New Video Codec for Animation next year.

[Kyle Fenton]

Was there any discussions either at the team forum, or any other places where FIRST or Autodesk, was considering to change the codec from Cinepak to something else like MPEG-4. Because our final animation didn't turn out like we hoped because of the Cinpeak codec. Cinpeak is good for the web, but not for a final project that is supposed to look good.

[Trashed20]

I don't think they will change it to an mpeg-4 codec simply because a standard has not been set yet. It would dramatically increase the looks of the animations but some could be unreadable and therefore, unjudgeable. They also won't use divx as there are many versions floating around and the older versions were hacks of the microsoft mpeg-4 codec. I doubt FIRST or Autodesk would support that. One thing that could be usefull, but prolly not practical, would be a FIRST or Autodesk webserver/ftp where the team could upload their uncompressed full frame avi's. Most shools would have a fast enough connection to do this (those files would be 1gig+). Or possibly even dvd burning, or smaller frames, or.... the list could go on and on.

[evulish]

Heh. Imagine 600 teams uploading 1+ gb files to an ftp server in about a week. Some teams do more than one animation. I suppose if FIRST has enough money for a 1-2TB RAID array and an OC-256, then that could be a good idea :)

[Trashed20]

well, its just and idea :) They could just give us all a 1-2 gigabyte harddrive to transfer the animation on to and we could ship that :p

[Kyle Fenton]

Originally posted by Trashed20
I don't think they will change it to an mpeg-4 codec simply because a standard has not been set yet. It would dramatically increase the looks of the animations but some could be unreadable and therefore, unjudgeable. They also won't use divx as there are many versions floating around and the older versions were hacks of the microsoft mpeg-4 codec. I doubt FIRST or Autodesk would support that. One thing that could be usefull, but prolly not practical, would be a FIRST or Autodesk webserver/ftp where the team could upload their uncompressed full frame avi's. Most shools would have a fast enough connection to do this (those files would be 1gig+). Or possibly even dvd burning, or smaller frames, or.... the list could go on and on.

Just for a clarification there is an offical ISA (Internet Streaming Allience) offical codec for MPEG-4.

http://www.apple.com/mpeg4/

Right now Quicktime 6 seems to be the only reader to read this, but WMP and Real said that they would include support for the ISA MPEG-4 Codec

[Trashed20]

Originally posted by Kyle Fenton


Just for a clarification there is an offical ISA (Internet Streaming Allience) offical codec for MPEG-4.

http://www.apple.com/mpeg4/

Right now Quicktime 6 seems to be the only reader to read this, but WMP and Real said that they would incluude support for the ISA MPEG-4 Codec

i thought that was a proprietary codec? i believe its only used for streaming by quicktime right now so we proly wouldn't have enough of a base for everyone to use it. The mpeg-4 streaming codec is pretty impressive though. /me likes the instant response when you search through a file (e.g, the mac conference stream) :)

[Sunny Thaper]

Have you guys heard of the new XviD codec? I have had a chance to check it out and I must say I like it a lot more than DivX. It's sharper in low light conditions, non-pixelated in high action scenes, and it's open source.

[Jim Giacchi]

I think that amount of storage would be easier to come by then you would think. FIRST is sponsored by IBM and Microsoft. One to two terabytes would be nothing to either of these companies. Especially with IBM specializing in those humongous server mainframes.

[Daishichimaru]

Very simple. Talk to Bink. Get special promo deal to let teams use Bink for the single purpose of submitting the animation in exchange for pimping the codec. Voila.

[Sunny Thaper]

Originally posted by Daishichimaru
Very simple. Talk to Bink. Get special promo deal to let teams use Bink for the single purpose of submitting the animation in exchange for pimping the codec. Voila.

Any FIRST student that uses the word "pimping" deserves my respect.

[Trashed20]

Originally posted by Sunny Thaper


Any FIRST student that uses the word "pimping" deserves my respect.

I saw dean pimping on his segway........... ok, im done

[Sunny Thaper]

Originally posted by Trashed20


I saw dean pimping on his segway........... ok, im done That's just directing my respect towards Dean, not you. I think you need to work on your use of the word pimping. It's not easy to drop that into a robotics conversation. You have to make it sound like you didn't care about what word you put in the sentence, for example "I was riding my bike yesterday then I saw this pimping neon sign that said 'Free Max 5 Copies'"

[stevek]

I am always amazed at the direction of a thread, but thats what the human mind does, its like free association in writing one thing leads to another and viola!

Anyway:

The problem you need to keep in mind with compressions is it looses quality and you eventually endup with a format that is for viewing only. That is to say- and MPEG file isnt a good file for source material (for compliation reels and such) I can almost guarentee that they initially asked for Uncompressed because they were loading them into an Avid System and wanted the best posible quality. Windows media and Real files are not gunna be good formats to send to them. They are small and provide the best size to quality ratios but it cant be useful once they get them. I think the best thing to do is to let us know what they do on their end (or they can do this on their own) and give us the codec for that system (IE Avid Meridian can give us an uncompressed file -which is too big- or it can give us a 2:1 or 3:1 or 10:1 and so on. A 2:1 compression would be fine and they could import this and create their DVD and what ever else they make. Take it from someone that has to make other peoples compressions work (clients send all kinds of stuff thinking I can use it any way they want- Well thats not the case) So I prefer to do as much of the compressing myself or giving explicit instructions on what I am looking for. What ever system thay use, There should be a distribution codec that we can use to make files from MAX or After Effects or What ever editor you use.

Yes this is a lot but its on the subject!!! (I think :) )