F8 / On2 / Squeeze: Which codec ?

[Spirit of 45]

I don't understand which codec is which and whether there is a now an extra "pro" codec...

I realise On2's codec is in F8. On2 have also added this to the updated Flix8 product. Squeeze will include it the upcoming 4.2 release.

But are all these using the *same* codec ?

Will a wmv or qt file converted in F8 be as good quality as something converted in Flix or Squeeze 4.2 ?

Will the Squeeze version simply be a smaller file because of compression techniques, but the same quality ?

Is Flix8 really adding anything extra in codec terms over F8, or are the benefits of Flix really all in its other extras such as the players, vector vid etc ?

Very confused ....

[Spirit of 45]

Is it my imagination or is Flashkit in a bit of decline ? So many threads never get an answer....

Where are all the Flashers gone ?

[vidiac]

My guess is that they are exactly the same. Likely that Sorenson purchased On2's Flix Engine SDK http://www.on2.com/developer/flix-engine-sdk/ . I think the Pro term is just marketing.

I don't see how they would have access to the actual codec given the licensing agreement with Macromedia and the fact that it hasn't been out long enough for them to really tweak it. And if they did it likely wouldn't work with Flash Player 8 anymore.

[BoltVanderhuge]

Hi Spirit,

First off let me say I work for On2. On to your questions; the VP6.2 codec used by F8, Squeeze, and Flix is exactly the same. So if you were to give the exact same VP6.2 compression options to Squeeze and to Flix you would create the exact same compressed frames (file sizes might be different depending on the extra information written to the FLV or SWF).

That being said, now you have to look at the VP6.2 compression options exposed by the encoding application. Usually the more options exposed the better you can tune your compressed file. You can find more information about setting the different compression VP6.2 options from a white paper at our site www.on2.com. Goto the VP6.2 product page. We will be putting up more tutorials in the future about why you would want to set the different compression options.

Lastly I would recommend always using 2 pass compression to get the best quality.

I hope that clears it up a little bit.

[vidiac]

BoltVanderhuge,

Do you have any information on what type of differences in compression time and realitive quality for 1-pass, 2-pass, 1-pass quality, etc? I understand 2-pass is the best but it's very slow even on a fast machine.

[BoltVanderhuge]

Vidiac

I just did a quick test in Flix Pro. ( I choose the 512K preset, which resizes to 320x???. Height size will be determined by source aspect ratio.) In general if you pick a lower bitrate preset the compression will be faster.

Clip 1 source is 720x480, 24fps, 10 seconds, raw avi.
2 pass took 22 seconds
1 pass took 11 seconds

Clip 2 source is 480x208, 24fps, 1:19 length, mpeg4 mov.
2 pass took 1:23
1 pass took 53 seconds

This is for Flix Pro version 8.001. I'm running on a P4 3.0GHz.

I would always suggest using 2 pass to get better quality, but this will highly depend on the source material.

[Spirit of 45]

Thanks for this good info !

So, in very simple terms, the codecs in all the products are the same, but the compression options are different ?

[vidiac]

I played with the demo version of Flix Exporter today. It only had 1-pass and 2-pass VBR. Squeeze has 1 and 2-pass CBR and VBR and 1-pass quality VBR, whatever that is.

However Flix Exporter was faster as I couldn't get Squeeze to max out the CPU.

[BoltVanderhuge]

Hi Vidiac,

Yeah we couldn't get the CBR (1 pass and 2 pass) option added to the exporter and tested in time for the release. This option will be in the next release of the exporter.