[Asterisk-video] MPEG4 part 2 video support

Sergio Garcia Murillo sergio.garcia at fontventa.com
Wed Mar 26 14:57:00 CDT 2008


Hi Michael and Florian,

Great discussion! jeje.. let's add some more opions.

Firts, about licenses, they don't apply if you only recieve the mpeg-4 
stream and store in an mp4,
just the same as in the AMR licenes.

About video quality, I really don't beleive there is any significant 
gain moving from h263 to mpeg4 part 2.
mpeg4 part 10 (h264) is another history, but there aren't many handsets 
supporting it yet.

Best regards
Sergio
 

Michael (qq12345) escribió:
> Hi Florian,
>
> nice to see, that you emphasized some video coding theory.
> Yes, H.263 is very old and very poor. A lot of artefacts are usually seen.
> Fast movement with very low bitrate is a mess.
> So, not ideal for video telephony with today's requirements according
> to quality.
>
> MPEG-4 SP at L0 is the easiest MPEG-4 encoding and a lot of
> tools inside MPEG-4 are disabled. But it is the closest toolset
> to H.263.
>
> Perhaps you have doubts, why so many mobile phones upload H.263
> streams as Web 2.0 User Generated Content UGC to your ViiF platform?
> It is a very easy reason. Licensing costs:
>
> For every MPEG-4 _stream_, _encoder_, _decoder_, _stored content_ you
> have to pay royalty fees for "System", "Video", and "Audio". 
> All mobile phone manufacturers pay
> fees for decoding MPEG-video for every sold mobile. 
> But they reject paying fees for encoding video, too. There is not really a
> user requirement.
> Therefore they use the fallback and use for encoding H.263.
> All H.-standards are from ITU-T and they take care of royalty free
> algorithms. Good luck.
> So, if you change your offer for streams of MPEG-4 content to a broad
> publicity, 
> you should sign a contract with MPEG LA. Therefore I assume, you should
> speak
> with your CFO first.... :-)
>
> Besides these legal issues: The quality of the encoded streams
> depend heavily on the experience people stick into the video and audio
> encoders. Some companies have very good video quality
> for mobile 2G networks, while big operators do that with
> 3G and a lot more bandwidth. Of course, companies like Akamai,
> Limelight, Dr. Materna claim to be the best, but there are some
> small booths being better, but not so well known, of course.
>
> But all of this is out of scope of the business analysts
> while making money.
>
> (Hm, sounds like I am a little bit bored...)
>
> More inline...
>  
>
>   
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: asterisk-video-bounces at lists.digium.com 
>> [mailto:asterisk-video-bounces at lists.digium.com] On Behalf Of 
>> Florian Greb ViiF
>> Cc: floriangreb at web.de
>> Subject: [Asterisk-video] MPEG4 part 2 video support
>>     
>
>   
>> Hello list,
>> we've had some trouble with video quality with H.263, which 
>> does not seem to be optimal.
>>     
> :-)
>
>   
>> A guy from radvision states here
>> ( http://www.commsdesign.com/design_corner/OEG20030128S0010 ): 
>> "The 3G-324M standard calls out the H.263 codec as mandatory 
>> and MPEG-4 as recommended codec for video processing. 
>>     
> True. (I have in mind H.261 is mandatory? And even h.263 is already
> optional? Correct?)
>
>   
>> However, MPEG-4 is the 3G-324M standard de-facto used by all 
>> major supporting vendors.
>>     
> Yes, but ... look before...
>
>   
>> Resiliency and high efficiency make MPEG-4 codec particularly 
>> well suited for 3G-324M."
>>     
> [...]
>   
>> Having read that, we'd like to use MPEG4 part 2 simple 
>> profile 1 level 0 as the video codec. 
>>     
> Which is more or less H.263.
>
>   
>> Looking at this patch 
>> (http://bugs.digium.com/view.php?id=8663) from 2006, Asterisk 
>> should already be able to pass MPEG4 part2 video.
>> As support for this MPEG4 part 2 codec is not mandatory, 
>> every video played must be available in both formats, and 
>> there must be a way to select the respective file according 
>> to the video codec negotiated by H.245.
>>     
> Florian, if it is the de-facto standard, you can focus on MPEG-4. :-)
>
>   
>> Furthermore, there is the need for an asterisk app to play 
>> and save MPEG4.
>>     
> MP4Play plays and stores MPEG-4 files. 3GP containers.
> One of your core business features.
>
>   
>> The only mails I found in the Asterisk Video archive ( 
>> http://www.asteriskguru.com/archives/asterisk-video-how-to-int
>> egrate-mpeg4visual-h264-mpeg4-p-vt108615.html?highlight=mpeg4 
>> and 
>> http://www.asteriskguru.com/archives/asterisk-video-integratin
>> g-mpeg4-video-codec-in-asterisk-vt85784.html?highlight=mpeg4 
>> ) are not really helpful.
>>     
>
>   
>> So, my questions are:
>> Has anybody ever done it? 
>> Is there any patch?
>> Are there any Experiences?
>>     
> There is another branch in Digium.
>   
>> Are there other things needed to change?
>>     
> Capabilities exchange procedure. Signalling on Layer 1,2,3 or so.
>
>   
>> Is this guy from radvision right? Do most mobile phones really support
>> MPEG4 part2 and has it really better video quality?
>>     
> Yes.
> But you have to distinguish: local playback, streaming, video call, java.
> It is not said, that they support all 4 items. Marketing always claims
> MPEG-4 support.
>
>   
>> Kind regards,
>>
>> Florian
>>     
>
> Greetings from germany,
> Michael
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> --Bandwidth and Colocation Provided by http://www.api-digital.com--
>
> asterisk-video mailing list
> To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit:
>    http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-video
>   

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.digium.com/pipermail/asterisk-video/attachments/20080326/a3c1487c/attachment.htm 


More information about the asterisk-video mailing list