Helix Real Producer Basic - Info and my Test results

Date: Sun, 15 Jun 2003 17:17:04 GMT
Newsgroups: rec.video.desktop
Size: 4,258 bytes

This is the Basic Version of Helix Producer. It is free - versus the
$200 Full Version. As you use it, you will receive many messages
about needing the Full version, on almost everything you try to do !!
HOWEVER, it does do the basic thing that you need it for - it creates
Real Video, rm files - although it has one major limitation (see
below).
Audiences
--------------
It also allows you to select up to three audiences. This means the
video will conform and allow a user with that speed setting to view
the video at that "served speed".
CAUTION: for each audience that you add - Helix adds that stream to
the rm file. So if you pick 16k, 28k, and 56k - it will encode all
three streams, whereas if you just selected 56k - it will only encode
that one stream, making the rm file much smaller. So adding more
audiences does increase the file size - BUT IT DOES NOT INCREASE THE
AMOUNT OF DATA SENT TO THE USER - since they only received one stream
(the one that matches their Real Player configuration).
The 56k Problem
---------------------------
Helix creates blurry videos at 56k and under (although the Audio only
files were excellent - I converted some MP3's using even 16k and for
voice it was fine).
Here is a samply I did of a Conehead Clip:
http://www.infocellar.com/test-RealMedia/test.ram
Keep in mind that most videos for the web should include a 56k stream
for dial-up users, because you don't want to "cut out" that entire,
huge user base for being able to enjoy your videos. In the Helix
utility it says that 56k only gives you 34k of usable BW. This is
prescious little BW, and since it is so small, the audio can have the
effect of ruining the video quality by taking up too much space.
Therefore you want to minimize the audio BW - but it doesn't work
!!! See below.
More BW dedicated to Video and less to Audio
------------------------------------------------------------------------- In the audience dialog box there are additional settings for the
Quality. Even the basic version seems to allow you to configure the
video for Voice or Music quality. I recommend these settings - and
since you have such a small amount of BW, I would use these settings
even for Music videos, unless you are targeting higher BW users such
as DSL and Cable users :
Audio Mode - Voice
Video Mode - Sharpest Image
- and uncheck the "use High Quality . . . " audio checkbox.
Now comes the problem - my tests showed absolutely no change in
resulting file size and no improvement in the Video quality !!!!!
When I changed the quality from "Music" to "Voice" - there was no
change. When I unchecked the "use High Quality" audio box - there was
no change. So far I have no explanation and no fix. Maybe the Basic
version forgot to put a nag on these settings and in reality it is
ignoring them, whereas the Full version will use them? I don't know.
Display Sizes
-----------------
Another oddity - my tests reveal that smaller display sizes do not
result in smaller encoded rm file sizes !!! In addition, the quality
remains the same. I used
56k for a 240x180 rm files and it was blurry - so I went back to
Premiere and re-made the AVI at 160x120. I converted it again using
Helix, and the resulting video was smaller as it should be - but it
was the exact same file size and just as blurry !!! Me no understand.
BIG LIMITATION
--------------------------
Here is perhaps the most pressing reason to pay ther 200 bucks. The
basic version only allows you to encode with the v9.0 codec, which
most people do not have loaded. Only recent Real Players have the 9.0
codec, while all the older codecs through year 2002 have v8.0. The G2
Rel Producer creates rm files using the v8.0 codec. The Helix Full
version
allows you to select the codec and you can select 9.0 or 8.0.
This would be no problems for me, if I could install both G2 and Helix
on my XP system - but G2 will not install on XP (at least not on my
system). Therefore I can either:
- buy the full version
- reboot to Win98 and make v8.0 rm files using G2 Producer
- make 9.0 rm files and let the users either not view them, or click
"OK" to download the codec - Real Player will give them an error and
ask them if they want to download the codec