SFXB Forum

Yup, it's the Centurions folks! Discuss it here, details here.

The show looks a lot more impresive than I remember, I can recall watching a few episodes at the time but I was of an age where I was growing out of toys so I missed out on some good merchandise by the looks of things.By the way Andy the video file is spot on quality wise, the sound in particular has come out very well. Shane.

Thanks, it's pretty good, isn't it? I'm opting for the WMV format because it's so compact; it's really a streaming format so you do tend to notice "blotchiness" when things move quickly. But considering how old these tapes are the converter's doing a remarkable job with them. I could do with a slightly better editing prog though - its MPEG codecs aren't all that great.I think I may be presenting a slightly distorted view of the quality of the series animation wise, incidentally - the intro sequence and the detailed beam down sequences are several notches above the footage actually appearing in episodes, which was undoubtedly a conscious decision because the beam down footage can be re-used a lot.I think the merchandise may have been quite hard to find over here - as ever, bigger in America. But I did have Ace McCloud, and a Strafer attack drone, so air to air battles were possible! That was actually the closest I came to owning a traditional Action Force sort of doll, unless Star Wars figures count!

On behalf of Chris who keeps posting in the wrong place :Excellent show! Before I check the page I remember three men, yellow, blue and green all having speciality suits (land, air and water). Don't remember any specific bad guys though.Just checked the page. I forgot about the enemies and the cool dog! Shame on me... It was a kicking show though, reminded me of MASK.Me again: MASK is another show I could do a page on if people are interested, although there were far too many characters and vehicles in that for me to go into any depth. Might be a video file only job...

Ah, in my haste to get the file up I've gone and uploaded the bigger MPEG version rather than the wmv, that's why it looks broken. Of course I cunningly named them the same thing and then uploaded the one that came first in the list alphabetically! D'oh! Correct one will be up in a couple of minutes. Actually, I'll leave both up for now - see what you think of the difference - this is the mpg:http://www.sfxb.co.uk/vids/centbeamdown.mpgand this is the wmv:http://www.sfxb.co.uk/vids/centbeamdown.wmv2 Meg of difference file size wise - you can see why I'm veering towards the wmv format... Anyway, be interested to hear which one you think is better...

Sorry to go a tad off topic, but... That MPEG file uses the ancient MPEG1 format. I'd bet you'll get significantly improved quality if you use MPEG4.

Ah. Well, I'm not sure MPEG 4 was around at the time my very bargain basement video editing software was made! I wasn't even sure it was standardised until relevantly recently? Unfortunately the MPEG codecs on Pinnacle Studio 7 are, by the company's own admission, not great... Do you have a link for more information on MPEG 4, codecs, player compatibility etc at all Brad?

Actually, MPEG-4 was finalized in late 1998, and became an International Standard in the first months of 1999.The great thing about MPEG-4 is that is is purported to be the "next big thing" as the official standard for streaming video on the Internet. Apple's QuickTime 6 Player, Microsoft's Windows Media Player, and Real Networks' Real Player are all MPEG-4 compatible, according to the MPEG-4 Overview from the International Organization for Standardization:Quote 9. Deployment of MPEG-4The Internet Streaming Media Alliance (ISMA), founded in by Apple, Cisco, IBM, Kasenna, Philips and Sun, has specified a fully end-to-end interoperable system for internet streaming, including MPEG-4 Visual, MPEG-4 Audio and the transport of RTP as described above. Microsoft’s Windows Media software contains an MPEG-4 encoder and decoder. This is an implementation of MPEG-4 Simple Profile, the simplest and lowest cost Visual Profile in MPEG-4. While Microsoft indicates that this implementation is fully compliant, it is ‘packaged’ in a Microsoft’s proprietary way. Real Networks supports MPEG-4 through a certified plug-in from Envivio. Real has announced native MPEG-4 support for an unspecified date. Apple’s Quicktime version 6, which includes MPEG-4 support, has been demonstrated at e.g. NAB 2002. Apple has stated to not release QT6 until the licensing situation is resolved to Apple’s satisfaction.Apple's QuickTime 6 Player was released earlier this summer. The download is free for playback, but a &#3629.99 license fee is required to encode MPEG-4 (the price also enables additional editing capabilities for the QuickTime Player and includes the ability to export to 22 file formats with 13 audio codecs and 22 video codecs).I really love this standardization because it means a video file can be distributed without relying on a specific media player. I've lately seriously considered switching the video files I've been uploading to MPEG-4, but I'm waiting just a little bit longer to be sure most of the modem users have downloaded the updates to their preferred media player so that everything works fine. One of my friends uses 56K and downloading software updates is not at all something he enjoys.Anyhow, here are a few sample files using MPEG-4...The first uses similar settings to what you used on the WMP file above. This clip is exactly 60 seconds long. It's 360x240, 15 FPS, with stereo sound, and has a variable bitrate targeted at 230 kbit/sec total.http://brad.project-think.com/movies/mpeg4-test-01.mp4 (2.0 MB)Here's the same clip at half the target bitrate and mono sound.http://brad.project-think.com/movies/mpeg4-test-02.mp4 (1.5 MB)Lastly, here's the clip at twice the target bitrate of the original.http://brad.project-think.com/movies/mpeg4-test-03.mp4 (3.5 MB)Anyway, that's just my two cents. It's probably easier for you to just use what you already have than make the switch to MPEG-4 right now.(Edited by Bradster at 9:30 am on Aug. 26, 2002)

Why not use DivX? AFAIK that codec gives the best quality/size ratio there is (no good for streaming though).