Trying to decide how to publish HD video on the web since Stage6 bit the dust so I've done a comparison test of HD web video formats at 960 x 540. I tried 5 options:

FLV in On2 Flix Pro
AVC in Sony AVC in Vegas
AVC in Main Concept in Vegas
Xvid in Xvid in VirtualDub
WMV in Vegas

I've used 2Mbps to try and show some differences between the codecs, but 2.5Mbps would generally give a better result.

Download them and please let me know your comments and which ones you like best.

At this stage I've only done 1-pass encodes. I may do some 2-pass but that Flix Pro is so slow.

I'd say the WMV and Xvid are on par with a cursory check, with a close 2nd in FLV which kills a little shadow detail. Main Concept kill detail by crushing blacks and Sony can't handle highlight detail as well.

So you mean you like the WMV better than the AVC versions?

For highlight handling, yes. Look at the lack of detail on the harlequin shrimp carapace, especially the fine detail. AVC versions lack detail at all levels. But I should really look it over more carefully.
Again cursory wise... the Xvid is sharpest without losing too much detail.

Well, I kinda like the Xvid too and noticed more detail. But how to embed in a web page? Such a shame Stage6 closed.

Edit: Since found out that the DivX Web Player can still be used even though Stage6 is dead and there is a sample here.

Hey Nick - I like the wmv file the best on my screen. Interesting topic - not my forte - but great video nonetheless. I really enjoyed watching it.

Great job!
Aloha,
Bryce

Great footage there Nick.
When I did some tests a while back H.264 came out tops.
Better than Divx and Xvid.
AVC? what encoder can I download to try myself?

The trouble is that you really want something that will play back in real time or people will just click away. 1500kbps is about as high as you can go for most folks on normal broadband over here.

AVC == H.264 == MPEG 4 part 10, all the same. Perhaps there was some difference in encoding parameters.

Linda

Sony Vegas Pro It even has 2 alternative codecs: Sony AVC and Main Concept AVC/AAC. The Sony codec is lightning fast. Seriously though Wags, H.264 and AVC are the same thing (I think) so what did you use last time Wags? Hasn't Edius/Procoder got a codec in it?

Anyway last night I tried a 2-pass FLV encode but doing the deinterlacing and resizing in Vegas rather than Flix Pro. This got the time down to a slightly more acceptable 8:50. It's number 6 on my page.

Still torn about which route to go though. Sony AVC is so quick and easy, and I don't mind viewers having to update their Flash player sooner than they might have. But this flv may have the edge in quality and is more compatible. The Xvid version works great in the DivX web player but the installed user base is so small and people may be wary of it.


Agreed. These will either be on separate pages or very clearly marked as HD/Big/Slow in the same Flash player as my lower res versions.

AVC is the same as H.264...OKAY no problems then.

To encode out a 30 second 960/540 2mbps H.264 clip from a 1440/1080 timeline takes me 50 seconds. All 4 cores of the CPU get to 88%.
To the same size wmv takes 60 seconds. CPU at only 56%.
To the same size FLV with the Flix Exporter takes 95 seconds, CPU at only 37%.

And how do they look?

Nick, DivX and AVCHD are both accepted in many DVD players. It's not that small an installer base. Just link to the downloads.
However, obviously WMV is the biggest since it comes with Windows.

Well it's between flv and H.264 for me...pretty close actually?
All made from the timeline.

WMV is bad.

7.64megs each in size.

http://www.hdvundersea.com/help/flv.flv
http://www.hdvundersea.com/help/H.264.mov
http://www.hdvundersea.com/help/wmv.wmv

Drew, I meant the DivX Web Player which the vast majority of users would have to download and install when they hit the page. My understanding is that FLV has a wider installed base in browsers than WMV, but of course not yet the version required to play AVC/H.264.

Wags, I still can't download complete files from your site. They stop part-complete with no error message. And the part-complete FLV gave me a BSOD

Wags
I sorta lost you. Why is the wmv file bad? Just from the first frame onwards you can see it maintains fine details on the whaleshark much better than the H.264. The fine detail retained from movement is also better. At 0.03 seconds both the flv and wmv files show the fish swimming over the shark's snout clearer than the H.264. The problem with H.264 is the encoding for motion has to be tweaked to work well. It is a black art in itself. It requires higher bandwidth and more work.
Color obviously has to be adjusted for wmv. but that's minor.

Well, i think i'm going On2 flix pro 2-pass flv with a bit more bitrate. Coding some javascript 960x540 popups for them now Now i just need some serious bandwidth

Drew my main concern with wmv is it's softness. Maybe you cannot see it too much in that clip but in others I have done you certainly can. Anyhow FLASH is the way to go for 100% computability and it's not too bad either.

I suppose it can vary as well as to what video card is driving ones screen. If I play a clip on two identical LCD screens driven by two different 128 meg ports you can see that what looks great on one is not as good on the other.

Nick I don't know why you cannot download those clips. They are on the same serer as my video site.

Nick last night I was adding effects and encoding out stuff from Raw m2t files on the timeline....I thought something was wrong with my computer as certain heavy filters and stuff took much longer to render/encode. I then realized it was because m2t MPEG is very hard to work with so I converted some to the intermediate HD codec and things were much much faster. I may have to dump all the m2t files I have captured for archive and start again I think. I see like a 1T SATA drive is like only $270...space is cheap.

I've now added a 2-pass CBR WMV version to the page and updated the 1-pass CBR version with a lower bitrate to match the other tests (I had some confusion between bits and bytes in the encoder settings). Also added screen shots of all the Vegas settings.

Nick you have been busy....
I played them side by side with VLC player and basically there is not much in them all.
I would just stick to FLASH as then you know everyone can play them.
Keep them to 1500kbps so they near on play in real time for most.
People don't want to mess around downloading clips, they want them to play.

Funny I just got an email from some guy wanting some stuff to play in China on some TV screens or something.
Must of came across my site.

Thanks Wags.

OK, I've now totally rewritten the page, condensed the number of contenders down to four options, and re-encoded them all with audio.

We now have: On2 VP6 2-pass FLV, Sony AVC, WMV9 2-pass, Xvid 1-pass, all at 2000 kbps CBR with 128 kbps audio.

I have now included Javascript popup links so that they all open in (the same) popup window.

Hopefully this now makes a good usability/compatibility/playability test as well as a good quality comparison.

Looking at these 4 options, for me the Xvid is the clear winner in both quality and playability. It has the best detail and best player. But for sure it's the least compatible as most viewers will not already have the DivX Web Player and will need to download and install it.

FLV is OK but the player has no buffering intelligence. I can only set it with a buffer in seconds, not percentage. It's the most compatible though (98.3% penetration in mature markets by December 2007).

AVC has too much contrast for my liking. This time it insists on buffering 100% of the file before playing.

WMV makes the vis look bad.

Please let me know your experiences. Thanks!

[note: You might need to hard-refresh the page (in I.E. hold down <CTRL> + <SHIFT> while clicking REFRESH) to get the updated version if you have loaded it previously]

If you are worried about popularity, the WMV and Flash are about the same to me. I don't see what you mean by bad viz with WMV. But they are so close for your purposes that flash would be the choice anyhow.

Drew, I thought the WMV muddiness showed up particularly in the swirling trevalies at 0:10.

I'm not sure any of you would be willing to help.

I have read all this with great interest as I have a new HD AVCHD camcorder and intend to use Final Cut Express and On2 on a Mac to get the best possible, reasonably sized FLV for my website. I must be doing something wrong.

-I record in highest quality 1080i
-Import into FCE and have tried exporting in various formats. exporting 1 min of video is taking about 30 mins on a MBP 2.3 GHz with 3 GB Ram.
-Then I use On2 VP6-S and use the settings I read about in this thread. Taking another 30-40 mins.

It looks like crap, especially considering over one hour per minute of video.

I am brand new at this, so I have to be doing something pretty stupid. If someone could just fire off a few tips, I could probably play around and figure out the rest. Is my workflow even correct? 8 hours and 7 lousy i minute clips is pretty frustrating.

Hi Konkid

I'm on a PC but that seems way to long to make a flv file.
Can you make them straight from the timeline?

Maybe encode out a 960/540 aspect ratio 1, single pass Quick Time file @ 3 mbps CBR single pass
Put that into the encoder and set it at 480/270 (no constraints) @ 600kbps CBR single pass.

That should give you a nice flv for your site.

Good luck

Thanks for the reply.

I'm trying for full screen HD compressed in the way that On2 has done on their site with VP6-S.

I should probably approach this one problem at a time. And the first problem I run across is it takes me almost 30 mins to Log and Transfer (import) 1 min of AVCHD into Final Cut Express. On the web, I read that someone with my same computer, same software, does it in 1.3x real time. Not 30x, like I am.

It takes another 30 mins to export and convert it to a .mov. It looks great, but when I then feed it into On2, it takes 3 hrs to make a 960x540 swf. All this for 1 min of video. And it doesn't look good.

I'm trying all kinds of settings but with these times involved I can only try a handful a day. I've tried converting to 720p .mov, 1080i .mov, .avi, 30fps, 60fps, before On2 conversion.

I can't find any answers on the web, and On2 won't return my calls or emails. I'm lost, and I don't even know where to go for an answer.

mmm. I just did what I suggested on the last post all in a matter of a minutes from my NLE.

Full screen you need 960/540 or 1280/720 @ 1500kbps flv would be best for internet playback.
On2 comes with a heap of players as we that you can use.

AVCHD would be hard to edit on your system, it needs to be converted to another codec for ease of editing. Maybe thats why it's taking so long to import.

The one I did here I encoded it out to a QT H.264 file then to the encoder.
Maybe try mpeg 4 as well, not mov or even encode it out as a mpeg 2 file and try that in the encoder.

How long is the clip you are trying to encode out?

Wags,

Thanks for taking the time to throw some suggestions this way. i have been wasting so much of my time watching progress bars that I am hopefully getting to the point that I can almost understand what you are saying.

I'll try a few of your suggestions.

I guess my biggest question at this point is --- It seems as if I need to convert this AVCHD to AIC before I can do anything. Then I can export that as my .mov, mpeg 4, or QT H.264. I have no idea how long it should take from camera to finished export for a 1 minute clip. But it takes more than 10x real time.

I thought I would save a step and feed the AIC into On2. It works, but 1 1/2 minute takes 1 hour. (From 1080i-60 to 960 x540 flv)

I'll keep playing. I'm beginning to think I bought the wrong camera. It's not so much the AVCHD format, but the CMOS Canon HF-10 seems to have a lot more motion blur than I would like. I'm taking video of botanical gardens and rain forest with a lot of detail, and even a slow pan blurs all the leaves and flowers.

Oh well, your site here has helped a lot, so I'll keep at it.

No, it IS the AVCHD format. Nothing to do with CMOS vs CCD. $10k cameras have a hard time keeping that kind of subject sharp on pans. What's your shutter speed set at? There's a reason you see a lot of Varicams and F900s in nature videography.

Konakid
As Perrone has mentioned, it is the codec that falters in motion artifacting and panning. HDV also softens up with you pan. In this age of quickpans and shakey cam reality tv, it's not that big a deal. For natural history, it is. If your panning creates a soft image, pan even slower, like a minute for 180 °. Then you can accelerate the clip to meet your cut.
As for your long render times, it would help if you give us detailed settings for your sequences and camera. It's easy to spew what you're doing wrong but without good detailed info, it's impossible to be certain.

You guys are greatly appreciated. You don't know how long I have searched for worthwhile information on this new "hobby" of mine. It is a steep learning curve, but I am willing. And info such as you guys are willing to share is very sparse and inconsistent.

I am so "all over the map" right now with encoding and camera settings that I need to get some coherent information together in order to ask a coherent question. I will work on that today.

I have recently tried using a tripod, and using shutter priority with speeds of 125 and 250 to address the motion blur while panning. However, trying to do a very slow pan without a few hiccups is impossible, and each hiccup causes the blur.

Last night (per suggestions), I also tried exporting to MPEG 4 and QT H.264 before feeding a clip to On2 but it wouldn't accept the formats. I must have done something wrong.

Until I get some more useful data for some specific technical questions, let me ask these:

1) Is my dream of having a small HD camera to film a walk through a botanical garden, and have any detail in the plants, unrealistic? I am using the Canon HF-10 with the good wide angle lens and all quality settings on high, with OIS off, instant focus off, and shutter priority when permitted at 125.

2) Should my basic strategy be to record 1080-60i and export to as high as quality as possible before feeding to the On2 VP6-S compressor? Or should I down convert to a 540p with reduced bit rates, frame rates, etc. first? If I feed the unaltered 1080i Apple Intermediate Codec to On2, it takes about 30-40x to encode.

Thanks again guys,
You will be sick of me soon.

Konakid
If you are going to ask questions on post please use this thread. However, any questions on camera work should be in the Video Gear forum. This will help other members find this information. Thanks.