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http://www.macnn.com/articles/01/01/11/sorenson.mpeg-4/

Sorenson MPEG-4 Codec, Sorenson Video 3

updated 11:32 pm EST, Thu January 11, 2001

 
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Sorenson Media today announced the upcoming beta release of Sorenson MPEG-4 codec, which offers compliance with the ISO MPEG-4 specification, capable of decoding H.263 (short-header MPEG-4), automatic scene change detection, support for two-pass VBR compression, media key support through secure encryption (available only for QT), and encoders optimized for G4/Altivec. Additionally, Sorenson announced the upcoming release of Sorenson Video 3, which willin conjunction with Apple's upcoming release of QuickTime 5.


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  1. 0

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    01/12, 04:01am | report spam | Reply | delete

    Sorenson 3 vs MPEG-4

    Anyone out there can tell me which of these 2 codes will deliver the best quality? Are they based on the same compression scheme?

  1. 0

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    01/12, 11:04am | report spam | Reply | delete

    Sorrenson 3

    According to some of the people working on it who frequent the Quicktime developers list, Sorrenson 3 will be much better. Of course, they're a little biased since they created it, so take it for what it's worth.

    -D

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    01/12, 12:13pm | report spam | Reply | delete

    MPEG 4

    This is in other words Sorenson Media admitting defeat to MPEG4 which is a universal standard and the core of both MIcrosofts latest Media Player and the rogue hack of it DiVx. MPEG4 really kicked the pants out of sorenson 2. i have not seen sorenson 3 in person, but im going to venture to say that MPEG4 has a better quality/size ratio. sorenson was nice for its time. when it came out it was the best game in town. but MPEG4 it was meant for internet applications, and is supported by a much larger body of people...

    this is good news for everybody! standards are the way to go!

  1. 0

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    01/12, 02:56pm | report spam | Reply | delete

    MPEG4 and MS

    Standards aren't really standards when microsoft is running the show. just look at the "standards" compliant IE 5 for Mac or its worse counterpart on PC. Remember that microsoft's adaptation of the ISO MPEG-4 was premature and that the final specification is to come out later this year.

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    01/12, 07:42pm | report spam | Reply | delete

    DivX is not MPEG-4

    DivX is a ripped-off version of MS MPEG-4v2 (which means that everyone who slobbers over DivX is really slobbering over Microsoft software), which is not an MPEG-4 video codec.One more time -- DivX has nothing to do with MPEG-4.Sorenson Video 3, like the latest version of the RealVideo and Windows Media Video codecs, offers better quality than the MPEG-4 video codec (which still has the advantage of being standards-based, of course).

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    01/12, 09:25pm | report spam | Reply | delete

    MPEG 4

    Mpeg 4 is awesome. You can get near DVD quality video at very, very low bit rates, sub megabit. MPEG 4 should blow the doors off Sorenson 3.

    As for Microsoft, they do not control the MPEG 4 committee, they are just early adopters. Media Player is the only shipping video player that plays MPEG 4. The MPEG 4 file format is based on QuickTime, as is MPEG 2 which what is used for DVDs.

    Moof

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    01/12, 10:59pm | report spam | Reply | delete

    MPEG 4

    You can actually exceed DVD auality with MPEG 4 at a fraction of the bitrate DVDs are encoded at. Sorenson 3 will no doubt look good, but MPEG 4 should be superior if encoded properly.

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    01/13, 01:36pm | report spam | Reply | delete

    MPEG 4

    -ok...here we go
    MS MPEG 4 is not a true MPEG 4 codec...they changed the standard a litlle like everything else so it only plays on their software. Secondly, I got to see Sorenson 3 close at hand at Quicktime Live and talked to Sorenson about it. they have totally revamped their compression scheme from 2. At the time, they said that the codec currently utilizes the Altivec to its fullest extent and hadn't gotten the same performance on the PC side. Now to the good parts of the question,

    Sorenson 3 was incredible looking. It was amazing, but it was very hardware intensive, and would only play through Quicktime. Now MPEG 4 wil not be as high quality, if Sorenson can do anything about it. Why? Logicaly, if MPEG 4 beats Sorenson 3 in quality, then there is no reason to use it. Besides, from what I have seen thus far, S3 is better looking then true MPEG 4.

    All of this has an oppurtunity cost:
    S3=high quality, low data rate, even higher computer power, and Quicktime
    MPEG 4=decent quality, low data rate, high computer power, and a MPEG 4 readin program.
    Thus you have to make the best choice for what you are trying to do.

    Thanks

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    01/14, 05:02am | report spam | Reply | delete

    DivX;)

    DivX;) is nothing more than the Microsoft Mpeg-4 codec with the header info changed so the codec can be used in any program, not just Microsoft ones.

  1. 0

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    03/17, 07:17pm | report spam | Reply | delete

    MPEG-4, Sorenson 2.2/3.0

    OK, there seems to be quite a lot of confusion blended in with Mac advocacy in this thread. I've done a lot of testing and experimentation with all of these codecs/formats, so listen up :)

    Microsoft implemented the first version of the standard MPEG-4 specification and called it MS MPEG-4 v1. This was a DONE draft. The official version 2 of ISO MPEG-4 was essentially ISO MPEG-4 v1 plus several enhancementments. Just because Microsoft implemented the first version doesn't mean they implemented a standard that was 'not done.' ... what amazes me is that they were the ONLY company to implement the first version of the ISO MPEG-4 specification, however.

    Sorenson 2.2 is ok, but does not compare to Microsoft's implementation of ISO MPEG-4 v1. Sorenson 3.0 comes closer, but you can still see that the quality is not as good at bitrates of 1000kbps or lower. Now, Microsoft has had 4 subsequent versions of their MS MPEG-4 codec. These are MS MPEG-4 v2, MS MPEG-4 v3, WMV7, and WMV8. Starting with MS MPEG-4 v3, Microsoft took away the ability to use their codec in any file format other than ASF. Since the MS MPEG-4 v3 still used the vfw subsystem, it was possible to simply change the header information of the codec to allow it to be used in AVI files just as MS MPEG-4 v1 and v2 could. This hacked version of v3 is called DivX.

    Sorenson has now made a beta implementation of the ISO MPEG-4 v2 specification, which includes extensions such as VKI (variable keyframe interval) and 2-pass VBR (variable bitrate) encoding. Philips has another implementation. Microsoft's WMV8 may actually be based on ISO MPEG-4 v2 as well, since it is the first version that includes support for 2-pass VBR. It might be Microsoft's proprietary extensions, however, and not official MPEG specifications.

    The official MPEG-4 file format is based on Quicktime. It is extended since it allows true streaming, and not just download-and-play as the current Quicktime format is restricted to. Otherwise, the MPEG-4 file format and the current Quicktime file format is pretty much identical. The MPEG-4 CODEC has nothing to do with Apple or quicktime at all.

    The Sorenson MPEG-4 codec can be used with both the official MPEG-4 file format .MP4 and also with the Quicktime file format .MOV ... .MP4 is more powerful, but may not be handled by applications that can use the .MOV format right now (Premiere, for example). I have not heard whether or not the Sorenson MPEG-4 codec can be used in the AVI file format, but somehow I doubt it.

    Philip's implementation of ISO MPEG-4 v2 can only be used in .MP4 files at the moment. If you want to see what they look like, you can check out http://www.mpeg-4player.com

    Sorenson 2.2 and 3.0 don't compare with MPEG-4, period. I've done a lot of encodings at different bitrates and there just isn't any contest, Sorenson stinks compared to any implemenation of MPEG-4 I've s

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