The Codec Conundrum from Studio Daily

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davide

Well-known member
Has anyone else checked out this article:
http://www.studiodaily.com/main/work/9262.html

I'm not going to argue with any of the claims made since I'm not looking at any engineering reports right now. But it felt like the whole article boiled down to: Panasonic claims this but Sony and Thompson engineers say this but then Panasonic engineers say this and Thompson engineers reply with this. The article seemed to be more like an accumulation of press releases than anything else. I was hoping that the article was going to be about Studiodaily running their own independent tests and showing their conclusions. But, with a title like, "Codec Conundrum" I guess I should have expected this.

All right, I'll comment on one of the claims: Sony reps in the article say that 50mbs AVC-I is no where near the quality of their 25mb mpeg2 compression. Any thoughts on that?

davide
 
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Sony's been going around the country, even around the globe, making preposterous claims about their MPEG-2, and they even got pimpslapped by the European Broadcast Union for daring to use the EBU's name in some fraudulent and misleading claims. The EBU forced Sony to issue a retraction.

So, Sony's now rephrased it and continues to go around laying out this load of crap.

If Sony wants to say that their 50mbps long-GOP XDCAM-422 is equivalent or even superior to 50mbps AVC-I, I could see how that claim would be made. Don't know that I'd agree with it just yet, but I could see how they could claim it. But if they're saying 50mbps AVC-I is inferior to HDV, that's laughable and ridiculous. Preposterous and stupid. They're not actually claiming that, are they? If the article says that, I'd expect that's a mistake on the article writer's part, he must have misunderstood.

Sony's desperate. They're getting their hindquarters handed to them in the marketplace and they're resorting to some rather embarrassing marketing techniques. For example, last year they were going around showing XDCAM-HD vs. AVC-Intra and how XDCAM-HD holds up better(!) to recompression than AVC-Intra does. Sounds impossible, right? Yet that's what they were claiming. Here's the little bit that they somehow managed to leave out of the equation: THEY NEVER TESTED AVC-INTRA. They'd never even SEEN AVC-Intra. AVC-Intra wasn't on the market yet, it was still in Panasonic test labs when Sony was making this presentation. So, how could Sony make this claim? Well, the closest I can come to finding out what happened is that apparently some freelance opensource programmer had coded up his own freebie AVC encoder and uploaded it to the Internet. Sony glommed onto that, used this totally-unrelated codec, and just told the world "yeah, this was AVC-Intra" (or, certainly led people to believe that what they were seeing was AVC-Intra). And no, this Belgian programmer's code didn't hold up to recompression, it was just some thing he threw together! But that didn't stop Sony from representing it as if it actually was AVC-Intra. And showing this presentation over and over, around the US and even around the world.

Flat-out dishonest. That's equivalent to serving someone a McDonald's hamburger and claiming "this is what that steak house across the street calls a steak."

Then, as I understand it, they compounded it by claiming that the EBU had run the tests that they were showing! The EBU forcefully denied any involvement and said that they'd never run ANY such test, and how dare Sony claim that they were involved, and they demanded Sony issue a retraction and an apology. Which Sony did, they had to send out a letter to everyone who'd seen that presentation at HD Expo, apologizing and admitting that they'd fabricated that information.

Take any claims with a grain of salt. In Sony's case, I'd resort to using a full-fledged salt lick. Perhaps a salt mine.
 
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Eh I'm not surprised after all the p2 bashing about static electricity etc they've done. Starting to ignore just about everything sony does now...
 
Apologies. I misquoted the story. Bob Ott, the sony engineer being quoted was referring to 25mb mpeg2 not specifically HDV. I still find this hard to believe. Here's the quote:

"AVC-Intra at 50 Mbps doesn’t even come close, in terms of picture quality, to MPEG-2 at 50," contends Ott, citing results shown at a number of demos around the country to prove Sony’s case.
"I think you have to go up to 140 Mbps to get the same quality as MPEG-2 at 25 Mbps," Ott says. From a field editing standpoint, he adds, there’s another clear advantage to MPEG-2: "AVC-Intra is not laptop-ready [due to processing requirements]. It’s going to take several years to get to where MPEG-2 is today."
(Bold added by me)

This argument makes little sense to me. AVC is mpeg4 based, right? Isn't the whole raison d'etre behind mpeg4 that you can get the same or better quality at smaller bitrates than mpeg2? Sony is saying the opposite. I also don't buy their AVC is "not laptop ready" argument. I thought that long-gop codecs were harder to edit and more processor intensive since you had to manipulate multiple frames for every one frame you edit.


davide
 
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davide said:
"AVC-Intra at 50 Mbps doesn’t even come close, in terms of picture quality, to MPEG-2 at 50," contends Ott, citing results shown at a number of demos around the country to prove Sony’s case.
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Okay, first of all he has to be talking about their new 50mbps MPEG-422 codec, which is 1920x1080, 50 megabits, and 4:2:2. I can't think of what else he could be referring to.

And I'm pretty certain that yes, in Sony's "demonstrations", he's able to show that it looks better than AVC-I at 50mbps. No surprise there. I wouldn't believe a thing Sony showed me at a demonstration, but I wouldn't find it hard to believe that a full-raster, 4:2:2, long-GOP MPEG-2 implementation could match a prefiltered, 4:2:0 AVC-Intra implementation at the same bitrate.

"I think you have to go up to 140 Mbps to get the same quality as MPEG-2 at 25 Mbps," Ott says.
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That is a preposterous statement, and in fact offensively so. I can only hope, for Mr. Ott's sake, that he is being misquoted. He should demand a retraction from the magazine for misquoting him, because the statement as-is makes the speaker look like a horse's ass, and I'm sure he doesn't want to look that way. I would be willing to bet that he's been misquoted. If he said 140mbps to match the long-gop MPEG-2 at 50mbps, I could see how he'd make that argument. But 25mbps? Not possible. Laughably silly. He MUST have been misquoted.

Anyone with any manner of eyeballs whatsoever can see that AVC-Intra 100 simply destroys HDV in every possible way. To even imply otherwise is simply laughable. Discovery HD has certified AVC-Intra at the highest possible level they have, "Gold". HDV isn't even allowed.

From a field editing standpoint, he adds, there’s another clear advantage to MPEG-2: "AVC-Intra is not laptop-ready [due to processing requirements]. It’s going to take several years to get to where MPEG-2 is today."
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Misinformed or misleading, take your pick. I would choose "misinformed". (Or, maybe that crap freebie open-source internet codec they were using can't play back on a laptop? Maybe that's where his misinformation is coming from?) I can play 1080P AVC-Intra in realtime right off a P2 card on my laptop right this very minute. AVC-Intra absolutely works on today's laptops.

This argument makes little sense to me.
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That is because the argument is either misquoted, or nonsense.

AVC is mpeg4 based, right? Isn't the whole raison d'etre behind mpeg4 that you can get the same or better quality at smaller bitrates than mpeg2?
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Yes. AVC is "advanced video coding", and according to Sony's own press release (SONY'S OWN PRESS RELEASE!) AVC is "over two times more efficient" than MPEG-2.

Furthermore, Sony's own brochure for AVC-HD (SONY'S OWN BROCHURE!) states in its FAQ section that AVC-HD at 9 megabits looks as good as 25-megabit HDV. The exact wording is:
Q. How does HDV and AVCHD picture quality compare?
A. The quality of AVCHD recording in the 9 Mbps (HD-HQ) mode is roughly equal to HDV recording.​

So are we to understand that he's trying to claim that you'd need 140mbps of AVC-Intra to match 25mbps of MPEG-2, but you only need 9 megabits of AVC-HD to match 25mbps of MPEG-2? Preposterous on the face of it. He must have been misquoted.

Sony is saying the opposite.
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[rant mode on -- beware, strong opinions ahead.]
Sony talks out of both sides of their mouth every single day. It's impossible to keep up with what they say and what they actually mean. Basically, like most any marketer, they'll tell you whatever they have to say in order to sell you whatever's sitting right in front of them on the shelf at that moment.

"Chip size doesn't matter, go with our 1/4" chips on the V1U."
"Oh, of course you don't want smaller chips, that's why you should go with our 1/2" chipset on the EX1."
"Well, when we say that the chip size doesn't matter, understand that what we really mean is that our 1/2" chipset in our XDCAM series actually uses MORE available space than other 1/2" chipsets do. They're magic. They actually are just as big as 2/3" chips. "
"We're now introducing 2/3" XDCAM-HD chips, so you don't have to settle for smaller chips."

What? You'll go dizzy listening to them.

I love this one: at NAB last year they had a great big picture of a P2 logo, with a circle and a slash running through it, claiming "P2 Is Dead". Their reasoning is that nobody is supporting PCMCIA anymore, so therefore the P2 card is dead (even though about 80% of broadcast sales are going P2 instead of XDCAM). But here's where it gets funny: Lots of Sony's OWN LAPTOPS come with PCMCIA slots, today! Look at the Vaio AR series, their premium multimedia editing laptops. Or their SZ series. So out one side of their face they're saying "this technology is obsolete" and out the other side of their face they're saying "new, fresh technology, and it has PCMCIA! Please buy it!"

Comedy gold. Pure comedy.

Regarding solid state, they've been saying since 2004 stuff like:
"Solid State is stupid for cameras, it'll never sell. You want disc."
"Here are the reasons solid state will never work: blah, blah, and blah."
"Buy our discs. Please." And on and on. Marketing claims that "XDCAM is the new Betacam." I always figured someone should spray-paint through "cam" and write "max" so it would instead say "XDCAM is the new Betamax." More appropriate. Perhaps my favorite was an ad they used to run on the Cow, which showed an XDCAM blu-ray disc system and it said "When Sony Innovates, Others Imitate." Priceless. That's comedy gold, right there. Did anyone else ever, in the history of camcorders, produce another blu-ray disc camcorder? No. But, that was shortly followed up by:

"INTRODUCING XDCAM-EX, Now featuring solid state! Ooh, look at all the benefits and the features! Yay!" Talk about your imitating... the EX1 was instantly dubbed the P2 MeToo.

Then, for the ultimate in comedy, they announce the PDW700, which is optical disc and no solid state! Or, my other favorite: since the dawn of HD they've been blasting 720p, saying it's not "FULL HD", pushing the world towards 1080i whenever they can, and then, surprise surprise: on the EX1 and PDW700, Sony is now offering 720p! You've got to be kidding.

Before the EX1 was on the market, they told people that the EX1 would use cheap commodity memory. Jiri Vrozina has the head of Sony Australia on videotape claiming that the SxS 8GB cards would cost "half" of what the 8GB P2 cards cost. And, they've said you can use cheap commodity memory. But when the EX1 actually got released, guess what... SxS turns out to be proprietary, no other cards can be used, and the clincher is that the SxS pricing is IDENTICAL to the P2 cards.

Seriously, how do those folks keep a straight face, with this type of product line? It makes no sense, they're throwing everything they can at the market hoping that something will stick, and they're losing badly. So now they're resorting to trumped-up bogus claims to try to cling to any shred of market share. What in the hell are you supposed to buy from these folks? Can't they present a coherent rational front at all?

Bitter? Why, yes. I'm sick of them. I think Maddox may have gotten it right about them. (or not, but it's entertaining)

It's like their war for MPEG-2, proclaiming "it's an MPEG2 world." (actual Sony marketing slogan at NAB). They've had to admit that 25mbps wasn't enough (which is why they came out with 35mbps). Now they've had to admit that 35mbps wasn't really enough, hence why they're coming out with 50mbps. They've been preaching about how great 4:2:0 is, so now how do they defend that they're coming out with 4:2:2? Which side of their face do you listen to?

Maybe the side that has to walk the tightrope of the sensor technology. On one side they'd have you believe that CMOS is better than CCD. So why does every single professional camera in their lineup (at $10,000 or above) use CCD? Including the brand-new, mega-budget F23 and F35? Their premium, best-ever digital cinema cameras? Well, they left that one up to Juan Martinez to try to explain, and he said "well, if you want the best quality for digital cinema, you want CCD. But if you're looking for a handheld camera, you want CMOS." Um, yeah. Whatever.

It gets tiring trying to even keep track of it all. I wish they'd settle down and just make good products, instead of hitting the market with a potential monster hit (EX1) and saddling it with focus issues, backfocus isses, full-zoom issues, vignetting issues, battery-draining issues, paint-peeling-off issues, rolling shutter issues, full-cards-of-footage-disappearing issues, and everything else. And trying to market by hitting you with a broadside campaign of misinformation, disinformation, half-truths, trumped-up comparisons, bluster and marketing.

Come on, Sony. Just make a good product. You used to make the best stuff in the world. Now you're turning out JVC-level stuff. I don't even think the HD100 had as many issues as the EX1 has. Knock it off. Stop the bluster and the bullcrap. Just make products people want to buy, fer cryin' out loud.

This is all opinion, from a longtime observer and former exclusive Sony user.
[/rant mode off]

I also don't buy their AVC is "not laptop ready" argument.
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That's because you're smart, and their argument is demonstrably nonsense. If he was talking about AVC-HD, I'd say "fair argument for today." But since I can edit AVC-I in realtime right now, the argument is hollow.

I thought that long-gop codecs were harder to edit and more processor intensive since you had to manipulate multiple frames for every one frame you edit.
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This is true. But AVC is also much more processor-intensive than other codecs. Even in its intraframe mode, AVC needs a lot of horsepower. In its long-GOP AVC-HD mode it needs a tremendous amount. AVC-I runs fine in realtime on a 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo laptop. AVC-HD gets about 12fps or so on the same laptop.
 
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Wow, Barry, I've never seen you that worked up before! I think some companies just have too many marketing divisions. Sony doesn't exactly have a corporate culture of honesty and integrity, either.
 
Yeah, that was intense. We should rework and send it to Al Pacino to read as a monologue. Well, send it to the Al Pacino of 30 years ago.

Question about AVC-HD, Barry: is that what the HMC150 is going to use? Right now I have the same setup as you described in your post: Intel Core Duo laptop 2.4ghz. Would I only to be able to edit AVC-HD on that at 12fps, or were you referring to 50mb AVC-HD?

p.s. Thompson Grass Valley spoke negatively about Panasonic's codecs as well in the article. But at least they support them with their software, unlike Sony. If a much smaller company like Thompson is willing to allow customers to use competing codecs on their NLEs then Sony should too.

davide
 
HMC150 = AVC-HD, yes. And it would be challenging to edit in its native state on today's laptops. AVC-Intra50 would be very simple to handle on a modern laptop; AVC-Intra100 works fine. AVC-HD needs a little help (a quad-core laptop would probably handle it in realtime just fine).

Thing is, HDV shooters for years would transcode to something like CineForm or AIC or ProRes. That same workflow would be equally valid for AVC-HD (because, frankly, no long-GOP codec is going to prove to be ideal as an editing codec). Some editors (like EDIUS) do allow you to edit in the native codec, but it's processor-intensive and frame-rate limited. If I were to transcode to, say, CanopusHQ, it would be totally real-time to edit with. It's just when working with it in its native format that it's proving to be too taxing for full realtime editing.

And yes, I did get a bit ranty. Sorry 'bout that.
 
Transcoding's a good idea, thanks. And don't worry about the rant. If those Sony guys were lying I can understand your anger. It's really sickening when you hear people telling untruths like this. Advanced video engineering is one of those things that so many defer to expert opinion on because they have no training themselves in the area. That's why false statements like the one's you're ranting about get propogated. People (and I'm guilty of this) blindly accept them because they don't have the background or the equipment to make their own conclusions. Then those same people start parroting said false statements on message boards and the cycle of misinformation begins all over again with a new set of listeners. It's enough to make one want to rant.
 
davide said:
Yeah, that was intense. We should rework and send it to Al Pacino to read as a monologue. Well, send it to the Al Pacino of 30 years ago.
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No way! Al Pacino from this flick:
18453740.jpg
"Sony's an absentee landlord!!!"
 
Hi,

I think Ott is in marketing, not engineering.

The overall quality of the article is somewhat disappointing. It seems that Panasonic wasn't asked or was asked and refused to comment, in either case you don't weigh in for someone without either acknowledging that they were asked and they refused or something.

Secondly, there were a few "Some say"s - well, who in the hell are they? I'd like some attribution - was it someone who matters?

Finally, I'd like to see an even hand. If someone else who's a player is clearly doing something else they think is worthwhile, why are they doing it? They ain't totally nuts, are they? At least let them make their case.
 
The weird thing about this article is that they ran the very same article in 2007 just before NAB. Maybe an indicator of a slow news day in the video business. ;-)

I am heartened by the fact that most people that I have talked to that gave up their 15 minutes to read it, saw right through the claims made by Sony in the article, and while perhaps did not carry on with the same gusto as our pal Barry, did find the key points made by them to be hilarious.

Nice rant Barry! I could not have done that as well.

Best to all,

Jan
 
I find what Sony is doing is just plain weird. While they might make some short term gains by fooling some people, in the long run all this crazy stuff that they have been saying is going to come back to bite them. Future loss of credibility is a major thing in the market.

It's only a matter of time before several side by tests are performed and published in the Video Magazines. After that, then what will Sony say?



Bob Diaz
 
Sony just seems to be missing the target these days, at least with their prosumer and up cameras. I'm so turned off by them (though I do love my Sony 55" Grand WEGA 1080p HDTV - what can I say? It was an impulse buy and I got a good deal on it.). If Sony were smart, they'd do it like Panasonic. You know, Panasonic, a company that actually listens to, communicates with and delivers upon its customers' needs.
 
I too was hoping for more in-depth article with real tests and all. Not the propaganda from different companies. I was surprised about Sony's claims, sure.

The thing is that Sony's aggressive propaganda does work, that's why they're using it. It only takes one random beginning videographer to read that article, and he most likely will buy Sony instead Panasonic. There are many beginners out there, and the word gets out that "Sony has a better codec", so people buy Sonys.
Most people don't buy what they actually need or the closest thing to satisfy their needs. Most people buy the FEELING of something, maybe the feeling of "best video quality" for this price range.

About Sony's "chip size" stock answers: I think this is typical Sony dilemma, they have to sell small hand held cams with smaller chips, and the professional products. They have different answers for different people. It has always been like that with Sony, especially with videocams for amateurs, they have to get people to believe that they're always getting the very best camera (=Sony) in that price range.

But the claims about codecs were just based on the old tradition that "older is better", which Sony has done always as far as I remember. Things don't always necessarily work like that anymore.

Traditional Sony vs. Matsushita scenario.
 
proffit said:
I too was hoping for more in-depth article with real tests and all. Not the propaganda from different companies. I was surprised about Sony's claims, sure.

The thing is that Sony's aggressive propaganda does work, that's why they're using it. It only takes one random beginning videographer to read that article, and he most likely will buy Sony instead Panasonic. There are many beginners out there, and the word gets out that "Sony has a better codec", so people buy Sonys.
Most people don't buy what they actually need or the closest thing to satisfy their needs. Most people buy the FEELING of something, maybe the feeling of "best video quality" for this price range.

About Sony's "chip size" stock answers: I think this is typical Sony dilemma, they have to sell small hand held cams with smaller chips, and the professional products. They have different answers for different people. It has always been like that with Sony, especially with videocams for amateurs, they have to get people to believe that they're always getting the very best camera (=Sony) in that price range.

But the claims about codecs were just based on the old tradition that "older is better", which Sony has done always as far as I remember. Things don't always necessarily work like that anymore.

Traditional Sony vs. Matsushi*a scenario.
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To be fair you could make basically the same post about any company. What company's official marketing stance isn't going to say their own product is best in class? There's a healthy variety of FUD floating around the internet as well. You read "horror stories" about long GOP codecs falling apart, you see people blast the HVX200 for having 960x540 CCDs, and you listen to someone who's never owned a camera before bragging about his place in line for a RedOne and how that camera is going to put every other camera maker out of business.

The great thing about the internet is that it gives everyone a voice. The bad thing about the internet is that it gives everyone a voice.:D


-A
 
Yes, I know what you're saying, but in Sony's case it's like they're *always' on top of the game, or so they want people to believe. Panasonic too has their own agenda, but they're not that aggressive with their tactics.
 
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