MPEG 4 compression, updatable? at DVinfo.net

Hagop Matossian · June 19th, 2002, 09:35 AM

from what I've been able to gather, MiniDV uses MPEG4 compression. As the days go by people are bringing out newer and, better compression codecs, is there a possibility that a new (i.e. MiniDV2) recording format could be brough out, and the chips in the cameras updated? I understand that most cameras are manufactured from printed circuit boards, but it still might be possible?

also, when is someone going to bring out a camera with firmware updatable over the web using usb?

Bill Ravens · June 19th, 2002, 09:41 AM

huh???

Margus Kivilaan · June 19th, 2002, 10:08 AM

as far as i know DV or miniDV uses DV compression which is closer to MJPEG than to any MPEG.
Yes, Sony has a couple of camera models which are able to record onto memory stick in mpeg and also some models which record to tape in mpeg mode, but this is a different story.
Where did you get that DV is MPEG4?

Margus (confused)

Jeff Donald · June 19th, 2002, 02:17 PM

Many still digital cameras can have their firmware upgraded by down loading files from the MFG.s site. At this time I don't know of any miniDV cameras that can be upgrade in this method. Presently the cameras have to go back to the MFG. for the firmware upgrade.

Jeff

Hagop Matossian · June 20th, 2002, 04:34 AM

I was having a conversation with some guy who obviously didn't know what he was talking about. thanks for clearing that up.

There are music keyboards coming out now that allow the uer to connect the keyboard to their computer via usb and download new sounds into it over the web. It seems that system would be useful for DVcams, for instance companies could work on improving the quality of the digital zoom and then post the updated software on their webssite for download. I think its the future...

sorry if this reads strangley, I just got kicked out of bed by my mum to help her get the web working, and i'm not feeling quite sane yet...

Rob Lohman · June 20th, 2002, 06:40 AM

DV camera's use a compression called.... (wait for this)... DV.
It has nothing to do with any other standard, only that is works
on similiar lines. Both DV, (M)JPEG and MPEG work with huffman
based compression algorithms, macroblocks and what not. That
is as far as the comparison goes. DV for example is a Constant
Bit Rate compression (CBR). Mpeg can be both CBR and VBR
(Variable Bit Rate), etc. Mpeg compression would be very bad for
video editing (difficult to edit dus to inter-frame compression).

I agree on the firmware thing. It would be great if we could
upgrade our camares with some new firmware over the firewire
cable. Then it wouldn't have to go back for every fix or new
feature (would be nice).

Keep on dreaming.

Alex Dunn · October 3rd, 2002, 01:32 PM

Rob,
Are you saying that MPEG-2 is a bad format to edit with? I was thinking about trying this but I won't waste my time if you say it's bad.

Jeff Donald · October 3rd, 2002, 01:47 PM

MPG-2 has I frames (interpolated) that make editing less than optimum. Edit your material as DV then output it as MPG-2. Unless you have dedicated hardware to do this conversion expect long software renders of the DV material to MPG-2. The quality is generally lower than DV also.

Jeff

Alex Dunn · October 3rd, 2002, 01:52 PM

Thanks. So what format is ideal for making DVD's and which is ideal for export to digital tape?

Bill Ravens · October 3rd, 2002, 01:53 PM

Very good quality can be achieved by setting bitrates higher than 4000Kbps. And all this at file sizes fractions of the size of the DV file. The new Windoze Media Encoders for WMP series 9 are EXCELLENT mpeg4 encoders that will do a better job than Quicktime.

The ONLY format you can use for DVD is a subset of the MPEG2 compression standard....it has very specialized frame sizes, datarate limits and audio formats. For writing to DV tape, you only have 1 choice...DV format.

Mark Sloan · October 4th, 2002, 07:56 AM

The guy you were talking to might have seen the new Sony MicroMV video cameras which do record in MPEG2 format. The tapes are super small allowing for them to come out with some tiny cameras. They still record MPEG1 format to their memory sticks and many of them come with Bluetooth and touchscreen LCD panels for doing stuff like email and surfing the Web through them. (why you would use a video camera for that, i have no idea) It does allow for the camera to connect to your computer wirelessly to send whatever is on your memory stick and allows your camera to act like a web cam. One of the drawbacks besides the extra compression is that not many editors work with the new format. I've only heard of MovieShaker from Sony working with it.

Andre De Clercq · October 5th, 2002, 01:34 PM

Micro DV camera's (Sony) use a 10Mb/sec MPEG 2 HW compressor, not updateable. MPEG4 is a totally other "beast" (dvx...). DV uses a 25 Mb/sec"smart"(macroblocks) version of motion JPEG which is a DCT transform based codec using Huffman optimization for the quantizised values.

Hagop Matossian · October 7th, 2002, 07:17 AM

dang

Having used my GL-2 a bit I am now also pissed off with the poor quality of canon's zoombrowser software.

When I paid £90 for my logitech traveler webcam it came with software that allowed me to do stop motion animation, it had a motion detecteor feature (EG starts vidoeing when someone enters the room), and a time lapse feature that would let u shoot as little as 1 frame per hour.

THe canon software pales in comparison. It is full of bugs and has obviously not been extensively tested.

Another nice feature would be to have a selectio of say 30 digi effects on the computer, and to be able to drag and drop them onto the camera when required.

or maybe a calibration program, to allow you to set cameras image (colour gain, phase, etc.) from the computer

Whenever I get started on this product I think of stuff the software should do but doesn't. The integrations that are possible but that canon simply haven't bothered with, because they think there's no demand, or cos they think it will step on the toes of their other products. (and don't even get me started on poor quality SDcard stills)...

Shaun Roemich · October 7th, 2002, 04:20 PM

DV uses a METHOD called DCT (Discrete Cosine Tangent) Intraframe compression... it encodes this to a CODEC (COmpressor-DECompressor) referred to as "DV"

DCT is the method by which the codec "throws away" data to create a manageable bitrate...

Intraframe means that ALL compression takes place within ONE frame of video, no key frames, no progressive or "I-frames" like MPEG-2 variants... (and for the record there are some MPEG-2 variants that use a keyframe for each individual frame)

Hope this helps...

Good shooting!

-Shaun

PS oops... just saw Dre's most recent post... just wanted to let him know this is NOT intended as a correction as he is absolutely correct in his information.

June 19th, 2002, 09:35 AM	#1
Hagop Matossian Woodyfang Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: London/Nicosia Posts: 125	MPEG 4 compression, updatable? from what I've been able to gather, MiniDV uses MPEG4 compression. As the days go by people are bringing out newer and, better compression codecs, is there a possibility that a new (i.e. MiniDV2) recording format could be brough out, and the chips in the cameras updated? I understand that most cameras are manufactured from printed circuit boards, but it still might be possible? also, when is someone going to bring out a camera with firmware updatable over the web using usb? __________________ 10 films online http://www.undeadarmy.org STOP PRESS!! http://www.honeyweasel.com STOP PRESS!! Lighting Cameraman / Director / Producer / Music Producer / DJ / Web Designer / Visualist / Media Student / IT Tutor / Digital Artist W00dy See, W00dy d00...

June 20th, 2002, 04:34 AM	#5
Hagop Matossian Woodyfang Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: London/Nicosia Posts: 125	I was having a conversation with some guy who obviously didn't know what he was talking about. thanks for clearing that up. There are music keyboards coming out now that allow the uer to connect the keyboard to their computer via usb and download new sounds into it over the web. It seems that system would be useful for DVcams, for instance companies could work on improving the quality of the digital zoom and then post the updated software on their webssite for download. I think its the future... sorry if this reads strangley, I just got kicked out of bed by my mum to help her get the web working, and i'm not feeling quite sane yet... __________________ 10 films online http://www.undeadarmy.org STOP PRESS!! http://www.honeyweasel.com STOP PRESS!! Lighting Cameraman / Director / Producer / Music Producer / DJ / Web Designer / Visualist / Media Student / IT Tutor / Digital Artist W00dy See, W00dy d00...

June 20th, 2002, 06:40 AM	#6
Rob Lohman RED Code Chef Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: Holland Posts: 12,514	DV camera's use a compression called.... (wait for this)... DV. It has nothing to do with any other standard, only that is works on similiar lines. Both DV, (M)JPEG and MPEG work with huffman based compression algorithms, macroblocks and what not. That is as far as the comparison goes. DV for example is a Constant Bit Rate compression (CBR). Mpeg can be both CBR and VBR (Variable Bit Rate), etc. Mpeg compression would be very bad for video editing (difficult to edit dus to inter-frame compression). I agree on the firmware thing. It would be great if we could upgrade our camares with some new firmware over the firewire cable. Then it wouldn't have to go back for every fix or new feature (would be nice). Keep on dreaming. __________________ Rob Lohman, visuar@iname.com DV Info Wrangler & RED Code Chef Join the DV Challenge \| Lady X Search DVinfo.net for quick answers \| Buy from the best: DVinfo.net sponsors

October 7th, 2002, 07:17 AM	#13
Hagop Matossian Woodyfang Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: London/Nicosia Posts: 125	dang Having used my GL-2 a bit I am now also pissed off with the poor quality of canon's zoombrowser software. When I paid £90 for my logitech traveler webcam it came with software that allowed me to do stop motion animation, it had a motion detecteor feature (EG starts vidoeing when someone enters the room), and a time lapse feature that would let u shoot as little as 1 frame per hour. THe canon software pales in comparison. It is full of bugs and has obviously not been extensively tested. Another nice feature would be to have a selectio of say 30 digi effects on the computer, and to be able to drag and drop them onto the camera when required. or maybe a calibration program, to allow you to set cameras image (colour gain, phase, etc.) from the computer Whenever I get started on this product I think of stuff the software should do but doesn't. The integrations that are possible but that canon simply haven't bothered with, because they think there's no demand, or cos they think it will step on the toes of their other products. (and don't even get me started on poor quality SDcard stills)... __________________ 10 films online http://www.undeadarmy.org STOP PRESS!! http://www.honeyweasel.com STOP PRESS!! Lighting Cameraman / Director / Producer / Music Producer / DJ / Web Designer / Visualist / Media Student / IT Tutor / Digital Artist W00dy See, W00dy d00...

June 19th, 2002, 09:41 AM	#2
Bill Ravens Join Date: Nov 2001 Location: santa fe, nm Posts: 3,264 Images: 10	huh???

June 19th, 2002, 10:08 AM	#3
Margus Kivilaan Regular Crew Join Date: May 2002 Location: Tallinn, Estonia Posts: 123	as far as i know DV or miniDV uses DV compression which is closer to MJPEG than to any MPEG. Yes, Sony has a couple of camera models which are able to record onto memory stick in mpeg and also some models which record to tape in mpeg mode, but this is a different story. Where did you get that DV is MPEG4? Margus (confused)

June 19th, 2002, 02:17 PM	#4
Jeff Donald Warden Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Clearwater, FL Posts: 8,287	Many still digital cameras can have their firmware upgraded by down loading files from the MFG.s site. At this time I don't know of any miniDV cameras that can be upgrade in this method. Presently the cameras have to go back to the MFG. for the firmware upgrade. Jeff

October 3rd, 2002, 01:32 PM	#7
Alex Dunn Major Player Join Date: Aug 2002 Location: Phoenix, AZ Posts: 202	Rob, Are you saying that MPEG-2 is a bad format to edit with? I was thinking about trying this but I won't waste my time if you say it's bad.

October 3rd, 2002, 01:47 PM	#8
Jeff Donald Warden Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Clearwater, FL Posts: 8,287	MPG-2 has I frames (interpolated) that make editing less than optimum. Edit your material as DV then output it as MPG-2. Unless you have dedicated hardware to do this conversion expect long software renders of the DV material to MPG-2. The quality is generally lower than DV also. Jeff

October 3rd, 2002, 01:52 PM	#9
Alex Dunn Major Player Join Date: Aug 2002 Location: Phoenix, AZ Posts: 202	Thanks. So what format is ideal for making DVD's and which is ideal for export to digital tape?

October 3rd, 2002, 01:53 PM	#10
Bill Ravens Join Date: Nov 2001 Location: santa fe, nm Posts: 3,264 Images: 10	Very good quality can be achieved by setting bitrates higher than 4000Kbps. And all this at file sizes fractions of the size of the DV file. The new Windoze Media Encoders for WMP series 9 are EXCELLENT mpeg4 encoders that will do a better job than Quicktime. The ONLY format you can use for DVD is a subset of the MPEG2 compression standard....it has very specialized frame sizes, datarate limits and audio formats. For writing to DV tape, you only have 1 choice...DV format.

October 4th, 2002, 07:56 AM	#11
Mark Sloan Major Player Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: Venice, CA Posts: 346	The guy you were talking to might have seen the new Sony MicroMV video cameras which do record in MPEG2 format. The tapes are super small allowing for them to come out with some tiny cameras. They still record MPEG1 format to their memory sticks and many of them come with Bluetooth and touchscreen LCD panels for doing stuff like email and surfing the Web through them. (why you would use a video camera for that, i have no idea) It does allow for the camera to connect to your computer wirelessly to send whatever is on your memory stick and allows your camera to act like a web cam. One of the drawbacks besides the extra compression is that not many editors work with the new format. I've only heard of MovieShaker from Sony working with it.

October 5th, 2002, 01:34 PM	#12
Andre De Clercq Major Player Join Date: Sep 2002 Location: Belgium Posts: 804	Micro DV camera's (Sony) use a 10Mb/sec MPEG 2 HW compressor, not updateable. MPEG4 is a totally other "beast" (dvx...). DV uses a 25 Mb/sec"smart"(macroblocks) version of motion JPEG which is a DCT transform based codec using Huffman optimization for the quantizised values.

October 7th, 2002, 04:20 PM	#14
Shaun Roemich Inner Circle Join Date: Sep 2002 Location: Vancouver, British Columbia (formerly Winnipeg, Manitoba) Canada Posts: 4,088	DV uses a METHOD called DCT (Discrete Cosine Tangent) Intraframe compression... it encodes this to a CODEC (COmpressor-DECompressor) referred to as "DV" DCT is the method by which the codec "throws away" data to create a manageable bitrate... Intraframe means that ALL compression takes place within ONE frame of video, no key frames, no progressive or "I-frames" like MPEG-2 variants... (and for the record there are some MPEG-2 variants that use a keyframe for each individual frame) Hope this helps... Good shooting! -Shaun PS oops... just saw Dre's most recent post... just wanted to let him know this is NOT intended as a correction as he is absolutely correct in his information.