Morgan MJPEG2000 vs. Cineform

[lordtangent]

1. I get the same thread error. It doesn't lock up my batch scripts, so I haven't worried about it.

2. I have the same issue. I need to exit what ever application I'm in and re-start it for the "Quick Config" settings to stick. My guess is the VFW DLL only checks the settings when it is first invoked. It's a pain. I have to do the same re-start thing myself. But my projects are small enough Premiere restarts pretty fast for me. Plus I'm only ever switching to the "full quality" mode at the end of the editing session, when I want to render the final movie.

3. My system is a 4600+ 64x2 with really hot graphics cards (SLI). Maybe that is making a difference? Also, I noticed that I get better playback speeds in Direct Show apps. In premiere, my frame rates are not quite as smooth, and I'm seeing what you are seeing. Only 50% CPU utilization. I'm guessing the Direct Show decoder is threaded, but the VFW, is not. That could explain it.

It's a shame the Morgan does not seem interested in supporting their product or even starting a forum. I have approached them about it and they haven't even answered my mail.

[2Bdecided]

IME Morgan are awful at customer support. I had problems with their M-JPEG (not 2000) codec which made it unusable for me after I'd paid for it. I couldn't get any response from them.

Cheers,
David.

[RHKFilm]

How does one determine playback framerate in premiere? Is estimating it based on how jerky it is the only way?

Also, does anyone know of a video card monitoring app that will tell me how much bandwidth I'm using on my card and whether it is the bottleneck in certain situations?

Thanks

[Farnsworth]

It's a shame the Morgan does not seem interested in supporting their product or even starting a forum. I have approached them about it and they haven't even answered my mail.

This, combined with the fact that they STILL haven't posted a demo that didn't expire on Oct. 21, makes me seriously hesitant to invest even the $30 they want for this codec. Not to sound all crotchety and stuff, but it seems like they don't want my business.

[lordtangent]

I feel the same way. It's a shame really. I don't think they realize the potential of what they are selling. The zero documentation and the fact the support line is like a black hole is really going to kill them.

[SalaTar]

MM is a one guy Job

[DaFireMedic]

Is anyone using this codec in Premiere Pro? I bought it to try it out, and it shows up in my other programs, but for some reason I can't get it to show up in Premiere (Lagarith and Huffyuv are in there, but no MJPEG2000). It does show up in After Effects.

[Redsandro]

Just as a side note, in Adobe After Effects, HuffYuv and XViD show up, while I also have DivX and Lagarith installed. They all show up just fine in other programs.

Just to illustrate that Adobe software is weird about codecs.

I remember I once had Lagarith there, too. Don't know what causes it to be picky. I did recover SOME codecs by installing 32 bit versions (opposed to 64 bit), so you might want to check that, as Adobe software is still 32-bit only (afaik).

[wideshot]

Hi guys, have been lurking here since I bought my 2 HV20's the week they came out.

I already shot a short film on them, and several other projects, but have always transcoded to Lagarith, not really a problem. But I started looking into this codec, and bought it to try it out.

So far, I'm REALLY impressed with the size. At 5-to-1 its much smaller than the lagarith files, and it looks great.

But, using lord tangents vdub template with 1920 as size and no chroma cleaning, I'm only able to get about 4-4.5fps transcoding. Does this seem right?

I'm on a dual core 6420 processor with 4gb of 1066 ram. Should I be getting more fps?

[jabloomf1230]

That's seems about right for a dual core CPU. Morgan MJPEG2K scales up nicely with a quad core CPU, but it's main drawback is still slow encoding speed. As intermediate codecs go, the quality is excellent and the price is right. The next step up is Cineform Neo HDV. That encodes faster, but it costs $199 for HV20.com members:

Cineform offer for www.HV20.com members

[CrackerStealth]

Just some interesting info. I recently upgraded my video card from a BFG 8600 GTS 256MB card to a Sapphire Radeon HD4870 512 MB and now I am able to play Morgan JPEG2000 files at 6:1 compression 4:4:4 without stutering.

This is on a computer with an AMD 64 5600+ Dual core with 4GB of ram and Win Vista 64 bit. I'm not sure if a beefier video card helps play back, but it visually looks like smoother playback to me.

[lordtangent]

Depending on the drivers of the graphics card it could be a factor. None of the decoding except for maybe some color space transforms are done on the graphics card. Maybe the card is doing more buffering or something. But usually JPEG2000 is more CPU bound than anything else.

It could have been that your last graphics card was just exceptionally slow.

[pascalbrown]

If someone has a spare 5 mins could you please help me out. Can you take a mjpeg2000 file and load it in vegas, then apply a video velocity envelope and speed it up (or hold control and shrink the clip). Then try to render it to your choice of codec. If it works can you let me know, as I'm having issues with vegas rendering files that play faster than real time. My input codec is an mjpeg2000 at 5:1 and the output codec makes no difference. All I see is a black screen where there should be video.

Thank you.

[pascalbrown]

Reply to self!

The problem lies with the master codec which is mjpeg2000. I've just tested it. I took the original .m2t file, went through the pulldown process again, this time using lagarith, then loaded it into vegas, applies the very same velocity envelope, and it worked without any problems. It renders out perfectly, so I can only think there is a problem when increasing the velocity over 100% if you are using MJPEG2000. I'm surprised nobody else has found this, or that I'm dumb enough not to have found that other person!

Seems like I shouldn't have trusted mjpeg2000 quite so much!

[jibril_s]

It's 3 in the morning and maybe I need to go to sleep but I'm not getting why my 158 meg m2t file is turnining into a 5 gig file when I run it throught hv20 pulldown exe with mjpe2000 codec selected.
These are the setting I have. Please help.

VirtualDub.RemoveInputStreams();
VirtualDub.stream[0].SetSource(0x73647561,0);
VirtualDub.stream[0].DeleteComments(1);
VirtualDub.stream[0].AdjustChapters(1);
VirtualDub.stream[0].SetMode(0);
VirtualDub.stream[0].SetInterleave(1,500,1,0,0);
VirtualDub.stream[0].SetClipMode(1,1);
VirtualDub.stream[0].SetConversion(0,0,0,0,0);
VirtualDub.stream[0].SetVolume();
VirtualDub.stream[0].SetCompression();
VirtualDub.stream[0].EnableFilterGraph(0);
VirtualDub.stream[0].filters.Clear();
VirtualDub.video.DeleteComments(1);
VirtualDub.video.AdjustChapters(1);
VirtualDub.video.SetDepth(24,24);
VirtualDub.video.SetMode(3);
VirtualDub.video.SetFrameRate(0,1);
VirtualDub.video.SetIVTC(0,0,-1,0);
VirtualDub.video.SetCompression(0x63326a6d,0,10000,0);
VirtualDub.video.SetCompData(96,"TUoyQ1wAAAAAAAEAEAAAAAgAAAABAAAAAQAAAAYAAAAKAOgDAAAAAAAANAACAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAABAAEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA");
VirtualDub.video.filters.Clear();
VirtualDub.RemoveInputStreams();
VirtualDub.stream[0].SetSource(0x73647561,0);
VirtualDub.stream[0].DeleteComments(1);
VirtualDub.stream[0].AdjustChapters(1);
VirtualDub.stream[0].SetMode(0);
VirtualDub.stream[0].SetInterleave(1,500,1,0,0);
VirtualDub.stream[0].SetClipMode(1,1);
VirtualDub.stream[0].SetConversion(0,0,0,0,0);
VirtualDub.stream[0].SetVolume();
VirtualDub.stream[0].SetCompression();
VirtualDub.stream[0].EnableFilterGraph(0);
VirtualDub.stream[0].filters.Clear();
VirtualDub.video.DeleteComments(1);
VirtualDub.video.AdjustChapters(1);
VirtualDub.video.SetDepth(24,24);
VirtualDub.video.SetMode(3);
VirtualDub.video.SetFrameRate(0,1);
VirtualDub.video.SetIVTC(0,0,-1,0);
VirtualDub.video.SetCompression();
VirtualDub.video.filters.Clear();
VirtualDub.video.filters.Add("chroma smoother");
VirtualDub.video.filters.instance[0].Config(3);

[lordtangent]

You are taking a highly efficient long GOP codec and copying it into a not so efficient I-Frame only codec.

The larger file size is to be expected.

[baco]

Wow, what a thread. First thank you lordtangent for your great effort! Then I'd like to ask if someone has found a solution the velocity problem (as pascalbrown mentioned)?

[hakutsuru]

Hello,
Purchased a registered copy of morgan mjpeg2000 codec to use with Adobe AfterEffects or Premiere Pro. The codec doesn't appear to work with these applications. I keep getting an error that the *.mj2 /*.mj2k file format is not supported. Can anyone who has used the morgan mjpeg2000 codec with these applications help me out? What am I missing here Thanks!

[baco]

Why don't you use standard *.avi container?

[hakutsuru]

We are using a RGB Spectrum system that only out puts to a mj2k (mjpeg2000) format. I have used Quick time Pro with zygo codec converter to save as .mov. Takes forever to convert and the quality is poor. Would like to import the mj2k/mj2 directly into Adobe AfterEffects or Premiere for editing. I thought Morgan mjpeg2000 codec would do this but I haven't had any luck with getting it to work. Can anyone help or come up with another way to import this format into Aftereffects?

[lordtangent]

Cineform sells a solution for MJPEG2000 sources.
http://www.cineform.com/products/IJ2KSuite.htm

[jabloomf1230]

The Morgan MJPEG200 codec won't work on MJ2K files, as you have found out. See if this codec works. There is an evaluation version, but I've never tried it.

If the decoder part allows you to play the MJ2K files with a freeware media player, then various NLEs might also be able to access the codec for decoding.

[baco]

What does MJ2K stand for? Isn't it MorganJPEG 2000? It's weird...

[um3k]

Try Motion JPEG 2000.

[Ian-T]

The Morgan MJPEG200 codec won't work on MJ2K files, as you have found out. See if this codec works. There is an evaluation version, but I've never tried it.

If the decoder part allows you to play the MJ2K files with a freeware media player, then various NLEs might also be able to access the codec for decoding.

Well...I got it to work once out of several tries but it kept crashing. And i still could not open it up in Vegas.