Digigami MPressionist HDTV and MPressionist Pro HD

MPressionist.X is the only way to objectively compare the results of multiple-passes or different encoders.
MPressionist HDTV is a superset of MPressionist Pro HD. Pro HD is a superset of Pro SD
MegaPEG.X Pro includes a lightweight version of MPressionist with bitrate and compression analysis.
MegaPEG.X Pro Pause & Review provides opportunity to analyze compressed MPEG during encoding.
MegaPEG.X HDTV includes Pause & Review with analysis equivalent to MPressionist Pro HD.

New in MPressionist.X 3.0

Approximately two times faster than version 2.0.
Learn the secrets of the Hollywood DVD authoring pros. Example: compares Superbit and Widescreen versions of the same Hollywood disc.
Plays SD movies at proper frame rate, including true 50Hz and 60Hz interlaced SD video.
Completely multi-threaded, multi-document user experience; analyze any number of compressed bitstreams side by side.
HD/HDTV: De-multiplex and analyze HD MPEG-2 formats (MPEG-2 Transport and Program Streams).
Compare a compressed MPEG movie with the original QuickTime source (ie. DV or uncompressed).
Compare a compressed MPEG movie with another MPEG compressed at a lower or higher bitrate.
Detailed multi-resolution view of movie analysis.
Correlate GOP-structure with movie bitrate and compression.
Playback Simulation for slow-motion, frame/field-dominance analysis; find problems quickly without burning discs.
Supports all MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 picture progressive/interlaced frames and formats (frame_picture, field_picture).
Improved Log file output for pin-point accurate bitstream problem analysis.

MPressionist Pro HD/SD

Requires G4 or higher CPU. Works with 10.2 "Jaguar", 10.3 "Panther", 10.4 "Tiger" and above.
Nearly four times faster than version 1.0: Now watch films in real-time with up to four overlays on 2 GHz CPU.
Pro version supports realtime playback with 1 overlay on PowerBook G4 1.2 GHz.
As you drag the time slider, timecode is displayed as tooltip in HH:MM:SS:FF format.
The time slider now supports both nearby/precise positioning (holding shift key) and regular time selection.
New graph for stuffing rate completes set of 3 major DVD compression variables: bitrate, stuffing, and quantization.
New graph overlay shows field dominance and 2:3 pulldown cadence; find and locate breaks in 2:3 flags.
View the picture in any of the ISO-13818 color spaces (matrix_coefficients).
Evaluate the quality difference between floating point and fixed point YCrCb to RGB color conversion.
Find and examine MPEG user_data in the bitstream at the sequence, gop or picture level.
Examine and save sequence intra and non-intra quant matrices for re-use in encoding projects.
De-multiplex iDVD VOB files back into .m2v and .aiff files for importing into DVD Studio Pro.
De-multiplex DVD VOB files back into .m2v and .ac3 files for importing into DVD Studio Pro.
Compatible with all major Hollywood DVD titles, MPEG compression and DVD authoring products, Mac or PC.

MPressionist HDTV

All the features of the Pro version plus the ability to view and analyze HD MPEG-2 video.
View and examine 1920x1080i HD video (requires larger Apple Cinema display).
View and examine 1280x720p HD video (best on minimum of 17" PowerBook).
Examine ATSC and DVB user_data fields differentiated by the sequence, gop or picture layer.
Demultiplex any MPEG-2 Transport Stream, including ATSC and DVB varieties.
Demultiplex any MPEG-2 Program Stream, VOB and arbitrary MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 files.

MPressionist Benefits

Brings intelligence and science to the art of compressing video for DVD.
Immediately useful (5min from first run) for finding peaks in bitrate and quantization and evaluating impact on picture quality.
Over time, will allow compressionists to produce picture quality which exceeds "state of the art" Hollywood DVD titles.
Provides qualitative, quantitative and perceptual feedback on DVD (MPEG-2) video quality.
Provides depth of functionality for those compressionists with a penchant for technical details.
Exploit more features of compressor (MPEG encoder) by evaluating compression results objectively.
Allows compressionists to defend quality of product against uninformed criticism or compression myths & rumours.
Works with any MPEG-1, MPEG-2 or DVD encoder, including Apple Final Cut Pro, Apple DVD Studio Pro, Apple Compressor and iDVD.

MPressionist Pro: Easily Diagnose Common DVD Compression Problems

Identify best visual quality at a given bitrate by comparing two compressed MPEG-2 movies.
Problems with bitrate too low in hard-to-compress regions of a long movie.
Placement/presence/absence of 3:2 pulldown flags for 24fps Film-> 29.97fps NTSC titles.
"Mosquito noise" artifacts in regions containing texture or edges.
"Ringing" artifacts on title sequences and frame edges (for letterboxed material).
"Blocking" artifacts from excessive quantization or insufficient maximum bitrate.
Motion vector search window too small or too large.

MPressionist HDTV: Encoder/Bitstream Evaluation and Diagnostics

Determine exact encoding method: field_picture, frame_picture, interlaced, pulldown et. al.
Inspect any header data in the compressed bitstream, including user_data.
Incorrect use of dct_type selection on interlaced program material.
Placement/presence/absence of pan & scan vectors in picture_display_extension headers.
Imbalanced intra/non-intra quantization matrix "energy".
Compressed B-Pictues larger than enclosing I-Pictures and P-Pictures.
Find hard errors in a bitstream (via errors logged to file).
Identify problems with bitrate control for CBR or VBR encoders.

Classroom and Personal Educational Uses

Allows anyone to learn the nuts and bolts of how professional Hollywood DVD titles are compressed.
Glean practical knowledge of bitrate limits from professional Hollywood DVD titles.
Provides a tool for learning MPEG terminology in the associated visual context.
De-mystifies the relationship between MPEG encoding variables and the final "compressed" product.
Provides engineering students with visual representations of techniques such as "linear combination of DCT basis functions", "bi-directional motion compensation", and "variable vs. constant bitrate"
Provides videography students with an opportunity to master the technical side of video compression.
Serves as a teaching aid for professional compressionists who provide training and apprentice.

Movie ("bitstream layer" or "sequence layer")

View numeric and symbolic values for sequence_header, sequence_extension, quant_matrix_extension and sequence_display_extension bitstream headers (also sequence_scalable_extension).
True random access to any GOP (keyframe) in the bitstream by dragging slider.
Movie bitrate graph overlay with peak, average and current bitrate (time domain).
Movie stuffing_bits graph overlay shows bitrate padding by CBR and VBR encoders (time domain).
Movie compression (quantization) overlay with peak, average and current quantization (time domain).
Visual correlation of bitrate vs. quantization in time domain.
Visual correlation between bitrate/quantization peaks and temporal position in movie for quick access.
View field_dominance (top_first) and 2:3 pulldown flag consistency over length of movie.
View local and global bitrate/compression trends at the same time (hierarchical analysis).
View changes to GOP size/structure over the length of the movie (I-frame injection, chapter-marks, cut-scene detection).

Group of Pictures ("GOP layer")

True random access to any picture in the GOP by clicking on thumbnails or using L/R arrow keys.
View numeric and symbolic values for gop_header bitstream header.
View pictures in display_order (order frames are displayed) or decoder_order (order frames are stored in bitstream).
Visual representation of relative sizes of compressed pictures in GOP, with actual numeric size in bytes.
Toggle thumbnail view between actual picture data and picture size/compression.
Visual representation of IBP picture type and compression pattern (aka GOP pattern).
Constant bitrate movies include visual depiction of quantity of stuffing_bytes (padding) relative to frame size.

Picture ("picture layer")

View numeric and symbolic values for picture_header, picture_coding_extension and picture_display_extension bitstream headers (also picture_spatial_scalable_extension).
Display picture frame in any standard aspect ratio or in the actual coded frame dimension.
Display any combination of picture and bitstream layer overlays for perceptual evaluation.
quant_scale value overlay shows numeric qscale_value for 2D picture dimension.
Motion Vector overlay shows iconic view of macroblock motion_vector(s) in 2D picture dimension.
Filter View of Motion Vector display by type (field,frame,forward,backwards).
Filter View of Picture data by field (top/bottom) and color channel (Y/Luma, Cr, Cb).
HDTV: quant_scale map overlay shows relative qscale magnitude for 2D picture dimension.
HDTV: quant_scale graph overlay shows relative qscale magnitude in 1D linear bitstream dimension.
HDTV: macroblock_size map overlay shows relative macroblock size magnitude for 2D picture dimension.
HDTV: macroblock_size graph overlay shows relative macroblock size magnitude in 1D linear bitstream dimension.
HDTV: dct_type overlay shows iconic view of macroblock dct_type(s) in 2D picture dimension.
HDTV: macroblock_type overlay shows iconic view of macroblock type in 2D picture dimension.
HDTV: coded_block_pattern overlay shows iconic view of macroblock coded_block_pattern(s) in 2D picture dimension.

Inverse Discrete Cosine Transform (IDCT) Comparative Analysis

Study how your compressed movie will look (quality) under a variety of playback conditions/implementations.
Only tool which provides for quantitative and qualitative assessment of IDCT (player-hardware-dependent) accuracy on compressed video.
IDCT implementation: Reference Algorithm - double precision floating point arithmetic.
IDCT implementation: Reference Algorithm - single precision floating point arithmetic.
IDCT implementation: Chen-Wang-84 - 32-bit fixed point scalar arithmetic.
IDCT implementation: Arai-Agui-Nakajima (aka AAN) - double precision floating point arithmetic.
IDCT implementation: Arai-Agui-Nakajima (aka AAN) - 32-bit fixed point scalar arithmetic.
IDCT implementation: Chen-Smith-87 - 32-bit fixed point scalar arithmetic.

Quantization Matrix (quant_matrix) Features

Visually see both intra and non-intra quant_matrix values in context with scan order.
Extract non-standard quant_matrices from other DVDs for use in your own compression projects.

MPressionist HDTV: Macroblock row ("slice layer") Features

Use macroblock_type picture overlay to quickly see what macroblocks present in each slice.
Use macroblock grid picture overlay for visual access to vertical slice boundaries.
Use Macroblock Inspector to click on any macroblock in a slice and navigate along slice to slice end.

MPressionist HDTV: 16x16 Pixel Macroblock ("macroblock layer") Features

Using macroblock grid overlay, visual access to macroblock boundaries.
Use Macroblock Inspector to view visual pattern of coded 8x8 pixel blocks ("coded_block_pattern").
Use Macroblock Inspector to view macroblock flags (MB_INTRA,MB_PATTERN,MB_FORWARD,MB_BACKWARD,MB_QUANT)
Use Macroblock Inspector to view macroblock type data (dct_type, motion_type).
Use Macroblock Inspector to view actual motion vectors as numeric displacments.
Use Macroblock Inspector to view actual size in bits for a particular macroblock.

MPressionist HDTV: 8x8 Pixel Blocks ("block layer") Features

Use Macroblock Inspector to view quantized DCT values in bitstream order (zig_zag_scan or alternate_scan).
Use Macroblock Inspector to view quantized DCT values in visual ("normal") 8x8 matrix order.
Use Macroblock Inspector to view de-quantized DCT values in visual ("normal") 8x8 matrix order.
Use Macroblock Inspector to view de-quantized DCT values as visual basis functions.
Use Macroblock Inspector to view IDCT error vectors or pixel values in visual ("normal") 8x8 matrix order.

ATSC A/53 Digital Television Standard (MPEG-2 Transport Multiplex) 1995 forward.
ETSI TR 101 154 Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB) Implementation guidelines for the use of MPEG-2 Systems, Video and Audio in satellite, cable and terrestrial broadcasting applications.
DVB DVB Video - which relies on ISO-13818-2 (MPEG-2 video) as a normative standard.
EBU DTV Video System-1, System-2 and System-3 Video - which relies on ISO-13818-2 as a normative standard.
EBU DTV Multiplex - which relies on ISO-13818-1 as a normative standard.
DVD DVD Multiplex - which relies on ISO-13818-1 Program Stream (for VOB files) as a normative standard.
DVD DVD Video - which relies on ISO-11172-2 and ISO-13818-2 Video files as normative standards.
ISO-11172-1 (MPEG-1) Systems (CBR and VBR mux of any VBR or CBR ISO-11172 elementary stream).
ISO-11172-2 (MPEG-1) Video (CBR and VBR video compression).
ISO-13818-1 (MPEG-2) Systems (CBR/VBR mux of any VBR/CBR 13818/11172 elementary stream).
ISO-13818-2 (MPEG-2) Video (CBR and VBR video compression. Both frame_prediction and field_prediction supported.).
IEC-62107 (S-VCD) Super video compact disc - Disc-interchange system-specification.
WhiteBook (VideoCD) 1994 JVC Matsushita Philips Sony - Video CD Specification Version 2.0
Apple DVD Studio Pro Reads .m2v and .m1v files created with Apple Compressor.
Apple Final Cut Pro Reads .m2v and .m1v files created with Apple Compressor.
Apple QuickTime Reads all movie files understood by QuickTime (for frame-by-frame comparison).

File Opening and Compatibility

Analyze DVD, S-VCD, VCD video tracks (both NTSC and PAL). (Also any MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 (MP@ML) video elementary streams).
Demultiplex MPEG or VOB files back into their individual audio (.pcm, .ac3, .dts) and video (.m2v) tracks.
Open any ISO-11172 (MPEG-1) or ISO-13818 (MPEG-2) video bitstream for viewing and analysis.
Supports drag and drop from the Finder.
Sports quick-access to list of recently opened files.
HD/HDTV: Demultiplex MPEG-2 Transport Streams back into PES or elementary streams.
HD/HDTV: Analyze HDV, ATSC HDTV, EBU DTV, DVB and DVD video tracks (all 4:2:0 profiles and frame sizes).
NOTE: requires additional software (ie. OSex) for examining encrypted DVDs.

Operating System and Hardware

Supports all recent versions of MacOS X:
Requires 10.2 "Jaguar", 10.3.x "Panther", or 10.4.x "Tiger" (or higher).
Requires G4, G5 (or higher) processor.
Requires 256MB of RAM, 512MB recommended and 1GB (or more) suggested for HDTV analysis.
Requires 15" screen (SD 720x480 or 720x576 analysis).
Requires 17" screen (1280x720p) or 30" screen (1920x1080i or 1440x1080i).