Difference between Windows media players & the ultimate solution.

Fred93 wrote on 9/3/2004, 1:43 AM
This movie: http://hem.bredband.net/frejah/ovn9_4_300kbps.mpg
Looks just fine with Windows Media Player Classic (ver. 6482)

But it looks terrible with Windows Media Player 9. Why is this?
How do I fix the compression for good results in both players?

But ok. I've got to stop beating around the bush here..

This is the thing. This tough customer that I have wants this job done. I'ts an ergonomy program for people with office work related injuries (stiff neck and things like that).
So... the problem I have is to make the videos work for the different excercises. I have them all in DV-PAL -format 720x576x24 25fps interlaced.
I need to make them into a format that doesn't need any updating for playing on OS's like Windows 95, 98, 2000 and XP media players. Mpeg1 has been suggested, but is there a better one for this task?
The DV-PAL files need to be resized and cropped so I can forget any standard sizes like the 4:3.

So, what I'd really like to know is, which format and compression should I use? Which program (if not vegas 5) should I use?

It would be great with some answears to this problem since I've been tearing my own hair over this problem for a week now =)

I've been trying to solve this problem using Vegas 5, TMPGEnc and cleaner XL so far, with no success. But then maybe I don't know how to get the most out of these programs?


/Fred.

Comments

NickHope wrote on 9/3/2004, 5:04 AM
Fred, I don't know why you would be getting different results in Windows Media Player 6 and 9. Perhaps one of them is zoomed in or out. Play the file at the original size in both players for a comparison.

Anyway that video looks really good here on my Windows Media Player 10 that I downloaded this mornining, and likewise in the classic 6.4 version. It also looks great in WMP9 on my laptop. In fact better than I thought MPEG1 would look. I don't think you could get much more out of MPEG1 at that file size. Bear in mind though that you have almost no motion in it. If you are planning on making other videos with more movement then you might run into problems.

In my opinion you have a toss up between a) MPEG1 if the file simply HAS to be played on any computer, and b) Windows Media 9 if you can persuade the customer that it's worth viewers downloading the updated codec.

You should be using Vegas to do this work, but try TMPGenc too for MPEG1 using it's highest quality settings for a comparison against what the Vegas MPEG1 file looks like.

You might want to experiement with knocking the framerate down to something like 15fps instead of 25fps while keeping the bitrate as you have it, but in my opinion your customer's going to be delighted with this as it is.
farss wrote on 9/3/2004, 5:28 AM
Fred,
what you've got to come to grips with is that in any form of compressed media the final result is largely determined by what happened in front of the lens, particularly when you're using a lot of compression.
Take a bit of static Vegas generated media, you can use mpeg-2 compession at a few 100Kb/sec and it'll still look great, cut to another static scene and see the horrid artifacts while the frame is created. Some amazing stuff is done at really low frame bit rates but if you look carefully you'll see 70% of the frame is static, I don't mean just a locked off camera I mean keyed in still stuff.
So don't expect to be able to achieve miracles with material that wasn't shot for the web. There's a few tricks to doing this well, whole companies reputation have been built on it. Starting with something not shot correctly is going to be problematic, even with high bit rates on DVDs it can get horrid. I haven't looked at your footage but bubblevision says it looks pretty good. It's never going to compete with the original unless you can afford high bit rates / large files. If you really want to push it getting rid of noise is a step forward, maybe subtle use of the Median Fx will help. Black Restore is another good one to try.

Bob.

sdmoore wrote on 9/3/2004, 6:27 AM
Hi Fred,

Check that the "Digital Video" setting is set to "Large" in Tools->Options->Performance->Advanced

Cheers,

Scott
Fred93 wrote on 9/3/2004, 7:07 AM
Thank you for your time, Bob and bubblevision.

(I'm moving part of this post to a new topic as to not confuse things)

I think I'll be going for the mpeg1 format after all, mpeg2 isn't as compatible as mpeg1 is it? You couldn't run a mpeg2 movie on a basic install of windows 98 could you?
Fred93 wrote on 9/3/2004, 7:12 AM
Yes Scott, it is set to large. Thanks anyway!

/Fred.
NickHope wrote on 9/4/2004, 11:24 AM
Fred, DO NOT use MPEG2 if you want compatiblility. Microsoft do not include an MPEG2 codec in any of their operating systems. An MPEG2 codec must be purchased, but many users have it because it is included in DVD software that they've either bought or had bundled with the computer.
riredale wrote on 9/4/2004, 4:07 PM
Do a search on "wmv." There have been recent discussions that have been very similar.

If all the computers have an internet connection, then they can automatically download the appropriate codec in order to play a wmv file.

Wmv is far, far better than MPEG1 when it comes to quality versus file size.