This could be good news for us sat subscribers...
http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/06/22/hbo-to-use-mpeg-4-and-mandate-a-minimum-bit-rate/

Sounds good to me, maybe other networks will follow their lead.

This makes me wonder if cable providers will ever switch to MPEG4.

8 MBs is pretty paltry also. Premiere HD in German hits 20 megabit MPEG4.

Good idea, and would be a better idea if the minimum bitrate would ensure high image quality.
Now if HBO would adopt OAR...

Is MPEG4 = 2.4 times better than MPEG2? How about mandating resolution too?

8 MBs is pretty paltry also. Premiere HD in German hits 20 megabit MPEG4.
For mostly 24 fps MPEG-4 content, that's pretty good. Look at their MPEG-2 bit rates right now.

From their own web site, Premiere HD has a variable bit rate that can drop down to 6 Mbps. They have three channels on a 49 Mbps transponder (if I can still read German). I'm sure they'll catch up with us and cram several more channels on it once there's enough demand. :)

hrmm, so this means we will get same feed HBO sends out to the operators. What I dont like is this 8mbs, which is pretty much rock bottom.

What I dont like is this 8mbs, which is pretty much rock bottom.
Have you ever seen 24 fps content in MPEG-4 at 8 Mbps? It certainly beats MPEG-2 at 12 Mbps.

yeah well encoded mpeg 4 at 9mb is pretty good.. that is what is sent out (or even less) over xbox 360 and it maintains a pretty much macro block free picture.

.....and it maintains a pretty much macro block free picture.
That is one notch above utter crap IMO. :rolleyes:

yeah well encoded mpeg 4 at 9mb is pretty good.. that is what is sent out (or even less) over xbox 360 and it maintains a pretty much macro block free picture.

Though XBox content is encoded off line and can be optimised - whereas many broadcast converters operate in real time and use single pass techniques (and/or statmuxing) in some cases (though some models now include multiple passes in real-time with extra delay)

Have you ever seen 24 fps content in MPEG-4 at 8 Mbps? It certainly beats MPEG-2 at 12 Mbps.

cool, so we're going from crappy to less crappy.

cool, so we're going from crappy to less crappy.

MPEG4 h.264 with latest generation encoders looks very good. The reason people see higher bitrates on some channels in Europe is becuse they still use 1st generation encoders that sucked and were less efficient than MPEG2.

Dish Network had StarzHD initially in MPEG4 using 1st generation encoder running at 14Mbps. It did not look very good. Once they switched to 2nd generation picture improved a lot even though bitrate is around 8-9Mbps.

MPEG4 h.264 with latest generation encoders looks very good. The reason people see higher bitrates on some channels in Europe is becuse they still use 1st generation encoders that sucked and were less efficient than MPEG2.

Dish Network had StarzHD initially in MPEG4 using 1st generation encoder running at 14Mbps. It did not look very good. Once they switched to 2nd generation picture improved a lot even though bitrate is around 8-9Mbps.

Hmm, I remember seeing TSReader charts of Starz running at 4-6Mbps on Dish since they went to 6 HD per transponder. Have they bumped the bitrate back up?

Even if 8Mbps sucks, it's great that they are mandating a minimum. Once that's done, if enough people complain, than it's a simple thing for them to decide to raise the minimum to 10Mbps or whatever. Establishing a minimum is real accomplishment IMHO, it means a major organization is contributing to establishing a standard that defines HD.
Resolution X&Y+Codec+Bitrate, as opposed just saying anything 720 or 1080 wide is legitimate HD.

I hope at some point HBO provides their primary east coast feed in MPEG-4 at a higher bitrate (12-14Mbps), since most of us use that channel for our HDTV DVR's.

I hope at some point HBO provides their primary east coast feed in MPEG-4 at a higher bitrate (12-14Mbps), since most of us use that channel for our HDTV DVR's.


What would be the point? HBO C-band feed has always been 14.5Mbps MPEG-2. This would be overkill in MPEG-4. All the complaining about macroblocking on HBO is because of recompression by program providers. C-Band feed does not have any macroblocking and never has.