HD H.264 or HD Mpeg 2

I'm still using compressor 2 and the HD H.264 preset only gives you a maximum resolution of 1280x720, the Mpeg 2 preset however gives you the option of full 1440x1080 resolution. If any of you are on Compressor 3 will you open a HD H.264 preset for me and examine it in the inspector and tell me if it offers a full 1440x1080 option.
Peter

Compressor 3 will do either 720 or 1080(1920).

Similar Messages

H.264 vs. MPEG-4 Export Advice

I'm using iMovie09, trying to get the best quality and lowest file size.
I keep getting conflicting advice so I've been runner a couple of tests.
Here are 2 test examples:
5:47 min movie
H.264 (high quality/2400kbps)= 104 MB; 52 min. to export
MPEG4 (best quality/2400kbps)= 102 MB; 10 min. to export
I couldn't tell the difference in the final movie quality.
Why should I go with H.264 if it takes so long...?
4 min movie (both were set at best quality w/ no data rate restriction)
H.264= 21min. at 57mb awesome quality
MP4= 7min. at 67mb very good quality
I guess the longer the movie, the more I like MPEG4.
See how I'm confused...
Any advice would be greatly appreciated?

The text book answer is you get better quality video with smaller file sizes using .264 over standard MPEG-4. The reality is YMMV depending on content, settings, and other factors as you've seen. In my own tests .264 does look better. Sometimes noticeably better, others not nearly as much. Sometimes the file size is much smaller, sometimes not so much. It depends greatly on the content and how many pixels can be tossed by the compression technology.
It's a trade off, as you've seen, as .264 requires a lot of horsepower to do what it does. I'd suggest, since you've been happy with the results of your MPEG-4 exports, that you save yourself the time and go that route.

From H.264 or blueray mpeg to blue ray disc... how?

hi guys Im thinking of buying an LG GGW-H20L blueray burner. Does anyone have any experience of exporting in CS3 to a H.264 (1440x1080 25fps) or a same res blueray mpeg and then burning to a PS3 or BlueRay Player compatible disc? I'm after getting some sort of idea of how this is done before I purchase the drive.
Also does anyone know if it is possible to simply export a 1920x1080 mpeg2 in premiere and burn that instead? is there much quality difference between this and the lower res H.264 or blueray mpeg? Or is it a case of only the latter is compatible?
Many thanks in advance.
David

cheers guys :)

H.264 vs. MPEG-4

I've heard many things about both formats, but what are the distinct advantages and disadvantages of both formats? And in the end, which format would be best on my movies on my iPod? I have probably over 55GB of free space with all my music, photos, and other movies on it right now, so video quality is not an issue with me.

A little more background:
Apple added H.264 video playback to their 5th Generation iPod on October 12, 2005. The new product will use this format, as well as MPEG-4 Part 2, for video playback. The video-enabled iPod will use the H.264 Baseline Profile with support of bit rates up to 768 kbit/s, image resolutions up to 320 x 240, and frame rates up to 30 frames per second.
The intent of H.264/AVC project has been to create a standard that would be capable of providing good video quality at bit rates that are substantially lower (e.g., half or less) than what previous standards would need (e.g., relative to MPEG-2, H.263, or MPEG-4 Part 2), and to do so without so much of an increase in complexity as to make the design impractical (excessively expensive) to implement.

Why use H.264 over straight MPEG 4 for video ipod?

I'm beginning to rip DVD's to play on my video ipod, as well as exporting
videos I've created in Final Cut Pro to play on the Ipod.
In short, can anyone provide a sort explanation as to why you'd pick
H.264 rather than straight mpeg 4 as the output format, if the only goal
is to play on the Video Ipod?
Is there an advantage of one over the other in either quality, creation time or file size?
Any input would be appreciated. Thanks.

In short, can anyone provide a sort explanation as to why you'd pick
H.264
Higher quality in a smaller file.

H.264 vs. MPEG-4 video, which is better quality?

Which is better quality? H.264 or MPEG-4? Is one more compressed than the other? I'm putting video on my iPod and also may want to output to television from the iPod, so I'd also like to know which is better for that as well in addition to which is better in general.

H.264 is significantly more compressed than typical MPEG-4. MPEG-4 naturally would be better quality to the discerning eye, and is not as dependent on the speed of your processor and the strength of your GPU as H.264 is. I managed to get a 320 x 240 video of H.264 compressed to be 200 Megabytes for a 2.5 hour video. On a G5 iMac 1.8 Ghz the playback was fine. Trying the same video on a slower Mac there was significant amount of stuttering of the video itself. Experiment with some one minute shorts and measure the file size and see which has better quality on what you are playing it back on. If you can tell the difference, then go with the higher quality format. Certainly keep a higher quality format burnt to DVD in case you need to recreate from the original.

Unwatchtable results when converting to H.264 (MPEG Streamclip 1.8)

I converted several movies to H.264 a year ago using an older version of MPEG Streamclip, using the exact same settings (H.264, 720x576, 25 fps, 2400 kbps). These movies play fine on the atv. Movies that I recently converted, using MPEG Streamclip 1.8 and newer versions of QT (whatever the current version is) no longer play correctly on the atv. These newer conversions flicker green and really have no dicernable picture. The atv attempts to play the content (no error message), but the displayed picture is just a torn up mess. These newer conversions play fine on the Mac
(in iTunes or QT Player). Does anyone know what's wrong or how to work around this problem?
Thanks.
Jens Petersohn
PowerMac G4 1.25 DP, AlBk 15 1 GHz, Mac Mini 1.25 GHz Mac OS X (10.4.4)

Codec: H.264
Size: 720x576
Bitrate: 300 KBps
Quality: 100%
I stored this settings about 2 years ago as a preset.These settings do lot look right. If saved 2 years ago with a data rate of 300 Kbps, this should have been an iPod preset (likely for a 320 x 240) or possibly quarter PAL display dimensions "Baseline" profile. (I.e., roughly half the recommended iPod setting but a setting likely good for web use.) Baseline, files, despited their low data rate, would have been iPod compatible then and TV compatible now.
As I said before, the resulting movies all work fine on the atv except the very latest.Actually, in your original post, the settings you gave look more like they are for a PAL "Main" profile if you are using 720 x 576 dimensions and a data rate of 2400 Kbps. The problem is if your are using the "Baseline Low Complexity" profile, then this file will likely be trapped by iTunes as not be within acceptable "LC" profile specifications and I would assume not sync with either iPod or TV devices. On the other hand, if you are using the "Main" profile, then the file should be TV compatible but not iPod compatible.
I believe, unlike Handbrake, MPEG Streamclip uses Apple's H.264 Codec.The MPEG Streamclip default is H.264, but MPEG-4 is also available if you select it. However, even the MPEG-4 codec was originally limited to 900 macro-16 blocks back then -- usually assigned as a 480 x 480 display encode matrix. This was increased to 1200 macro-16 blocks when the "Low Complexity" H.264 format was introduced for MPEG-4 640 x 480 compatibility. However, even now, according to Apple, the MPEG-4 "Simple" profile is limited to 1215 macro-16 blocks or a 720 x 432 display encode matrix -- not 720 x 576.
I'm going to attempt to compress something with the Quicktime Pro tool as a comparision.Suggest you run your tests using H.264 "Main" profile at originally posted settings, switch to "LC" compatible H.264 dimensions/data rates, or use MPEG-4 at stated data rate but using compatible dimensions (e.g., 16:9 aspect ratio 720 x 400 display which is equivalent to a compatible 1125 macro-16 blocks).

MPEG 4 and H.264

Someone tell me what is better quality MPEG4 or H.264.

From the Wikipedia entry on MEPG-4
+"MPEG-4 is a patented collection of methods defining compression of audio and visual (AV) digital data. It was introduced in late 1998 and designated a standard for a group of audio and video coding formats and related technology agreed upon by the ISO/IEC Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) under the formal standard ISO/IEC 14496."+
... and the entry on H.264
+"MPEG-4 is a patented suite of standards which has many "parts", where each part standardizes various entities related to multimedia, such as audio, video, and file formats. To learn more about various parts and what they mean, please see the entry for MPEG-4.+
+H.264 is a standard for video compression, and is equivalent to MPEG-4 Part 10, or MPEG-4 AVC (for Advanced Video Coding). The final drafting work on the first version of the standard was completed in May 2003.+
+H.264 is the latest block-oriented motion-compensation-based codec standard developed by the ITU-T Video Coding Experts Group (VCEG) together with the ISO/IEC Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG), and it was the product of a partnership effort known as the Joint Video Team (JVT). The ITU-T H.264 standard and the ISO/IEC MPEG-4 Part 10 standard (formally, ISO/IEC 14496-10) are jointly maintained so that they have identical technical content."+
The essence is that MPEG-4 allows for a wide variety of uses and implementations, leading to a wide variety of compression levels, whereas H.264, being a subset, is more tightly defined for specific uses.
AVCHD is also an implementation of MPEG-4, and you'll find most often that AVCHD files are smaller than either H.264 or 'standard' MPEG-4.
Hope that does more than just confuse things further

Anyone gotten a self encoded H.264 video to work yet?

I'd like to know if anyone out there has been able to successfully play a video encoded with H.264 that you encoded yourself (not from the music store)
I've only been able to get MPEG4 videos to work, even when I set the encoding options identical to the video output stats provided on the iPod page.

The codec is supported but it is a very odd aspect ratio and it is a very odd framerate.
The aspect ratio should be OK although it will need to be letterboxed in iMovie.
The frame rate is 6.1 frames per second. iMovie projects are usually 30 frames per second, but can be 24 frames per second at the slowest, so I don't know how it would react to something that is 6 frames per second. You rarely see something this slow unless it is from a security camera.
Also the audio is 16000 Hz. iMovie expects audio to by recorded at 48,000 Hz. The audio may work, but it will likely get out of synch with the video.
I would suggest that you get a free app called MPEG Streamclip. Here is a link.
http://www.squared5.com/svideo/mpeg-streamclip-mac.html
Drag your h.264 file into MPEG Streamclip.
In MPEG Streamclip, see if it will play by pressing the Play button (or by tapping the space bar).
If it does, use FILE/EXPORT TO QUICKTIME.
Choose Apple Intermediate Codec for compression. For Sound choose Uncompressed 48 kHz.
For Frame size choose OTHER and type in 1440x900.
For Frame Rate, try 24, and check the box that says Frame Blending. (You may want to uncheck frame blending and try that as well.)
Uncheck the box that says Interlaced Scaling. If the final result looks bad, come back and try Interlaced Scaling / Upper Field First.
Click Make Movie and save it in a place you can find it.
Then open iMovie and use FILE/IMPORT MOVIE to import the new movie you just made.
At least that is what I would try.

H.264 and Quicktime

hello everyone,
i'm currently under the process of converting all my videos from home movies to dvds, movies, through with h.264. I have recently found out through the Mpeg industry forum head Gary Sullivan that the "main" profile was a profile that was implemented on a semi-temporary basis until they came up with the "high" profile. now as many of you know, the high profile doesn't exist in QTPro or FCP. I also found out that at the same bitrates "high" has better algorithms than "main" and "main" better than "baseline" so perceived visual quality is better at the same bitrate. Obviously it would be advantageous if I could encode all my videos using the "high" profile. So on to my questions:
1. What is the best/most widespread application to convert your videos to the "high" profile for h.264?
2. If I have videos encoded in the high profile, will QT natively support them and play them back or not?
3. Is it worth going with "high" over "main"?
4. What is the difference when encoding in h.264 to using a .mp4 container or a .mov container?
Thanks everyone.
Nick

The "best" application for mass conversion of video would be either Apple's Compressor 3 or Telestream's Episode Pro since both have high quality codecs and feature batch encoding. There may be a problem with cost however since Compressor is only available as part of Final Cut Studio ($1300) and Episode Pro is $895. I use both (I'm in post-production) and they're pretty equal. The econo way to go is QT Pro.
None of what you had about Gary Sullivan, et al. made much sense to me although I've been working with H.264 since early 2005. What I can tell you is this:
Unless your library of movies, etc. are of spectacular quality, you needn't be concerned with "high" quality issues. H.264 has been touted as "half the filesize of MPEG or twice the quality" and I see that as true. In my experience that "medium quality" H.264 is quite presentable. It will usually compare favorably with 25Mbps DV-NTSC at a bitrate of less than 2Mbps.
H.264 is technically MPEG-4, layer 10. It is also called AVC (Advanced Video Codec) and AVC/HD. Which wrapper QT chooses to isn't important. In the mid-term future, you will see H.264 infiltrate pretty much all forms of video from 3G to 4K. The one place you won't find it is in conventional video DVD. You can write H.264 to DVD-ROM as data, but if you intend to produce conventional Video DVDs of your library, you'll be encoding as MPEG-2 or MPEG-1 since those are the only allowable formats by DVD standards.
Good luck.

After Effects Won't Render Using H.264

OK, I am trying to use H.264 codec but I keep getting an error and I can't figure out why. I select (Composition > Add to Render Que), then I select "Output Module > Custom and select "Lossless" and select H.264 and then get the message below:
"After Effects: For reliable output with H.264 compression, please choose it directly from the Output Module Format menu instead of via QuickTime. (44 :: 81)"
So I then did as it said and selected the drop down arrow beside Output Module and then selected "Custom" and then selected H.264. and then I get the same message:
"After Effects: For reliable output with H.264 compression, please choose it directly from the Output Module Format menu instead of via QuickTime. (44 :: 81)"
An idea what's going on? Why does it give me this message when I am doing it the way it is telling me? How can I render using H.264?
Thanks

Are you using the trial version of After Effects?
from "Supported output formats":
"The free trial version of Adobe After Effects software does not include some features that depend upon software licensed from parties other than Adobe. For example, mocha for After Effects, some effect plug-ins, and some codecs for encoding MPEG formats are available only with the full version of Adobe After Effects software."
H.264 is an MPEG format (MPEG-4, part 10).

Using Compressor to Deinterlace and compress to H.264?

I'm a video novice, and a bit puzzled as to why Compressor was included with Logic Studio.
Anyway, I'm just in the process of copying some video from my Sky+ box (a satellite PVR, closed system) which I've bought the Canopus ADVC55 for (via a 0.5 metre QED Qunex SVS cable). It converts S-video to DV.
I've tried using Quicktime Pro and MPEG streamclip to deinterlace and compress to H.264, but the results from Quicktime were terrible (blurry - my wife described it as looking like a VHS recording), and while MPEG streamclip was better it's clearly inferior to the source.
Since I discovered that Compressor (3.0.3) came with Logic Studio and I have it on my hard drive, I thought I might as well give that a try. Unfortunately I cannot (even with reading the manual) work out how it works, even so far as being unable to get the Frame Controls menu to appear!
Any tips for a beginner would be very welcome!
PS. While it seems a little unnecessary for my purposes - would it be worth getting Final Cut Express? I really just want to trim the video (perhaps cut out adverts) and export for the Apple TV in H.264 and deinterlace.

MPEG Streamclip is only an interface. It uses QuickTime and whatever QT plug-ins as its engine. It gives you the demux option for MPEG-2 files, which is its intent, but it is still QuickTime.
Compressor has a much more complex and capable compression algorithms. Unfortunately, compression is mathematical operation and requires a bit of knowing the process. You don't need to know a lot of math, but it would behoove you read a bit about video compression. The 30 or 40 pages of the DVD Studio Pro manual is a great start if you can download it as a PDF.

H.264 Containers

Hello,
I was wandering if anyone knew of any advantages/disadvantages of encoding in H.264 with a .mov extension vs. a .mp4 extension? Thanks.
Nick

Actually, h.264 encoded .mp4s exported by QuickTime Pro do not support chapter markers at all. (I mean QuickTime Pro because even though Compressor can create .mp4 files, those cannot make use of h.264 encoding, only MPEG-4 encoding).
Personally, I always use .mov files, unless I'm exporting specifically for the iTunes universe (iPod/iPhone/tv). I can't speak necessarily to QT having greater compatibility, but with so many folks having iPods (and iTunes requires a QT install), .movs usually aren't an issue like they once were in the Windows universe.
And yes, all other things being equal - frame size and rate, data rate, etc. - .mov and .mp4 files encoded with h.264 should look the same.
Message was edited by hanumang because somehow, someway I had the strikethrough effect going! LOL!

Exporting MPEG at 454 x307

Hi
My client has asked for an MPEG data file (for computer and web use) to be 454 x 307 pixels.
What is the best way to export this from FCP to get these dimensions? What sort of MPEG file should I use also and what settings (for PAL) for a video that has a lot of motion to give a descent quality picture?
I have Compressor 2 and FCP 5. I'm not sure if it's best to export it using compressor or QT conversion.

MPEG-1 is the oldest and therefore most widely available standard.
It should play on almost any system without the need to install additional software. With a decent datarate it produces good results.
MPEG-4 plays fine on OSX out of the box but I'm not sure about Windows.
It may be necessary to install an MPEG-4 capable codec/media player like QuickTime, which is free, though.
You should avoid MPEG-2 as this usually reuqires an additional playback component with cost.
-> Adam Scofield:
MPEG framesize needs to be dividable by 2. It just compresses best when height/width are dividable by 16 (this originates from the macro block size).
So the frame size of 454 x 306 would be o.k.
Compressor should be able to compress into all formats.
A simple formula for the data rate with MPEG-4 would be:
Width x Height x Framerate x Q-Factor / 1024
Good starting points for the Q-Factor:
MPEG-4: 0.23
MPEG-4 AVC (H.264): 0.15
MPEG-1 compresses much less efficient so the datarate needs to be much higher.
You should do some testing with different datarates (just set an in- and outpoint in Compressor to only compress a few seconds of your footage).
Also keep in mind that MPEG-1 only allows for progressive frames so if your footage originates from interlaced sources it needs to be deinterlaced first.
Which probably would be a good idea anyway if you need to display the movie on a computer as computer displays doesn't show interlaced material correctly.
Long post, hope it helps
Best regards
Oliver

Problems Importing H.264 video -- are converters the answer?

Hi all,
I just picked up an HTC One S smartphone which is running Ice Cream Sandwich. The video is great. I already have clips accumulated and I wanted to edit them into a short film on imovie, but I'm unable to import the files for some reason. Both iMovie and FCP won't let me open any of the H.264/MPEG-4 files the One S records in. I can, however, play the files on my editing machine, which is a 3-year-old iMac running 10.5.8 with a 2.66 Duo and 4 GB of RAM.
I'm sort of new to mac editing software, but I'm now wondering if constantly finding new converting software is the norm, just a fact of life that I have to deal with as a new editor.
Any help would be much appreciated. Happy hunting!
EZ

Most h.264 should work.
Have you tried FILE/IMPORT MOVIE and then navigate to the h.264 file?
If that does not work, but the h.264 will play in QuickTIme PLayer, then you can get MPEG Streamclip from Squared 5 (which is free). Drag the h.264 file into MPEG Streamclip. Then FILE/EXPORT TO QUICKTIME. Choose Apple Intermediate Codec for Compressions. You can use this file in iMovie by clicking FILE/IMPORT MOVIE.

HD H.264 or HD Mpeg 2

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