capture either in a proprietary card's codec or in one of the AVI codecs at the end still. This is even worse than straight software-based file conversion.

So unless there's a software that REALLY works with m2t files in real-time for editing, we are all stuck with the in-between recompression of the original MPEG2 signal simply for editing purposes.

This however is not WM9's fault...

Now, on export of the edited timeline, we have another conversion - from my AVIs back to m2t, or from Aspect's wavelet codec back to m2t, no matter what, you have to recompress to MPEG2 again.

How is it better than recompressing in WM9? WM9 by the way affords very high bitrates if you need high quality and can afford a player that supports high-bitsream bandwidth.

Export of your timeline to WM9 is a snap and is totally glitch-free in Premiere Pro. Including surround sound.

Transferring WM9 files is easy - it's just one .wmv file, so copy it on CD or DVD or send it over the network, and you're done.

Standalone WM9 encoder is also available, and is free. Software player is also free. Both come directly from, and supported by, Microsoft.

I personally tried all this (except for Aspect HD, which is unavailable in trial version) and I speak from experience. My experience is that WM9 is VERY satisfying in both easy of use and quality.

Problem is in mass-producing a WMP9 player that is hardware-based, so it could play our DVDs we encode using the existing red-laser systems. (But isn't the ONLY other way to distribute HD movies now, which is D-VHS, also problematic? Although the players are available, they are expensive, unreliable, not compatible with DVDs, and - oh horror! - tape based!)

That's the whole thing - WM9 hardware player is not widely available now, so despite the superb encoding abilities and high quality of WM9 movies, they are stuck on the distribution side.

Thus MS has to push the WM9 players production for masses :)

Steve Mullen · October 30th, 2003, 12:33 PM

<<<-- Originally posted by Alex Raskin :

Steve, I admit that I have no idea how Mac people process HD10's videos.

HDVcinema: MPEG-2 >> uncompressed >> MPEG-2 is only 1 cycle!

"But in Win world (and WM9 is for Windows only) you always have to put in-between codecs while editing m2t files that come out of the camera."

Vegas 4: MPEG-2 >> uncompressed >> MPEG-2 is only 1 cycle!

Neither of these have any intermediate. Pure MPEG-2 in and out. :)

If you believe Bill, he'll say WM9 is better than MPEG-2. Probably claims it's better than HD MPEG-4. And it may be all he claims. On specially prepared demos it looked great.

And I'll admit that IF Japan were going to switch to WM9 so all our future HD DVDs were WM9 I might be more interested. But WM9 has less hardware support than D-VHS! Like nothing. At least I can order a Blu-ray DVD burner and get it next week.

You'll note that Sony chose HD MPEG-4 for 4:4:4 HDCAM-RT. That's for your second generation Blu-ray.

Alex Raskin · October 30th, 2003, 01:06 PM

Steve, question...

In practical editing terms... would you say that Vegas plays m2t timeline in real-time on say 2.4Ghz P4 with 400FSB with 1Gb memory and fast hard drives?

What happens when filters/transition are added?

There are confusing signals coming from people who used Vegas for direct m2t editing: my understanding is that most of them are actually unable to achieve real-time playback even without any filters applied.

Is this true?

Question # 2: I'm puzzled by the absence of a positive feedback on Aspect HD from real-world users.
If Aspect is a practical answer to real-time HD editing, why is it that there's no raving posts from end users on this forum? What's your take on this?

Thad Huston · October 30th, 2003, 02:04 PM

Alex,

I have just done a bunch of testing with m2t timelines in Vegas.

Test System:

Software:
XP Pro SP1 Plus all updates
Vegas 4
No other software

Hardware:
P4 2.53 GHz @ 533 MHz FSB
1 GB PC2700 DDR RAM
IDE RAID (3 7200 RPM DRIVES)

Results:

These results are based on playback of m2t files from the Vegas 4.0 timeline @ 1/4 resolution in a 1280x720 project. Setting the preview to 'Preview(Auto)' will allow playback at 640x360.

Plain m2t playback @ about 10 f/s
2 streams w/2-d transition @ about 2 f/s
2 streams w/3-d transition @ about 1 f/s
2 streams w/motion or transparency @ about 3 f/s
1 stream with filter applied @ 1-6 f/s dependent on the filter type and how the parameters are set.

If you want to call that real-time you can. To me, Real-time means 30 f/s.

Aspect HD will do each of these things on my system @ 30 frames/second. Occasionally, if two or more filters/effects are stacked there will be a frame dropped here and there. However, this system has a processor that is at the VERY BOTTOM of our minimum spec. Of course the faster the system, the more streams/effects you can stack. This is with AspectHD filters and effects. Premiere filters can also be added, but they will not play in 30 fps real-time.

I imagine that a 2.4 GHz system with 400 MHz FSB might come close to giving you the numbers I specified above....... Take these numbers with a grain of salt since I am a Cineform employee. My framerates are estimates based on my eyball...and my eyeball may be biased...... but I think they're pretty accurate.

Alex Raskin · October 30th, 2003, 02:28 PM

Thanks Thad!

So in terms of using Vegas, it's out... 10fps at best at 1/4 resolution obviously isn't real-time HD editing...

I wouldn't even be able to visually lip-sync or otherwise synchronize the sound track with video at this display rate...

Steve Mullen · October 30th, 2003, 10:40 PM

Using the 2.8GHz system with RAID that CineForm sent me for my review of Aspect HD, Vegas played back smoothly at "normal" speed. However, not even a dissolve could be added without stuttering.

So if you don't care about RT FX, Vegas works fine. No input conversions and direct export of MPEG-2 PS. Still must convert to TS, however.

I'm sorry if I offended people in bashing Pixlet, but I just don't consider non RT editing something that is practical. I've been editing in RT with Canopus and Matrox since 1998. I can't see going back. But obviously that is a very personal decision.

So if you don't care, Vegas on a hot machine might work for you.

October 29th, 2003, 02:21 PM	#16
Ken Hodson Trustee Join Date: Aug 2003 Location: Vancouver BC Canada Posts: 1,315	Anyone who NEEDS to see your movie: Movie executives, distributors, film festival organizers, ect.. will have access to a high level PC and WM9 would be excellent to promote your flick. And by this time next year a AMD or Intel 3000 will be a low end PC! If its general mass distibution you want then anamorphic DVD it is. WM9 set-top boxes will have market penetration in 2 years at best. Ken __________________ Damnit Jim, I'm a film maker not a sysytems tech.

October 29th, 2003, 06:03 PM	#19
Steve Mullen HDV Cinema Join Date: Feb 2003 Location: Las Vegas Posts: 4,007	And I had no luck with a 2.8 and a RAID with 720p30. I'm not convinced yet. Worse, WM9 is part of MS and their Rights Management System. No thanks. Blu-ray is the right answer and is supported by Sony, Pana, and JVC. Remember these input MPEG-2 Transport Stream. Shoot MPEG-2 TS and distribute MPEG-2 TS. __________________ Switcher's Quick Guide to the Avid Media Composer >>> http://home.mindspring.com/~d-v-c

October 30th, 2003, 07:59 AM	#23
Steve Mullen HDV Cinema Join Date: Feb 2003 Location: Las Vegas Posts: 4,007	<<<-- Originally posted by Alex Raskin : Are you against copyright protection in principle, or against Microsoft just because it's fashionable to hate Bill Gates? -->>> I think copyprotection is important. But through huge lobbying efforts (read $$$$ to politicians) we will soon lose all consumer rights. Bill's system is a cave in to these special interests that give them total control of media you have bought and own. This is his pact with the devil in an effort to get their backing of WM for HD DVDs. My belief is that WM9 supports low data rate devices at the loss of video quality in exactly the same way MP3 does for audio. In fact that's how I think of it. MP3 for video. And, I'm prticularly concerned about feeding WM9 with very highly compressed MPEG-2. Lossey + lossey doesn't sound good to me. And adding Pixlet or Wavelet in the middle of these two -- not a good idea IMHO. __________________ Switcher's Quick Guide to the Avid Media Composer >>> http://home.mindspring.com/~d-v-c

October 30th, 2003, 12:33 PM	#25
Steve Mullen HDV Cinema Join Date: Feb 2003 Location: Las Vegas Posts: 4,007	<<<-- Originally posted by Alex Raskin : Steve, I admit that I have no idea how Mac people process HD10's videos. HDVcinema: MPEG-2 >> uncompressed >> MPEG-2 is only 1 cycle! "But in Win world (and WM9 is for Windows only) you always have to put in-between codecs while editing m2t files that come out of the camera." Vegas 4: MPEG-2 >> uncompressed >> MPEG-2 is only 1 cycle! Neither of these have any intermediate. Pure MPEG-2 in and out. :) If you believe Bill, he'll say WM9 is better than MPEG-2. Probably claims it's better than HD MPEG-4. And it may be all he claims. On specially prepared demos it looked great. And I'll admit that IF Japan were going to switch to WM9 so all our future HD DVDs were WM9 I might be more interested. But WM9 has less hardware support than D-VHS! Like nothing. At least I can order a Blu-ray DVD burner and get it next week. You'll note that Sony chose HD MPEG-4 for 4:4:4 HDCAM-RT. That's for your second generation Blu-ray. __________________ Switcher's Quick Guide to the Avid Media Composer >>> http://home.mindspring.com/~d-v-c

October 30th, 2003, 02:04 PM	#27
Thad Huston AJA Video Systems Join Date: Sep 2003 Location: Grass Valley, CA Posts: 36	Vegas and m2t editing Alex, I have just done a bunch of testing with m2t timelines in Vegas. Test System: Software: XP Pro SP1 Plus all updates Vegas 4 No other software Hardware: P4 2.53 GHz @ 533 MHz FSB 1 GB PC2700 DDR RAM IDE RAID (3 7200 RPM DRIVES) Results: These results are based on playback of m2t files from the Vegas 4.0 timeline @ 1/4 resolution in a 1280x720 project. Setting the preview to 'Preview(Auto)' will allow playback at 640x360. Plain m2t playback @ about 10 f/s 2 streams w/2-d transition @ about 2 f/s 2 streams w/3-d transition @ about 1 f/s 2 streams w/motion or transparency @ about 3 f/s 1 stream with filter applied @ 1-6 f/s dependent on the filter type and how the parameters are set. If you want to call that real-time you can. To me, Real-time means 30 f/s. Aspect HD will do each of these things on my system @ 30 frames/second. Occasionally, if two or more filters/effects are stacked there will be a frame dropped here and there. However, this system has a processor that is at the VERY BOTTOM of our minimum spec. Of course the faster the system, the more streams/effects you can stack. This is with AspectHD filters and effects. Premiere filters can also be added, but they will not play in 30 fps real-time. I imagine that a 2.4 GHz system with 400 MHz FSB might come close to giving you the numbers I specified above....... Take these numbers with a grain of salt since I am a Cineform employee. My framerates are estimates based on my eyball...and my eyeball may be biased...... but I think they're pretty accurate. __________________ TH www.aja.com

October 29th, 2003, 02:50 PM	#17
Yang Wen Major Player Join Date: May 2003 Location: Chicago, IL Posts: 991	<<<-- Originally posted by Alex Raskin : <<<-- Originally posted . I wrote Bill Gates about the need of set-top machines for WMP9, but haven't heard anything back as of now. Hope MS pushes this thing (they already submitted WMP9 as SMPTE standard) on the hardware level as fast as possible. I'd love to move away from D-VHS as a distribution media, and back to the standard red laser DVD-ROMs, provided that manufacturers mass-produce WMP9 players as set-top boxes. -->>> Well actually, MS is currently having their WM9 technology up for approval by SMTPE. If it gets approved, we can expect to see new DVD players, DBS receivers and mobile systems to playback HighDef WM9 files. It ought to be great!!!

October 29th, 2003, 05:10 PM	#18
Lisa Lee Regular Crew Join Date: Sep 2003 Posts: 86	Exactly Alex...we tried the T2 HD DVD on our PC which is a P4 3.06 1gb ram, ATI 9800 pro machine and you would think that would be sufficient, but we still had stuttering and slowdowns while playing the DVD. Transfering the entire DVD to the hard drive helped a little but it was still very noticable. Though that was at 1080p.

October 29th, 2003, 06:17 PM	#20
David Newman CTO, CineForm Inc. Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: Cardiff-by-the-Sea, California Posts: 8,095	We have no problems creating WM9 720p30 (exported from Premiere and Apsect HD) that will play on any 2.something Ghz PC. Our WM9 6Mbit demo loop that we use at tradeshows runs on a 2.2Ghz portable PC (i.e. nothing special here.)

October 29th, 2003, 08:43 PM	#21
Alex Raskin Trustee Join Date: Sep 2003 Posts: 1,435	<<<-- Originally posted by Steve Mullen : Worse, WM9 is part of MS and their Rights Management System. No thanks. Blu-ray is the right answer and is supported by Sony, Pana, and JVC. -->>> Are you against copyright protection in principle, or against Microsoft just because it's fashionable to hate Bill Gates? Sony has its own content protection even with MP3s. Almost all DVD and VHS movies are Macromedia-protected. All this is fine. But mention MS, and you see a knee-jerk reaction. I'm not affiliated with MS in any way, but as objective person, it's tiresome to see casual Gates-bashing just because the guy makes more per hour than most of us are making a year. Let's rather stay open and give all platforms a fair chance! (On the lighter note, click here: http://www.quuxuum.org/~evan/bgnw.html)

October 30th, 2003, 12:08 AM	#22
Lisa Lee Regular Crew Join Date: Sep 2003 Posts: 86	"Worse, WM9 is part of MS and their Rights Management System. No thanks." If we distribute on WMP9 DVDs in the future do we owe them money? Or are they taking it from just the DVD player producers.

October 30th, 2003, 09:21 AM	#24
Alex Raskin Trustee Join Date: Sep 2003 Posts: 1,435	<<<-- Originally posted by Steve Mullen : I'm prticularly concerned about feeding WM9 with very highly compressed MPEG-2. Lossey + lossey doesn't sound good to me. And adding Pixlet or Wavelet in the middle of these two -- not a good idea IMHO. -->>> Steve, I admit that I have no idea how Mac people process HD10's videos. But in Win world (and WM9 is for Windows only) you always have to put in-between codecs while editing m2t files that come out of the camera. Examples: Aspect HD, as I understand, recompresses m2t into its own wavelet-based format. Or say you do what I do and software-convert m2t into AVIs - the same thing, I'm recompressing using a different codec like HUFFYUV for instance. Even if you go the old-fashioned way and just capture analog 1080i output directly from HD10's Component out and via some HD PC card, you are still putting the signal through the chain of hardware-based DA, then AD conversions (all that add imprefections to the signal) plus you capture either in a proprietary card's codec or in one of the AVI codecs at the end still. This is even worse than straight software-based file conversion. So unless there's a software that REALLY works with m2t files in real-time for editing, we are all stuck with the in-between recompression of the original MPEG2 signal simply for editing purposes. This however is not WM9's fault... Now, on export of the edited timeline, we have another conversion - from my AVIs back to m2t, or from Aspect's wavelet codec back to m2t, no matter what, you have to recompress to MPEG2 again. How is it better than recompressing in WM9? WM9 by the way affords very high bitrates if you need high quality and can afford a player that supports high-bitsream bandwidth. Export of your timeline to WM9 is a snap and is totally glitch-free in Premiere Pro. Including surround sound. Transferring WM9 files is easy - it's just one .wmv file, so copy it on CD or DVD or send it over the network, and you're done. Standalone WM9 encoder is also available, and is free. Software player is also free. Both come directly from, and supported by, Microsoft. I personally tried all this (except for Aspect HD, which is unavailable in trial version) and I speak from experience. My experience is that WM9 is VERY satisfying in both easy of use and quality. Problem is in mass-producing a WMP9 player that is hardware-based, so it could play our DVDs we encode using the existing red-laser systems. (But isn't the ONLY other way to distribute HD movies now, which is D-VHS, also problematic? Although the players are available, they are expensive, unreliable, not compatible with DVDs, and - oh horror! - tape based!) That's the whole thing - WM9 hardware player is not widely available now, so despite the superb encoding abilities and high quality of WM9 movies, they are stuck on the distribution side. Thus MS has to push the WM9 players production for masses :)

October 30th, 2003, 01:06 PM	#26
Alex Raskin Trustee Join Date: Sep 2003 Posts: 1,435	Steve, question... In practical editing terms... would you say that Vegas plays m2t timeline in real-time on say 2.4Ghz P4 with 400FSB with 1Gb memory and fast hard drives? What happens when filters/transition are added? There are confusing signals coming from people who used Vegas for direct m2t editing: my understanding is that most of them are actually unable to achieve real-time playback even without any filters applied. Is this true? Question # 2: I'm puzzled by the absence of a positive feedback on Aspect HD from real-world users. If Aspect is a practical answer to real-time HD editing, why is it that there's no raving posts from end users on this forum? What's your take on this?

October 30th, 2003, 02:28 PM	#28
Alex Raskin Trustee Join Date: Sep 2003 Posts: 1,435	Thanks Thad! So in terms of using Vegas, it's out... 10fps at best at 1/4 resolution obviously isn't real-time HD editing... I wouldn't even be able to visually lip-sync or otherwise synchronize the sound track with video at this display rate...

October 30th, 2003, 10:40 PM	#29
Steve Mullen HDV Cinema Join Date: Feb 2003 Location: Las Vegas Posts: 4,007	Using the 2.8GHz system with RAID that CineForm sent me for my review of Aspect HD, Vegas played back smoothly at "normal" speed. However, not even a dissolve could be added without stuttering. So if you don't care about RT FX, Vegas works fine. No input conversions and direct export of MPEG-2 PS. Still must convert to TS, however. I'm sorry if I offended people in bashing Pixlet, but I just don't consider non RT editing something that is practical. I've been editing in RT with Canopus and Matrox since 1998. I can't see going back. But obviously that is a very personal decision. So if you don't care, Vegas on a hot machine might work for you. __________________ Switcher's Quick Guide to the Avid Media Composer >>> http://home.mindspring.com/~d-v-c