2nd, full spec MPEG-1 doesn't *have* all (or even most) it's frames. So you generally can't do frame based editing.
3rd, it is misleading in the extreme to call any proprietary I-frame only MPEG MPEG, because it still needs to be compressed as an MPEG-1 file *after editing*. I know that many of these editable formats do an intraframe subset of MPEG encoding when digitized, and that's cool, as it speeds up final MPEG compression. But, it is not a final delivery codec.
4th, there are solutions out there that can re-produce a full frame-based timebase from a small GOP encode in a lossless fashion. However, they are all very expensive, and require fairly small GOP length (and therefore large file sizes).
If FutureTel is reproducing frames from final compressed MPEG files in real or near real time, then I apologize profusely. Otherwise, I feel that your statement is, from both a technical and a practical workflow perspective, misleading.
-Halstead York
Journeyman
Andrew Palfreyman wrote:
> >Chris O'Leary wrote:
> >I have to chime in an say that you should check out MPEG Power
> >Professional from http://www.heuris.com if you don't want to worry about
> >bad frames at the beginning of a stream, need to support frame rates
> >like 24 FPS and 29.97 FPS, and need the best possible image quality.
>
> Jordi Joaquim i Recort replied:
> I'm sure about it!! I know Heuris (I was at your booth in NAB) but heuris
> is 3500 USD and M-PACK is just around 250 USD!!
> If I can get CDROM productions around 10000 USD budgets I will be able to
> buy expensive SWs!
>
> If you want an inexpensive realtime MPEG-1 encoder (from camcorder, TV, VCR, etc.), such items are now available (Adaptec's VideOh!, for example, announced this week, or FutureTel's Video Sphinx Pro). Since both of these products come bundled with software that accomplishes, among other things, frame-accurate MPEG-editing, I beg to correct Chris's remark about the non-editability of MPEG.
>
> Andrew Palfreyman
> Senior Engineer,
> FutureTel Inc.