New H.265 twice as efficient as H.264!

[Teazle]

Thanks to Richard Paul, Vargo and Penton for the informative replies. I glanced at the wiki for Xiph Foundation's Daala. Says it's in alpha since last year (geez these guys work fast), then links to some important technical stuff I lack the background to grasp. But it does say the Daala codec aims to be a generational leap over existing HEVC. Exciting stuff. Maybe in a few years they really will be able to get 4K film file sizes down to 100GB or so without too much compromise.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Folks will take those TVs home, put on their favourite soap and then complain that "it don't look no different!". Having sold TVs for many years, I've been on that merry-go-round more times than I can count.

You need a job with an office manager or administrative assistant to provide *the first line of defense*.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Exactly. Just because the range is there, doesn't mean that the content will actually take advantage of it. It's hard enough telling people to not get excited about Sony's Expanded Colour on their Mi4K Blu-ray line (which, in real world viewing, didn't make a damned bit of difference to me), let alone new gamuts which will no doubt be advertised as THE GREATEST THING EVER* by the various hardware manufacturers

If the color grading of the WCG vs. Rec.709 material is equal and no *tomfoolery* is involved if/when WCG comes to next gen video, then in the future, TV manufacturers will be compelled to show a lot of animation and vfx demo material in stores in order to leverage the strength of WCG (be it P3 or 2020).

Same thing will happen if/when HFR (100-ish fps or so) content comes to us. Believe me, the demoed material won’t be that of soap operas or tortoise chases…
http://www.cnn.com/2014/08/04/us/tortoise-police-chase/

Even now with basic 4K, all savvy TV manufacturers leverage their knowledge of the human visual system and display technology by carefully choosing the type of footage in demo reels at trade shows and such.

For you see (pun), the perception of resolution depends on contrast because the human visual system has a contrast-sensitivity function. An increase in spatial resolution is most easily appreciated in scenes with high contrast sensitivity like for instance credits, leaves moving in the wind on a sunny day, glints off the water, newspaper text, etc. A continuously dark, moody movie won’t show off 4K’s strengths. Kind of like Sofia Vergara wearing an Amish dress.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by Teazle

Thanks to Richard Paul, Vargo and Penton for the informative replies. I glanced at the wiki for Xiph Foundation's Daala. Says it's in alpha since last year (geez these guys work fast), then links to some important technical stuff I lack the background to grasp. But it does say the Daala codec aims to be a generational leap over existing HEVC. Exciting stuff. Maybe in a few years they really will be able to get 4K film file sizes down to 100GB or so without too much compromise.

I could be wrong, but the regular flavour of AVC (never mind the claimed 50% efficiency saving of the eyeIO version used by Sony for their 4K download service) wouldn't have too much trouble bringing in a 2 hour 4K movie under 100GB using Blu-ray level bit depth and colour sampling standards.

[Teazle]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

I could be wrong, but the regular flavour of AVC (never mind the claimed 50% efficiency saving of the eyeIO version used by Sony for their 4K download service) wouldn't have too much trouble bringing in a 2 hour 4K movie under 100GB using Blu-ray level bit depth and colour sampling standards.

I'm skeptical about such claims but I don't deny the possibility.
I might change my mind if Expendables 3 theatrical looks good at only 138gb (says Penton). And that's presumably 4:4:4 chroma res & in some fat color space. Idk how they squish it so small.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Teazle

Idk how they squish it so small.

Enviable hydraulics using the principle of force-multiplication?

YouTube

Seriously,
D-Cinema uses JPEG2000 compression algorithm in its lossy compression mode. It is especially great for high resolution at relatively high data rates and also includes scalability features to simultaneously store 2K and 4K images (as different layers, if you will).

The way it works is that the 4K DCP contains a 2K image plus the differences between the 2K and the 4K image, which doesn’t add a helluva a lot to the total file size….actually a relatively small percentage.

By DCI, the max. allowable data rate is 250Mbit/s. At the maximum (constant) data rate of 250 Mbit/s, a two hour movie would result in a DCP of around 230 GB (image only)…which would give maximum allowable quality per DCI spec. To make DCPs as compact as possible in order to save space, etc., in practice, variable data rates between 80 Mbit/s - 150 Mbit/s usually lead to results which are deemed acceptable by the studios.

In fact, most of the encoding systems default to ~125 Mbit/s for just 2K content. At a data rate of 125 Mbit/s, a two hour movie would result in a DCP of around 115 GBytes in size (image only). Add on a small percentage for the differences between 2K and 4K rez and the file size is not bumped up that much.

[Teazle]

Thanks for the explanation, Penton. I knew about variable video bitrate; the rest was new to me. It sounds something like the compression strategy used for 3D (less duplication of data between the two channels).

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Teazle

Thanks for the explanation, Penton. I knew about variable video bitrate; the rest was new to me....

But all is not perfect in the land of J2K compression and D-Cinema exhibition especially since there are way more installed 2K digital rather than 4K digital projectors in the world.

As a consequence, some information which you won’t find in the DCS spec nor on any consumer audio/video forum is that in the mastering process for DCI compliant theatrical motion pictures, sometimes the 4K layer essentially robs bits from the 2K layer of the DCP so, the image quality playback of a 4K DCP from a 2K projector may not be as good as having exhibited just a 2K DCP from a 2K projector…if that image format deliverable had been produced and were available in the first place to 2K projector equipped theaters.

Plus, when I get more time, I’ll have to elaborate on this intentionally qualifying phrase…

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

...lead to results which are deemed acceptable by the studios.

[img eL]

2nd edition of HEVC includes scalable and multi-view video coding

At the 109th MPEG meeting, the standard development work was completed for two important extensions to the High Efficiency Video Coding standard (ISO/IEC 23008-2, also standardized by ITU-T as Rec. H.265).
The first of these are the scalability extensions of HEVC, known as SHVC, adding support for embedded bitstream scalability in which different levels of encoding quality are efficiently supported by adding or removing layered subsets of encoded data. The other are the multiview extensions of HEVC, known as MV-HEVC providing efficient representation of video content with multiple camera views and optional depth map information, such as for 3D stereoscopic and autostereoscopic video applications. MV-HEVC is the 3D video extension of HEVC, and further work for more efficient coding of 3D video is ongoing.

SHVC and MV-HEVC will be combined with the original content of the HEVC standard and also the recently-completed format range extensions (known as RExt), so that a new edition of the standard will be published that contains all extensions approved up to this time.

[img eL]

Above post taken from this doc http://mpeg.chiariglione.org/sites/d.../w14537_0.docx

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by img eL

Above post taken from this doc http://mpeg.chiariglione.org/sites/d.../w14537_0.docx

^ Included on the site link here....https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread...09#post9467797 , shortly after Sapporo wrapped, as well as other activity from Meeting 109.

Good to see some people , other than just Richard , giving a little acknowledgement to mpeg and not solely ITU, e.g. https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread...eg#post9239258

[Richard Paul]

Originally Posted by Teazle

I might change my mind if Expendables 3 theatrical looks good at only 138gb (says Penton). And that's presumably 4:4:4 chroma res & in some fat color space. Idk how they squish it so small.

There is a huge difference between JPEG2000 and HEVC in how they encode video. JPEG2000 is intra only compression so each picture is encoded separately. Intra only compression has the advantages of greater error tolerance (since errors only affect that frame) and easier editing but it has the huge disadvantage of requiring a bit rate at least 10 times higher than inter frame compression (which predicts information between frames). For professional video the huge bit rate increase is considered acceptable but it would not tell us what bit rate would be needed for 4K UHDTV since that will use inter frame compression.

[Canada]

Joe Kane says H.265 HEVC doesn't take the codec far enough, and he says HDMI 2.0 already needs more bandwidth.

Home Theater Geeks 217: Color My TV World - YouTube

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Canada

Joe Kane says...

I, as well as I think many long term members here, for example PeterTHX, stopped paying serious attention to Joe’s recommendations a long time ago, especially since he gave this interview to the French - http://www.cinenow.co.uk/videos/320-...hd-dvd-formats back in ’06. As we can never figure out his true agenda, whether it be some sort of undisclosed direct or indirect financial incentive with an ally, or self promotion for further speaking engagements, or promoting public awareness of his current or potentially upcoming products by giving ‘video guru’ interviews, etc.

If you listen to the whole interview linked to in the first paragraph above, or at least starting from about the 5½ min. mark, where the discussion moves to HD-DVD and Blu-ray and he begins with “Blu-ray is all about greed”, he is basically promoting HD-DVD over Blu-ray because HD-DVD was using the VC-1 codec and the initial Blu-rays were mpeg2 encodes, conveniently failing also to tell listeners during that talk show of the superiority of Blu-ray to HD-DVD in terms of bandwidth and storage capacity.

But what is upsetting is that when Joe gave that interview, everyone (Insiders) in the industry knew that Sony was actively investigating using advanced codecs and although not formally announced, the intention was to move to h.264 in time once it had been fully baked. This was no secret among those in the industry nor even some regular readers of this forum (especially the moderators), nor members of other forums where mpeg2 vs. D5 master demos had been publically presented - http://www.avforums.com/threads/just...eklund.413203/ .

So, one is left with only two possible conclusions….either Joe was so far out of the loop as to what was really going on behind-the-scenes in the industry, which then suggests his lack of connections and real influence among the power brokers, or he was exactly aware that Blu-ray was eventually moving toward using h.264 and he was not disclosing the entire scenario of what consumers should look forward to with high definition Blu-ray physical media in the months and years to come.

As to ‘Color My World’, the colorimetry of BT.2020 is based upon the work done in BT.2246-1
http://www.itu.int/pub/R-REP-BT.2246 , the consensus of which was derived from multiple meetings and input documents among a group of international experts many of whom volunteered their time and effort…not “somebody”.

If professional mastering (color critical) monitors capable of 100% BT.2020 coverage are built in the near future (which Richard suggests is in-the-works on the last page) and a scenario such as this outlined for consumer displays doesn’t pan out - https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread...ed#post9560685 for UHD then it won’t be because of any inherent deficiency/issue with BT.2020 but rather purely financial on the part of the content creators.

Sheesh, I never thought I’d find myself defending 2020 over DCI P3…but there you go.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Richard Paul

There is a huge difference between JPEG2000 and HEVC...

Or - https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread...es#post9375365

For those who want more, there is a nice easy to read pdf link at the very bottom of the page here - http://www.intopix.com/products/inde...n#.U-19WfldWSp with a glossary on p.33.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

By DCI, the max. allowable data rate is 250Mbit/s. At the maximum (constant) data rate of 250 Mbit/s, a two hour movie would result in a DCP of around 230 GB (image only)…which would give maximum allowable quality per DCI spec. To make DCPs as compact as possible in order to save space, etc., in practice, variable data rates between 80 Mbit/s - 150 Mbit/s usually lead to results which are deemed acceptable by the studios.

Short depth of field shots look great (archival quality) with 4K D-Cinema but, long depth of field imagery or grainy/noisy shots encoded at typical bit rates in practice today do not yield truly visually lossless imagery to the source. One exceptional example in the past though of where the encoder was actually quite generous and let er rip…

Batman Begins (2005) – Director being Chris Nolan
(part of "The Dark Knight Trilogy" marathon) - 4K DCP image format file size of…


253GB.

[Tech-UK]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

Short depth of field shots look great (archival quality) with 4K D-Cinema but, long depth of field imagery or grainy/noisy shots encoded at typical bit rates in practice today do not yield truly visually lossless imagery to the source. One exceptional example in the past though of where the encoder was actually quite generous and let er rip…

Batman Begins (2005) – Director being Chris Nolan
(part of "The Dark Knight Trilogy" marathon) - 4K DCP image format file size of…


253GB.

And yet WB gave us one of the lowest bitrate VC-1 encodes for the Blu-ray release.

I suspect you were making a point about that.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Tech-UK

And yet WB gave us one of the lowest bitrate VC-1 encodes for the Blu-ray release.
I suspect you were making a point about that.

I like my emoticons…. https://forum.blu-ray.com/misc.php?d...=vB_Editor_001

Saves typing time.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

Short depth of field shots look great (archival quality) with 4K D-Cinema but, long depth of field imagery or grainy/noisy shots encoded at typical bit rates in practice today do not yield truly visually lossless imagery to the source....

So, the critical data rate at which artifacts become visible depends on the nature of the content as described above. If the bit rate is set too low, the images will first become slightly blurry or soft (not visually lossless) before more annoying compression artifacts become visible. Due to the fact that JPEG 2000 doesn’t use a block structure like MPEG-x, no blocking artifacts will occur with D-Cinema.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Canada

Joe says....

I didn’t get to watch the Scarsdale shootout yesterday, but a friend who did, mentioned to me that he stated during his presentation that Spider-Man (2) was the first feature film finished entirely in 4K and specifically mentioned that workflow included all special effects in 4K.

That is just plain wrong…and rudimentarily wrong to anyone familiar with post production from that time or simply now.
b.t.w., I don’t mean to exclusively highlight Joe, for I don’t - https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread...ve#post9553148

Point is, aside from people involved in the entertainment business, generally it would be wise for folks not to blindly follow personalities based on professional credentials or past reputation believing therefore that whatever spouts out of their mouths is guaranteed to be accurate, just because they talk a good talk. More importantly, this advice extends to other more critical (than choosing TVs, kitchen appliances, etc.) aspects of life, e.g. financial advisors, realtors, medical providers, etc. For instance, I know of someone who went to an ophthalmologist who is nationally, even internationally, recognized as a leader in his field of eye surgery, regularly gets invited to and speaks at medical conferences, etc. who, yet despite all that, gave extremely *cavalier* opinion regarding an option for eye surgery to a patient which then unequivocally resulted in the patient needlessly losing a great deal of visual acuity in one of his eyes due to irreversible photoreceptor cell loss.

Although the patient lost much of his eyesight, he didn’t lose any of his intelligence and no longer goes to that particular eye doctor for follow-up care. He is already out thousands of dollars, the pain and discomfort of several surgeries attempting to correct the initial stupidly proposed operation and….the loss of photoreceptor cells which he will never get back as they don’t grow back.