Posted: Wed Mar 26, 2008 5:33 pm Post subject: [Asterisk-video] MPEG4 part 2 video support
Hello list,
we've had some trouble with video quality with H.263, which does not
seem to be optimal.
A guy from radvision states here
( http://www.commsdesign.com/design_corner/OEG20030128S0010 ):
"The 3G-324M standard calls out the H.263 codec as mandatory and MPEG-4
as recommended codec for video processing. However, MPEG-4 is the
3G-324M standard de-facto used by all major supporting vendors.
Resiliency and high efficiency make MPEG-4 codec particularly well
suited for 3G-324M."
He continues by praising the error resilience features of MPEG4 part2:
"As stated above, error resilience is achieved through
resynchronization, byte alignment, data partitioning the reversible
variable length code (RVLC), adaptive intra refresh (AIR), and error
detection and concealment. Let's look at each of these in more detail."
Having read that, we'd like to use MPEG4 part 2 simple profile 1 level 0
as the video codec.
Looking at this patch (http://bugs.digium.com/view.php?id=8663) from
2006, Asterisk should already be able to pass MPEG4 part2 video.
As support for this MPEG4 part 2 codec is not mandatory, every video
played must be available in both formats, and there must be a way to
select the respective file according to the video codec negotiated by
H.245.
Furthermore, there is the need for an asterisk app to play and save
MPEG4.
The only mails I found in the Asterisk Video archive
( http://www.asteriskguru.com/archives/asterisk-video-how-to-integrate-mpeg4visual-h264-mpeg4-p-vt108615.html?highlight=mpeg4 and http://www.asteriskguru.com/archives/asterisk-video-integrating-mpeg4-video-codec-in-asterisk-vt85784.html?highlight=mpeg4 ) are not really helpful.
So, my questions are:
Has anybody ever done it?
Is there any patch?
Are there any Experiences?
Are there other things needed to change?
Is this guy from radvision right? Do most mobile phones really support
MPEG4 part2 and has it really better video quality?
Every answer is welcome! :-)
Kind regards,
Florian
_______________________________________________
--Bandwidth and Colocation Provided by http://www.api-digital.com--
Posted: Wed Mar 26, 2008 7:37 pm Post subject: [Asterisk-video] MPEG4 part 2 video support
Hi Florian,
nice to see, that you emphasized some video coding theory.
Yes, H.263 is very old and very poor. A lot of artefacts are usually seen.
Fast movement with very low bitrate is a mess.
So, not ideal for video telephony with today's requirements according
to quality.
MPEG-4 SP@L0 is the easiest MPEG-4 encoding and a lot of
tools inside MPEG-4 are disabled. But it is the closest toolset
to H.263.
Perhaps you have doubts, why so many mobile phones upload H.263
streams as Web 2.0 User Generated Content UGC to your ViiF platform?
It is a very easy reason. Licensing costs:
For every MPEG-4 _stream_, _encoder_, _decoder_, _stored content_ you
have to pay royalty fees for "System", "Video", and "Audio".
All mobile phone manufacturers pay
fees for decoding MPEG-video for every sold mobile.
But they reject paying fees for encoding video, too. There is not really a
user requirement.
Therefore they use the fallback and use for encoding H.263.
All H.-standards are from ITU-T and they take care of royalty free
algorithms. Good luck.
So, if you change your offer for streams of MPEG-4 content to a broad
publicity,
you should sign a contract with MPEG LA. Therefore I assume, you should
speak
with your CFO first.... :-)
Besides these legal issues: The quality of the encoded streams
depend heavily on the experience people stick into the video and audio
encoders. Some companies have very good video quality
for mobile 2G networks, while big operators do that with
3G and a lot more bandwidth. Of course, companies like Akamai,
Limelight, Dr. Materna claim to be the best, but there are some
small booths being better, but not so well known, of course.
But all of this is out of scope of the business analysts
while making money.
(Hm, sounds like I am a little bit bored...)
More inline...
Quote:
-----Original Message-----
From: asterisk-video-bounces@lists.digium.com
[mailto:asterisk-video-bounces@lists.digium.com] On Behalf Of
Florian Greb ViiF
Cc: floriangreb@web.de
Subject: [Asterisk-video] MPEG4 part 2 video support
Quote:
Hello list,
we've had some trouble with video quality with H.263, which
does not seem to be optimal.
:-)
Quote:
A guy from radvision states here
( http://www.commsdesign.com/design_corner/OEG20030128S0010 ):
"The 3G-324M standard calls out the H.263 codec as mandatory
and MPEG-4 as recommended codec for video processing.
True. (I have in mind H.261 is mandatory? And even h.263 is already
optional? Correct?)
Quote:
However, MPEG-4 is the 3G-324M standard de-facto used by all
major supporting vendors.
Yes, but ... look before...
Quote:
Resiliency and high efficiency make MPEG-4 codec particularly
well suited for 3G-324M."
[...]
Quote:
Having read that, we'd like to use MPEG4 part 2 simple
profile 1 level 0 as the video codec.
Which is more or less H.263.
Quote:
Looking at this patch
(http://bugs.digium.com/view.php?id=8663) from 2006, Asterisk
should already be able to pass MPEG4 part2 video.
As support for this MPEG4 part 2 codec is not mandatory,
every video played must be available in both formats, and
there must be a way to select the respective file according
to the video codec negotiated by H.245.
Florian, if it is the de-facto standard, you can focus on MPEG-4. :-)
Quote:
Furthermore, there is the need for an asterisk app to play
and save MPEG4.
MP4Play plays and stores MPEG-4 files. 3GP containers.
So, my questions are:
Has anybody ever done it?
Is there any patch?
Are there any Experiences?
There is another branch in Digium.
Quote:
Are there other things needed to change?
Capabilities exchange procedure. Signalling on Layer 1,2,3 or so.
Quote:
Is this guy from radvision right? Do most mobile phones really support
MPEG4 part2 and has it really better video quality?
Yes.
But you have to distinguish: local playback, streaming, video call, java.
It is not said, that they support all 4 items. Marketing always claims
MPEG-4 support.
Quote:
Kind regards,
Florian
Greetings from germany,
Michael
_______________________________________________
--Bandwidth and Colocation Provided by http://www.api-digital.com--
Posted: Wed Mar 26, 2008 8:07 pm Post subject: [Asterisk-video] MPEG4 part 2 video support
Hi Michael and Florian,
Great discussion! jeje.. let's add some more opions.
Firts, about licenses, they don't apply if you only recieve the mpeg-4 stream and store in an mp4,
just the same as in the AMR licenes.
About video quality, I really don't beleive there is any significant gain moving from h263 to mpeg4 part 2.
mpeg4 part 10 (h264) is another history, but there aren't many handsets supporting it yet.
Best regards
Sergio
Michael (qq12345) escribió:
Quote:
Quote:
Hi Florian,
nice to see, that you emphasized some video coding theory.
Yes, H.263 is very old and very poor. A lot of artefacts are usually seen.
Fast movement with very low bitrate is a mess.
So, not ideal for video telephony with today's requirements according
to quality.
MPEG-4 SP@L0 is the easiest MPEG-4 encoding and a lot of
tools inside MPEG-4 are disabled. But it is the closest toolset
to H.263.
Perhaps you have doubts, why so many mobile phones upload H.263
streams as Web 2.0 User Generated Content UGC to your ViiF platform?
It is a very easy reason. Licensing costs:
For every MPEG-4 _stream_, _encoder_, _decoder_, _stored content_ you
have to pay royalty fees for "System", "Video", and "Audio".
All mobile phone manufacturers pay
fees for decoding MPEG-video for every sold mobile.
But they reject paying fees for encoding video, too. There is not really a
user requirement.
Therefore they use the fallback and use for encoding H.263.
All H.-standards are from ITU-T and they take care of royalty free
algorithms. Good luck.
So, if you change your offer for streams of MPEG-4 content to a broad
publicity,
you should sign a contract with MPEG LA. Therefore I assume, you should
speak
with your CFO first.... :-)
Besides these legal issues: The quality of the encoded streams
depend heavily on the experience people stick into the video and audio
encoders. Some companies have very good video quality
for mobile 2G networks, while big operators do that with
3G and a lot more bandwidth. Of course, companies like Akamai,
Limelight, Dr. Materna claim to be the best, but there are some
small booths being better, but not so well known, of course.
But all of this is out of scope of the business analysts
while making money.
Posted: Wed Mar 26, 2008 9:17 pm Post subject: [Asterisk-video] MPEG4 part 2 video support
Hi Sergio,
Quote:
Firts, about licenses, they don't apply if you only recieve the mpeg-4 stream and store in an mp4,
just the same as in the AMR licenes. (for private use)
You are right. But usually within business cases of companies, the story continues.
And at a certain point of time some companies want to publish content, and that is covered with royalties.
It is like Peer-to-peer software. Downloading is not the fact. Publishing is the issue.
About video quality, I really don't beleive there is any significant gain moving from h263 to mpeg4 part 2.
I believe 50% but my colleague nailed me down to 10% for SP@L0 ([email]SP@L0[/email]). Perhaps it depends on the content,
the bitrate, the targeted bitrate, and quantisation, etc.
mpeg4 part 10 (=AVC) (h264) is another history, but there aren't many handsets supporting it yet.
Most new handsets from Nokia support it. They are already enabled for DVB-H/T or whatsoever.
Since 2 years a lot of Nokia handsets have H.264 support onboard.
Posted: Thu Mar 27, 2008 8:02 am Post subject: [Asterisk-video] MPEG4 part 2 video support
Hi,
On Wed, Mar 26, 2008 at 10:07 PM, Michael (qq12345) <qq12345@web.de (qq12345@web.de)> wrote:
Quote:
Hi Sergio,
Quote:
Firts, about licenses, they don't apply if you only recieve the mpeg-4 stream and store in an mp4,
just the same as in the AMR licenes. (for private use)
You are right. But usually within business cases of companies, the story continues.
And at a certain point of time some companies want to publish content, and that is covered with royalties.
It is like Peer-to-peer software. Downloading is not the fact. Publishing is the issue.
About video quality, I really don't beleive there is any significant gain moving from h263 to mpeg4 part 2.
I believe 50% but my colleague nailed me down to 10% for SP@L0 ([email]SP@L0[/email]). Perhaps it depends on the content,
the bitrate, the targeted bitrate, and quantisation, etc.
mpeg4 part 10 (=AVC) (h264) is another history, but there aren't many handsets supporting it yet.
Most new handsets from Nokia support it. They are already enabled for DVB-H/T or whatsoever.
Since 2 years a lot of Nokia handsets have H.264 support onboard.
Most of nokia phones support h.264 for video playback from streaming protocols or a file,
but I have never seen a 3g stack (h245 negociation) that support it.
Have you a example ?
Quote:
Quote:
CU,
Michael
_______________________________________________
--Bandwidth and Colocation Provided by http://www.api-digital.com--
Posted: Thu Mar 27, 2008 9:41 am Post subject: [Asterisk-video] MPEG4 part 2 video support
Hi
So from all the discussion, how can we go about in using MPEG-4 for video, a part from legal issues. Playing a file as video.
On Wed, Mar 26, 2008 at 10:07 PM, Michael (qq12345) <qq12345@web.de (qq12345@web.de)> wrote:
Quote:
Hi Sergio,
Quote:
Firts, about licenses, they don't apply if you only recieve the mpeg-4 stream and store in an mp4,
just the same as in the AMR licenes. (for private use)
You are right. But usually within business cases of companies, the story continues.
And at a certain point of time some companies want to publish content, and that is covered with royalties.
It is like Peer-to-peer software. Downloading is not the fact. Publishing is the issue.
About video quality, I really don't beleive there is any significant gain moving from h263 to mpeg4 part 2.
I believe 50% but my colleague nailed me down to 10% for SP@L0 ([email]SP@L0[/email]). Perhaps it depends on the content,
the bitrate, the targeted bitrate, and quantisation, etc.
mpeg4 part 10 (=AVC) (h264) is another history, but there aren't many handsets supporting it yet.
Most new handsets from Nokia support it. They are already enabled for DVB-H/T or whatsoever.
Since 2 years a lot of Nokia handsets have H.264 support onboard.
CU,
Michael
_______________________________________________
--Bandwidth and Colocation Provided by http://www.api-digital.com--
You can post new topics in this forum You can reply to topics in this forum You cannot edit your posts in this forum You cannot delete your posts in this forum You cannot vote in polls in this forum