HD10u sample HD clip. at DVinfo.net

Steve Crisdale · June 1st, 2004, 08:30 PM

Here's my first uploaded HD clip.
It's a WMV9 HD 1Mbit format - 6.2meg
The original m2t was 16.5meg.

http://www.pnc.com.au/~scris/hd_images/

the file is 'Kite surfing WMV9 test 1.wmv'

(right click & 'save target as' might be best.....)

I used Vegas 5 to encode. No post filtering applied.

Shot using a .3ND and Polarizer stacked.

Hope it's of some interest!!

Heath McKnight · June 2nd, 2004, 09:47 AM

Didn't play out very well for me, just three still images of a guy jumping while on water skis.

heath

Christopher C. Murphy · June 2nd, 2004, 11:59 AM

Looks cool, it worked for me. Got anything longer?

Murph

Scott Frase · June 2nd, 2004, 01:59 PM

Didn't work for me, either. In my case, I drop the vid onto Windows Media Player and the clip plays after about 2 minutes of thinking. It then plays, but plays so choppy that you'd think it was a slideshow. I'm running XP Pro, 1.8Ghz, 1GB RAM, version 9.00.00.2980 of Windows Media Player. I noticed that it is encoded as variable bit rate at roughly 7000kbps bit rate. Maybe a constant bit rate encoding would alleviate the issues?

Bryan Suthard · June 2nd, 2004, 04:17 PM

I have tried sending my Vegas encoded WM9 files to people too and I have found that playing WM9 files on machines less than a 2.0 GHz PC can have poor results. 1Mb and 5Mb encoded WM9 plays really well on my 2.8 GHz. I think even fast Macs will probably have a problem with 720P WM9.

Of course your results may vary depending on machine, processes out there, memory, etc.

Steve Crisdale · June 2nd, 2004, 07:01 PM

<<<-- Originally posted by Bryan Suthard :
Of course your results may vary depending on machine, processes out there, memory, etc. -->>>

I was wondering what sort of response I'd get back on the playability of the clip.

On my P-IV 2.6ghz, I have 2 system partitions. One partition is XP with basic programs and for net connection. The second partition is the same XP but set up for viewing/recording/editing HDTV from my VisionPlus HDTV terrestrial card. (the partitions are on seperate identical physical drives BTW)
Both XP versions are identical in player software, both WMV9 .2980, but the version on my HDTV editing partition plays without errors, while the non-editing partition either complains there's no codec support or plays it like some of you've described - choppy....

I'm pretty certain that I used the default settings for 1mbit WMV9 in Vegas 5's encoder, which from memory does CBR encoding.

I myself believe that the underlying Directshow filters and available codecs have plenty to do with WMV9 playback capability rather than what happens at the encoding end.
Ultimately WMV9 must improve it's 'portability' if it's to become a de-facto standard for HD content distribution!!

Jonathan Tregear · June 4th, 2004, 01:17 AM

Your video plays fine on my computer. Microsoft is very upfront about the system requirements for 720p and 1080p WMV/HD playback. 720p playback requires:

Windows XP
2.4 GHz P4 processor or better
384 MB RAM
64 MB video card
1024x768 screen resolution
16-bit sound card

So systems that don't meet those requirements will not be able to playback WMV/HD. After all, decoding and playing back HD requires quite a bit of hardcore CPU and GPU crunching.

On the other hand, even most currently available low price computers from Dell and others meet those requirements easily. Well, they might need a little more RAM.

Steve Crisdale · June 4th, 2004, 07:50 AM

Christopher; I do have plenty of longer footage....of the kite surfers and much more, but I don't have the available server space for the sizes these HD segments would run to!!

I guess that brings me to my next point about WMV9. I must admit that I was excited to see the development of HD capabilities in WMV9 as it seemed like a great opportunity to bring the HD finished product from the HD10 to a massive audience without the traditional barriers of film or digital transportable media.
Seemed like a great way to achieve exposure without compromising the products integrity.
Unfortunately, I believe that I got a bit carried away on the possibilities rather than the actuality of what was achievable.
Firstly the hardware component becomes an issue with WMV9.....you'd also benefit from a nice fast web connection as well as a fully configured PC/Mac, as well as plenty of server space for hosting. We're still talking 100's of Mb for even a 1mbit encoded WMV9 HD file of modest duration, let alone a feature length piece!!
Then there's the stability factor, let alone finding the sweet spot for the encoder (lot's of experimentation time - if you've read the WMV9 HD fact sheets/tips etc. there is no real advice on the option functions - of which there are heaps).

I do believe that WMV9 HD, when it is fully matured and stable, will be one of the favourite encoding formats for the majority of HD10 users who want to get their material out to world.

Apart from MPEG2 there's no other encoder capable of delivering HD over network connections to as many supported software players, so I'm hoping Microsoft monitors the results of these early efforts and releases regular upgrades to codecs etc.

Jonathan Tregear · June 4th, 2004, 11:22 AM

WMV/HD is already a major improvement in delivery efficiency over MPEG2 (i.e. less than half of the bitrate) and the main reason that it has gotten so much attention. I doubt that there will be any quantum improvements in WMV/HD that will allow for the delivery of program length HD content over the public internet either as downloadable content or as streaming content. Who knows, in two years, you might see codec improvements that allow the same quality in 4Mbps that now takes 6, but it will be that kind of improvement, not the kind that will allow users to stream HD over a 384 Kbps DSL line. If you could deliver it in 384Kbps it would (by definition) not be HD because at a fundamental level HD=High bitrate.

I've done some test streaming of WMV/HD over our internal university network and that works fine, but that network is a 100Mbps and 1Gbps network. Even so, the only streaming scenario that would work practically over this network would be multicast and not unicast, otherwise our network administrators would come after me with loaded weapons.

The typical spec of a WMV/HD video of around 6Mbps would choke any currently available or foreseeable broadband connection. The only viable means of widely distributing program length HD content (WMV/HD or otherwise) that I can see will be on data CD or DVD for quite some time. When and if network delivery does become feasible, it will be because of the availability of faster networks and not orders of magnitude improvements in codecs.

June 1st, 2004, 08:30 PM	#1
Steve Crisdale Major Player Join Date: Jan 2004 Location: Katoomba NSW Australia Posts: 635	HD10u sample HD clip. Here's my first uploaded HD clip. It's a WMV9 HD 1Mbit format - 6.2meg The original m2t was 16.5meg. http://www.pnc.com.au/~scris/hd_images/ the file is 'Kite surfing WMV9 test 1.wmv' (right click & 'save target as' might be best.....) I used Vegas 5 to encode. No post filtering applied. Shot using a .3ND and Polarizer stacked. Hope it's of some interest!!

June 2nd, 2004, 09:47 AM	#2
Heath McKnight MPS Digital Studios Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: Palm Beach County, Florida Posts: 8,531	Didn't play out very well for me, just three still images of a guy jumping while on water skis. heath __________________ My Final Cut Pro X blog

June 2nd, 2004, 11:59 AM	#3
Christopher C. Murphy Trustee Join Date: Sep 2003 Location: Boston, MA Posts: 1,707	Looks cool, it worked for me. Got anything longer? Murph __________________ Christopher C. Murphy Director, Producer, Writer

June 2nd, 2004, 01:59 PM	#4
Scott Frase Regular Crew Join Date: Apr 2004 Location: Jersey City, NJ Posts: 48	Didn't work for me, either. In my case, I drop the vid onto Windows Media Player and the clip plays after about 2 minutes of thinking. It then plays, but plays so choppy that you'd think it was a slideshow. I'm running XP Pro, 1.8Ghz, 1GB RAM, version 9.00.00.2980 of Windows Media Player. I noticed that it is encoded as variable bit rate at roughly 7000kbps bit rate. Maybe a constant bit rate encoding would alleviate the issues?

June 2nd, 2004, 04:17 PM	#5
Bryan Suthard Regular Crew Join Date: Dec 2003 Location: Tampa, FL United States Posts: 135	I have tried sending my Vegas encoded WM9 files to people too and I have found that playing WM9 files on machines less than a 2.0 GHz PC can have poor results. 1Mb and 5Mb encoded WM9 plays really well on my 2.8 GHz. I think even fast Macs will probably have a problem with 720P WM9. Of course your results may vary depending on machine, processes out there, memory, etc.

June 2nd, 2004, 07:01 PM	#6
Steve Crisdale Major Player Join Date: Jan 2004 Location: Katoomba NSW Australia Posts: 635	<<<-- Originally posted by Bryan Suthard : Of course your results may vary depending on machine, processes out there, memory, etc. -->>> I was wondering what sort of response I'd get back on the playability of the clip. On my P-IV 2.6ghz, I have 2 system partitions. One partition is XP with basic programs and for net connection. The second partition is the same XP but set up for viewing/recording/editing HDTV from my VisionPlus HDTV terrestrial card. (the partitions are on seperate identical physical drives BTW) Both XP versions are identical in player software, both WMV9 .2980, but the version on my HDTV editing partition plays without errors, while the non-editing partition either complains there's no codec support or plays it like some of you've described - choppy.... I'm pretty certain that I used the default settings for 1mbit WMV9 in Vegas 5's encoder, which from memory does CBR encoding. I myself believe that the underlying Directshow filters and available codecs have plenty to do with WMV9 playback capability rather than what happens at the encoding end. Ultimately WMV9 must improve it's 'portability' if it's to become a de-facto standard for HD content distribution!!

June 4th, 2004, 01:17 AM	#7
Jonathan Tregear Tourist Join Date: Feb 2004 Location: Albuquerque, NM Posts: 4	Your video plays fine on my computer. Microsoft is very upfront about the system requirements for 720p and 1080p WMV/HD playback. 720p playback requires: Windows XP 2.4 GHz P4 processor or better 384 MB RAM 64 MB video card 1024x768 screen resolution 16-bit sound card So systems that don't meet those requirements will not be able to playback WMV/HD. After all, decoding and playing back HD requires quite a bit of hardcore CPU and GPU crunching. On the other hand, even most currently available low price computers from Dell and others meet those requirements easily. Well, they might need a little more RAM.

June 4th, 2004, 07:50 AM	#8
Steve Crisdale Major Player Join Date: Jan 2004 Location: Katoomba NSW Australia Posts: 635	Christopher; I do have plenty of longer footage....of the kite surfers and much more, but I don't have the available server space for the sizes these HD segments would run to!! I guess that brings me to my next point about WMV9. I must admit that I was excited to see the development of HD capabilities in WMV9 as it seemed like a great opportunity to bring the HD finished product from the HD10 to a massive audience without the traditional barriers of film or digital transportable media. Seemed like a great way to achieve exposure without compromising the products integrity. Unfortunately, I believe that I got a bit carried away on the possibilities rather than the actuality of what was achievable. Firstly the hardware component becomes an issue with WMV9.....you'd also benefit from a nice fast web connection as well as a fully configured PC/Mac, as well as plenty of server space for hosting. We're still talking 100's of Mb for even a 1mbit encoded WMV9 HD file of modest duration, let alone a feature length piece!! Then there's the stability factor, let alone finding the sweet spot for the encoder (lot's of experimentation time - if you've read the WMV9 HD fact sheets/tips etc. there is no real advice on the option functions - of which there are heaps). I do believe that WMV9 HD, when it is fully matured and stable, will be one of the favourite encoding formats for the majority of HD10 users who want to get their material out to world. Apart from MPEG2 there's no other encoder capable of delivering HD over network connections to as many supported software players, so I'm hoping Microsoft monitors the results of these early efforts and releases regular upgrades to codecs etc.

June 4th, 2004, 11:22 AM	#9
Jonathan Tregear Tourist Join Date: Feb 2004 Location: Albuquerque, NM Posts: 4	WMV/HD is already a major improvement in delivery efficiency over MPEG2 (i.e. less than half of the bitrate) and the main reason that it has gotten so much attention. I doubt that there will be any quantum improvements in WMV/HD that will allow for the delivery of program length HD content over the public internet either as downloadable content or as streaming content. Who knows, in two years, you might see codec improvements that allow the same quality in 4Mbps that now takes 6, but it will be that kind of improvement, not the kind that will allow users to stream HD over a 384 Kbps DSL line. If you could deliver it in 384Kbps it would (by definition) not be HD because at a fundamental level HD=High bitrate. I've done some test streaming of WMV/HD over our internal university network and that works fine, but that network is a 100Mbps and 1Gbps network. Even so, the only streaming scenario that would work practically over this network would be multicast and not unicast, otherwise our network administrators would come after me with loaded weapons. The typical spec of a WMV/HD video of around 6Mbps would choke any currently available or foreseeable broadband connection. The only viable means of widely distributing program length HD content (WMV/HD or otherwise) that I can see will be on data CD or DVD for quite some time. When and if network delivery does become feasible, it will be because of the availability of faster networks and not orders of magnitude improvements in codecs.