I am not surprised at your findings. Others will now come on and attack the way you compressed your files so it's not a true test but the fact is, your results are 100% accurate.

One of the issues however is it takes more overhead to run an MPEG2 file than a files that has more (and different) compression. There may also be licensing fees involved (not sure about that with Serato)

I think it's a mistake, but I am in the minority.

I used VDJ for over 4 years. When Serato's VSL was release I bought it and did similar comparisons. It took a several months to finally do a complete switch over to VSL. I did a quality comparison as well. Yes VOB files do look better... BUT... if encoded right... MP4 video files look just as good.

Here are 2 main reasons surrounding the MP4 in my opinion why I did the switch:

1) smaller files. can fit several thousand on an 500gb external drive.

2) VSL supports tagging of MP4 and VDJ doesn't!! I was a beta tester and VIP member of VDJ and ALWAYS gave constructive input surrounding improvements. I suggested this added feature over a year ago and they kept dismissing me saying it wasn't important. Well now I can put any fields I want using an MP3 Tagging program like Tag&Rename and have it appear in VSL as soon as you load it into a crate. Important things like BPM will be up and ready. You don't HAVE to scan each file to get that info. If you are particular about tagging like I am then you could appreciate the ability to add info like album, genre, comments, version, etc.. and being able to edit them in batches using Tag&Rename.



Other reasons for switching where because of reliability factor. Simple plug-n-play using a MacBook Pro laptop. I had several config problems with VDJ when using my PC laptop. When VDJ is used with a custom built desktop PC it works GREAT! .. but how portable is that when you do like me and work several spots and tend to travel a bit.

there is lounge here in Vegas that Andrew B works at called V-Bar. In the DJ booth they have a Mac Pro built into the DJ booth. You just bring your external and hook it up and that's it. Solid!

Reason I mention that is if you guys have this a residency somewhere and have a computer permanent install in the booth then get a MacPro. I almost guarantee that most good pro DJ's would be using Serato instead of VDJ.

If you did a poll... you would find that there are several EX-VDJ users here who waited for Serato to release a solid version of the video plug-in. I being one of them. Only reason I was using VDJ was for ability to do video.

Now with Serato having the release of ver. 1.1. .. you would be able to use the SL-1 soundcard and ANY midi device/DJ mixer to run video. That was one thing I did like about VDJ... but that just eliminated that argument now didn't it.

i think you got this one backwards. it takes a fraction of the computing resources to decode MPEG2 than it does to decode an H.264 mp4 of equal size.

I think I have a 700Mhz Pentium that can decode MPEG2.

were the mp4 ripped from the same vobs what settings did you use to encode them?
Can hardly say it was a true side by side comparison. I personally notice very little if any quality diffrence between a vob and the mp4 that I ripped from that same vob
And yes I do own vdj tried it for a while and if this is the spinns I think it was I even had high hopes for seeing as it was being used at your spot(in the mall right?) but I could not for the life of me get the timecode to work flawlessly (almost on the powerhouse desktop but still to this day I wouldnt trust it to do a five hour straight set of video) and I was being cheap cause I already had the sl1
Then I went with vsl route(not the cheap way compared to vdj)
Left the store went home installed vsl and blam no issues no little lags after a while of using it my cpu stay in a normal range It runs...Flawlessly and I like I said I really dont notice much diffrence from vob or mp4s that have been encoded properly

1st. of all mp4 is a container format. The audio and video inside an mp4 can be encoded in various formats. (Let's assume you are using h264 and aac.)
2nd. per se, vob/MPEG2 is not better or worse than mp4 when it comes to quality.
3rd. obviously it all depends very much on the source material as well as the encoding parameters you go with. Depending on that your mileage will vary.

If done right the difference between MPEG2 and an transcoded mp4 file (done right!) should be almost not noticable (if at all). If you're MPEG's are at 29.97 fps (and they were originally at 24fps, so called pulled-up videos) you will experience "interlacing" artifacts on this material. You can get rid of these artifacts and improve the video quality a lot if you IVTC your videos. If you compare some of the encodes from the smashvidz-video service for example compared to the same MPEG2-videos from normal DVD's, you should see that mp4's can look a lot better.


Were you playing your mp4's in VSL or in VDJ?
A tip:

1. If you want to compare VSL vs. VDJ you have to use the same videos (same files) in both programs
2. If you want to compare mp4 vs. MPEG2/vob you have to use the same program when playing different videos (they should be encoded using the same source and preferrably using "similar" settings).

You can't do a comparison if you are changing the app and the files in the same round.



Yes, it is a mistake, and you have been told several times. This is wrong.

MPEG2-decoding produces less CPU load than h.264/divx/xvid (commonly used with mp4).

Absolutely wrong guys. It ALL has to do with your graphics card that you have and the system that you run. NONE of the Apple systems have an MPEG2 decoder chip in their graphic cards, but there are H.264 accelerators in them. SOME PC's have an MPEG2 chip on-board, and they also have H.264 accelerators as well.

Apple is also working on 100% hardware assistance with h.264 encoding/decoding. Currently Apple using 100% software decoding for their MPEG2 decoding.

If you have a system that is showing MPEG2 load being less than H.264 then you have a decoder chip that you are using. And then, of course, your CPU shows less work because the MPEG2 chip is doing all of the work.

*sigh* You do have no clue. At first reading your ridiculously wrong statements was funny, since they were so off. But now, this is getting boring.

Justin is wrong on the MPEG2 decoding.
nik is right.

google it.

Phat-Al please do not get caught up in Nik's pathetic attempts to understand video Read this article

www.pbs.org

I expect Phat-Al to be able to educate himself, he doesn't need me to tell him what's correct and what's false.

Oh and here is a link to the Apple MPEG-2 tech specs page. Notice how it says that PC can use a hardware component but nothing for the mac side.

www.apple.com

The author is wrong about two things:



As a-swift has posted... you don't need a fast computer to playback DVD's.


No, not at all, Mr Robert Cringely. I read that master piece of tech-talk before... VJ Austin posted it before you did :) To be fair, Mr Cringely, I have to say, that your article is not that bad at all, but it is just that some people do not understand what you are talking about.



I'll leave that to someone else to comment. Since you officially ignore understanding the most simple tech talk, I don't think that it will help us or lead us anywhere if I explain it to you. You bore me.

Wow Nik, you don't think anyone but you is right...now I understand everything.

Sorry, but there is no hope.

lmaorofl now you are making up quotes. At least I have my entertainment for the day, thanks.

You should open your eyes. That helps, esp. when you are reading. :)

am I gonna have separate you two?

... thread jacking with these fights and bickering back and forth...

Id gladly pay apple $3500+ on March 6th for a MBP today :@. (Arrival Mar 27th)...while Im in Miami. blah

When I used VDJ, the videos did look better, regardless of what any of you say :P

i have to agree that h.264 decoding is more cpu intensive than mpeg2 decoding. this makes obvious sense to me.

vi Justin Allen is wrong. No question about it. He has no clue on this stuff. H.264 is a better looking codec than MPEG2 at the same bitrate. Hell, it's pretty close to being better at half the bitrate. Encode some original source material to both and see for yourself.

He is absolutely wrong also about MPEG2 using more CPU to decode than H.264. That one alone shows how clueless Justin is. I'll post a clip demonstrating this and wait for Justin's response.

Justin, if you are clueless on these things, you shouldn't pretend that you know what you are talking about. nik39, like him or hate him, is a lot more knowledgable on the technical details of video formats,.. A lot more than most people on this forum.

A-swift just because you are friends with Nik, do not make yourself out to be the idiot here. Not only do I stand behind what I say BUT have provided external links to others who say the same thing.

I expect Nik to be an idiot, but I do not expect the same from you.

AND on the issue of MPEG2 vs H.264, I agree 100% that you can get better looking images from H.264 than from MPEG2 IF YOU START WITH THE UNCOMPRESSED IMAGE FIRST.

What you and these other idiots do not see is that you are NOT starting with that, you are starting with an already compressed MPEG2 image and then compressing it some more.

You cannot argue that you end up with a better picture from that process, it is flat out impossible.

I know that you and Nik want to be the "big boys" around here, but this is not the way to go about it.

Whoa...

Ok, justin posts something that is correct. You can't re-encode an already compressed MPEG2 and expect it to look as good as the mpeg2. It's impossible. This is correct

You are incorrect that nik39 and I are friends. If I think he's wrong on something, I point it out and he does the same to me.

No, I do not know everything but what I know for certain is MPEG2 uses less CPU to decode than h.264.

It's not about standing behind your words, it's that you are wrong. External links... So you posted ONE link, which does not even explicitly say that MPEG2 uses more ressources than h264.


No. This is not about re-encoding.

I could really care less about being a "big boy" around here. But I can't stand to see someone post something incorrect and state it as fact. If you interpret that as me trying to elevate my status then, so be it. Honestly though, I could care less. People respect my opinions because of past contributions. Period.

Here is what you guys are talking about I think. I did some more research and looked at much smaller bitrates that the typical DJ may use on their computer.

Decoding a H.264 video takes much more work than with MPEG-2. Yes, I am changing my stance, but not the facts. Using highly encoded movies this is absolutely true. Usually dedicated H.264 decoding hardware is required in standalone BD and HDDVD players, as a generic processor just isn't enough to handle the work load, just like with MPEG2. This is understandable as we have to make a tradeoff between file size/bitrate and the amount of work a CPU needs to do to reproduce the video, and H.264 produces very small files.

Basically in a laptop however the MPEG2 playback has been handled from a dedicated chip. Today (and for the last 2 years) Apple has used the CPU for H.264. Now, Apple is moving to a dedicated chip for H.264 in order to offload that processor intensive workload from the CPU.

Here is the bottom line. At the relativelly small file sizes that we, as VJ's, use and knowing that we are not getting any material form the source and just using already compressed MPEG2 footage, it is almost a wash on the Apple. PC's have more graphic cards available to them for MPEG2 decoding, so in essence H.264 DOES TAKE MORE CPU to decode it because there are no hardware decoders on board. When storing less data through compression, the CPU must do work to fill in the blanks before sending the video out to a display. We also see a much lower CPU utilization with MPEG-2 because it doesn't compress the video as much as H.264.

But once again, this gets washed out because of the transcoding and the low bitrate, and then the addition on MPEG chips on graphic cards.

In this part of the thread both of us were right, and both of us were wrong.

See what u started Jonnie Loves Chaci!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thank god, and I thought all hope is lost.



So what?


lol, and hope is lost again.


Nope. You changed your opinion and are partly right now.

I'm puzzled now Nik...what do you think the CPU doing if not filling in the blanks? Perhaps I should have called them "slices" which is what H.264 uses instead of I, B and P pictures. This is the reason that it is more CPU intensive.

Im a rookie whos right so I don't have to search for the answer..Sup EYE357 may the Cowboys beat the Giants ASS....

No.

No what? No, that's not the reason H.264 is more intensive?

If not, please tell me why?

Kaskade - Step 1 2 (Jack Millz WMC 09 Edit) :) listen to happy music, let it take u to a happy place...."yall just getup and dance...yeaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhh" -Afrika Bambaataa

Yes.


No. Explaining it to you is a waste of time, and I was really patient but I already wasted enough time.

Nik, since you still do not know what you are talking about, please visit the wiki link I have supplied. It will tell you all about WHY H.264 uses slices to fill in the missing data so that you have an entire picture.

Of course you may not understand it. still.

en.wikipedia.org

VJ Justin Allen,

Once again you're resorting to personal insults in your comments. They're not welcome here.

Consider yourself warned.

Please see my previous answer to you Chris

Off topic....I (Heart) dance music.

That's not what you said.

You said:

What you wrote makes no sense at all.

I didn't know that h264 was breaking down the picture into slices which can have different types of prediction, but that is not the issue here.

ChrisD any relation to ChuckD from P.E. lol. that was too easy sorry

Just to clarify, VJ Justin Allen, in the other thread you were explaining why you were taking stabs at me. Different case. In this thread HERE you have called a-swift and "others" idiots. I can't remember a-swift ever going into personal attacks, (neither in this thread, nor in any other).

i kinda chuckled at being called an idiot by vj justin allen. seriously. then i considered posting a real explanation to why H.264 or any other video encoding scheme, uses more CPU than say, another video encoding scheme.

then i though, ... why. so i didn't.

H.264 and it's cousins have been around a lot longer than it has been popular. H.264 and similar schemes have looked a lot better to human eyes than a lot of other "standard" encoding methods, for a long time. only within the last 2-3 years has it really become viable mainstream. i wonder why that is? (actually, i don't)

+1



man this thread went way off topic....

no mention of the comparisons between VDJ & VSL... since the first few posts


that's what happens though

u da man!!!

and for the first few minutes of reading I was actually picking up some knowledge...
I think.

its too bad this thread went a-rye.

I have 2 systems at my gig. my laptop and the desktop.
for shitz n giggles I ran the same exact file (put a copy in both hds)
cue's them up, and got them running in sync.
then it was a matter of flicking the switch that controls which input goes to the TVs
so, while flicking back an forth I have to echo what we already know.
Vdj seems to run a smoother better looking video.
(if i remember it was a rip from my own dvd @ 3500kbs h264 )

am I gonna swap back to vdj... hellllll no.
but it gets under my skin that, that is still an issue...we all demand quality.
Like phat-al mentioned im one of those who waited in the wings for SSL to deliver
that death blow we now call 1.1 to make the permanant swap over...
now more than ever I scrutinize everyvideo I play and the biggest thing I dont see
on vdj is the ocasional black flashing horizontal line...and the vids in VDJ seem more fluid

The horizontal lines are one thing that is holding us back as well as the fluidity of vdj. we have come to the conclusion that we will be in the future using vsl, and in the mean time gonna use vsl on a minimal basis after everyone has gotten drunk so the likely hood of someone noticing drops.

Those lines are most likely because the videos are interlaced. Did you de-interlace when you went the the encoding process?

Question do you have to de-interlace if the video looks like it doesn't need it.

If you are playing an interlaced file with the settings in V-SL anything lower the the highest quality they will show.

VDJ (i believe) automatically de-interlaces.

its not "those" lines... i should have been more clear.
Ill try to get an image, but its so hard

I may sound like a broken record.... When using DVD's at a framerate of 29.97 (anything which has been pulled up... PO for example) deinterlacing is not the proper way to fix it, since this will unnecessary cause a reduction of the vertical resolution. IVTC is the proper way of doing it.

nik
can you explain that more, or give reference to how hat works
(im still kinda green on the video side)

Sure, this should help you:

en.wikipedia.org

www.100fps.com < with more pics and examples. It shows when you should NOT deinterlace.

Read the paragraphs which go like:



VJ Austin Allen should also esp have a look at *this* part.. "Resizing height without deinterlacing first"
www.100fps.com

nik39, let me get this straight. you're actually fixing all your video files that are pulled down?

you can't be serious with this right?

maybe i should fix all mine too. compressor does reverse telecine by the way.

Why not? I am not doing this manually.

I know you like these magic words: My scripts do it ;)

Plus... I can't stand the interlacing/combing artifacts.. :-/

i don't think anyone else is fixing their videos. i know i'm not. even on my edits where i should be fixing them, i'm not. i never have.

are your scripts smart enough to know when the content doesn't need to be ivtc?

If I am ripping from DVD then the files will be tagged in such a way that the scripts know they need to be ivtc'ed.
Correct me if I am wrong, but for example *all* PO DVD's are pulled up, right?

Yeah, you should really do it.

You already know all the pros.. better quality, better compressibility. (Different lines from different frames in one frame do not compress well)

Smashvidz is using this method.

hmm. i'm confused. if the video was shot in 29.97 and goes to DVD at 29.97, why would it need to be pulled up? granted, i do understand most are produced at 24fps but most does not equal all, unless there is something i don't know about.

You are right. But as you said, *most* are shot at 24fps.

However some of the filters are quite advanced, they find out with very high probability whether the video needs to be pulled down or not.

Of course with no automatic method you will ever reach 100%, but you can get close.

you can get 100% accuracy manually.

You just cannot help yourself with the continuing cheap shots can you. Well I've told them I will stop but it seems you just cannot.

I'm not surprised.

Probably. But I have no problem if 0.1% of my videos get ivtc'ed when they shouldn't, rather than 99.9% having combing artifacts.



No cheap shot. It is an objective hint.

"Resizing height without deinterlacing first" is a no go. And you end up with www.100fps.com < that, and the videos on your website. There is nothing to debate about this. This is a fact.

Numbers may not be accurate ;)

i still can't get over the fact that you are fixing all these videos.

phuckit. i'm doing my whole library. i'm writing my own script to do it. i'm re-doing all my swift edits also.

can't have germany 1-uping me.

Hahaha :)

As said... it's not more work for me. My script does it.

peanut butter

french fries...