Canon Ixus 230 HS (Powershot Elph 310 HS) Review

Before I got my hands on a (digital point-and-shoot) camera, I tried not to comment on the ongoing issues of the recommended camera for consumers in general. Even though some understanding of the knowledge in Physics, especially related to optics and computer science, would be helpful to give relevant suggestions, you will never know what you will find out unless you do the experiment (or let others do the experiment); science is modeled to describe how the nature behaves after all. Without hands-on experience, there would be a lot of questions of mine remain unanswered; those doubts were what kept me from giving comment as I did not want to give any answer based on half-truth. Certainly, my background knowledge in Physics/ Mathematics coupled with ongoing research does help a lot to learn from the hands-on experience I got.

From the integrated camera of smartphone to the highest-end point-and-shoot camera, high-definition video recording has become increasingly common. Some of users may buy other types of digital camera, such as DSLR, CSC, etc. to take photographs of higher quality. Frankly speaking, users need to have certain level of manual handling or technical knowledge (albeit not much) to operate DSLR or CSC cameras in order to take full advantages of them. On the other hand, smartphone and point-and-shoot cameras are mainly designed for photograph taking with one-click (or few-clicks) away. Higher-end point-and-shoot cameras often offer more customized options to take photograph of better results, other the default “auto” options. As the main functionality of a point-and-shoot camera is to take still image, digital cameras or smartphones are often not regarded as the camcorder, which is designed mainly for video recording purposes for the consumers. In this review, I shall examine whether Canon Ixus 230 HS (Powershot Elph 310 HS) can truly be regarded as a good video-recording device.

High-definition video is a term to describe the video of certain minimum resolution, which is usually 1280 × 720 pixels with progressive scan (commonly known as 720p) or 1920 × 1080 pixels with progressive scan (commonly known as 1080p), with the aspect ratio of 16/9. The truth is that most theatrically-released films are shot with different aspect ratios, which are usually wider than 16/9. For example, 720p video with the aspect ratio of 2.35 means that the resolution is approximately 1280 × 545 pixels, which have fewer pixels than the videos of the aspect ratio of 16/9; 1080p video with the aspect ratio of 2.35 means that the resolution is approximately 1920 × 817 pixels. There are also videos of aspect ratios which are “taller”. For example, 720p video with the aspect ratio of 4/3 means that the resolution is 960 × 720 pixels; 1080p video with the aspect ratio of 4/3 means that the resolution is 1440 × 1080 pixels. In short, whenever the different aspect ratio (wider or taller) is used, the resolution is always fewer than the aspect ratio of 16/9.

The video resolution describes the maximum graphic information that the video can hold. When it comes to video-recording, there are other factors that would affect the quality of the videos. From the smartphone, to lower-end point-and-shoot camera, to higher-end point-and-shoot camera, saying that it is capable of doing HD-recording is merely saying the video resolution, which is perhaps the only thing in common among different recording devices. How would the camera react with different lighting conditions? How much details (of graphic information) the camera can capture? How close the perceptional colors of the captured video are compared with the real objects? How is the ease of use of the camera? Clearly, the logo of “HD” left a lot of questions remain unanswered, which justifies different price point and performance.

The reviews made by the editors of CNET UK, TechRadar, and StevesDigicam have answered much of these questions. To me, personally at least, all I need to do is to verify their reports. Those main factors that would affect the eventual image quality include but are not limited to the amount of light signal that can be captured, the percentage of noise, performance under low lightning, etc. In the brief period I used/ tested this camera, I found that the advantages as being pointed out by those reviews are largely true. In short, I like:

1. Large numbers of colors which are available in the camera allow more truthful/ realistic photograph.

2. Not only the camera can capture/ filter adequate level of light, the noise is being kept at low-level. Noise at low percentage is really pleasing.

3. Superzoom is the term used to describe the zoom lens with unconventionally large zoom factor, typically more than 5×. By having the zoom factor of 8×, I would say that this camera definitely falls into the category of having superzoom.

4. Canon Ixus 230 HS automatically adjusts the ambient light/ flash according to the lighting condition, which works very well. In one occasion, I used it to take a photo of sunset, when the sky was brighter than land; when I tried to focus on the sky, the color around the land was darker (having more noise); when I tried to focus on the land, it adjusted the ambient light/ flash to increase the brightness of the eventual taken photograph.

5. It allows me that take photograph at different aspect ratio. The advertised 12.1 MP is referring to the maximum resolution at the aspect ratio of 4/ 3. Personally, I preferred to take photograph at the aspect ratio of 16/ 9, which is the aspect ratio of my screen of the desktop PC. Taking photograph at different aspect ratio would result in the drop of the resolution. I used the largest resolution available for the aspect ratio of 16/ 9, which is 4000 × 2248 pixels. (it’s not exactly 16/ 9)

6. When the picture taken was displayed at full size, the “noise” can be seen much in low-lighting area; generally, it can be seen as a picture made of large number of square pixels. It looks “continuous” at the resolution of 1920 × 1080 pixels. In other words, the optical system and image sensor has enough resolving power to record still image/ video at 1080p. I usually compressed the image to the resolution of 1920 × 1080 pixels for archival.

7. Video-recording process can be seen as the camera is taking 24 images every second at the resolution of 1920 × 1080 pixels, assuming the camera is set to record video at 1080p, 24 fps. It’s a good way to test the quality of the images taken by this camera. I’m generally satisfied with the image quality.

There are several things which the users may need to beware of:

1. High-definition video recording consumes a lot more of energy compared with the capturing of still images. In addition to taking images, image processor and software need to compress and encode the video to be stored in the memory card. The writing process requires memory card of higher speed. If you use SDHC memory card, you will need at least class 4 for 720p video and class 6 for 1080p video. The video-encoding process is resource-intensive. H.264 (video codec) is known for its high compression level while retaining high perceptional quality, at the expense of processing power (of CPU/ GPU). Its algorithm is much more complex compared with MPEG 2. H.264 has 18 profiles. This camera uses Baseline Profile (BP), which is relatively simpler compared with Main Profile (MP) or High Profile (HP) but still much more complex than MPEG2. The H.264 High Profile and VC-1 Advanced Profile have been mandated as the supported video codecs for Blu-ray players; H.264 Baseline Profile is more commonly found for below-standard or standard definition streaming videos (such as YouTube). If H.264 Main Profile (MP) were used, the video file may be smaller but such a small device may not have enough energy/ processing power to encode the video. The user may choose to re-encode the video to further compress the video while retaining the video quality. To preserve energy, I usually record video at 720p, 30 fps. I first encode the source video into H.264 Main Profile then VC-1 Main Profile. I use Handbrake to encode the video at constant quality (RF 20), main profile, MKV (file container), and 23.976 fps; I encode the video of H. 264 main profile using Microsoft Expression Encoder 4 at VC-1 Main Profile, VBR Unconstrained, 2Mbps, frame per rate (source), Complex (Video Complexity), 2 B-Frame, Adaptive Motion Match Method and Adaptive Motion Vector Cost. Due to the limitation of hardware and resource-intensiveness of the video encoding process, I typically only encode the video of the maximum length of ten minutes. MKVToolNix allows video files that use MKV (file container) to be split and merged, in addition to adding and removal of audio/ video/ subtitle track. Before encoding the video/ audio, I extract video/ audio track into separate files using MKVToolNix. Microsoft Expression Encoder 4 uses WMV (file container) by default. The VC-1 video file in WMV (file container) can be “transported” to AVI (file container) using Format Factory (by selecting ‘Copy’ for video codec). MKVToolNix cannot read WMV but it can read AVI. I also use Format Factory to compress the audio track losslessly at FLAC.

2. The video-encoding process may be a little more complex to many people, which may take time to understand and do it successfully. Unless you know someone who can do it for you, video-encoding process allows you keep your precious memory not just on still images but also high-definition videos at smaller file size (reduced cost).

3. This camera may do a good job at filtering the noise from the image but not from the audio files. Anyway, the audio track is always engineered for the theatrical release. For a home video, this camera would record unwanted/ unpleasant sound. If you can withstand noises of sound, this camera may be a good choice for home-used video recording device. Basically, it not only amplified the signals (sound) but also the noises (sound). Canon may need to pay more attention to audio engineering.

My review is far from exhaustive and is just for reference purposes only. After all said and done, the best way to understand it may be to try it yourself!

In a separate blog post, I also wrote about why I chose a point-and-shoot camera instead of other options. The blog post is at http://thljcl.wordpress.com/2012/02/22/so-i-choose-a-point-and-shoot-camera/

… So I choose a point-and-shoot camera…

As the photos taken by the smartphones surpassed those of point-and-shoot cameras, various journalists, bloggers, news reporting sites, etc. were up their sleeves to proclaim the death of point-and-shoot cameras; even if the point-and-shoot cameras were still on sales, it was as if it is merely a matter of time until the disappearance of point-and-shoot cameras from the eyes of most if not all consumers. While I was absolutely convinced that the smartphones were not my cups of teas for general-purpose or resource-intensive computing, what about buying a smartphone as pocket-sized camera? After all, how nice would it be to have a high-quality camera which is small enough to be carried to everywhere I go any time I want?

At this point, optics is not exactly my most familiar topic in Physics, which I may dig deeper in the future. Smartphone allows you to a lot of things while having the advantage of being portable and light; the problem is most tasks which can be done by it can be done by some other (affordable) devices with higher performance and lower price ratio. Essentially, it’s a jack of all trades but master of none. Nevertheless, I also read comments that modern-day smartphone may be “good enough” for everyday photo-taking (non-professional) purpose. In fact, the smartphones have become so common that my father even asked if the next camera, which would be shared between my parents and I but mainly used by me (at least until now), should be a smartphone, even if the price may be “a little bit higher” than medium-range point-and-shoot camera. We were thinking to get a camera for our (planned but yet-to-be-finalized) trip to Japan while our old Nikon point-and-shoot camera has already be given out.

Before iPhone made its debut in the market, I already saw and owned several camera phones. Frankly my experience with them wasn’t very well. I’m a type of guy who either does my best or does nothing. I’ve to admit that I never owned iPhone, Android phone, or Windows Phone. The fact that I need to get a decent camera makes me to weigh various options. As the technology evolves over time, one may hope that at one point the expensive smartphone that he bought may live up the promise to become a really decent camera. When being asked the reasons to buy a smartphone or replace the existing working cellphone, one of the most cited reasons is perhaps the camera. However, if one truly cares about the camera, he may want to know how good/ bad the camera that he is going to get/ got.

A high-quality/ detailed comparison of a smartphone of a particular model and a point-and-shoot camera is hard to find; whereas one may more easily find the comparison of smartphones of different models or comparison of point-and-shoot cameras of different models. The maker of a high-quality point-and-shoot camera needs to weigh in various lighting condition, size of the camera, cost, hardware of highest quality available relative to a particular price, etc. Needless to say, the real-world scenarios are far from being predictable to anyone so the continuous R&D is required for improvement for a better automated photo-taking. Often, the point-and-shoot camera of higher price point represents the reaping of the results of the R&D of years (thus cost more). The specification on manual is far from telling the whole story. Here is a 14 MP camera that costs US$ 99 and there is a 12 MP camera that costs US$ 250, what is going on? When one does not bother to read various reviews/ reports/ comments before making his decision, it’s no wonder why he could not know what kind of situation that he is getting himself into. When there are more than one factor which determine the outcome, the overlook of some of the factors could lead to more confusion or misjudgment.

Just like PC, cameras are also available in different form factors which are having different targeted markets and setbacks. In this era of digital world, one may be surprised to find that the photographic film is still being used today. Before the invention of digital camera, which uses image sensor to detect light signal and convert it into digital form to be stored in digital data storage medium, the photographic film was the only option available to anyone who wished to take photograph. In the pre-digital-camera era, the amount of pixels is largely irrelevant to the eventual quality of the photograph as the information is being stored continuously rather than being quantized. In other word, the amount of pixels was only regarded as an important indicator of the eventual quality of image only after the introduction of digital photography.

Many people, who’ve heard of the amount of pixels, may not realize the basics of photography, be it analog or digital. The truth is that the capturing of the light signal itself is always analog; what is being digitized is that we used discrete number of unit of data to represent the data we collected; this unit is what famously known as “pixel” by many consumers. The quantization of continuous signal can be understood in the context of calculus, limit, or linearization of mathematics. Still, although not exactly accurate, it’s still possible to use “pixel” to describe the amount of information being collected when we can transform it into digitized form.

The high-quality 35-mm film is widely being used for theatrical film production today for more than a century, perhaps. Nevertheless, due to the high cost associated with high-quality photographic film, the photographic films being sold to consumers are historically of lower quality. Of course, one cannot produce high-quality moving picture with high-quality 35-mm film alone as there are many other important factors that will affect the eventual film quality. There is no “inherent amount of pixels” can be calculated from 35-mm film. However, what really matters at the end is the eventual “perceptional” quality required in a theatrical setting. One may then assume that the horizontal resolution of “4K” (4096) is the quality for 35-mm film; I should mention that it’s merely perceptional and subject to debate. In the early 21^st century, a handful of theatrically-released films are shot digitally; however, they used horizontal resolution of “2K” (2048). The number of pixels is related to the number of information/ picture detail. It’s possible to upscale lower-resolution picture to higher-resolution picture but that will not increase the image quality; when higher-resolution picture is being down-scaled to lower-resolution picture, the information is permanently lost.

As the 35-mm film is merely analog (video) information storage medium, the amount of information being stored depends on how much information can be captured by a camera (of particular optical systems) and the quality of the photographic film itself (ability to retain the information being captured). The optical system is particularly important in capturing light signal. That, however, depends on various variables that a photographer needs to weigh in, including but not limited to lighting condition, noises, etc. When the capturing of information takes place, it’s almost certain that not all signals being collected are useful eventually; those useless signals are commonly known as “noise”, pretty much like we may hardly hear what we want to hear in a noisy environment. If the total amount of information can be calculated in the unit of pixel, before any image processing takes place, it’s fair to say that there would always be some amount of pixels being used to store “noise”. The image processing after the capturing of the signals can reduce, but not eliminate noise. As a matter of fact, “noise” is representing light signals that are being captured too; it’s just that we find no use of them. The conservation of four-momentum dictates that the total amount of four-momentum in a particular “closed system” is always conserved; nevertheless, the second law of thermodynamics says that the entropy for a given closed system will always increase over time (irreversible process), which means there will always be certain amount of energy unusable in each conversion process.

Simply put, the better the optical system is, the more signals we can collect. After that, we may filter out noise using on algorithm we create based on the previous research data. Historically, 35 mm film was used as a storage medium for point-and-shoot camera; but (analog) point-and-shoot camera itself was very unsophisticated and designed for average consumers who otherwise cannot afford a high-end camera. Even if the highest-quality 35 mm film was being used, the “effective number of pixels” was very limited as the optical system itself cannot capture much information.

The quality of lens, hence the optical system itself, has improved over the years. Despite the improvement of the lens/ image sensors, their size do impact the amount of information captured/ stored. Roughly speaking, the process of photograph taking by a digital camera can be divided into three phases: the capturing of light signal (optical system), the conversion of signal (image sensor), and image processing (image processor). Other than the photograph-taking technique, all three main units (optical system, image sensor, and image processor) are equally important. That may explain why DSLR (Digital Single Lens Reflex) camera is often bulkier and heavier than point-and-shoot (compact) camera. On the other hand, point-and-shoot camera has the advantage of being easy to use, small, portable, and perhaps affordable.

When a seller of a point-and-shoot camera says that a camera of particular model has the xxMP, what is he referring to? Most usually, he’s talking about the image sensor. As we know that digital camera has three basic units, the number of pixels of the image sensor itself does not indicate how well do the lens or image processor (and relevant software) do. Say the lens can only deliver at the image of 5 MP at most to the image sensor of 10 MP; the optical resolution of image you can get is certainly not 10 MP. Without the additional pixels of 5 MP from the lens, the image processor can digitally enlarge the signal (and noise) to 10 MP without the details you can get from 10-MP lens. Of course, the quality of image taken depends on the lighting. When the lightning is not optimal; or the lens are of “lower pixels”; the noise is noticeable when the image is being displayed at full resolution or high resolution. The noticeability of noise may drop as the image is being reproduced in a lower-resolution picture.

That said, the quality of point-and-shoot cameras of similar form factor (price range) (manufactured in roughly the same period) do vary depending on the manufacturer. Within the affordability of consumer (or the ease of use), manufacturers have created point-and-shoot cameras of very high quality for the typical use at home. While higher-quality point-and-shoot camera often requires higher cost, the other consideration, such as quality control or user-friendliness, may not be indicated by the price itself. That’s why it’s always wise to listen to or read what other people from diverse backgrounds say. Eventually, we need to buy a camera that suits our need.

By understanding some of the basic knowledge of camera in general, you may already get some hints, if not already know, why the catching-up of smartphone of slimmer/ prettier/ lighter design to the quality of high-quality point-and-shoot camera does not make sense. Surely in some lighting condition and some viewing experience, the observer may not be able to appreciate the quality gained by using a standalone camera. However, a high-quality point-and-shoot camera is the one that is required to work in various if not all scenarios. It does not make sense to compare the technology today with some old technology. Do you still remember 4MB of RAM used to be a lot? We still have no optical zoom from any smartphone today, do we not?

Yes, I chose the Canon Powershot Elph 310 HS (Ixus 230 HS) for the camera (consumer) instead of a smartphone. You can find more information about it at:

1. http://reviews.cnet.co.uk/compact-digital-cameras/canon-ixus-230hs-review-50005562/

2. http://www.techradar.com/reviews/cameras-and-camcorders/cameras/compact-cameras/canon-ixus-230-hs-1039808/review

3. http://www.steves-digicams.com/camera-reviews/canon/powershot-elph-310-hs/canon-powershot-elph-310-hs-review.html

4. http://www.amazon.com/Canon-310-HS-Wide-Angle-Silver/dp/B005II5OLY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1329916217&sr=8-1

5. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Canon-IXUS-230-Digital-Camera/dp/B005I8XMJA/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1329916274&sr=8-1

6. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canon_Digital_IXUS

Depending on where you buy or whom you refer to, this camera is branded differently, just like the other cameras on Canon Ixus series.

Encoding “Elephants Dream” in … VC-1?

While it’s viable to have audio files stored in lossless format, it’s a different story for video files. There are several lossy formats we can choose to encode our video files. To me though, the options are boiled down to two: VC-1, and H.264. What is the average bit rate then… required to encode high-quality 720p video?

The lossy compression being used for video files is viable because our eyes are not able to see through much details; it’s also because of the inherent limitation of hardware and software. Still, overly compressed videos will produce visible compression artifacts. It’s about the balance between file size and perceptional quality. The eventual perceptional quality is always subjective; as both the sensitivity of eyesight and the objective quality loss matter. As such, the quality-test report is always about statistics of certain number of people from various backgrounds. Individually, each responder’s answer is subjective; but together they do tell us how good the video quality is, at least statistically.

The complexity or mathematical intensity of the algorithm in VC-1 or H.264 allows the perceptional quality to be retained in lower bit rate compared with mathematically less-complex codec such as MPEG 2. The price to be paid, however, is the processing power. That said higher bit rate could still potentially retain higher quality. The very reason to have lower bit rate is the cost of bandwidth and storage. The trend of the market does show that higher-performance CPU and GPU would be available in the market at lower price as time goes by.

“Orange”, which is a team of seven artists and animators from around the world, created a computer-generated animated short film, “Elephants Dream”. The production began in September, 2005. After about 8 months of work, it was released on March 24, 2006 under Creative Commons Attribution license. (See Also Elephants Dream on English Wikipedia)

On a blog post of Channel 9, Ben Waggoner detailed how he managed to encode “Elephants Dream” into a 720p video file at 2 Mbps (VC-1 Advanced and WMA Pro at 128 Kbps). (See Also Elephant’s Dream 720p @ 2 Mbps! on Channel 9) In the other related blog post, he detailed how he managed to encode “Elephants Dream into a 1080p video file at 10 – 25 Mbps (VC-1 Advanced and WMA Pro). Both videos are available to be downloaded from Microsoft Download Center. (See Also Elephant’s Dream 10-25 Mbps and Elephant’s Dream 720p 2 Mbps encode for download at Microsoft Download Center) Of course, the encoding of these two video files was done in the year of 2007. In the year of 2012, Windows Media Encoder is no longer available from Microsoft. A free version of “Microsoft Expression Encoder” is available from Microsoft to achieve the similar goal.

I downloaded these two files to see if I can notice any quality difference or “compression artifacts” with my own eyes. While the 720p version does play fine, apparently my CPU is not powerful enough to decode the 1080p version quick enough. Using the 1080p VC-1 video file as the source, I planned to encode it into video files of different quality.

Using Format Factory, I’m able to copy the video stream into an AVI file container and transcode the audio stream into a FLAC file as MKVMERGE cannot read WMV file container and WMA PRO. Using MKVMERGE, I created a MKV file with VC-1 video stream and FLAC audio stream. Other than merging audio, video, or subtitle streams into a single MKV file, MKVMERGE also allows me to split and merge the MKV file by file size or duration provided the codec ID of each (audio, video, or subtitle) stream matches each other. Given the fact that encoding process cannot be paused in the middle and is very resource-intensive and time-consuming, splitting the MKV file (contains only video stream) into several parts is very useful.

I encode the 1080p video file into:

· 720p, Same Bit Rate (VBR Unconstrained), Video Complexity Scale of 5

In Microsoft Expression Encoder 4, there is a scale (0 – 5) of video complexity, which would impact the time required for the encoding process and the output quality. From my understanding, Ben chose the scale of 4 for video complexity. Knowing that higher scale represents longer time for encoding, I chose the scale of 5. Knowing that it would be time consuming, that’s why I split the video file into several parts. Using Media Player Classic, I was able to know the average bit rate of the video stream of source. In each part, I used VBR unconstrained and the same average bit rate of the source while setting the resolution to 1280 × 720 pixels. I leave all other settings remain unchanged.

After encoding each part, I merge them back (together with audio and subtitle stream) into MKV file. Curiously, average bit rate for video stream of the output file has been reduced to about 8 Mbps. I suppose that is due to VBR encoding.

· 720p, 2000 Mbps (video stream) (VBR Unconstrained), Video Complexity Scale of 5

The average bit rate for video stream is pretty close to 2 Mbps this time.

While “720p” and “720p 2 Mbps” are resource-intensive as well, they are at least playable and using less than half of CPU-resources. Am I able to tell the difference in perceptional quality in these encoded files by merely watching the videos? No, I’m not. That would mean the limitation of my naked eyes and the computer display. While my little experiment is far from being conclusive, it does tell us that well-executed lossy compression does make sense for video files. It is worth mentioning though, mathematically, whatever algorithm may be used for lossy compression, the loss of information is REAL. Whether or not lossy compression is sensible really depends on the type of information that we are dealing with; personally, I can and have to accept lossy video formats but still prefer lossless audio compression. The very nature of video and audio or even texts is different from one and other. The popular music stores such as iTunes and Amazon.com are now selling songs in lossy formats such as MP3 or AAC. Despite the claim of CD-quality or high quality, unlike lossy compression for video format, the quality differences are audible in a good speaker system or even high-end headphone.

Fair enough, one can argue that high-end display system of a very large size can show the compression artifacts more clearly. To me, though, my desktop PC is the tool I used to study, work, and get digital entertainment. In my scenarios (and arguably my others’), whether it’s a desktop PC or a typical high-definition TV set, I cannot appreciate the “details” that are included in the video files, at least not with my eyes. At the end, perceptional quality is ALWAYS subjective.

VC-1 of Different Profiles and H.264

The difficulty I faced to play a couple of H.264-encoded videos made me to pay attention to VC-1. I used Microsoft Expression Encoder to transcode audio files to both lossy and lossless formats. Just like H.264, VC-1 has several, i.e. three, profiles. They are VC-1 Simple, VC-1 Main, and VC-1 Advanced.

I did not fully understand the need for several VC-1 profiles; more importantly, I did not know why and how I should choose a particular profile. Even though VC-1 technically used patented technologies owned by different organizations, most technical information which I find relevant is released by Microsoft; I hardly find any third party who has released anything relevant to what I want to know. After reading the web pages for several times and doing some actual tests, I began to be able to decipher the meaning behind the texts…

The existence of three profiles is due to both historical and practical reasons. The computing devices today exist in different form factors; it could be a cellphone, a standalone digital media player, a portable media player, a game console, a Windows PC, etc. Depending on form factors, the computing capabilities and resources vary from one to another. There are also different ways the videos could be played; it could be local playback on PC, streaming videos, live streaming, playback on mobile devices, etc. The ways the video are being played also affect the availability of computing capabilities and resources.

As such, digital videos today exist in different qualities, complexities, or level of compression. Over the years, VC-1 is being developed thus does evolve. The older or lower-end profile/ specification gains more support compared with newer/ higher end profile. VC-1 Advanced includes every feature which VC-1 Simple and VC-1 Main have but also has other unique improvements. VC-1 (Advanced Profile) is one of the mandatory supported video codecs of Blu-ray videos. A good video codec requires high efficiency in encoding and decoding, which means reduced complexity. Yet, higher-quality video always means higher complexity thus more resource-intensive. VC-1 Advanced Profile specification serves the need for to encode videos efficiently from low bit rate to high quality. In comparison, VC-1 Simple and VC-1 Main Specifications cover narrower scenarios respectively; VC-1 Simple covers low-bit-rate video while VC-1 Main covers mid-to-high quality videos. The encoding process of these two profiles may not be as efficient but simpler specification and older age may mean more widespread support from different device makers.

Simply put, technologically superiority is not the only thing we consider when it comes to a choice. That explains why when it comes to general-purpose advice, the issue of compatibility is certainly crucial.

When I first knew the existence of different VC-1 profiles, my first thought was that these profiles must mean different usage scenarios (quality vs. compression). While I was not entirely wrong, there is one other thing: compatibility.

The video encoding/ decoding algorithm are complex and incomplete. The quality of the encoded video often relies on the quality of encoder. At this point, the existence of VC-1 and its encoders gives us better chance to have higher-quality/ better-encoded videos. I certainly appreciate VC-1 and Microsoft Expression Encoder after unsuccessful attempts to play H.264-encoded high-definition videos (smoothly).

In the environment of PC, the high performance (of a PC) requires good hardware and well-written software. Of course, the essence of technology, or just about anything, is change. We can certainly expect that more powerful hardware and improved (with bug fixes and more features) software being created from time to time. On other computing environment, we rarely have a chance to replace hardware component or some software component as well. Eventually, it may make more sense to replace the entire PC in over a few years.

The decoding of high-definition videos of various kinds often requires the work of GPU. GPU may be a standalone hardware component or just a built-in part of CPU. Just as any hardware component, a piece of well-written software is required to take advantage of hardware component. Despite the fact that there are many video codecs, not each of them has widespread support from both hardware and software.

As the largest software maker on earth, Microsoft has put its bet on H.264 and VC-1. Windows 7 includes the codec for some profiles of H.264 and all profiles of VC-1 by default. Internet Explorer 9 is the first web browser that supports GPU-accelerated H.264-encoded video with partial support for the HTML 5 standard, which is still under development. Why does Microsoft choose H.264 among all video codecs? The fact is that when it comes to web pages, H.264 is the most popular video codec in the web. Due to the constraint of network bandwidth, however, often the videos embedded in the web are not of high definition or high bit rate. In Microsoft-owned web sites, we see Microsoft includes an option to download the high-definition version of the videos. Google’s YouTube, by default, still use Adobe Flash to play H.264 encoded video; even though visitors can optionally opt in to “HTML5 trial”. Adobe Flash plug-in does include some extra features, such as the display of advertisement before the play of videos.

Internet Explorer requires plug-in to play videos of other codecs, including VC-1. Nevertheless, VC-1-encoded videos can be played by Windows Media Player locally. We can see that the design of VC-1 does base on the principle of practicality. The LCD displays or of similar technologies has the maximum frame rate of 60 Hz, which may be “good enough” for most purposes. The decoding of the video of higher frame rate requires high computing resources, of course.

When I play videos locally, I mostly use Media Player Classic Home Cinema. Admittedly, it’s not the best decoder when it comes to decoding performance. I tried to play VC-1-encoded videos of 720p and 60 FPS using Media Player Classic Home Cinema; almost most of the CPU-resources have been “eaten up”. When I played the same videos using Windows Media Player, the usage CPU-resources remains low. You may already know why. Media Player Classic Home Cinema does not (fully) tap into the power of GPU. To be fair, most videos I have or anyone will be able to see may not be 60 FPS; depending on the type of videos, it could be 23.97 FPS, 24.97 FPS or 29.97 FPS. I did not face any issues yet when I played “normal” videos. I encoded the videos into H.264 using the same frame rate. Apparently, Media Player Classic Home Cinema has greater support over H.264 as the usage of CPU-resources dropped significantly.

The limitation of hardware/ software of my PC may prevent smooth local playback. The good thing about PC is that I can re-encode the videos without compromising much quality to have successful local playback. With “Windows 8” around the corner, I may want to wait for at least a few months before even considering replacing my current machine. If I never face performance issues, the overwhelming popularity of H.264 may prevent me from looking into VC-1. The truth is that I do face performance issues in both codecs especially when the videos are encoded to be resource-intensive or high complexity or mathematically intensive. I probably will not see those issues if I do not specifically look for high-quality videos.

The free version of Microsoft Expression Encoder is certainly a good VC-1 encoder. It offers more options to me, as a power user, to encode the videos. In comparison, the open-source Handbrake, which I use as a H.264 encoder, has fewer options but is good as well. Other than being a video encoder, I also use Handbrake to rip the subtitles from DVD-videos. There is no one-size-fit-all codec, it seems. The end result is always subject to actual testing.

Encoding H.264 video stream in VC-1 (MKV file container)

VC-1 and H.264 are two proprietary video codecs commonly being used to encode high-definition videos. In the web though, both video codecs are commonly used to encode low-bit-rate or low-quality streaming videos. In the case of H.264, a lot of popular video-hosting sites, such as YouTube or Tudou.com, are mainly using H.264. Even though Google is considering replacing H.264 with “royalty-free” alternative such as vp8, at this point H.264 is basically mainstream and default choice in the web. As proprietary codecs, they are both owned by a couple of (different) organizations, which collect royalty fees through patent pool organization. While VC-1 is more commonly known as Microsoft’s technology as it’s the default video codec being used for Windows Media Video file container, Microsoft is actually one of the licensors of VC-1. Likewise, Microsoft is also one of the licensors of H.264. A common misconception is that H.264 and AAC are Apple’s technology. In fact, while Apple is one of the licensors of H.264, it’s not the licensor of AAC. (Microsoft is actually one of the licensors of AAC.) What really happens is that the default codecs being used in Apple’s product are H.264 and AAC. VC-1 is actively developed mainly by Microsoft; H.264 is developed by a couple of organizations, thanks to its popularity.

At this point, I commonly encounter high-definition videos being encoded in H.264. Open-source or free-of-charge applications such as Handbrake (using x264), Format Factory, and so on allow Windows users to encode the videos in H.264. For VC-1, Microsoft releases the free version of Microsoft Expression Encoder that allows the videos to be encoded in VC-1. Both VC-1 and H.264 are parts of the standard of Blu-ray videos. Standard-compliant Blu-ray player has to be able to decode VC-1, H.264 and MPEG2 (for backward compatibility). When it comes to low bit-rate videos, the choice of video codecs mainly goes to H.264, thanks to its overwhelming popularity. However, the ubiquity of Windows PCs also means that VC-1 is well-supported as well.

K-Lite Codec Pack Mega basically allows me to play video/ audio files of many popular codecs. It means that the choice of video codecs should be least of my concerns when it comes to local playback of video files. My PC is not exactly the latest high-end PC but it should be able play usual high-definition video fine. Things changed when I received some (high-definition) video files being encoded in H.264 which my PC cannot play smoothly. I took a look at the CPU-resource monitor. Despite most CPU-resources were being allocated (to play that video), my PC is still not able to play the videos smoothly. What should I do?

The creation of video codecs such as H.264 and VC-1 is basically to allow more efficient encoding (lower bit rate thus smaller file size), thus allowing higher quality video to be encoded. Microsoft claims that while H.264 is considered efficient, VC-1 can even do a better job. I have a huge collection of videos (standard-definition and high-definition) that can be played fine (using my PC). Naturally, my first reaction is to re-encode the videos in H.264 using Handbrake and later Format Factory. Handbrake (x264) is my default choice for H.264 encoder. After both attempts failed, I began to consider VC-1. While I commonly saw MKV file which contained video stream of H.264, I never saw MKV file which contained video stream of VC-1. MKVMERGE (5.2.1) can read VC-1 and AVI but not Windows Media Video file container. The default choice of file container for VC-1 and WMA of Microsoft Expression Encoder is Windows Media. It means that I need to demux the video stream or copy the video/ audio stream into another file container.

The encoding of high-definition video files is time-consuming and resource-intensive. When Microsoft Expression Encoder is given normal priority, my PC is less responsive when the encoding is ongoing. Thus, I gave Microsoft Expression Encoder ‘below-normal priority’. (See Also Task Manager). I use MKVMERGE to create a video-only MKV file before using Microsoft Expression Encoder to encode it. Format Factory allows you to copy the video-stream into AVI by choosing ‘Copy’ for the option for video codec (and disable audio).

After finishing encoding the videos in VC-1 (main), I merge the video stream, audio stream and subtitle stream into a single MKV file. The previously unplayable H.264 video file is now playable in VC-1. While I do recognize that there would be degradation of quality in every lossy encoding, at least the video files are now playable in fairly high-quality VC-1 format, due to the reduced usage of CPU resources.

This ‘experiment’ is far from being conclusive to be served as the VC-1 vs. H.264 comparison. In the past, I also encountered (high-definition) WMV file (which contains VC-1 video stream) that was resource-demanding. However, it does show that Microsoft Expression Encoder 4 is an efficient video encoder, especially when x264 fails and Format Factory both failed.

Cheap “legitimate” Dragon Ball Collection sold in Malaysia?

To counter the rampant privacy in Malaysia, the federal government requires all legally licensed home-released DVDs (videos) to have boxing or packaging that bears the stickers of federal government of Malaysia. There is one issue though. The federal government, in many cases, actually certifies unlicensed DVDs as “legitimate”. As the consumers, do we need to care if the DVDs are licensed? It matters a lot, really.

Why bother to pay for licensed copies of DVDs when the pirated goods (with comparable quality) are dirt cheap? Is that really true? I sure hope I can get free lunch somehow but that never happens so far in my life. As usual, the hypocritical representatives of federal government have warned against the consumers not to buy unlicensed copyrighted materials. Ownership of illegal copies of copyrighted materials may lead to prosecution. As a good citizen, we should obey the laws right? If that’s the case, how can consumers tell which one is licensed? To help the consumers, the federal laws require all licensed DVDs to bear the stickers which serve as the certification by the federal government. So those DVDs with stickers are licensed?

Can the federal government of Malaysia make unlicensed (counterfeit) DVDs legitimate by putting stickers on the packaging? When it comes to legal enforcement, legal enforcement officers would treat those DVDs with stickers of the federal government “legitimate”. In the practical sense, it does not matter if those DVDs are licensed or not; it’s the stickers that matter.

There are quite a number of shops (local retailers) that are selling “DVDs with stickers” only in Malaysia. When one takes a closer look at some of the “DVDs with stickers”, he may not even find the name of producer or copyright holder. But it does have the sticker, right? So he bought the DVD home. Wow, one DVD-DL can contain over 30 episodes of anime while retaining high quality? Is that really possible? It does have the sticker, right? He puts the DVD into his PC. When he tries to play the DVD using “Media Player Classic” installed in his PC, the subtitle is not even displayed correctly. He manages to make the subtitle works (at least) using another app but the translation seems to be too lousy to be made by a professional translator. But it does have the sticker, right?

The very existence of intellectual property is to protect the rights of their holders while encouraging original creation or contents. Once a material has been created, it’s up to the holder of the intellectual property to decide to what extent others can use his property under what circumstances. He may choose to license his work to everyone for free to use while prohibiting others to modify his work without his consent; he may choose to license his work to everyone for free to use and modify; he may sell the intellectual property to another party according to mutually-agreed price.

Often time, the creation of a commercial-released film, music, television series, fictions, non-fictions, original scientific research, and etc. takes a lot of time, efforts, and money. Intellectual property allows the creators, innovators, artists, and etc. to sustain their own living or even gather enormous fortune. Ultimately, the sustainable development of intellectual work of those people may benefit a lot of people in the process, creating huge impact on the various aspects in the society, including but not limited to economy, technology, natural science, education, politics, and etc. If the original contents creators or researchers cannot sustain their own living by creating or researching, there will be no future for sustainable intellectual development.

The licensed DVDs (videos) are those DVDs which are released upon the consent of the intellectual property holders. By definition, the “stickers by federal government of Malaysia” cannot make unlicensed materials licensed although I do appreciate the efforts of the federal government to help the consumers, if truly only licensed DVDs (videos) or CDs (music) are bearing the sticker by federal government. Does the federal government itself able to know which DVD or CD is licensed?

Have you ever heard of Dragon Ball? Funimation Production, Ltd. licenses Dragon Ball ®, Dragon Ball Z ®, Dragon Ball GT ®, and Dragon Ball Z Kai ® (Collectively known as Dragon Ball anime series in this blog post) from Bird Studio, Shueisha, and Toei Animation for the production, broadcast, and distribution of Dragon Ball anime series. Dragon Ball began to be aired in Japan on February 26, 1986 weekly. (except for some special events) On November 19, 1997, the 64^th episode of Dragon Ball GT was aired in Japan, which is the final episode of the Dragon Ball anime series. In total, Dragon Ball anime series spans total of 508 episodes and was originally aired for more than ten years.

“Dragon Ball Z Kai is the revised version of Dragon Ball Z produced in commemoration of the original’s twentieth anniversary.^[1] It began broadcasting in Japan on Fuji Television on April 5, 2009 and ended on March 27, 2011.^[2] It features remastered high definition picture, sound, and special effects as well as a re-recorded voice track by most of the original cast.^[3] As most of the series’ sketches and animation cels had been discarded since the final episode of Dragon Ball Z in 1996, new frames were produced by digitally tracing over still frames from existing footage and filling them with softer colors; thus reducing visible damage to the original animation. Some frames were selectively cropped, while other frames feature new portions added to scenes that were hand drawn to conform to the designated picture ratio. Much of the material from the Dragon Ball Z anime that was not featured in the Dragon Ball manga has been left out in Kai, as well as the final story arc of both the manga and original Dragon Ball Z series; thus significantly reducing the total episode count. It has only 98 episodes instead of 291 episodes. (The 98^th episode is unaired on Japan but is released on DVD instead)” (from “List of Dragon Ball Z Kai episodes” on English Wikipedia)

Funimation digitally remastered Dragon Ball anime series into high definition and releases all 508 episodes into 16 seasons, spanning total of 89 DVDs. Of course, you cannot have 720p or 1080p quality videos stored in DVD-video (MPEG 2) format. The original Dragon Ball anime series is created at a time when Microsoft Windows ® does not even exist. Over time, the (non-digital) original master copy shows the sign of ages. To release Dragon Ball anime series in digital format, a lot of work are needed to be done to re-create Dragon Ball anime series. Basically, Funimation has to digitally restore every single frame. Just how many frames are there then? Each episode has the length of approximately 24 minutes with the frame rate of 23.98 fps. Each episode has more than 34000 frames. For 508 episodes, there are more than 17000000 frames. Each frame is a picture that needs to be examined, restored, or even re-drawn so that high-definition version of Dragon Ball anime series can be created.

High-definition video means the video with the quality of 720p and above. In the case of Dragon Ball ® anime series, the high-definition videos are being compressed and downsampled into MPEG 2 video format. To ensure highest quality of the videos, the compression is being minimized and done more efficiently so that the videos can retain high quality despite being compressed into MPEG 2 video format. In Blu-ray video, MPEG 2 video codec is still being used for backward compatibility; VC1 and H.264 are two dominant video codec that are used in high-definition video; when the video quality is comparable, videos using the codec of VC1 or H.264 generally have less file size compared with MPEG 2 videos, thus are more suitable for high-definition video.

The DVD release of Dragon Ball anime series contains English and Japanese audio tracks; the English subtitle matches the Japanese audio track. The English dubbing and subtitle are being done by Funimation or its appointed person or organization, not Toei Animation. Thus, Funimation retains the copyright for English dub and subtitle. While Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z, and Dragon Ball GT that are available in uncut, remastered format, and high-definition are released and produced by Funimation in 89 DVDs, Dragon Ball Z Kai is the revised version that is not uncut. Interestingly, when Dragon Ball Z was first brought into United States, it was being cut into only 277 episodes, instead of 291 episodes. Eventually all 291 episodes were being aired in the United States.

Dragon Ball Animated Series DVD Release Information

Season	Title	Release Date	Number of Episodes	Number of Discs	Retail Price
1	Dragon Ball Season 1	September 15, 2009	31	5	$ 34.98
2	Dragon Ball Season 2	November 10, 2009	30	5	$ 34.98
3	Dragon Ball Season 3	February 2, 2010	31	5	$ 34.98
4	Dragon Ball Season 4	May 4, 2010	30	5	$ 34.98
5	Dragon Ball Season 5	July 27, 2010	31	5	$ 34.98
6	Dragon Ball Z Season 1	February 6, 2007	39	6	$ 34.98
7	Dragon Ball Z Season 2	May 22, 2007	35	6	$ 34.98
8	Dragon Ball Z Season 3	September 18, 2007	33	6	$ 34.98
9	Dragon Ball Z Season 4	February 19, 2008	32	6	$ 34.98
10	Dragon Ball Z Season 5	May 27, 2008	26	6	$ 34.98
11	Dragon Ball Z Season 6	September 16, 2008	29	6	$ 34.98
12	Dragon Ball Z Season 7	November 11, 2008	25	6	$ 34.98
13	Dragon Ball Z Season 8	February 10, 2009	34	6	$ 34.98
14	Dragon Ball Z Season 9	May 19, 2009	38	6	$ 34.98
15	Dragon Ball GT Season 1	December 9, 2008	34	5	$ 34.98
16	Dragon Ball GT Season 2	February 10, 2009	30	5	$ 34.98
	Total		508	89	$ 559.68

Note:

1. “Dragon Ball GT Season 2″ includes “Dragon Ball GT – A Hero’s Legacy”, which is not counted as an episode of “Dragon Ball GT” but regarded as a “Special”. “Dragon Ball GT- A Hero’s Legacy” has the length of approximately 45 minutes. If this TV special is counted as one episode, “Dragon Ball GT Season 2″ would have 31 episodes.

2. The information here is retrieved from rightstuf.com and amazon.com on November 22, 2011. (UTC+8)

3. Retailers such as Amazon.com and rightstuf.com do sell some seasons at (unfixed) lower price.

4. The release date of “Dragon Ball” series is taken from rightstuf.com instead of amazon.com. It was stated at amazon.com that “Dragon Ball Z Season 1″ was first released on September 13, 1996. However, DVD video was only introduced to the U.S. market in March, 1997. If “September 13, 1996″ is the true release date, it means “Dragon Ball Z Season 1″ was available in DVD before DVD video was brought to U.S. market. Nevertheless, most release dates are same at both web sites.

5. These releases of “Dragon Ball” animated series are produced by Funimation (a U.S. company) “Dragon Ball” animated series are originally created by Toei Company. Funimation licenses the Dragon Ball animated series.

6. Funimation was unable to release the first thirteen episodes when Lionsgate Entertainment was holding the licensing rights to their previous dub of the same episodes, having acquired them from Trimark after the company became defunct. After Lionsgate’s license to the first thirteen episodes expired in 2009, Funimation remastered and re-released the complete Dragon Ball to DVD in five individual uncut season box sets, with the first set released on September 15, 2009 and the final set released on July 27, 2010.

Other than Funimation, there are other companies who license Dragon Ball anime series as well; but they do not license the franchise from copyright holders directly; Funimation sublicenses Dragon Ball franchise to other companies to release DVDs which includes English audio track and English subtitle in other English-speaking country. The truth to the matter is that Dragon Ball anime series is very popular in many countries outside of Japan. Some of the television stations or producers have licensed Dragon Ball anime series for local dubbing and broadcasting over the air but do not necessarily acquire the license for distribution or production. As a matter of fact, if there was other company which licenses entire Dragon Ball anime series before Funimation did, Funimation did not even need to re-master the anime series itself as some other producer might already did it.

Did Toei Animation, the producer of Dragon Ball anime series, release DVDs on its own? Yes, it did. However, when it comes to subtitling and dubbing, Toei, just as many other anime producers in Japan, chooses to license its properties to the others. If Toei already digitally re-mastered Dragon Ball anime series before licensing it to Funimation, Funimation would not need to digitally remaster Dragon Ball anime series. Instead, Toei created a revised version of “Dragon Ball Z”, known as “Dragon Ball Z Kai”, to be aired in Japan. Toei also licensed “Dragon Ball Z Kai” to Funimation. Although “Dragon Ball Z Kai” is the latest installment in Dragon Ball anime series, it’s not considered a new anime series but a “revised” version of the original “Dragon Ball Z”.

The success of the commercial release of “Dragon Ball” anime series or simply any product will hugely impact the reputation of the producers, copyright holders, licensees and other relevant stakeholders. The high-quality video and audio are essential to good digital entertainment. The illegal commercial distributors, commonly known as “pirates”, on the other hand, have nothing to do with the production with the product; they cannot be held accountable for the quality or content of their products. You can certainly expect that the packaging of any licensed DVD would have the proper copyright information and the licensee as well.

The so-called “legitimate” Dragon Ball anime series, which is released in Malaysia, costs only less than RM 200. Despite bearing the official sticker from the federal government, the video/ audio quality is very poor due high compression and poor source. That is not a lone case, unfortunately. I’m able to find much information about the licensees due to the popularity of “Dragon Ball” anime series. Practically every anime series, bearing the official sticker, is unlicensed. It gets even worse. Some of the dramas from Taiwan are also unlicensed but bears the official sticker also. You need to learn from experience that which distributors in Malaysia would actually release licensed DVDs or CDs but official sticker does not help at all.

I do wonder though, what is the point of granting the sticker when the federal government is not checking the legitimacy of the DVDs? Is there any reason for the consumers to pay higher price for unlicensed goods with the sticker by federal government?

One of the main reasons that consumers may want licensed goods is the quality assurance. That said, as the consumers we can hold the merchants accountable. What about unlicensed goods? Who we should complaint to when we get sub-standard product? There is no one. As those sub-standard products are being certified by the federal government, we are practically out of luck. If the federal government can certify unlicensed goods, are we really prohibited from buying unlicensed goods? I bet not, only those unlicensed goods without the sticker by the federal government.

Can people in Malaysia and other developing nations get the high-quality licensed DVDs of anime? Yes, they can. rightstuf.com does ship region 1 DVDs (anime) internationally; amazon.com only ships certain titles internationally. Of course, the buyers will have to bear the shipping fee or taxes that would incur. However, the buyers from outside of the United States have to own a region 1 DVD player, region free DVD player or a PC with DVD Decryption software such as AnyDVD. For those who know very little about DVD-videos, those region 1 DVDs may not even be played on their DVD players or PCs.

The fact remains that even without shipping fees or taxes, importing anime series from the United States can be expensive due to differences of standard of living or consumer index. If the federal government is committed to protect the consumers and intellectual property, popular anime series may be licensed to local licensees and be sold according to local price.

Unfortunately, despite the popularity of anime, very few companies in Asia are actually interested to license the anime series. Buyers would almost certainly get unlicensed DVD release from physical retailers. To the people of Malaysia or many other nations in Asia, the only way to get a better-quality anime series is perhaps illegal download from file-sharing sites or torrent. But who can get assurance from illegal download? It’s just taking a risk of getting malware!

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