Pixlet (split from Panther Discussion)

Posted:
in macOS edited January 2014
Does anybody have any ideas what apple has planned for "Pixlet"? AAC brought us the iMusic store. "Pixlet" is featured in the Panther preview section and I am not sure why. Any ideas?
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 26
    Quote:

    Originally posted by anand

    Does anybody have any ideas what apple has planned for "Pixlet"? AAC brought us the iMusic store. "Pixlet" is featured in the Panther preview section and I am not sure why. Any ideas?



    It may have to do with Pixar's eventual move to OS X and G5s. Not sure how far they're going to push Pixlet for consumers or even pros.
  • Reply 2 of 26
    xoolxool Posts: 2,460member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by kim kap sol

    It may have to do with Pixar's eventual move to OS X and G5s. Not sure how far they're going to push Pixlet for consumers or even pros.



    Quicktime Movie Store?
  • Reply 3 of 26
    Quote:

    Originally posted by anand

    Does anybody have any ideas what apple has planned for "Pixlet"? AAC brought us the iMusic store. "Pixlet" is featured in the Panther preview section and I am not sure why. Any ideas?



    I don't really know anything about this, but could they use this to role out some sort of internet movie service? The quality would definitely be there, but would the files be way to big?



    Would be an interesting idea.
  • Reply 4 of 26
    Pixlet for a Movie Store?



    No, Pixlet is "simply" a codec for high-end video professionals who are dealing with mammoth-sized files that are so incredibly large that they can't be dealt with in real-time. How big? 75MB/sec big? That's what Apple is saying.
  • Reply 5 of 26
    xoolxool Posts: 2,460member
    You don't think you could crank down the resolution and still use the codec?
  • Reply 6 of 26
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Brad

    Pixlet for a Movie Store?



    No, Pixlet is "simply" a codec for high-end video professionals who are dealing with mammoth-sized files that are so incredibly large that they can't be dealt with in real-time. How big? 75MB/sec big? That's what Apple is saying.




    I said I didn't know if it would work or not. Or if it even makes sense.



    But look at Apple's site



    "Pixlet is the first studio-grade codec for filmmakers. Pixlet provides 20-25:1 compression, allowing a 75MB/sec series of frames to be delivered in a 3MB/sec movie, similar to DV data rates. Or a series of frames that are over 6GB in size can be contained within a 250MB movie. Pixlet lets high-end digital film frames play in real time with any Panther Mac, without investing in costly, proprietary playback hardware."



    Correct me if I'm wrong, but they are saying that they can get 6GB of movie down to 250MB. But that seems a lot like bringing a DVD worth of video down to 250 MB to me. 250 MB would be manageable I think for a movie that was DVD quality. Of course this is assuming that the compression ratios that Apple claims for Pixlet would work if you encoded a MPEG2 stream, such as DVD video, would remain consistent. I am not sure they would, or if it would even make sense to do this.



    But at the very least, I could see how the technology they are using in Pixlet could become a platform for a more consumer oriented CODEC for delivering movies on-line.



    But there may be several reasons why this is totally ludicrous. It's just an interesting idea is all.
  • Reply 7 of 26
    when apple says 6GB of video, they are talking about something like 2 minutes of very high quality video. 3MB/s would still make for a movie that is over 10GB in size. Sorry for the dashed hopes, folks.
  • Reply 8 of 26
    I don't think size is a real big issue anymore. In a few years, we might see multi layered holographic data storage, in CD shape/form. Hard Drive sizes also increase pretty rapidly, too. Meanwhile, better codecs are always being introduced... m.
  • Reply 9 of 26
    bartobarto Posts: 2,246member
    OK, let's assume Apple distributes video files of 640x400 as an example. Three 8-bit channels results in 640 x 400 x 3 for each frame. That's 768,000. For 30 frames a second that is 23 million, or 23 megabytes a second. Pixlet reduces that to 1MB/s. In a two hour movie there are 7200 seconds, at 1MB/s. That's 7.2 Gigabytes.



    The technology you are looking for is MPEG4, not Pixlet. Pixlet would be nifty for next-gen DVDs though (say 100GB DVDs)....



    Barto
  • Reply 10 of 26
    dfilerdfiler Posts: 3,420member
    Pixlet was designed specifically for video production. While it would work for consumer applications, it is less suitable than other modern codecs designed solely for consumer playback.



    Pixlet is desirable during production due to, among other reasons, it's lack of inter-frame compression. This makes non-linear editing much more pleasant on even mediocre hardware. It also sacrifices file size for marginally increased fidelity that is not usually discernible during mere playback. (When compared to other consumer playback codecs.) These design trade-offs lead to less degradation when layering, splicing, and adding effects.
  • Reply 11 of 26
    anandanand Posts: 285member
    What I still don't get is why is it promoted in the panther site? Do you need Panther to use pixlet? Why?



    I remember when Steve fist talked about AAC - I thought great, another way to rip music - but it was so much more. Now, I think Pixlet and think, great another codec for video production people to stream video...but I have a feeling it is so much more. It may not be for the consumer but may be a core for the next pro apps.





    Also has anyone heard about DRM and Pixlet?
  • Reply 12 of 26
    bartobarto Posts: 2,246member
    7 gigabytes anand. 7 gigabytes. Not gonna happen. Pixlet is being included with Panther, I don't know whether it will be available with QuickTime 6.4 for Jaguar (if 6.4 is even available for Jaguar... which it probably will be).



    Barto
  • Reply 13 of 26
    anandanand Posts: 285member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Barto

    7 gigabytes anand. 7 gigabytes. Not gonna happen. Pixlet is being included with Panther, I don't know whether it will be available with QuickTime 6.4 for Jaguar (if 6.4 is even available for Jaguar... which it probably will be).



    Barto




    OK, I agree. But I don't get what it has to do with Panther. Why discuss it in the Panther discussion.
  • Reply 14 of 26
    with panther you will be able to play a pixlet movie on a 1GHz G4 machine. You cant play pixlet movies with jag, and you can't encode pixlet movies even with panther. You will need some pro app or something-i dont think apple has yet specified how they are doing this.



    BLUF -you wont use pixlet unless you already KNOW you're gonna be using for the work you do, which is obviously production movie related stuff.
  • Reply 15 of 26
    stevesteve Posts: 523member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by anand

    OK, I agree. But I don't get what it has to do with Panther. Why discuss it in the Panther discussion.



    QuickTime 6, if you take a glance at the existing Jaguar page, is being billed as an apparently major component of that particular operating system, even though there are not only versions of it on all Mac OSes, but Windows as well.
  • Reply 16 of 26
    being a video professional, when I heard the specs of Pixlet my heart jumped.



    It is not for a video store/downloading video etc. It can compress 20-25 times for uncompressed footage, not from a Mpeg2 DVD. If you took a video DVD and recompressed it with Pixlet, most likely the file size would be bigger than the original on the DVD. But this matters not, since Pixlet, as is metioned in another post, is meant for video professionals.



    Those of you who think this is anounced like aac and then waiting in the wings is something like Itunes music store, you are proabably right. Here is some background for the non video people:



    Working a lot with DV, I have data rates of 3.7 MB/s and a frame size of 720*576 (I work in PAL). Which is fine for general TV work since most TVs (CRT) have smaller frame Sizes. And as most of you rabid apple fans know, apple already started a desktop video revolution similar to what they did with desktop publishing. So now every dumbass can make a decent looking film with imove and a DV camera. But where is the next stop? If you don't know, there is a spec called HD (high definition), which has two sizes. Roughly 1000*720 and 1900*1100 (I think). But if you have a camera that records HD then you have a uncompressed data rate of 75MB/sec which you need a maxed out Xraid to handle basic playback (not to mention a pro camera costs 50,000 US and up). Enter Pixlet and the lower HD res is almost the same bitrate as DV. This means that if newer comsumer cameras arrive that record HD (i think JVC has one that encodes Mpeg2 onto a DV tape) then together with Pixlet you can edit the video just as usual on your mac. until now you needed a HD card that cost 6,000 US and up.



    this is increadable!!!! 48Bit colour means that this is a super professional Codec that can be used for color correction and TV output. For free, no expensive additional hardware needed!!! I get 50% increase in frame size with a less than 10% incearse in file size!!! I am sure that the new G5s handle the higher spec HD which is proabably 5-10 MB/sec without stopping for breath. The post above that mentions no interframe compression is dead on. This is what is needed to edit, since you don't want to have to rerender you footage everytime you decide that you want to cut that angle here and have it somewhere else instead.



    So now with a new G5 I can edit video at resolutions that rivals 35mm film. Granted they scan film at 3000-4000 thousand pixles, but remember that all the new starwars were filmed on HD and looked super sweet (excluding plot of course). I have FCP 4 to edit, Shake (i wish) to do all my effects, now all I need is a camera that records native pixlet footage onto standard DV tape....

    remember some rumor that apple was working closely with panasonic to incorporate firewire into their cameras, perhaps they are working closely on more than one thing?



    So you want to make films? Have the highest quality for the lowest price?

    If you film HD you then can either edit easily on your mac (Pixlet/altivec) or you can buy a PC and a 8000 dollar card to do the same with less flexability!



    guess where the revolution is now...
  • Reply 17 of 26
    wmfwmf Posts: 1,164member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by anand

    Also has anyone heard about DRM and Pixlet?



    Pros don't use DRM; they can't afford the risk that the system will screw up and lock them out of their own data.
  • Reply 18 of 26
    bartobarto Posts: 2,246member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by sumoftheparts

    <snip>



    Like I said, it would be great for the next generation DVD, not just pros. Scrubbing, artifact-free, 48-bit colour, 20:1 to 25:1 compression...



    Barto
  • Reply 19 of 26
    I guess it could be used for next generation DVDs, but there is someting better. Pixlet 48bit colour is over kill for distribution. It's like when a studio is mastering a song, they usually have it in 24/32 bit and 96Hz so they can play wit the dynamic range of the sound without losing quality. Once the song is perfect they put it on CD and you can't tell the difference on any "normal" speakers. Same here, 48bit colour is great if you need to correct color without lossing information, but once corrected you can go down to 8bit for the DVD and noone can tell. Since there is no interframe compression it allows easy scrubing, but how many people scrub DVDs, Vjs perhaps, but I would rather have higher quality video than the ability to scrub. No artifacts is a given anyway, today any high bitrate codec has no artifacts. So for a new DVD format what makes more sense is to use something like high bit rate Mpeg4/Divx/3ivx which are all based on the same standard. Microsoft has done this with their WM9 codec (also a Mpeg4 offshoot) and has released T3 on DVD in HD resolution. This would not be possible with Pixlet. Of course the microsoft propriety crap does not help the situation, at least the European comission is doing something about the MS media player monopoly so that Microsoft can't stong arm thier way into owning the new HD DVD standard.
  • Reply 20 of 26
    bartobarto Posts: 2,246member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by sumoftheparts

    No artifacts is a given anyway, today any high bitrate codec has no artifacts.



    I've yet to see MPEG2 or MPEG4 video without artifacts.



    Barto
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