Real One video won't play back correctly

Hello,

I made real one video instead of using QT and it compresses well. I set bitrate to 1000kbits/s at 512x340. When I play it back off the hard drive, video freezes and hold until it catches up with audio. I asked someone else to play it back on her computer and she said it didn't skip. I tried various things like turning off perfect play or emphasize video, changed keyframe setting and so on.

Skip happens the same spot of the video. Why is that?

[Rob Lohman]

That is a very difficult question to answer. Is it 1000 kbits or
1000 KB per second? Most people are not very fond of Real
video because most people do not have the player installed
(or want to install it, like myself) and it just does some very
weird stuff now and then.

It's 1000kbits/s (or 125KB/s) it's kilo bits per second. VCD spec mpeg1 goes 1150kbits/s.

I always thought real video is horrible but I was just playing around with different compression codec and kind of picture and resolution real video can give was amazing. My video is 512x340 and if I do this with QT, I get 50megabytes file, and If I want to do this in Mpeg1, Well it's just harder (humm I forgot the filesize...Somewhere between QT and Reral. but it doesn't look good).

Why is it keep skipping? OK maybe new real 8 codec is like DIVX5, which sucks up CPU time, but I still have 1gig thunderbird witn TNT2.

[Rob Lohman]

Mpeg1 should be LARGER than QuickTime, not smaller. What
codec are you using for QuickTime? Most people seem to prefer
QuickTime with a sorenson codec (must be bought). Most trailers
online are in this format too.

[James Emory]

I don't know much about the Real encoding but......man, 1000 Kbps!!!!! Are you trying to crash the internet?! I do LOT of Windows media encoding and the current threshold is at 300K with a frame size of 320x240. Also, make sure your frame rate is between 20 & 25 fps. Try these settings and see what happens. What you did is not tolerated on the open internet right now as a streaming file but should work on a faster work station from the hard drive, dedicated line or on a closed efficient intranet.

[James Emory]

I totally agree with Mr. Lohman, Real Player is a REAL problem child. Once installed, it hides shortcuts all throughout your directories and tries to become the default player and gives false error messages when you try to view other media with other players.

Thank you,

When I do my MPEG1, I set bitrate to 1100kbit/s to somewhat match the VCD spec. Then I make the window larger, tweak around setting to get somewhere around 400x300.

When I used QT, I used sorencen codec, and I lowered the bitrate to the best of my ability (I think it was 76KB/s = 608bit/s) but ended up with much larger file. Hummmm.... How large of file would you expect if I encode 3 min QT at 512x340 res. ? I want to make it close to at least 30meg or so. Real 8 does 21meg 3 min video @ 512x340.

I put MPEG1 on web that are like, 512 x 336 @ 1100kbit/s and the vocalist of the band told me she didn't have to download it, which suprized me. She was watching it from her office.

I'll try to reduce the frame rate and see if it helps... Is it really true that current norm is 300K? Real player are nast. It bugs you every 4 hours "You've got a message!" and spam us. I thought DIVX rout is the only option left, but I don't want to because then I have to ask people to install codec and such. Window Media... hummmmmmmmm.... Do I have to use the encorder from MS or can I do it with virtualdub with mpeg4? What's the latest on WM Encorder or codec? Did I get better like Real 8? I am so out of loop I donno anything about it...

[James Emory]

I think Windows Media is the way to go because it is the most common. Your files sizes sure are big. As Windows Media files, a 3 minute clip should be around 5 megabytes as a high speed file and 1 megabyte or less as a dial up file. Your file sizes sure are large for such a short clip. The 300K data rate is mostly the ceiling for streaming media. If these files are to be downloaded, the data rate CAN be higher creating a slightly larger file with a slightly longer download time and will have to be downloaded to be viewed. I would go to windowsmedia.com and do some reading about its encoding.

I think i found out what's wrong. When i tried to play back ooooold ra i did which is like 140x something with low low bitrate, it still skipps... i think there is a bug in latest real player..

oh whtta suprize ha!

[James Emory]

Well, I just had to try it again just to see. The results surprised me. I encoded a six minute file at 1000 Kbps and it streamed over the net just fine on the cable modem. So, what I said above is obviously incorrect. What is obviously different is that the file size tripled the 300 Kbps version of the same file. So a bunch of those would kill you on disk space. The picture quality was noticibly clearer but I don't think enough to justify the increased file size. I'm not even going to try to understand it anymore. If it works, then just do it.

I think it's goes somethig like this:

1000kilobits / 8 = 125Kilogbytes.

Most typical cable can do 150kilobytes downstream and some can do as much as 250kilogbytes/s. So 1000kbits/s should work ... But if I don't set the way you said, there is no way that it will stream for modem user... I was thinking you are trying to tell me that I need to change my target audience.