Is there anything better than MPEG-4?

[dagon01]

I was just wondering because a lot of reviews talk about compression artifacts and I was wondering if there would ever be something close to uncompressed or lossless video.

I don't think Blu-ray could do it even with a firmware update but I was just curious to see how far away we were because we now have lossless audio.

[aygie]

There will be many new codecs in the future, they're being worked on as we speak.

The problem is too many developers make too many different versions rather than work together to have a unified codec as such.

Ah royalties.

[quexos]

Originally Posted by dagon01

I was just wondering because a lot of reviews talk about compression artifacts and I was wondering if there would ever be something close to uncompressed or lossless video.

I don't think Blu-ray could do it even with a firmware update but I was just curious to see how far away we were because we now have lossless audio.

MPEG-5 ?

[JadedRaverLA]

Originally Posted by quexos

MPEG-5 ?

LOL. Yeah, that pretty much sums it up.

As for the OP, it depends what you mean by "better." And MPEG-4 isn't a single codec by any means. AVC (MPEG-4, Part 10), Divx/Xvid, VC-1, etc) are all variants of MPEG-4 (or based largely on it in the case of VC-1).

There are even more "efficient" codecs coming, meaning they produce similar results at even lower bitrates.

"Better" really doesn't mean much in terms of video codecs, however. A truly lossless codec is "better" in many ways than any MPEG-4 codec, but at more than 10x the bitrate is far less efficient. Interframe compression algorithms are "better" in some ways than intraframe algorithms, but, again, are less efficient. 4:4:4 color sampling is better in some ways than 4:2:0, but again is far less efficient.

For Blu-ray, the codecs we have are the codecs we have. Artifacts are the nature of the beast with lossy video compression, but all the available formats can be encoded at a higher bitrate to minimize prolems, and decoders will continue to be improved in players to prevent macroblocking, etc. So, while you shouldn't expect a change in codec, there are still improvements to be made.

[ryoohki]

They are far less blocking in Blu-ray (even with MPEG2) than a typical DVD too. People with Projectors have been suffering the outcome of this long enought (not to mention crappy cable compression of HD material)

[Clark Kent]

Lossless video ...The holy grail of home video. Unfortunately we won't be seeing anything like that until holographic storage can be produced effectively and economically.

[Bobby Henderson]

Originally Posted by dagon01

I was just wondering because a lot of reviews talk about compression artifacts and I was wondering if there would ever be something close to uncompressed or lossless video.

It already exists: Motion JPEG2000.

The Motion JPEG2000 format operates at bandwidths far higher than any allowed in the Blu-ray format.

It has a data lossless 2:1 compression mode, which runs over 700Mb/s for HD quality material. The Library of Congress is pushing to make it a standard to archive digital video data and digital versions of movies.

Digital cinema uses JPEG2000 formatted files. They typically run at bandwidths up to 250 million bits per second. And that's at a mild but still lossy compression ratio of about 6:1. Digital cinema doesn't allow for things like inter-frame compression. A JPEG2000-based movie is really many thousands of discrete, still images stored together. Movie frame data on Blu-ray, DVD, HDTV, etc. isn't discrete; inter-frame compression is common and necessary due to bandwidth limits.

[JadedRaverLA]

Originally Posted by Clark Kent

Lossless video ...The holy grail of home video. Unfortunately we won't be seeing anything like that until holographic storage can be produced effectively and economically.

You won't see it then either. Blu-ray is already closer to the studio master than the film studios are really comfortable with. They DEFINITELY aren't going to approve of a "consumer" format with lossless 4:4:4 component (or RGB) video. The quality has to be degraded somewhat, just to protect your assets.

[dagon01]

Originally Posted by Clark Kent

Lossless video ...The holy grail of home video. Unfortunately we won't be seeing anything like that until holographic storage can be produced effectively and economically.

Maybe with Panasonic's 400GB Blu-ray disk.

Seriously though thanks for the answers. I'm happy with Blu ray but I have a habit of always looking for better, faster, more.

[AliceT]

Mpeg-99933447 is better by at least 3%