[linux-dvb] Find out max used bandwidth in video stream

[linux-dvb] Find out max used bandwidth in video stream

[Artem Makhutov]

Hello,

I have recorded some h264 encoded videos.
Some of them I can play like a charm using my Athlon X2 6000+ but for
some of them my computer is too slow.

I would like to find out the parametes on how the video was encoded.
Especially what maximum bitrate is used by the stream.

How can I find it out?

And how can I find out if the video is using 1080i or 1080p?

Thank you, Artem

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Re: [linux-dvb] Find out max used bandwidth in video stream

[BOUWSMA Barry]

As nobody has yet to jump on this that I've seen, I may as
well have a go...

On Fri, 26 Sep 2008, Artem Makhutov wrote:

> I have recorded some h264 encoded videos.
> 
> I would like to find out the parametes on how the video was encoded.

Someone who is familiar with the H.264 encoding possibilities
would need to answer this -- though perhaps a very verbose
setting of a player might be able to spew tons of debug info,
perhaps including the details of each frame.


> Especially what maximum bitrate is used by the stream.

When you say `maximum', do you mean the peak of, say, each
slice of bandwidth between, for example, the timestamps
recorded in the stream that you have on disk?

It should be possible to find this, but I'm not aware of
any utility which does this.

Or, might you mean maximum average bandwidth over intervals
of one second?  That's easier, if you refer to the stream
in general, and not what you already have written to disk.

Take a look at the `dvbtraffic' utility in `dvb-apps'.
This can show, at intervals of one second, the number of
packets and bandwidth of all or some of the PIDs within
a transponder.  By watching this over time, concentrating
on the video PID of your stream, you can see whether the
bitrate remains fairly constant or varies depending on
available bandwidth/image complexity, plus you can get a
feel for the range of bitrate the stream requires.


> And how can I find out if the video is using 1080i or 1080p?

Use a machine like mine (300MHz CPU) which can only display
two or three frames per second typically, on scenes full
of motion.  If moving objects appear jagged, then the source
is interlaced.  If each frame appears sharp but the difference
between frames is noticeable, then the source is progressive.

This assumes that, like me, you are using `mplayer' with
the option `-nosound' that causes every frame to be decoded
and displayed.  Other players I've tried appear to default
to the mplayer `-framedrop' option for my slow machine (with
SD MPEG-2 video, of course) so that I see random frames.

For example, the BBC series `Planet Earth' is a delight to
watch as it slowly makes its way across my screen, as it is
broadcast for the most part by the BBC with 25 full frames
per second -- apart from the credits superimposed at the
end, which are interlaced and look awful with no video
processing to de-interlace them.  The `Making Of' that
follows on the BBC hour-long program is largely upscaled
interlaced 576i standard definition.

Similarly, 24fps film stock will usually be a nice sharp
progressive frame.  Unless the video mastering has botched
the field ordering, which happens dismayingly often with
films transferred to SD 576i, but can be restored with the
computationally expensive `phase' option with `mplayer'.

Other BBC-HD video snippets that I grabbed for testing
are interlaced (concert recordings) and are nowhere near
as pleasing to the eye on a simple LCD screen.

I'm going to guess from your e-mail headers that you are
in the same general part of the world as I am, although
you haven't mentioned exactly which sources you have used
for your H.264 video snippets.


What I've read is that there is no official 1080 progressive
standard for broadcasting used in Europe (was on the Internet,
Must Be True) and that presently all 1080 content is sent
as interlaced, but if the source consisted of progressive
25fps material, it is essentially progressive and needs no
deinterlacing.

Now, if your headers indicate your location and you have
made recordings from the EinsFestival showcases, these are
720-line progressive broadcasts with 50 frames per second.
However, in the case of the BBC `Planet Erde' as broadcast,
the frames I looked at were all identical every two frames,
so that for all practical purposes, it was comparable to
the BBC broadcast, only lower resolution.  But I haven't
studied these recordings I made.

Other material which likely originated from the BBC was
in fact 720p at 50 frames/second -- though it may well
have been originally recorded at 1080i or 1080p, and
either up- or downscaled, and to me did not look very
good, detail-wise.


Boy, do I type a lot.


barry bouwsma

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Re: [linux-dvb] Find out max used bandwidth in video stream

[Artem Makhutov]

Hello,

BOUWSMA Barry schrieb:
> As nobody has yet to jump on this that I've seen, I may as
> well have a go...
>   
Thank you for the info!
> On Fri, 26 Sep 2008, Artem Makhutov wrote:
>
>   
>> I have recorded some h264 encoded videos.
>>
>> I would like to find out the parametes on how the video was encoded.
>>     
>
> Someone who is familiar with the H.264 encoding possibilities
> would need to answer this -- though perhaps a very verbose
> setting of a player might be able to spew tons of debug info,
> perhaps including the details of each frame.
>   
Yes, I will try this out.
>   
>> Especially what maximum bitrate is used by the stream.
>>     
>
> When you say `maximum', do you mean the peak of, say, each
> slice of bandwidth between, for example, the timestamps
> recorded in the stream that you have on disk?
>   
I am not sure. I think that I need to know the peak.
> It should be possible to find this, but I'm not aware of
> any utility which does this.
>
> Or, might you mean maximum average bandwidth over intervals
> of one second?  That's easier, if you refer to the stream
> in general, and not what you already have written to disk.
>
> Take a look at the `dvbtraffic' utility in `dvb-apps'.
> This can show, at intervals of one second, the number of
> packets and bandwidth of all or some of the PIDs within
> a transponder.  By watching this over time, concentrating
> on the video PID of your stream, you can see whether the
> bitrate remains fairly constant or varies depending on
> available bandwidth/image complexity, plus you can get a
> feel for the range of bitrate the stream requires.
>   
Yes I will try this out.

Better I explain you, what I want to do:

I have a ADB IPTV receiver:

https://store.adbglobal.com/store/pdf/3810TW%20IPTV%20development%20STB%20-v1.pdf

According to the specs, the receiver is capable of decoding this formats:

MPEG-4 H.264 MP@L3.0 (ISO 14496-10): up to 10 Mbps
MPEG-4 H.264 HP@L4.0 (ISO 14496-10): up to 25 Mbps
Microsoft VC-1 MP@HL (WMV9), AP@L3: up to 25 Mbps
Resolution: 1080i, 720p, 576p, 576i

The problem is that the decoder is "locked" by my ISP provider.
So what I want to do is to fake my providers "IP-TV-Network", as the box is
using HTTP to communicate whis the ISP this should not be the problem.

And then stream my DVB-S2 / H264 recordings to the IPTV receiver.

So I want to find out if the receiver is capable of playing back my 
recording,
before I will put a lot of work into it.

>> And how can I find out if the video is using 1080i or 1080p?
>>     
>
> Use a machine like mine (300MHz CPU) which can only display
> two or three frames per second typically, on scenes full
> of motion.  If moving objects appear jagged, then the source
> is interlaced.  If each frame appears sharp but the difference
> between frames is noticeable, then the source is progressive.
>
> This assumes that, like me, you are using `mplayer' with
> the option `-nosound' that causes every frame to be decoded
> and displayed.  Other players I've tried appear to default
> to the mplayer `-framedrop' option for my slow machine (with
> SD MPEG-2 video, of course) so that I see random frames.
>
> For example, the BBC series `Planet Earth' is a delight to
> watch as it slowly makes its way across my screen, as it is
> broadcast for the most part by the BBC with 25 full frames
> per second -- apart from the credits superimposed at the
> end, which are interlaced and look awful with no video
> processing to de-interlace them.  The `Making Of' that
> follows on the BBC hour-long program is largely upscaled
> interlaced 576i standard definition.
>
> Similarly, 24fps film stock will usually be a nice sharp
> progressive frame.  Unless the video mastering has botched
> the field ordering, which happens dismayingly often with
> films transferred to SD 576i, but can be restored with the
> computationally expensive `phase' option with `mplayer'.
>
> Other BBC-HD video snippets that I grabbed for testing
> are interlaced (concert recordings) and are nowhere near
> as pleasing to the eye on a simple LCD screen.
>
> I'm going to guess from your e-mail headers that you are
> in the same general part of the world as I am, although
> you haven't mentioned exactly which sources you have used
> for your H.264 video snippets.
>   
I am living in Germany, and my satellite dish is setup to Astra 19,2 E.
I did some recording from Arte HD, Astra HD promo and Anixe HD.

My PC, Athlon X2 6000+ (2x 3GHz),  is too slow to playback the 
recordings smoothly.
Sometimes it drops some frames, or I loose the sound. So I wanted to
let my IPTV receiver to do this job.
> What I've read is that there is no official 1080 progressive
> standard for broadcasting used in Europe (was on the Internet,
> Must Be True) and that presently all 1080 content is sent
> as interlaced, but if the source consisted of progressive
> 25fps material, it is essentially progressive and needs no
> deinterlacing.
>
> Now, if your headers indicate your location and you have
> made recordings from the EinsFestival showcases, these are
> 720-line progressive broadcasts with 50 frames per second.
>   
I missed them :(
> However, in the case of the BBC `Planet Erde' as broadcast,
> the frames I looked at were all identical every two frames,
> so that for all practical purposes, it was comparable to
> the BBC broadcast, only lower resolution.  But I haven't
> studied these recordings I made.
>
> Other material which likely originated from the BBC was
> in fact 720p at 50 frames/second -- though it may well
> have been originally recorded at 1080i or 1080p, and
> either up- or downscaled, and to me did not look very
> good, detail-wise.
>   
I see, the DVB-Providers are changing the transmission "parameters" 
during the stream... hmmm, that's not good.
> Boy, do I type a lot.
>   
Yes, you do :)

Thanks, Artem


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Re: [linux-dvb] Find out max used bandwidth in video stream

[BOUWSMA Barry]

On Fri, 3 Oct 2008, Artem Makhutov wrote:

> Better I explain you, what I want to do:

Thanks, this is helpful:

> According to the specs, the receiver is capable of decoding this formats:
> MPEG-4 H.264 MP@L3.0 (ISO 14496-10): up to 10 Mbps

Sounds like SD video...

> MPEG-4 H.264 HP@L4.0 (ISO 14496-10): up to 25 Mbps

Sounds like HD video...

> Microsoft VC-1 MP@HL (WMV9), AP@L3: up to 25 Mbps

Sounds like Evil...

I would have to look to find out the actual details of each
profile and level to see if there might be any incompatibilities
that would be obvious to someone who knows the specs by heart,
but I am lazy...

In general, SD video of decent quality (or, compared to what
else is out there, superb quality), is sent over sat in MPEG-2
by ZDF/3sat, especially overnight when Theatre takes a pause,
or the ARD Dritte programs at 12110MHz, at up to 10Mbit/sec.

I have read that comparable quality H.264 SD video needs about
half the bandwidth.  In practice, I've seen quoted 2Mbit/sec or
so for the few SD channels currently sent in H.264.

The rates I've seen quoted for HD video from the UK range from
10Mbit/sec for ITV-HD to 15Mbit/sec for BBC-HD and up to 
20Mbit/sec for some Sky UK channels.  These are all 1080i
(some source material is progressive).


> So what I want to do is to fake my providers "IP-TV-Network", as the box is
> using HTTP to communicate whis the ISP this should not be the problem.
> 
> And then stream my DVB-S2 / H264 recordings to the IPTV receiver.

Sounds interesting.  Good luck  :-)

I don't think you need to worry about broadcast bandwidth.


> I am living in Germany, and my satellite dish is setup to Astra 19,2 E.
> I did some recording from Arte HD, Astra HD promo and Anixe HD.

Another thing to note is that while the UK services I mention
use resolution of 1080, many continental broadcasters have for
the moment settled on using 720p50 -- although bandwidth should
be comparable (also of note is that the transmitted resolution
of BBC-HD is currently 1440x1080, so that it needs somewhat
less bandwidth than if it were sent 1-to-1 as 1920x1080).

A further source of information on bandwidth (that you can also
see from your file sizes) would be several internet sat-DX sites
which give lots of information about the bandwidth of the audio
and video streams at time of sampling.  I can't name names off
the top of my head which I know give this info, but I've seen
the data (which has not always been 100% accurate)...


> My PC, Athlon X2 6000+ (2x 3GHz),  is too slow to playback the recordings
> smoothly.

It would be really nice, as soon as there is a way to use the
hardware acceleration in today's graphics cards, to offload
much of the work from your CPU, the way that X11's XvMC for
MPEG-2 helps a few vendors' cards play smoothly on hardware
as old and slow as mine (still need to dig up my arte-HD tests
from a year or three ago sent as MPEG-2 and try them) ...



> > However, in the case of the BBC `Planet Erde' as broadcast,
> > the frames I looked at were all identical every two frames,

> > Other material which likely originated from the BBC was
> > in fact 720p at 50 frames/second -- though it may well
> > have been originally recorded at 1080i or 1080p, and
> > either up- or downscaled, and to me did not look very

> I see, the DVB-Providers are changing the transmission "parameters" during the
> stream... hmmm, that's not good.

Not really -- certainly they do not change (switch) the
parameters during the stream (broadcast) -- but if they
have received a master at 1080i, they need to change (convert)
it to the 720p which is broadcast.

Or it may be that the production is all done in 1080p, and
then from this, masters at 1080i and 720p are made to be
sold to the various broadcasters.  I don't know the details
of the production business.

In any case, the streams you record will always be Xx720p
or Xx1080i, where X is stretched appropriately for display
if needed, the way that 720x or 704x576 SD video is stretched
to the 16:9 aspect ratio 1024x576.  That won't change.


> > Boy, do I type a lot.
> >   
> Yes, you do :)

And with one finger, other hand holding my beer bottle, in
the dark, by the dim glow of my monitor with a black background.

that's why i make so many typing errors, sorry
barry bouwsma

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