example High quality video to test conversion ?

[HenkZ]

Does anyone know of 'test' video files that I can download
and use to test the effect on quality of different conversion settings ?
I'm assuming that that would be DV video.

Something that can be downloaded for free, and which contains
little or no noise, and contains frames with a lot of colour, and fast action.
What do you people use ? Or do you only use your own material ?

[edDV]

What software are you using or evaluating?

[whitejremiah]

if you check out on2's website (the creator of the vp6 and vp7 codec) they used to (and probably still do) have a few clips of video that are EXTREMELY difficult to compress...they have them in raw uncompressed format, so they are HUGE downloads...like i think one of them is 200mb for like a 30 second clip..give or take.....but these are probably the best test clips that i know of....all of them are very complex and extremely difficult to compress, even for modern video codecs like divx and xvid.....

EDIT: Just looked and couldn't seem to locate them anymore........

[edDV]

Easier to find a HD Mpeg2_TS file. Get a good 1080i clip and down convert to DV 480i. Nasa has some good stuff.

[HenkZ]

I'm not so much looking for a file that is _hard_ to compress, as I am looking for a file that contains (in a limited space) all possible features such as fast action, dark fragments (blocking/black level),
light fragments (blocking), colorful image (color changes)) that might
give a codec/conversion program a hard time (-> creating visual
artefacts/color, and things that you would notice, watching it on
television).

I could try to find fragments like that on a DVD, but movies don't
usually try to give the decoder a hard time, and I wouldn't be sure
that the next DVD doesn't contains even faster action.

[edDV]

I'm not so much looking for a file that is _hard_ to compress, as I am looking for a file that contains (in a limited space) all possible features such as fast action, dark fragments (blocking/black level),
light fragments (blocking), colorful image (color changes)) that might
give a codec/conversion program a hard time (-> creating visual
artefacts/color, and things that you would notice, watching it on
television).

I could try to find fragments like that on a DVD, but movies don't
usually try to give the decoder a hard time, and I wouldn't be sure
that the next DVD doesn't contains even faster action.

Home made shaky camcorder material is worse case. Shoot some low light indoor, freeway traffic, kids jumping around, bright sun, people walking in night streetlight, etc.

[Baldrick]

dv: http://teco.emg.hu/test.avi from http://www.tecoltd.com/enctest/enctest.htm

[dphirschler]

Microsoft has some free HD material on their website. I don't have a URL though. Should be easy enough to find.


Darryl

[edDV]

dv: http://teco.emg.hu/test.avi from http://www.tecoltd.com/enctest/enctest.htm

Funny I found that Britney.0003.ts last night as well. When you view material like that shot from a pro jib, you notice that all camera motion is damped (controlled acceleration), there is no rotational or diagonal shake (as is common in hand held) and exposure is near perfect under studio lighting.

For live events, I've seen these pros use MPeg2 analyzers (like the Tektronix line) during rehearsals to check for encoder breakdown.