FAB.

Marc Martin wrote:
The 48kbps CBR audio in opening.wmv is somewhat dire.
 
>> Would is be possible to have a Quicktime 6 mp4 of the opening? :-)
>
> The one from last week (the 6 MB file) *was* a Quicktime 6 MP4. :-)

The file I managed to grab is opening.mov (2.36MB) on June 19th. As I
missed the 6 MB file during its brief visit, would it be possible to
have, for a few days, a Quicktime 6 mp4 of the opening? :-)
 
>> I have just bought both PAL DVD box sets (inspired by YouTube clip,
>> childhood memories and ufoseries.com) and it would be nice to view
>> the beginning at the 'real' speed, presumably at a bit better
>> quality than opening.mov.
>
> "Better quality" as in less compression artifacts, or larger
> dimensions?

I'm interested mainly in the quality of the audio, not the video, and
whether Quicktime 6 sound is better than version 5.

Tony

> The file I managed to grab is opening.mov (2.36MB) on June 19th. As I
> missed the 6 MB file during its brief visit, would it be possible to
> have, for a few days, a Quicktime 6 mp4 of the opening? :-)

The 6 mb version is still on the website, but there is no link
to it:

http://ufoseries.com/movieClips/opening.mov

The file format is .mov, but it uses MPEG-4/AAC encoding.

Marc

> The 48kbps CBR audio in opening.wmv is somewhat dire.

Hmmm, on my computer, the WMV audio doesn't sound
significantly different the MP4 audio... (?) And
I just checked -- that is the highest quality mono
audio that the Windows Media Encoder offers (all
other settings are stereo, which is wasteful for
a mono source).

Also, in the past 24-hours, I've gone from being a
Windows Media Encoding novice to an expert, and
now have a WMV file that's better quality than
the H.264 MP4 (at a slightly larger file size):

http://ufoseries.com/movieClips/

("Windows Media 9" link, same as before)

Marc

Marc Martin wrote:

> Also, *in the past 24-hours, I've gone from being a
> Windows Media Encoding novice to an expert*, and
> now have a WMV file that's better quality than
> the H.264 MP4 (at a slightly larger file size):

http://ufoseries.com/movieClips/


What else should be expected of a rocket scientist guy? <G>

In the end though, isn't the goal to popularize UFO rather than
providing picture-and-sound-perfect 320x240 captures?

Paul

> In the end though, isn't the goal to popularize UFO rather than
> providing picture-and-sound-perfect 320x240 captures?

It's been so long since I started the website, I've forgotten
what the goal was... :-)

But my goal for this week is to update the movie clips page
so the clips don't look like they were done 10 years ago...

Marc

Wow! This new clip looks perfect (except in the underwater parts, where even HD DVD and Blu-ray discs would have difficulties due to 8bit color depth). Excellent, I have to admit I didn't expect possible improvement over h.264. Congratulations, Marc!!!
 


To: [hidden email]: [hidden email]: Thu, 28 Jun 2007 20:03:21 -0700Subject: Re: [SHADO] Re: video format suggestions?




> The 48kbps CBR audio in opening.wmv is somewhat dire.Hmmm, on my computer, the WMV audio doesn't soundsignificantly different the MP4 audio... (?) AndI just checked -- that is the highest quality monoaudio that the Windows Media Encoder offers (allother settings are stereo, which is wasteful fora mono source).Also, in the past 24-hours, I've gone from being aWindows Media Encoding novice to an expert, andnow have a WMV file that's better quality thanthe H.264 MP4 (at a slightly larger file size):http://ufoseries.com/movieClips/("Windows Media 9" link, same as before)Marc


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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Branko Vekic wrote:
> Wow! This new clip looks perfect (except in the underwater
> parts, where even HD DVD and Blu-ray discs would have difficulties due
> to 8bit color depth). Excellent, I have to admit I didn't
> expect possible improvement over h.264. Congratulations, Marc!!!

Thanks, glad it looks good to you, Branko!

The closing sequence and sci-fi channel commercial breaks
have also been updated as well.

Marc

On Thu, 28 Jun 2007 11:07:53 -0400 (GMT-04:00)
Bruce Sherman <[hidden email]> wrote:

> mpeg files usually are larger by 10 to 1 then wmv in my experience,
> with the approximate same quality and you need to download the whole
> file before it starts playing.
>

Not in my experience, on the latter point - so I suspect it depends on
the application, rather than being inherent to the format.

James

James Gibbon wrote:
Yeah, a ten-to-one ratio does seem a bit excessive, but I don't do video
stuff.

Paul

> Yeah, a ten-to-one ratio does seem a bit excessive, but I don't do video
> stuff.

Well, there are MPEG-1 files on my UFO website (Ed Bishop and Dolores
Mantez on "Late Night Late"), and the files are fairly large and poor
quality.

I found a paper which summarized various compression technologies,
and they included this information:

MPEG-1 (1993) 10-100:1 compression
MPEG-2 (1995) 10-200:1 compression
MPEG-4 (1999) 10-500:1 compression

The two formats I've been experimenting with in the past week
are both comparable to MPEG-4 in compression.

By the way, since MPEG-4 is so much more efficient, I plan
on replacing the short clips of Ed Bishop and Dolorez Mantez
on "Late Night Late" with their entire appearance on the
show (10-15 minute clips each).

Marc

Marc Martin wrote:

> By the way, since MPEG-4 is so much more efficient, I plan
> on replacing the short clips of Ed Bishop and Dolorez Mantez
> on "Late Night Late" with their entire appearance on the
> show (10-15 minute clips each).

I'll be sure to download them to my watch if there's any good references
in them to UFO in the content.

Got a direct link?

Paul

> I'll be sure to download them to my watch if there's any good references
> in them to UFO in the content.

That's all they talk about -- they were guests during a late-night
broadcast of an episode of UFO

> Got a direct link?

Nope, they haven't been encoded yet...

Marc

Marc Martin wrote:
The 2-pass CBR audio in the new opening.wmv sounds much better than
the 1-pass CBR audio in the old one.

I have created an Ogg Vorbis file of the theme tune by ripping the
first episode intro from a PAL DVD and stretching it by a factor of
25/24, with a bit of jiggery-pokery in between.

------------------------------------------------------
UFOtheme.ogg (543KB)
http://rapidshare.com/files/40128818/ufotheme.ogg.html
------------------------------------------------------

You may do whatever you want with this file, but the best thing
probably is to give it a listen!

The bit rate is almost identical to begtt.mp3 on the Music page, so
that a fair and unbiased comparison of ogg and mp3 can be made, then
ogg declared the winner by a country mile! :-)

Tony

P.S.
Contrary to what it says on the box, the DVD is *not* in mono, as the
left and right audio channels are slightly different.

> The 2-pass CBR audio in the new opening.wmv sounds much better than
> the 1-pass CBR audio in the old one.

Good!

I wouldn't necessarily attribute that to the difference between
2-pass and 1-pass, though. There was an extra lossy-compression
step in the first case that was bypassed in the second case.
Also in the second case, I turned up the volume quite a bit!

> Contrary to what it says on the box, the DVD is *not* in mono, as the
> left and right audio channels are slightly different.

Well, the original source material was mono... if the left and
right tracks ended up a bit different, then probably a mistake
was introduced along the way... :-)

Marc

> The bit rate is almost identical to begtt.mp3 on the Music page, so
> that a fair and unbiased comparison of ogg and mp3 can be made, then
> ogg declared the winner by a country mile! :-)

It would only be a fair comparison if we used the same source material.
I cannot remember if I made that .mp3 from the PAL UFO DVD's or the
NTSC UFO DVD's, and these could have different sound quality
characteristics.

But again, from a compatibility standpoint, the Ogg loses by a
country mile... :-)

Marc

But don't the PAL DVDs play faster than the NTSC DVDs? I would think it would be easy to tell which were used just by listening for the speed difference. Or did you correct the speed when ripping to mp3 (when using PAL discs)?

Jeff

Marc Martin <[hidden email]> wrote:
> The bit rate is almost identical to begtt.mp3 on the Music page, so
> that a fair and unbiased comparison of ogg and mp3 can be made, then
> ogg declared the winner by a country mile! :-)

It would only be a fair comparison if we used the same source material.
I cannot remember if I made that .mp3 from the PAL UFO DVD's or the
NTSC UFO DVD's, and these could have different sound quality
characteristics.

But again, from a compatibility standpoint, the Ogg loses by a
country mile... :-)

Marc





[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Jeffrey Nelson wrote:
> But don't the PAL DVDs play faster than the NTSC DVDs?
> I would think it would be easy to tell which were used just
> by listening for the speed difference. Or did you correct
> the speed when ripping to mp3 (when using PAL discs)?

Any sound clips that I would have taken from the PAL UFO
DVD's would have been slowed down by 4% before they were
put onto my website.

And of course, one would also have to take into account
the quality differences between the AC3 decoder installed
on one person's PC vs. another. I was actually a bit
concerned about these new WMV's because I saw that
the freeware I was using had an AC3 decoder that was
known to be not be as good as another free AC3 decoder...

Marc

Hi all,

Most of the rest of the clips have now been updated with higher
quality versions:

http://ufoseries.com/movieClips/

Pretty much everything is the same, although I think there may
be some more in "Mr. Thunderbirds" (but nothing significant).

The "Late Night Late" clips will be next...

Marc

Hi all,

People might remember that there was supposed to be a new
Sylvia Anderson book out -- 7 months ago! I pre-ordered
this on Amazon.uk, and periodically they send me an email
telling me that it hasn't come out yet. Well, yesterday
I got a different email, indicating that the release
date has been pushed back to the end of July. I wonder
if this date is for real.... ?

Marc

Hi all,

I've now expanded the short clip of Dolores Mantez
guesting on the 1988 episode of "Late Night Late"
with the complete interview:

http://ufoseries.com/movieClips/lateDolores.wmv

Enjoy!

Marc