XVID versus H.264

I am using Handbrake to rip all of my DVDs to play through Front Row. Which format is best?

Depends, of course, on the quality you want and the disk space you have available.
I'm almost done going through this process with all of the X Files DVDs. I'm doing everything with H.264 (better quality at the same bitrate, but takes ages to encode).
For the 4:3 stuff, I'm giving it 1300 kbps for video (+ 128 kbps for audio), and reducing the resolution to 512 width. For the 16:9 seasons, I'm using 1315 kbps and 592 width.
Use two pass encoding. Takes twice as long, but if you're planning to keep these vids, it's worth it.
While I'm giving the full specs, I've also found that I have to deinterlace all the X Files, otherwise I get terrible blurring. This could be an NTSC/PAL issue (I'm in Australia, and while the DVDs are PAL, the show would presumably have been shot in NTSC).
My Solo Mini, when doing nothing much except ripping, takes 3 - 4 hours for each 44 (+/- 2) minute episode (two passes). (This is a perceptive measurement; the actual frame rate it indicates averages to about 11 or 12 fps.). I also found it interesting the a 1.5 GHz Solo does so much better than my 2 GHz G5 iMac -- it only gives me about 6-7 fps with the same specs. And don't get me started on the 400 MHz G4 Power Mac (I just wanted to see how it goes, and hey, since it's only a print and file server, you might as well give it a DVD to work on and come back a week later).

Similar Messages

Convert massive video library from Xvid to H.264?

Hey guys, I have built up a fairly large video collection of movies and tv shows (~300) over the years, and they are all encoded in xvid. What I would like to do is convert them to h.264. It would be VERY tedious to go through and convert them all manually. I have searched everywhere I can think of for a solution, but haven't found one. If any of you guys have a solution, that would be great. Thanks in advance.

skottish wrote:There's a VDPAU driver specifically for DivX/Xvid in Mplayer called ffodivxvdpau now. You'll need a newer Mplayer revision than the one in the repos to use it.
Yeah, but you need a specific graphic card. As I said, they are listed under "Feature Set C" in Nvidia's VDPAU documentation. Other graphic cards cannot handle Xvid. But every CPU since like forever can, so unless one is just shopping for a new graphic card, I don't see any big need for hardware decoding of Xvid.

AppleTV 2G apparently can't play a MPEG-4 file, even though iTunes can

After spending a couple of hours late at night struggling with this, I just wanted to share the fruits of my labors!
So, when trying to airplay some videos from iTunes to my AppleTV, I kept receiving the error message: "An error occurred loading this content. Try again Later." I tried so many things recommended on this board -- upgrading firmware, changing audio settings, changing HDMI settings and finally, resetting to factory defaults. Nothing helped.
Finally, I noticed that many of my videos did play. The difference between those that did and those that didn't? The ones that worked used the H.264 video codec. The ones that didn't indicated that they are MPEG-4's. Not sure why this is relevant, but there it is.
I should add that my iTunes library is on my NAS -- a Western Digital MyBook World II drive. Can't see why this would affect MPEG-4 versus H.264, but there it is.
By the way, I import all my videos into iPhoto and then have to move them all to iTunes -- an extra step and lots of copying time. Is there a better way to store videos and have them playable via iTunes and AppleTV?

You need to find the specs of the MPEG-4 videos to work out why.
AppleTV 2 has limited format support as detailed here:
H.264 video up to 720p, 30 frames per second, Main Profile level 3.1 with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps per channel, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats
MPEG-4 video up to 2.5 Mbps, 640 by 480 pixels, 30 frames per second, Simple Profile with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats
Motion JPEG (M-JPEG) up to 35 Mbps, 1280 by 720 pixels, 30 frames per second, audio in ulaw, PCM stereo audio in .avi file format
I would guess the MPEG-4 videos are higher resolution or worng profile.
http://www.apple.com/appletv/specs.html
AC

Video wont play

copy movie from laptop thru memory card and it wont play .in my N8 mobile.

Hi eduardoapalla
Thank you for your 1st post and welcome to the forums.
What file format are you trying to play? Please be sure that the video file is the correct format and is compatible with the N8 playback (DivX/XviD/MP4/H.264/H.263/WMV player)
Your memory card must also be FAT32 format if it is not already.
Press the 'Accept As Solution' icon if I have solved your problem, Kudos my post if my advice has helped you!

Export Media- matching frame sizes to codec formats

The short version of this would be "what are the most common settings for compressed video at 720p"?
Reading the suggested settings for youtube and other sites simply leads me to more questions, as the presets from premier that get close to matching these recommendations all seem to have odd framerates and frame sizes...
The long:
Producers that have me scoring audio to some short bumper intro clips have had me download the quicktimes from vimeo. Revealing the Inspector in quictime, i see the specs on the video files ("Photo- Jpeg" compression format, in what I've been told is 'true 720p resolution' (1280x720), at 59.94 fps). Yet cant seem to find similar export settings as presets in Premiere. I am aware of the very useful function of being able to match master project settings from within the Media, but other people who recieve the preview clips note 'why are these in Photo- Jpeg'?
When I use premier presets that contain 720p res, they are often an odd frame size, which again renders questions from the recipient (why is this 720p at 24drop?) etc. So wondering why the difference between what I recieve and what's available from the same video format preset.
For instance When choosing "Photo- Jpeg" as a preset, the res is indeed 720p, yet the frame is nowhere near 1280x720 (not in front of my rig right now but its something like 900x720). In fact quicktime presets come up with these odd frame sizes as well. The presets Im able to locate so far that hold full-frame HD output settings are branded DV and HDV camera options...meanwhile '720p NTSC' is also in odd frame sizes under presets, not sure what to make of that...maybe I was mistaken in thinking 720p NTSC runs at 59.94?
I understand that Youtube, Vimeo and other sites we may be using have their 'recommended settings' faq pages. However my main concern is whether these are also typical settings for compressed quicktimes that producers may want delivered offline as well? Is there a 'standard' at all?
Read alot of FAQs over the past couple days, but these mainly discuss the options available and how to get to them, not finding alot of info regarding
"when to use export settings and why".so I come to you for your expertise...
Thanks for your patience and your insight folks!

> Is there a 'standard' at all?
No.
Sorry, but that's the simple answer.
Regarding Photo-JPEG versus H.264:
Photo-JPEG codec in a QuickTime container is rather common for such purposes as stock footage---when the quality really matters, but file size (for bandwidth purposes) has to be considered, too.
H.264 is much more effective at compressing a file, but usually at the expense of some image quality. YouTube---to put it bluntly---doesn't care about the quality of movies the way that a stock footage website does, so YouTube prefers H.264. If you upload a video in a nice, high-quality, perfect file, YouTube will recompress it behind the scenes for playback---so you might as well give it what it wants in the first place so that you at least have some control over how your image is destroyed... er... compressed.
There's some more general information about output formats and codecs in this movie that I made:
"FAQ: What's the best export format or codec?"

How to get HD quality files

I have a HD Camera Sony HDR CX115E. I save the movies on an external harddisc in format AVCHD (MTS-files). I can import these into Premiere Elements, but I want to create files to save on the harddisc and then watch them via a Mediaplayer on my full HD TV. My mediaplayer or TV do not support AVCHDformat so I have to save my files in another format. Do anyone know how to do? Of course I want to have the full HD-quality even after.

Thank you.
I don't mean Windows Media Player. I have got an external mediaplayer - Western Digital TV Live HD Media Player. And that mediaplayer do not support AVCHD-files so I have to convert hem or.....
The mediaplayer supports following videoformats:
VMV9, AVI (MPEG1/2/4, Xvid, AVC), H.264, MKV (h.264, x264, AVC, MPEG1/2/4, VC-1), MOV (MPEG4, H.264), MT2S, TP, TS, MOV/MP4 (MPEG4, h,264), DVR-MS, VOBN (unprotected or unencrypted

Opinions for USB media player

What is the opinion of the following;
Export to a USB drive and view on a TV with a Western Digital Media Playerhttp://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.asp?driveid=572?
You have created a solid state movie on a very inexpensive rewritable media that can be played back via an inexpensive player. I have no experience with this but at first glance it seems like a good idea.
If this is possible with CS4 what would the workflow be?
Curious
Kent

This is what is listed under the "Specifications" tab.
File Formats Supported
Music - MP3, WMA, OGG, WAV/PCM/LPCM, AAC, FLAC, Dolby Digital, AIF/AIFF, MKA
Photo - JPEG, GIF, TIF/TIFF, BMP, PNG
Video -MPEG1/2/4, WMV9, AVI (MPEG4, Xvid, AVC), H.264, MKV, MOV (MPEG4, H.264),
MTS, TP, TS
Playlist - PLS, M3U, WPL
Subtitle -SRT (UTF-8), SMI, SUB, ***, SSA
Note:
- MPEG2/4, H.264, and WMV9 supports up to 1920x1080p 24fps, 1920x1080i 30fps, 1280x720p 60fps resolution
- An audio receiver is required for surround sound output. AAC/Dolby Digital decodes in 2 channel output only
- JPEG does not support CMYK or loss less.
- BMP supports uncompressed format only.
- TIF/TIFF supports single layer only.
Looks like it handles quite a few formats that can be exported from AME CS4. No experience with it, but it looks interesting.

Saving HD video for Computer use and possible later burn?

I have a Canon HF-10 shooting AVCHD. I would like to edit and save projects at the highest possible quality to view on my 1080p TV. However, I would like to store the files on my computer where I have a backed up HD. I'd also like to be able to watch the files on the computer if I want (at HD quality). Are there export settings that can act as an "all-in-one" while maintaining a very high quality?
For TV playback I'm thinking of using something like a Western Digital HD Media Player which can play files off a HD (specs say they support: Video -MPEG1/2/4, WMV9, AVI (MPEG4, Xvid, AVC), H.264, MKV, MOV (MPEG4, H.264), MTS, TP, TS)

Windows Media Player may have issues with the file extension... you can try to play them if it says it does not recognise the extension say play anyway.
Otherwise download the freeware Media Player Classic:
http://mpc-hc.sourceforge.net/

Roxio Toast or Popcorn? differences?

i will have to burn DIVX, mp4, acv1, DX50, XVID and h.264 (AVI, WMV, MOV, MP4 files). i want to make them as DVD-Video to play them on dvd player. i know Roxios Toast and Popcorn will do that. i dont know if the cheaper Popcorn could do the job or would be Toast better? i only want to include a background picture in the mainmenu and split the movie into chapters. of course the quality should be as the original without loss. i dont record any DV stuff, only highly compressed videofiles. (mostly one hour movie is only about up to 1GB big.)
what can Toast do what Popcorn wont? when is Toast the better solution instead of Popcorn?
little sidenote about why i cant use iDVD: i just burned another XVID with "Burn", a freeware dvd creation tool. and that works fine as well. iDVD really has its problems with XVIDs. i read that "if you can play it with QT, than you can import it into iDVD"...thats right BUT how about the final results? well, maybe theres an add-on that makes XVID 100% compatible with iDVD?

if i want to watch my AVIs/DivX/Xvid/MP4s on a dvd player, isnt it better to just burn them to a DivX-DVD instead of encoding them into a DVD-Video? because my DVD-Player is DivX certified and should be able to play them (never tried that before). and Toast (or whatever tool i will use) doesnt has to convert anything. it just burns them to a DVD and the dvd player can play it. of course i dont have chapters and menus then.
are h.264, Xvid, AVI, MP4, AVC all DivX compatible codecs? because the videos i am talking about have all these different codecs. btw: these videos are gaming sessions (from different games) that i dowloaded from the internet. thats why they are already compressed and i think it wont make sense to convert them onto a mpeg2 dvd format.
what do you think?

Videos quality problem (N510 - nvidia ion)

Hi,
I'm running arch on my samsung N510, with its nvidia ion (Geforce 9400M). I've some video quality problems. When images changes go quickly, stripes appear at the top. I made a capture (http://yfrog.com/7acapturewep) that shows the problem, it shows the stripes on the whole image It is not to be considered as my actual problem : during playback I see stripes only at the top of image.
I use the nvidia driver, tried with and without vdpau, and with different video players (mplayer, vlc...), with the same problem.
The videos are xvid, or h.264, HD or not.
Any idea ?

your problem is called tearing and it's a well known issue:
http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tearing
the nvidia drivers provide a seperate video output for media players that should prevent this, try:
xvinfo | grep Blitter
i have no tearing with composite enabled on my 6600GT
note that you do have to use the proper vide driver in mplayer. If you use smplayer, it's under options -> video. The nvidia anti-blitter output driver should be listed.
Last edited by stefanwilkens (2009-12-08 12:08:09)

Improve encoding speed for WMV output?

Hi,
Firstly, apologies if I am posting this in the incorrect area of the forums. I'm not entirely sure it's a hardware issue, I think it might be codec related.
I am trying to find a way to reduce encoding times for a (on average) 4 minute clip using Premiere/AME CS5
My input format is either XDCAM HD or IMX50, my output formate is always wmv, 720x 576 (PAL) interlaced, currently single pass encoding (because of the time taken) using the Windows Media Encoder (wmvencod.dll).
There are no effects, nor transistions in my sequence. 2 tracks of video - 1 actual video, the second a logo overlay. 1 stereo pair for the audio.
Hardware is a single Intel Xeon, quad core 2.5Ghz processor, currently with 10Gb memory. I have tried doubling up on the processors and also increasing the memory up to 16Gb but the improvements are marginal. Switching hyperthreading off also provides a marginal improvement in encoding time.
I am running this on a server class 1u box. Currently it only has the standard vga server graphics card in it. I have mixed feelings about installing a graphics card as I have read conflicting information about whether it will provide an improvement in my encoding time.
I don't think MPE is relevant, given that I'm not doing any effects processing.Will the CUDA architecture provide a significant improvement?
I can only find 2 graphics cards that I think will fit in the box and these are the Quadro 4000 and Quadro FX 3800 that retail at around £650 - £800 + so it's a significant punt if they aren't going to provide an improvement.
In essence, I have a template (well a couple of) project that I add the source file to each time that gets dropped into AME for encoding. For HD source encoding takes about 4 times real time. For SD it's about real time.
If I chose a different output format, with the same input format eg h264 or DV (avi) then the encoding time is reduced to roughly 1/3rd of what I am experiencing at the moment. That gives me the impression that the wmv encoder is the bottle neck
Are there alternatives to using the standard Microsoft WMV encoder? If so, how do I go about getting AME to use them, given that prior to installing Media Player I didn't even have wmv as an export option.
Any thoughts on this would be appreciated.

I couldn't tell you whether or not it uses the same dlls as the Microsoft program... that's getting deeper under the hood than I usually go! :-) If it is, then you're correct in that going to an intermediate and using WME isn't going to speed up your process.
For more info on hardware, go to www.ppbm5.com and look at the test results page... see what folks were using who got the higher results. IIRC, your specific processor (even in its dual form) is a rather poor performer with this kind of stuff, and the Core i7 line is much better.
Out of my own curiosity, I'm running a test on my system to see if I can reproduce the similarly long encode times with WMV versus h.264. I've got a 4:23 AVCHD clip which I'm rendering first using h.264 MainConcept to PAL DV Widescreen HQ (the only reason I'm using PAL here isbecause that's what you're using, and I wondered if it would go differently than NTSC... I've never used PAL before). The full encoding time for that in h.264 was about 1:45, so a little better than double real time. The same clip, rendered with WMV using PAL Widescreen source to HQ Download is taking about 3:15, so pretty much double the h.264 clip's time, but still better than realtime, and nowhere near the results you're getting.
I don't remember what you said your HD setup was like, but make sure you've got multiple hard drives, preferably a RAID for your data disk. I learned that having a good disk configuration can really make a lot of difference, all other things being equal!

H.264 to xvid?

Hello everyone.
I'm a bit of a media noob. I recently downloaded some TV episodes of a show that are in the .mkv container, compressed with h.264 for the video and AAC for the audio.
That's cool, they play fine with VLC and look great. The problem is that I still use an original xbox with xbmc to watch things on my TV. Apparently the h.264 compression is a bit much for that machine. The videos will play, but really slow. I don't hear much for the audio either, but it might because of the slowdown.
My question: is there a simple way to convert these over to xvid? I don't care about filesize going up, and I don't really care about loss in quality. The .mkv container should be fine, as long it can contain xvid? I dunno.
I started to research it on my own, and I got a lot of people talking about windows programs, and a lot of stuff I don't know a ton about.
Is this process even worth doing? Or should I just find a better source?
Thanks!

cschep wrote:Thanks guys. I guess I was curious because I didn't see how the 2nd pass could use any data from the 1st pass if there was no output file. It must store something somewhere right? Or am I just confused about how video encoding works?
It outputs it's finding to a log file in the current directory which will be used for the second pass. This is the same data that would have been used to do the compression for single pass. The second pass works better because the encoder now knows more about where the most detail is so it can use less compression there, and where the least detail is so it can use more. This technique works best for encoders that don't do the highest quality encoding the first time through. This includes xvid and most mpeg2 encoders. Some encoders like x264 when set up properly won't really gain much if any help from multiple passes.
I should have mentioned this before. For higher quality output when lowering the bit rate, it's best to use the same codecs as before. Conversions from lossy formats to other lossy formats (m4a-->mp3) reduces quality by huge amounts. Reducing the bit rate in the same format is far less destructive.
I also forgot to mention that the greatest place in the Universe to get answers about all of this stuff is:
http://forum.doom9.org/
Last edited by skottish (2008-10-03 18:08:31)

CPU/speed differences between Compressor settings - H.264 versus Mpeg-2

After setting up my 2.26 8-core Mac Pro for distributed processing for Compressor, I was able to get nice speeds using mpeg-2, but the h.264 codec seems to throttle back the speed of the compression.
For mpeg-2, Activity Monitor shows around 55% of the CPU being used for the process overall. For h.264, it shows around 15% CPU use, which is around the amount that would be used without distributed processing. I am using 8 instances in the qmaster setup.
Any ideas? I've tried some other settings and the mpeg ones (mpeg-1, mpeg-4) seem to take advantage of the speed while others (h.264, Uncompressed 8-bit) don't.

This sounds like its I/O bound. Open Activity Monitor, and check data read/sec and data written/sec in the Disk Activity tab. If the number is over like 100MB/sec, that could be whats holding you back, depending on the speed of your disk. If you are using a network volume, check the network tab. 1 instance seems to be good for 2 physical cores when doing H.264. 8 instances should max you out, unless your source is something like Uncompressed 10 bit and the reads are bottlenecking processing. In essence you have 8 instances trying to read data as fast as it can, which means no process reads it fast. So the instances are waiting around for data.

How do I convert an .mp4 h.264 file into a simple Mpeg 2 file...

I've had Quicktime for quitesometime now.
I'been been through many QT versions but version 7 series, I think has problems.
I've been dl'ing .mp4 files, with h.264 codecs.
Quicktime plays them wonderfully but I'd like to put the movies on my media servers and stream them to my network dvd players(thin-clients).
They can stream mpeg 1 and 2 great, as well as Xvid, Divx, and even VOBs'.
I installed Quicktime 7 along time ago, and tried an export to many different data file formats. I would either get no video or no sound. I have just about every codec needed to do any conversion to Divx or Xvid.
I also installed 3ivx.
Can anyone tell me how something so simple can be so difficult? QuickTime, if it plays it, and shows that its capable of exporting to different formats, should be able to do the job.
Beleive me, I know what your thinking. I've going as far as formatting, reinstalling Windows XP Pro, Updating, etc many times just to try to re-encode these .mp4 files into something big, yes, a large RAW file. Something that can be easily converted into anything else such as the basic old Mpg 1 or 2 file...
Please, any help would be apprecaited!
NeuroPsyche

I tried ffmpeg but it just doesn't seem like it does a very good job at converting. I dont know why, but I think its because the .mp4 file has 6.1 sound or that new acc codec.
I'm not sure about it, but when I do use ffmpeg, the sound doens't come out.
Thanks!
Dave.
QuickTime doesn't have the capability to export to
MPEG-1 or MPEG-2, at least not without third-party
codecs (and I'm not aware of any for Windows for
those formats, though there could be some somewhere).
You might want to take a look at the open-source ffmpeg which can
convert H.264 to MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 (as well as a
number of other formats).
Hope this helps.

Off the top of anyone's head, is H.264/MPEG-4 AVC safe for editing?

Hi. My Samsung MX20 camcorder outputs as MP4, and I tried converting it to AVI because I thought that there would be more trimming tools for AVI. I tried probably 3 or more MP4 to AVI converters, and all AVI ouputs never played properly in Elements. I had the following 2 problems happen to me that have been addressed already in the forums:
Premier Elemenets 7 playing clip too fast, audio normal...
http://forums.adobe.com/message/2613385
.AVI video not importing correctly. Imports as audio only.
http://forums.adobe.com/message/2712057
In addition to these 2 things, I got random stuttering with other AVI files.
I couldn't figure out how to trim and export with VirtualDub without blowing up the size, so I gave up on that. I recently found good MP4 cutting software, such as Yamb, so I thought I was good. But after testing it out, the sync was off. I tried other splitting software, but there were problems also with the MP4 that was output.
I’ve decided to not convert, split, or touch the original MP4s.
Here’s my Gspot:
http://i.imgur.com/TdaGn.png
I downloaded the K-lite codec pack and ffdshow, but my windows media player doesn’t play the camcorder files, which I don’t’ mind, because VLC and Quicktime do. The camcorder files play in Elements 7, but I think there’s some choppiness that is due to my slow computer.
I was just wondering if H.264/MPEG-4 AVC is a red flag in the same way that Divx and Xvid are.
I saw a description of a Sanyo Xacti VPC-E camcorder that outputs as AVC/H.264 also, and that product comes bundled with Elements 4. 7 should be compatible right?
Thanks.
I probably shouldn’t post since the original MP4s play, but I’m just wondering if this type (H.264/MPEG-4 AVC) may be problematic later on.

I can't find any evidence in the specs for this camcorder that is shoots in AVCHD video.
From the specs it appears that the camcorder shoots standard-def video. Beyond that, the specs are pretty vague, so I have to take your word for it that it saves video as MP4s.
Unfortunately, if it is not saving to the AVCHD standard, the video is not likely to be compatible with Premiere Elements and you will not be able to edit it without converting it to a more standard format, like DV-AVI. This could well explain why you are experiencing the other challenges you describe.
The FAQs to the right of our forum describe how to convert to DV-AVIs. Super, which is free, may work -- but Quicktime Pro, which costs $29 from Apple.com, definitely will.
http://forums.adobe.com/thread/415317?tstart=0
Also, which project preset did you choose when you opened your Premiere Elements project? That too could be relevant.

XVID versus H.264

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