That's quite a trick, to be able to create a file that contains video from 3 different and incompatible vendors. If it is indeed one 6-minute file that contains 38 scenes from the 3 vendors, does not the encoding technique of the composite video come into play when determining the original video quality? I would think that whatever the 6-minute file was encoded with, it may do better RE-encoding one vendors' video than another.

Yup! They used wichever works best for Real! Who would want to use the bloated adware that is RealPlayer though?

I don't think you read the aricle carefully enough...

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Guest wrote:
I don't think you read the aricle carefully enough...

Firstly, Jan is a guy, not a Ms. I would be interested in finding out how exactly Jan decoded the material - if it was with a Windows box, I can see that both Real and Microsoft may have put hooks into the system to speed up decoding.

Anyway, Jan is a long time Windows supporter, having made money for over 10 years writing about digital video on the Windows platform for PC Magazine <http://digitalmedianetwork.sonic.com/index.php?action=news&id=7> . He sees absolutely no problems with single source, proprietary standards. Whether or not MPEG4 is faster or slower, it was developed by a standards committe and has a better chance of being non-proprietary than either WMP or RealPlayer. Of course, as they say, when you can't do it, teach - while Jan has been evangelizing video production on the Windows platform, thousands of Mac users have actually been producing content.

Unbelievably stupid!

I guess both the HD DVD and Blu-Ray groups made a big mistake when they chose H.264 for the next generation DVDs.

I guess DirecTV and Dish Network did too because they both chose H.264 as their next encoding standard.

Golly, maybe Jan Ozer should make an emergency plea to those organizations to get them to adopt Real's 'superior' codec. That would hardly make him look any more foolish than he already does...

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deasys wrote:
Unbelievably stupid!

I guess both the HD DVD and Blu-Ray groups made a big mistake when they chose H.264 for the next generation DVDs.

I guess DirecTV and Dish Network did too because they both chose H.264 as their next encoding standard.

Golly, maybe Jan Ozer should make an emergency plea to those organizations to get them to adopt Real's 'superior' codec. That would hardly make him look any more foolish than he already does...

In a subsidiary study, the group also attempted to compare streaming and non-streaming video and discovered that streaming was incomparable rubbish. The study found streaming video was only useful for preventing users from saving a copy, although ironically, accounting for this benefit resulted in more lost points for streaming, as it meant the video was less usable.

"I guess both the HD DVD and Blu-Ray groups made a big mistake when they chose H.264 for the next generation DVDs."
Rest easy. Mpeg4 will continue to be the standard for basically everything (DVDs, digital TV, web, phones, iPods, etc) and H.264 will remain one of the best Mpeg4 codecs. The report is on *streaming* video. Let's not confuse laser printers with fax machines

What I'd like to know is which proprietary architecture produces the best *open* Mpeg4 files. (You know - the video files ending in ".mp4" that are player independent, ex. create it with QuickTime, play it with anything.)

Couple of comments on the comments.

1. I created one test file with 38 different scenes in DV format. Microsoft, Real and Apple encoded the files into five profiles from 56 kbps to 500 kbps. I created the Flash files. I compared the files side by side using four criteria, still frame quality, motion quality, smoothness (dropped frames) and color quality. Buyers of the reports can download all video files, all still frame comparison files and all figures and draw their own conclusions.

2. I assessed quality only, and only up to 500 kbps. Folks choosing the HD and HD DVD standards looked at much higher data rates and factors other than quality. My target reader is making decisions regarding streaming, not HD DVD or satellite.

Jan Ozer

For $295.00 a copy who in the world would buy such a report noting that one's opinion about "Real Media" technology is better than what is being introduced by big time consumer vendors. Also, was your testing done in a controlled environment or was it done at Real's Lab and if the report is undeniably true and correct why not make a statement to the world and make your report free so everyone can read it and test and hopefully agree with you because $295.00 a copy is a lot to disagree on.