Your experience using video....

[whiterabbit]

Hey Wheels thats cool, sounds like a plan. Macromedia has to consider the strategic side of everything. Who knows, maybe they felt they would lose marrket share from Director Software. Better to make people buy two softwares....

Okay so flix is out and understandably so. A side by side comparison if it comes out bad, can mean ruin for that product. Even if you are confident its a risk. That doesnt mean however that somebody else who is an expert and proponent of flix cant encode the samples. Side by side comparisons are far more conclusive than downloading a demo, we need a control clip to do this right.

I have not contacted the other guys yet, been swamped, but I will do it right now and I will start putting together a faq on SV and its pros and cons.

you can also reach me at
jorge@mantaproductions.com so we dont weigh down the board here. We still also need a bit of help from a Flix expert, and maybe you want to encode the mx video. I actually know a guy Peter from Proxivideo.com who claims to have good success with MX. I know he would be into encoding some samples a well. He has some samples posted I believe.

cheers
jp

[Jonathan_B]

Jorge,
I would very much like to test out your video encoding capabilities. Can you tell me whether what you are offering is software that I can buy and use myself, or whether it is a service I have to pay for by the encoding. Also, can you tell me how much your service costs.
Thanks for the info.

jb
http://www.wildform.com

[Wheels]

Alright, but I'm assuming you were actually inviting Jonathan to participate, not precluding him. It looks like he's taken up the challenge.

I would also like to see what end-users can come up with using the different software and methods on the same sample. Let's have two - on at 5 MB and another at 50MB (both raw .avi?). They should have lip-sync somewhere in the movie and a medium amount of movement. Anyone could download the source video and post a link with their methods and settings.

Whiter, are you selling software or services? Doesn't matter too much - just wondering.

5G

[whiterabbit]

Hi, Sorry I had to prep a shoot for tommorow.

Yes I was inviting Flix to participate. As I see it the main methods we are comparing are SV (sequences), .swf video, and MX video.

As to the software question : Yes, we have a software called SWF Optimizer that we have sold worldwide (from our web site) with The SV Bible a CD book on simulated video for the last 10 months or so. Our software modifies a swf file 3,4, or 5 so that it allows the Flash player to reclaim ram continuosly as the video plays. The software is Mac/PC you get both versions and the book $99 and it does its job quite nicely.

In case anyone is wondering on the importance of memory management , consider that a small 3mb video clip without memory management will consume around 100MB of ram to play.


I think I answered all the questions. Im tired though might have missed something and got to get some sleep, we will be up at daybreak tommorow to shoot #1 Drum and Base scratch DJ KRAZE for the last 3 years running. I guess my ears are going to be pounded.

have a good night

jp

[whiterabbit]

Okay,

I have contacted the following comapnies and alerted them to this article, comparison, whatever you want to call it.

swideo.com, livetronix.com, javakitty.com (vid2swf), turbine (they have a support forum on these boards) flashants.com

Who wants to represent MX? Like I said I can contact proxivideo.com but it should probably be somebody I do not know to eliminate any questions of conflict of interest. I will post in the MX forum now.

I will pop back in tonight after the shoot and hopefully we will have the participants lined up.

cheers,

jp

[gweedo]

Looking forward to an objective report on the strengths and weaknesses of the current video conversion/compression tools. Recently made the mistake of purchasing one of the highly-touted MX video compression utilities based on what proved to be less-than-unbiased "reviews" and was terribly disappointed with the quality/compression. Was forced to (additionally) buy a competing product, with which we were ultimately pleased.

Something that would be particularly helpful is a break-down of each products limitations. For instance, although Flash allows a single SWF to be up to 16000 frames long (just under 18 minutes @ 15 fps), at least one of the products we tested was limited to 2055 frames (a little over 2 minutes @ 15 fps) - pretty damn inconvenient.

Also, what are the limitations of the current FLV format?

Much thanks for the initiative!

Gweedo.

[whiterabbit]

Usually a comparison of this type (its easy to get out of hand fast) will take a control clip and encode it at 56, 300 and 600 kbps. We are comparing mx, swf converted (native video) and SV which is not video and they are all played through Flash.

Wheels when you say 5MB and 50MB do you mean compressed. Thats gonna eat up alot of bandwidth if you consider all the different comparisons that will be taking place. Its all the same to me but I suggest we keep the clips as short as possible.

As for having end users run their own test. That's cool too but we should keep it seperate from the actual comparison or else we will be judging talent of the encoder.

Gweedo,
Yes I agree limitations should be covered in the article many of which will probably make themselves apparant in the encoded streams.

I also think we should have an extra example to demonstrate each particular systems strengths...if any.

How about a control clip? Some good uncompressed footage would be nice. Maybe this would be a good opportunity to demonstrate how well the systems work using the MiniDV format which is probably a more real world scenario.

[Jonathan_B]

I think we should have a disiniterested thirdy party encode the video. That way it illustrates how the software works in the hands of a user - as opposed to the designer of the software. The software creators can send in their recommended settings if they want to for the various bitrates - or provide a preset or settings file.
Then, we should also have a different category for standalone software solutions that end users can purchase and implement themselves, and custom services that must be paid for individually.
We also need to compare:
-the features that are available in the software to encode various formats, output various formats, resize, change the framerates, edit, crop, and create an enhanced Flash video with built in interactivity and features, etc. An interesting aspect of this would be to test how long it would take to edit, crop, add a link to, add a preloader to, and output a custom player for a given video. These are all very important parts of the software and users are very interested in this.
-the cost of encoding the video - and whether that fee is a one time fee, or whether subsequent encodings will cost additional money (perhaps we should provide the cost for a single encoding, 1,000 encodings, 10,000 encodings, and so on to provide some scale);
-the length of time it takes to create the video.

More to follow...

If you need some trailers, I have some from films that I have made (I actually put up the first film site on the internet). Or we can probably get some movie trailers from a studio.

jb
http://www.wildform.com

[whiterabbit]

Okay, I think its important that all the features of your software be looked at, but are we on the same wave length as to using traditional DV codecs output as a benchmark for quality standards.

I have from my first post on this thread been talking about pro quality video. That means video that must compete with traditional dv codecs. If you have to make any excuse to your clients about final quality then I dont care how easy it is to use, its not going to cut it.

A least this quality,

http://mantaproductions.com/demo.html

these are straight sequences no custom work like our full screen link posted earlier.

If you cant do this quality, then lets make the categories Pro Quality and Non Pro Quality so we dont waste time comparing tons of features that cant be used anyway by the pro developer.

Jorge
Manta Productions.com, inc.

[gweedo]

If you have to make any excuse to your clients about final quality then I dont care how easy it is to use, its not going to cut it.

Exactly!
Although extra features and ease of use are appreciated by the folks doing the work. The client couldn't care less about how easy the production process might be, or the feature-set of the software used. If the video quality suffers, so does the project and we risk losing business to our competitors.
Bottom line, the process or product that delivers the best quality vs. compression is the one we'll use.

[Wheels]

O.K., so what we're looking at here is a comparison of the output from Manta, Flix and Squeeze Spark, and Sqeeze Spark Pro. Right? Other's?

I agree, ease of use is not a primary concern, but it should be a consideration. I am setting up my sites so that the client can upload their own content, thus updating their site dynamically with PHP and XML. In this case, ease of use is an obvious priortity. So it is a consideration in the overall picture.

If I've done my job right, I've taken care of any scripting that needs to be attatched to an imported movie by providing for movie control once it has been loaded to the Flash movie. This is what I've been trying to cover in the FAQ. So again, the client should be able to just compress and upload their own content with no need for Flash scripting knowledge. This is what I consider "ease of use", not neccessarily my ease of use.

Whiterabbit, I was referring to the initial file size (5,50), but maybe that's not possible. I think there are two final sizes to consider though - less than a MB and whatever maximum we can possibly achieve (just to test the limit and test sound sync issues).

BTW Jonathan, I've responded to your message - but have yet to hear back from you.

5G
[Edited by Wheels on 08-18-2002 at 04:23 AM]

[whiterabbit]

Originally posted by Wheels
O.K., so what we're looking at here is a comparison of the output from Manta, Flix and Squeeze Spark, and Sqeeze Spark Pro. Right? Other's?

That sounds good but lets call it Flix Squeeze and SV. We helped SV along by making it play better on the Flash Player but its really just Flash and even though we have a product we are more interested in raising the overall quality of Flash video so that it makes it easier for us to sell our clients.

I agree, ease of use is not a primary concern, but it should be a consideration. I am setting up my sites so that the client can upload their own content, thus updating their site dynamically with PHP and XML. In this case, ease of use is an obvious priortity. So it is a consideration in the overall picture.

If I've done my job right, I've taken care of any scripting that needs to be attatched to an imported movie by providing for movie control once it has been loaded to the Flash movie. This is what I've been trying to cover in the FAQ. So again, the client should be able to just compress and upload their own content with no need for Flash scripting knowledge. This is what I consider "ease of use", not neccessarily my ease of use.

Okay. I don't recomend non developer maintenance of SV mostly because sv requires developer machines but I guess we can go ahead and make it as easy as possible by creating a media player with all the scripting in it. Jonathan mentioned preloaders, we use a smart buffer test which times the download of a part of the file and then sets buffer time accordingly. This allows fast start playback, is that what mx and flix will be using as well or will it just be preloaded?

Whiterabbit, I was referring to the initial file size (5,50), but maybe that's not possible. I think there are two final sizes to consider though - less than a MB and whatever maximum we can possibly achieve (just to test the limit and test sound sync issues).

Okay, yeah lets keep it small. I got a feeling this could be downloaded enough times to break the bank. I have noticed all systems have sound synch issues so thats a good one, and Gweedo mentioned a frame limitation for segments which is good because Flash is extremely ram hungry so even though the technical limitation is 16000 frames, I doubt a machine exists that can handle that.


BTW Jonathan, I've responded to your message - but have yet to hear back from you.

5G
[Edited by Wheels on 08-18-2002 at 04:23 AM] [/B][/QUOTE]

[flashants]

Originally posted by whiterabbit
If the swf video guys (flix, at least but maybe also swideo.com, livetronix.com, vid2swf, flashants.com, turbine and whatever others) are in, then I can see about getting some of the guidelines used in the traditional streaming codecs and we can all contribute as to which guidelines can apply or add new parameters as needed and we can even take it a step further and include the dv codec comparison results from streamingmedia.com.

Yes, we would like to join the comparison.
In fact, Flashants flash video solution(FMProjector/FMPlayer) is not simulated video. We support all WMP supported media and enable flash to embed video in projector and website.
We are willing to provide assistance and information for the comparison.
http://www.flashants.com

[jdiogo]

We at Blue Pacific Software would like to participate on this encoding comparison with Turbine Video Encoder.
Although it doesn't yet create Flash MX video, TVE is a pretty good Flash 3-5 encoder (it features inter-frame compression and other advanced compression techniques) and we're quite curious on how well it stacks against other popular products.

[whiterabbit]

Great looks like things are shaping up.

I found one of the control clips that was used in streaming media.coms codec comparison. This one is a Digital animation its in AVI format around 400MB. We should get one more that is not an animation and then we are set.

[Jonathan_B]

I think we should have a lot more than two clips and I think they should be selected by a disinterested third party.
Clips should have a variety of typical video scenarios (animated video is not really a typical scenario, since most people doing animation in Flash are starting in Flash, not converting into Flash). Typical scenarios are dramatic scenes, trailers, action/sports, talking heads, etc.

Also, Whiterabbit I'm still trying to find out how I can test out your service, how long it takes, and how much it costs. Can you please provide that information.

jb
http://www.wildform.com

[markapicone]

I have a question about using video and Flash for CD-ROM distribution. I have a customer that wants a Flash presentation with video included. I'm considering using Flix for the video assetts. Obviously instead of exporting to a .swf I create a projector and burn to CD, will I have any problems with cross-platform issues? Will I need a prompt in the beginning of the presentation for the user to check for the Flash plug-in?
I'm accustomed to creating Flash-based web sites. CD-ROM with video is a bit intimidating right now.

Thanks for any input.

MP

[Jonathan_B]

Hi.
I'll answer you briefly here, and if you want more information email me off list. We have done several CD projects and I can share my experiences with you.

You can use Flash video for CDs. However, there are issues to consider.
Because of the way Flash works, when you have a SWF on CD, the Flash player loads the entire file into memory before it starts to play. So, depending on your computer's speed, ram, CD player speed, etc. your performance may vary. Consequently, we suggest not creating files larger than 25MB for use on a CD Rom. You can get around this limit by chaining your video swf's and loading them sequentially. Our software, Flix Pro, can do this for you automatically.
Also, if you're going to make Mac projectors, you need to allocate enough RAM to your projector. When preparing a CD-ROM, the projector file needs to be allocated it's own size plus the biggest Flix file plus a couple of extra MB to be on the safe side. When the HFS volume is burnt onto CD it will inherit the memory settings you've specified.

If you create a projector the end user does not need the Flash player - or any other player. Windows and Macs use different projectors. Both the windows and mac versions of Flix will output both win and mac projectors. However, to play the mac projector created by the win version of Flix, you will need to expand the projector on a mac first.

Creating cross-platform CDs is tricky. Here is a thread with more information on that:
cross-platform CDs
http://www.actionscripts.org/forums/...threadid=14844
And here is a site that might be useful for you as well.
http://www.vcdhelp.com

jb@wildform.com

[whiterabbit]

Originally posted by Jonathan_B
I think we should have a lot more than two clips and I think they should be selected by a disinterested third party.
Clips should have a variety of typical video scenarios (animated video is not really a typical scenario, since most people doing animation in Flash are starting in Flash, not converting into Flash). Typical scenarios are dramatic scenes, trailers, action/sports, talking heads, etc.

Also, Whiterabbit I'm still trying to find out how I can test out your service, how long it takes, and how much it costs. Can you please provide that information.

jb
http://www.wildform.com

The video clip??, this is 3D digital animation (not Flash), looks like video and presents very good challenges. It was not selected by me it was selected by streamingmedia magazine for their codec comparison in which I was invited to demonstrate SV's capability.

Test out my service??? This question seems to keep popping up from you even though I have answered it already in this thread. Do you really want an answer or are you trying to make people think SV is only for complex custom scenarios?

For your information, people purchase our book/software on a daily basis both from our site and from Amazon.com (isbn# 0-9716474-0-2, its fully automated help yourself. We dont give out free demo's because we dont care if you buy or not. Our income is mainly derived from us using our product...how does that saying go...

Practice What You Preach?

Here is an idea, I choose this clip, its already been used by one of the top streaming industry magazines for their codec comparison, now you pick the next one, what could be more fair? NO?

[Jonathan_B]

Whiterabbit,
You wrote: "Our income is mainly derived from us using our product"
So my question to you is, if I wanted to hire you to use your book to create your custom SV for me, how much would it cost and how long would it take?

jb