That settles it: Mpeg4 VS H.264 experiment

I hope this helps people with their videos on ipods:
480 resolution mpeg4 at 2500kbps
VS
320 resolution h.264 at 768kbps
The mpeg4 video is more than twice the file size, and at least HALF the quality of the H.264 file despite being larger resolution. When the quicktime images are scaled up on the screen and played side by side at equal sizes (about 640 width each) it is cleary obvious that the mpeg4 file, despite it's much larger file size is of far poorer quality than the H264 file.
Conclusion: use h264 for your ipod videos, it's lower in file size and superior in quality even though it has a lower bitrate and resolution, it will translate better both on your ipod and to television.

Hmm, well that is strange. I mean H264 is supposed to be 4X better than DVD anyway. It does look pixelated and bad if you play within itunes either that little window or in a seperate screen but if you play the videos within quicktime they are crystal clear that that bitrate as good as DVD (relevant to their smaller resolution or 320). 520resolution won't play in an ipod incidentally. When you view the h264 vids in quicktime, on the ipod, or from the ipod to TV they look great I had heaps of big and very distracting artifacs with mpeg4 at 2500kbps. The reason I post this again if I sound like I'm repeating myself is that I wondering what we are doing different to get these different results. Maybe I did something wrong with mpeg 4.What should the keyframe be in mpeg4 within quicktime- that seems to be automatic in handbrake. Maybe I should encode directly from handbrake. I did encode the mpeg4 from a h264 file (ie I made two smaller files from one big one - the first was 720 resolution and then make one 480 res mpeg4 and one 320 res h264 from that the mpeg was 2500 kbps and the h264 was 768. Maybe I should re do it from the original source material.

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