dxdy - your approach to the subject is a bit off. To understand this correctly - Mpeg2 is a standards based delivery based on international body agreements of the standard.
Subsets of Mpeg2 exist with many different companies - one of the most prominent is MainConcept which continues to monitor and tweak their subset to this day.

SCS licenses a subset of Mainconcept. You pay that license fee every time you purchase a SCS product. SCS does not develop beyond what Mainconcept licenses them to do.

Hence, the crux of your concern is quite misplaced. AS a developer of an NLE - it will be up to SCS to deploy whatever interfaces they see fit - like Cuda, etc for video handling interface. This has intrinsically no bearing on the codec - other than what interface the codec might require as its core function. And so, implementation may differ from SCS and Adobe Premiere - that is their choice. But this is based on very different core codes from the two apps.

"It occurs to me that if SCS has stopped developing DVDA, then they will have likely put MPEG2 development in the same status. After all, if they think the DVD is dead, why worry about enhancing the Vegas templates that feed DVDA"

MPEG2 and DVDa have little to do with each other. One is a format while the other is an author program. MPEG2 is as well not restricted to dvd because it's also a part of the Blu Ray spec. Admittedly however it is slowly being left behind in favor of other codecs/formats which provide more flexibility.

Clearly SCS has decided not to pile a lot of time and money into DVDa, but I believe that is also true for other companies and their disc author programs. These types of programs have advanced just about as much as they're going to as other delivery methods slowly become front and center.

While there are still those who use dvd quite regularly, there are also many who have moved on. Apple I believe doesn't even supply dvd drives in their equipment anymore from what I have heard and personally speaking, I haven't burnt a dvd in about 5 years now... or a Blu Ray in about 3 for that matter.

You're correct in suggesting dvd isn't dead yet... but it's well on its way and for that reason any further development is a waste of resources.

[I]"OTOH, my 16 thread 5960 has plenty of CPU oomph, and that will just have to do."[/I]

So what's your complaint?
From what I've read GPUs are no great help when it comes to encoding.

Bob.

Apple I believe doesn't even supply dvd drives in their equipment anymore from what I have heard and personally speaking,

You're correct. It's an extra fee. They even tell you (the salesperson @ the apple store) that nobody uses DVD or BD any more, everything is 100% digital. However, they're the only company who sells you a way to capture on FireWire w/o buying an expensive box, so go figure. :)

"I haven't burnt a dvd in about 5 years now... or a Blu Ray in about 3 for that matter."

That is presumably because the market you supply is oritentated elsewhere.

Most of my clients require DVD, and to most Blu-ray is even considered 'too new and niche'.

geoff

> "Most of my clients require DVD, and to most Blu-ray is even considered 'too new and niche'."

+1

Same here. It depends on who you are delivering to. If it's final product to consumers, DVD is still the standard delivery format for local work in my area. There is no format that has replaced it that I know of that I can simply hand to my customer and they can insert into a player at home and enjoy it. Digital has no such standard. USB sticks aren't a solution. There is no standard format that all TV's can play from a USB stick. Heck, the most popular tablets on the planet (iPads) don't even had USB ports. People don't want to watch events on their computer. Blu-ray hasn't really caught on. The death of DVD has been greatly exagerated. IMHO, DVD is still the only ubiquitous delivery format for consumers for the foreseeable future.

~jr

Mainconcept develops the codec, not Sony. Then they license it to Sony.
Maybe MPEG-2 is as good as it's going to get?

"Heck, the most popular tablets on the planet (iPads) don't even had USB ports."

The most popular tablets are in fact Android based.... and they do.

If the MPEG (the experts group itself) isn't doing any development on MPEG2, what can MPEG2 coders (the people who write the code) do to enhance their products without them becoming non-standard? Bug fixes? Yeeaahhh!!!!

How about making the Mainconcept MPEG2 encoder do true smart rendering!!!

(See my thread http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?ForumID=4&MessageID=915625

> "The most popular tablets are in fact Android based.... and they do."

No, they don't! Most tablets are too thin to support a fat USB port regardless of who makes them.

~jr

every one of my android tablets (tos / leno / asus) have or had mini usb ports.

"No, they don't!"

Ummm... yes they do.
They ALL have MICRO usb (including android based phones) and with a MICRO usb adapter you can plug in a normal stick, but they're now selling MICRO usb sticks too.

> "They ALL have mini usb (including android based phones) and with a mini usb adapter you can plug in a normal stick, but they're now selling mini usb sticks too."

Yes, you can get a USB adapter for an iPad as well but that was't my point. My point was that I can give a DVD to a customer and they can go home and play it. I cannot give a USB stick to a customer and be sure that they can play it without having to buy adapters and other things first. That's why I said that DVD is still the only ubiquitous delivery format for consumers for the foreseeable future.

~jr

LOL!

You offered inaccurate info on an apple product and made it sound as if you can not use stick with "the most popular tablet on the planet"

You can indeed operate a stick on a tablet.... and the MICRO usb stick plugs DIRECTLY into any android phone or tablet with no adapter.

If anybody has tried to resist a "standard" here (MICRO usb).. it's apple. Just about everything else... most phones.. blue tooth head sets.... charging ports for other various things... it's almost all MICRO usb now. I can in fact use the charger off my logitech cordless mouse to charge my phone and tablet. Apple is the only one who refuses to follow the standard.... and why I have NO idea. If Apple got with the program then we might have some chance at forming a standard... but alas, just about every apple product comes with some different cord and plug end..... absolute silliness.

Gee, I am glad the Apple store employee revealed that DVD and BluRay are not digital. I have been so wrong all these years. LOL.

"nobody uses DVD or BD any more, everything is 100% digital."

I'm very confused here. I thought DVDs were digital.

Actually all my Android phones/tablets have MicroUSB connectors. The only thing i've currently still got that has a MiniUSB connector is a Sony dictation recorder. Prior to that i had a little pocket P&S camera with MiniUSB, but i think that's the only other device i've owned that had one.

http://xkcd.com/927/

Sorry... you're correct. It's all gone MICRO usb. I corrected my above post. (I get the 2 mixed up)

It probably depends a lot on the age range. Those viewers 30 years younger than me often don't own a DVD player or any device that will play 'shiny discs'. They have tiny laptops or tablets without such drives and their movie watching is all from streaming services. These people would far prefer an MP4 file on a stick.

At the other end of the scale there's a little old lady down the street from me who has occasionally brought me DVDs that her grandchildren have given her and asked me to put them on to VHS tape for her so she can watch them. I once offered to give her one of my old cheap DVD players and even connect it to her CRT TV for her, but she declined, saying she would never learn how to operate such newfangled equipment.

> "You offered inaccurate info on an apple product and made it sound as if you can not use stick with "the most popular tablet on the planet""

Not out of the box. Not for Apple or Android. Out of the box, a DVD player plays a DVD. So while you can buy a USB adapter for iPads and Androids so that they can read a USB Stick, they don't come stock which was my point.

Give customers a DVD and they can pop it in their DVD player and it works. Give them a USB Stick and either the video format won't be read by their TV, or they have to know enough to buy an adapter for their tablet before they can use it. Then who knows what app they need to actually watch the movie on the USB Stick. It's no where near the experience of a DVD.

So I'll say it again... no one has come anywhere near replacing DVD's as a ubiquitous format for consumer delivery.

~jr

> "Gee, I am glad the Apple store employee revealed that DVD and BluRay are not digital. I have been so wrong all these years. LOL."

They were referring to the delivery method. Digital delivery as apposed to "shiny plastic disc" delivery. DVD and Blu-ray's are NOT Digital Delivery.

~jr

"Not out of the box. Not for Apple or Android. Out of the box, a DVD player plays a DVD. So while you can buy a USB adapter for iPads and Androids so that they can read a USB Stick, they don't come stock which was my point. "

Wrong again. You spend too much time drinking that apple coolaid and not enough time lifting your head long enough to view what the rest of the world is doing.

Android reads a stick right "out of the box". just plug it in. If your stick is the older type with regular usb then yes, you will need an adapter. If your stick is the newer dual plug as the above photo then you just plug it in.

Now the format is indeed a problem. However as stated, if apple got on board that would eliminate a large part of the standardization problems. I don't hold my breath waiting for that to happen.