MJPEG2000 format for archiving video?

MilesCrew wrote on 2/19/2008, 1:12 PM
I'm a newbie and am searching for a good format in which to archive videos to save space but not lose too much quality (in case I want to go back to edit later). I've come across a format called MJPEG2000 which sounds like the best thing, but I wanted to get opinions from the crew. MJPEG2000 (MJ2K) is supposedly true lossless compression instead of lossy like most formats. In fact, the Library of Congress has chosen MJ2K as its format for archiving video. One guy said that it cut the file size to 30% of the original (while still being lossless of course). LEAD (a distributor of the codec) says this...

"MJPEG2000 or MJ2K is a video adaptation of the JPEG2000 standard for still photos. It treats a video stream as a series of still photos, compressing each individually, with no interframe compression. Because it uses no interframe compression, it is ideal for editing. The JPEG2000 standard is the offical successor to JPEG and will eventually replace the older JPEG standard for high-quality image compression."

At this point I'm just archiving old VHS tapes that I'm transferring. However, by the end of the year I'll be buying a new tapeless HD camcorder which I'll want to archive the stuff from. What does everyone think?

Comments

FrigidNDEditing wrote on 2/19/2008, 3:34 PM
I've not used it, but there are some free codecs at free-codecs.com that you can get which are lossless good compression formats that zip like a zip file would or like PNG's which only store the used info but don't store all the unused info.

Anyway, look for CorePNG or lagarinth ( found here: http://lags.leetcode.net/codec.html )

David

(PS, HuffYUV, is a pretty good low/no loss solution as well)
johnmeyer wrote on 2/19/2008, 4:15 PM
I posted an answer to this, but it didn't show up. Weird.

MJPEG is a lossy format, NOT lossless. It uses the same type of compression used for DV compression and for still photo JPEG compression.

If you want lossless compression, I suggest the free HuffYUV codec.
FrigidNDEditing wrote on 2/19/2008, 4:24 PM
I guess that edit sat on my screen for a little while longer than I thought :)

Dave
jabloomf1230 wrote on 2/19/2008, 6:10 PM
As John Meyer stated, MJPEG2K is lossy, but since it's a wavelet codec, you can set the options so that it's virtually lossless. It is really better suited as an intermediate codec for editing, like Cineform, than it is for archiving. The best version out there is not free, but at $30, the Morgan MJPEG2K codec is a pretty good deal. Here's a really good discussion of the Morgan codec on www.HV20.com:

http://www.hv20.com/showthread.php?t=3246

I bought it about 3 or 4 months ago for editing and it works perfectly with Vegas 8P (as does Cineform). But if file size is no object (well, obviously better than uncompressed) and you want a true lossless archive, you are probably better off with something else.
johnmeyer wrote on 2/19/2008, 8:58 PM
I did a little more research after making my first post and also after reading the other posts.

Apparently MJPEG2000 is indeed wavelet, and not DCT-based compression. As such, it probably requires more "horsepower" to do the compression than traditional DCT compression (i.e., expect it to be slow).

Also, according to one vendor's site, and also Wikipedia, there is a setting provided for in the spec which is lossless. I know a lot about DCT algorithms, but absolutely nothing about wavelet, so I don't know how this algorithm can achieve compression without generating loss. DCT certainly cannot do that.

So, as always, the best thing to do may be to try it out and see what you think. I would certainly compare both the quality of the result, and also the size of the files, with the lossless HuffYUV codec.

Here's one person's review of it:

Morgan MJPEG2000 vs. Cineform

MilesCrew wrote on 2/20/2008, 5:28 AM
johnmeyer,

Thanks for the info. I have already seen that person's review and that's where I came to some of my conclusions. However, I'm totally willing to look at alternatives.

Does the HuffYUV or Lagarith have plug-ins available to directly render to that format from Vegas? Or should I just take the original AVI's and convert them?
JohnnyRoy wrote on 2/20/2008, 6:38 AM
> Does the HuffYUV or Lagarith have plug-ins available to directly render to that format from Vegas? Or should I just take the original AVI's and convert them?

Yes, they are CODEC's which means you simply make a new rendering template in Vegas that uses the CODEC and you can render right from Vegas.

To make a new rendering template for these codecs:

(1) On the Render As... window select a Save as type of Video for Windows (*.avi) and then select a template that is close to the one you want to render as.
(2) Now press the Custom... button and on the Video tab under Video format: select the Huffyuv v2.1.1 codec.
(3) Finally give the template a new name and press the save icon (diskette) to save it.

You now have a new template that uses this codec.

~jr
MilesCrew wrote on 2/20/2008, 10:34 AM
Cool. You tha man!

Thanks for the info.
MilesCrew wrote on 2/22/2008, 5:42 AM
Ok, I did exactly what you said (great step-by-step by the way...thanks). I chose AVI and the NTSC DV template. I then chose Custom and chose the Huffyuv 2.1.1 codec. However, it was huge! To test it, I have a 1.5 minute clip that I rendered. I first rendered in AVI with NTSC DV template. It came to about 353MB. I then rendered the same clip in AVI with Huffyuv template and it came to 1.23GB! How does a "compression" codec like Huffyuv come out so much bigger than an "uncompressed"' regular AVI? I'm a newbie so maybe I'm missing something. Thoughts?
Former user wrote on 2/22/2008, 6:24 AM
DV AVI is highly compressed, and is lossy to some degree. HuffYUV is compressed, but lossless.

The DV compression is done in the camera while shooting and whenever you edit (add effx, etc) it is uncompressed and recompressed with some loss, albeit minimal.

The HuffYUV codec uncompresse and compressed with no loss in quality. Render to an Uncompressed AVI and you will see the file size savings.

Dave T2