Is MPEG-4 the next Big Thing? Will Vegas Video support it?

Tanjy wrote on 6/5/2002, 10:39 AM
Today's CNET has an interview with Steven Jobs who says Apple is switching over to MPEG-4, that it blows MPEG-2 away, and that it will create entire industries the way MPEG-2 did with DVD.

I sure hope in upcoming versions that Vegas Video and other Sonic Foundry products will support MPEG-4.

Here's an excerpt from the interview.
http://news.com.com/2100-1040-932419.html

------

Q. WHAT'S SO GREAT ABOUT MPEG4?

A. It delivers video quality as good as MPEG-2 at about one-third less the bit rate. But then you can crank down the bit rate for lower bandwidth connections and it scales down beautifully. So you can deliver incredible streaming video with MPEG-4. It has got higher quality than anything out there--including Microsoft's upcoming Corona--and it's totally scalable. Everybody's jumping on this bandwagon. We've announced we're going to switch over to MPEG-4. Real has said they're going to. All the cell phone companies are going to be using it; it is the standard for third-generation cell phone video streaming. It also features AAC (Advanced Audio Coding) audio, which is the best audio around. It blows away MP3 (and) Windows Media. And it also is the audio format adopted by all satellite radio (companies). So this is gathering a tremendous amount of steam, and I think everybody is going to be cutting over to MPEG-4, with the possible exception of Microsoft, which is going to try and push its Corona technology that comes out later this year. They haven't gone into a preview or beta mode yet, but they said they were going to release it sometime this year.


Comments

Chienworks wrote on 6/5/2002, 11:13 AM
How does Sonic Foundry currently support MPEG-1, MPEG-2, DV, WMV, Real, Divx ;-), Cinepak, etc.? By having a codec installed for it. I'm sure once a stable commercial grade standard MPEG-4 codec becomes available, you'll be able to install it yourself and then Vegas (and anything else on your computer) will be able to use it.
BillyBoy wrote on 6/5/2002, 11:21 AM
Anything that comes out of the mouth of Steve Jobs is suspect.

Want the truth about MPEG-4, go to a far more authorative source:

http://woody.imag.fr/MPEG4/syssite/syspub/index.html

Not exactly light reading, but interesting.
riredale wrote on 6/5/2002, 3:56 PM
I worked at Apple back in the early days of the Macintosh. Jobs might spout a lot of hot air from time to time, but I think an objective person would have to admit that he has been surprisingly right about many things. I am impressed by how he brought Apple back from the brink of disaster just a few years ago.

The important thing, anyway, is not whether he is truly full of baloney or not, it's whether the masses believe him or not, and I think here he is on pretty solid ground. There is enough critical mass around him to make things happen that ordinarily wouldn't.
mfh wrote on 6/5/2002, 8:36 PM
I would have thought that we want more bits not less. I'd rather have quality any day - sure mpg4 may become a delivery channel and haven't we got dozens of those but as for filming/capturing and editing forget it.
Luxo wrote on 6/8/2002, 2:03 AM
I think the pitch is that you can get three times the quality of MPEG2 at an equal bit rate -- so it would follow that you CAN increase the bit rate, if you want, and reach HDTV quality with fewer bits than MPEG2.

Right on about it only being a delivery channel. But that's all good.
Luxo
riredale wrote on 6/8/2002, 10:52 AM
Luxo, I think what Jobs was trying to say was that MPEG4 could get you the same image quality with 1/3 less bitrate. In other words, if you were satisfied with an MPEG2 image having an average bitrate of, say, 5mb/sec, then MPEG4 could create an equivalent image at a bitrate of (5 x .66)=3.3mb/sec.

This corresponds pretty well with what I am reading on various sites about Divx, which is based on MPEG4. The Real and Microsoft codecs do about the same, with some writers saying the Microsoft one slightly edging out the others.

There was an interesting article on MPEG4 last year: http://www.extremetech.com/article/0,3396,s=1022&a=3780,00.asp

The article said that it was not quite ready for prime time (then).