H.264 in avi

[wyti]

I know you can't use proprely h.264 in an avi container, but i can't understand why we can't do this.

I heard that it's not standard and playback may be borked, but this doesn't explain me WHY we sould not put h264 in AVI.

Can someone tell me the reason ?

Thanks.

[Sharktooth]

coz h.264 needs ugly hacks to be placed into an avi container. the reason is simple, you can do it, but if something happens then you cant blame the softwares authors and dont expect help/support.
also dont spread material made with h.264 in avi (i mean non copyrighted stuff) for the same reasons or ppl will blame the software authors when they have no guilt.

[Dark Shikari]

AVI doesn't support many features of H.264--B-frames is the most obvious, but the complex frame reordering of H.264 makes things much worse. There are hacks to bypass all these limitations, but here's the issue: the only reason I can see to use AVI is for compatibility with older players, but there is no player that doesn't support MKV/MP4 that will properly play H.264 in AVI! Therefore, the point is moot.

[Sharktooth]

i cant understand... what's the problem in using another container like mp4 or mkv?
why avi? it's obsolete, has a lot of overhead and doesnt support new technologies... oh ... and it's more or less bound to VFW... that has the same problems if not worse...

[Revgen]

^ The only reason currently is for ease of editing.

Although AVIDemux has made things easier when it comes to editing h264 without encoding, it still is very inaccurate with the cuts and a little tricky to get to cut on the right frame. VFW and VirtualDub don't have these issues as much. Hopefully, when Neuron2 releases his DGAVCDec code publicly, then Mean and Grunster can perhaps try to implement some of that into AVIDemux to improve the cutting accuracy.

I currently am using H264 regularly with AVIDemux, despite the editing headaches. Others may not be so willing.

[Jay Bee]

Why ask again and again what people want AVI for? It's still the same reason that it was three years ago: vdub is by far the most stable and easy to use video editor. I tried avidemux for a while but there's just no point in using software you can't trust to output working files with the cuts where you put them.

[Dark Shikari]

Why ask again and again what people want AVI for? It's still the same reason that it was three years ago: vdub is by far the most stable and easy to use video editor. I tried avidemux for a while but there's just no point in using software you can't trust to output working files with the cuts where you put them.... despite the fact that Virtualdub doesn't work properl with H.264 in AVI? :p

[Sharktooth]

want frame accurate operations? use dgavcindex thru aviwynrh with avidemux... works perfectly.
once the neuron2 changes will be ported to libavcodec, vbub can be thrown in the trashcan.
try again...

[LoRd_MuldeR]

Neither VirtualDub nor Avidemux support H.264 in a frame-accurate way at the moment :rolleyes:

But there is a great chance it will be implemented in Avidemux, while VirtualDub will always be limited to VfW and AVI...

want frame accurate operations? use dgavcindex thru aviwynrh with avidemux... works perfectly.

DGAVCIndex works great if you want re-encode, but doesn't help if you want to edit your video in "Direct Stream Copy" mode...

[Inventive Software]

Why throw away VirtualDub if AviSynth will have the best frame-accurate AVC source filter? AviSynth passes video as uncompressed keyframes. Supporting that is trivial, whereas properly implementing AVC is a ******* nightmare! :D

[wyti]

but with avisynth you can't use the "direct stream copy" mode you only have the uncompressed frame and you have to reencode them if you want to use them.

[Industrial_One]

I know you can't use proprely h.264 in an avi container, but i can't understand why we can't do this.

I heard that it's not standard and playback may be borked, but this doesn't explain me WHY we sould not put h264 in AVI.

Can someone tell me the reason ?

Thanks.

There is no reason. H.264 works perfectly in AVI. I haven't encountered ONE problem in 2 years with about 100 videos. Some sexless fanboys just love to rant like retards about something they have no clue about. I guess that's their way of compensating for their rejection, by feeling like they "belong" and are "making a difference" by flaming x264vfw users because of all the popular anti-AVI hysteria, which is the only real reason it started: to finally end the outdated AVI container. But IMO, there is no widespread support yet for MP4 or MKV so AVI should be used until there is an ACTUAL alternative for editting MP4/MKV, and by editting I mean editting AFTER encoding, not before. And WITHOUT having to re-encode every time and degrade the quality further. I've yet to see any practical editor that can accomplish this. Until then, AVI remains the most flexible container, and I wouldn't have a problem using MKV more often.

Only thing that sucks is that you can't contain MP4 audio or OGG into MP4/MKV -- well, you can but THIS is where it's realistic to say that AVI is problematic which may or may not corrupt. In my experience, 22 KHz is the safest sampling rate for MP4/OGG in AVI, while others mess up the frame rate and introduce random pauses and even crash at some points. Avoid placing modern audio formats into AVI at all costs.

Oh yeah, and VFR. Not that important feature but useful for e.g. credits.

EDIT: After reading Sharktooth's post, I now see why devs and fanboys alike are so prissy about AVI. They're afraid they'll be shit-slinged if users encounter interoperability problems. I understand now.

[Dark Shikari]

There is no reason. H.264 works perfectly in AVI. I haven't encountered ONE problem in 2 years with about 100 videos. Some sexless fanboys just love to rant like retards about something they have no clue about.Correction: it works perfectly in AVI in the player you use. There are plenty of players where it doesn't work, including all hardware players.

Also, your post is complete nonsense; you advocate H.264 in AVI for editing purposes, despite the fact that most editors don't even support H.264 in AVI to begin with, and certainly not frame-accurately--which is the entire point of using Video for Windows over other methods.

[Industrial_One]

Correction: it works perfectly in AVI in the player you use. There are plenty of players where it doesn't work, including all hardware players.

Practically none of all the 10,000s of mofos who downloaded my releases reported problems. Those that did also had problems playing DivX videos 'cuz they had no codecs installed. List me all software media players that you believe will fail to play AVI-contained H264 video and I'll have a look at 'em. Also, MKV ain't hardware-compliant neither. I guess I should trash that bastard too then, eh?

Also, your post is complete nonsense; you advocate H.264 in AVI for editing purposes, despite the fact that most editors don't even support H.264 in AVI to begin with...

VirtualDub supports it, and I see no reason to use any other editor. If an editor don't support H.264 streams then that's cuz it simply sucks.

...and certainly not frame-accurately--which is the entire point of using Video for Windows over other methods.

And editting MP4 or MKV frame-accurately is even a bigger pain in the ass. Your point?

[Dark Shikari]

VirtualDub supports it, and I see no reason to use any other editor. If an editor don't support H.264 streams then that's cuz it simply sucks.Hint: most editors use software programs from this century to work on their videos, like Final Cut, Premiere, etc.

Also, if you're using H.264 as an intermediate editing format, you're crazy. They have DV/similar for a reason.And editting MP4 or MKV frame-accurately is even a bigger pain in the ass. Your point?This is the kind of attitude that you get when you use nothing but 1990s applications, and then wonder why they don't work with stuff from 10 years later (yet refuse to upgrade to any more recent suite of editing tools).

VirtualDub supports itMight I suggest you try it before making claims that it works just fine? ;)

You're completely free to use H.264 in AVI--and we're completely free to mock you for it.

[Industrial_One]

Hint: most editors use software programs from this century to work on their videos, like Final Cut, Premiere, etc.

Dayum... when everything went digital, you'd expect that shit either works or it doesn't because it's all a series of mathematical operations where you only got your dumb ass to blame if something went wrong. But no, there're still disputes and million-dollar investment scams... in the SOFTWARE business. So, if something works (like AVI-contained H.264 software) then it ain't broken. If it ain't broken, don't fix it. If a player can't play it, THAT player is broken.

Also, if you're using H.264 as an intermediate editing format, you're crazy. They have DV/similar for a reason.This is the kind of attitude that you get when you use nothing but 1990s applications, and then wonder why they don't work with stuff from 10 years later (yet refuse to upgrade to any more recent suite of editing tools).

Trust me pal, I'd gladly switch to another editor now if it... worked. I repeat: no editor can edit MP4/MKV conveniently in Direct-stream copy. If you point out one that can, I'll ditch AVI.

Might I suggest you try it before making claims that it works just fine? ;)

'Dunno what you talkin' about.

[cmw]

Another reason to not use h264 in avi is that it will seriously break playback of streams that are encoded in a manner that they can be DXVA decoded. Now while the videostream per se would work perfectly fine, placing it in an avi container messes up the whole playback. Just don't do it.

[crypto]

MP4 is by far the best choice for H.264 content, no doubt. But H.264 does also works flawlessly in AVI with vdub. I adapted AVC2AVI to handle high profile and large streams. Although I prefer MP4, I am forced to use AVI for reencoding, since DGAVCIndex and all libavcodec based softwares choke on my input streams (high profile, paff).

[crypto]

Another reason to not use h264 in avi is that it will seriously break playback of streams that are encoded in a manner that they can be DXVA decoded. Now while the videostream per se would work perfectly fine, placing it in an avi container messes up the whole playback. Just don't do it.

I don't see that. The container has nothing to do with DXVA. After splitting the elementary stream is identical, no matter which container it was taken from.

[Daiz]

People, people.

If all you want do is cut AVC streams to pieces without re-encoding them, why don't you just use the combination AviSynth + VirtualDub/AvsP/anything to determine where you want to cut things and then just split stuff up with mkvmerge's split function?

I always do this when I want to split H.264 MP4/MKVs.

[Industrial_One]

People, people.

If all you want do is cut AVC streams to pieces without re-encoding them, why don't you just use the combination AviSynth + VirtualDub/AvsP/anything to determine where you want to cut things and then just split stuff up with mkvmerge's split function?

I always do this when I want to split H.264 MP4/MKVs.

Because Avisynth feeds uncompressed frames to VirtualDub and Direct stream copy would create... uncompressed video.

[Dark Shikari]

Because Avisynth feeds uncompressed frames to VirtualDub and Direct stream copy would create... uncompressed video.Read his post again.

[Comatose]

Read his post again. He never said anything about using Avisynth to cut, you only use it as a reference.

Daiz: How can I effectively trim() with mkvmerge? Like I want to cut the OP out of a release. I can cut everything after the OP by using duration cutting, but then I can't get rid of what comes before the OP without splitting the OP itself into a million pieces :E

edit: Read his post again.
lol, oh wow ;_; you beat me to it :x

[Daiz]

Dude, what I meant is that you just use the Virtualdub/etc to get the timecodes where to split the file at, and then using mkvmerge's split function with these timecodes on the original file.

So if you have foo.mp4, you write an .avs like FFMPEGSource("foo.mp4"), open the .avs in VirtualDub, determine places where you want to cut, write the times up in chronological order, open mkvmerge GUI, drop foo.mp4 to it, go to Global, hit Enable splitting after timecodes, paste timecodes there, hit mux. Result: a bunch of mkvs split at the approriate times available for further usage.

EDIT: Looks like I was the slowest in the bunch, heh.

Anyway, Comatose, use timecodes. Just make the first timecode the start of the OP, the second at the end of the OP, (like 00:01:30,00:03:00) and use these timecodes in the way I described.

EDIT2: Here's an example image with some actual timecodes I've used to split a H.264/AAC MP4:
http://img185.imageshack.us/img185/4072/mkvmergesplitexampledj8.png

[Comatose]

Oh. So that's what those timecodes where... I figured they were timecodes in the video timecodes sense (how long each frame lasts) ;-;

Guess I should've moused over it... gah.
:stupid:

[poisondeathray]

Daiz - can you get exact frame accurate cuts with mkvmerge? or are they approximate near keyframes?

[Industrial_One]

Read his post again. He never said anything about using Avisynth to cut, you only use it as a reference.

Unacceptable. Cutting a video in two pieces/joining is one of many common operations, ones less linear such as removing many frames throughout the video that count in the dozens (scuzzy frames with scratches/dust or any kind of error.) Or... what about reproducing parts of a video/another video in the same video? Avidemux can browse video per keyframes which is aight, but having to switch between two applications for complex editting operations that are already time-fuckin-consuming as it is? Are these the cutting-edge tools in existence? Wow.

As I said, there's no widespread support for those containers yet. And if I were you, I'd be glad that people are using H264 at all, AVI or not. It's kickass that algorithms have finally reached the point where video can be encoded intelligently, especially at bitrates that low.

If you can't introduce a user-friendly interface then it's less likely that newbs will start using it. Hell, I wouldn't have started encoding my shit with H264 if I didn't come across VFW first. My encoding team refused to switch to it, which is why I had to be on my own later. When I informed them that it's perfectly compatible with AVI, they were less whiney about accepting changes, but the unwelcome feedback they got from some hardcore anime jackmaster group completely fucked everything up.

Food for thought?

[Daiz]

Daiz - can you get exact frame accurate cuts with mkvmerge? or are they approximate near keyframes?
Well, I have personally never needed to cut things anywhere outside keyframes, but judging from my quick test it seems that if the frame at the timecode isn't a keyframe, it performs the cut at the next keyframe, which seems like a wise decision to me.

[poisondeathray]

Thx for the info Daiz...

Am I missing something here?

I could have sworn I did a bunch of tests a few years ago, and playback was borked once a few B-frames was reached. I just spent an hour trying to replicate those tests now, and it seems to work fine...? I don't know what has changed, everything seems to work now (at least on PC playback) EDIT: Now I'm noticing a bit of lag on some, but it tolerable.

Can you do something with h.264 in .avi with vdub that you can't in avidemux? Serious questions here guys, I have no interest in the "political debate" going on here, just looking for info

What would be the benefit of putting my x.264 streams into .avi with avc2avi and then editing in vdub (assuming I don't use aac audio of course)? or would I be forced to use the x264 vfw version only and doing it all in vdub? Does "smart rendering" work for x264 vfw in vdub?

[foxyshadis]

Industrial_One, struck for over-the-top insults and blatant trolling. Keep your h.264 in avi if you're hellbent on it, even if it works no better in virtualdub than mp4 in avidemux and plays no better without codecs than mp4, after all we all have biases depending on our needs and experience. But keep your civility or you will be banned.

The only free completely frame-accurate stream-copy h.264 editor I know of right now is DGAVCIndex. Note that I do not say avisynth! You can cut streams in DGAVCIndex itself. You must start at a keyframe, which is a general requirement anyway, but you don't have to end at one. Commercial editors that can are Premiere via Mainconcept MPEG Pro HD 3, Cyberlink PowerDirector 7, and UleadVideostudio 11.5 (all have a 'smart rendering' feature that works with h.264, unlike virtualdub's, and import & export mp4 and/or ts). Support in vegas is rumored to come next version, but I'd be happy just for working mp4 support.

[foxyshadis]

Am I missing something here?

I could have sworn I did a bunch of tests a few years ago, and playback was borked once a few B-frames was reached. I just spent an hour trying to replicate those tests now, and it seems to work fine...? I don't know what has changed, everything seems to work now (at least on PC playback) EDIT: Now I'm noticing a bit of lag on some, but it tolerable.
Well, that was then, this is now, decoders have fixed bugs galore over the years. Problems were mostly with b-pyramid many years ago, but that got fixed long ago. You can delay the audio to match the b-frame/pyramid delay, also.

Can you do something with h.264 in .avi with vdub that you can't in avidemux? Serious questions here guys, I have no interest in the "political debate" going on here, just looking for info

What would be the benefit of putting my x.264 streams into .avi with avc2avi and then editing in vdub (assuming I don't use aac audio of course)? or would I be forced to use the x264 vfw version only and doing it all in vdub? Does "smart rendering" work for x264 vfw in vdub?

No, that's the odd part about this whole debate. Smart rendering always works for mpeg-4 ASP because the headers are repeated every I-frame, but that's not the case for avc-in-avi. Try it and unless your settings match just right, it'll fail.

[Industrial_One]

Industrial_One, struck for over-the-top insults and blatant trolling. Keep your h.264 in avi if you're hellbent on it, even if it works no better in virtualdub than mp4 in avidemux and plays no better without codecs than mp4, after all we all have biases depending on our needs and experience. But keep your civility or you will be banned.

You don't give me orders. But you can start by quoting me, I haven't been ripping on anyone in this thread (yet.) Surprisingly, people here got more balls than I thought. For a start, you've listed programs unlike Kari who backed off.

A couple problems: DGAVCIndex does not support MP4 or MKV hence it's useless to me. I have Premiere, and it doesn't support MP4/MKV either, unless I missed something. I'll be sure to check out Cyberlink and Ulead, but for now all I got is Premiere, and you can list details, or recommend me to move on Ulead.

I'll be satisfied if it has full support for the MP4 container (I don't give a goddamn about MKV) and if it proves to be as convinient/stable as VirtualDub or better, I'll ditch AVI permanently.

I give you my word.

[Inventive Software]

You don't give me orders. But you can start by quoting me, I haven't been ripping on anyone in this thread (yet.) Surprisingly, people here got more balls than I thought. For a start, you've listed programs unlike Kari who backed off.

A couple problems: DGAVCIndex does not support MP4 or MKV hence it's useless to me. I have Premiere, and it doesn't support MP4/MKV either, unless I missed something. I'll be sure to check out Cyberlink and Ulead, but for now all I got is Premiere, and you can list details, or recommend me to move on Ulead.

I'll be satisfied if it has full support for the MP4 container (I don't give a goddamn about MKV) and if it proves to be as convinient/stable as VirtualDub or better, I'll ditch AVI permanently.

I give you my word.

I'll do this in paragraph order.

Read the bloody forum rules that you agreed to follow, they're at the top of every page that "forum.doom9.org" has, and THEN tell a mod that "You don't give me orders". Follow, or GTF outta here.

AviDemux works very well with MP4 support, having used the MP4 editing part of it a few times to edit a couple videos I got lumbered with by a friend.

Also, bear in mind MP4Box and MKVMerge can demux video from MP4/MKV files to elementary .264 or .h264 files, so DGAVCIndex can work.

[audyovydeo]

but for now all I got is Premiere, and you can list details

hey smart tough guy (pun intended), you can start listing details, like what vintage version of Premiere you're stuck with.

I'm stuck with v 5.1c, and while I certainly don't expect it to export to x264.mp4 (it can't) I do 95% of my editing in it. H.264 files, of course. No, not avi files.

Moral of the story: solutions exist, it's just that prickheads don't find them.


audyovydeo

[Avenger007]

AviDemux works very well with MP4 support, having used the MP4 editing part of it a few times to edit a couple videos I got lumbered with by a friend.
AviDemux can't do frame-accurate editing if b-pyramid is used. AviDemux is a good AIO video editor but I wish it could preserve the original header information when cutting (for archive purposes).

[LoRd_MuldeR]

AviDemux can't do frame-accurate editing if b-pyramid is used. AviDemux is a good AIO video editor but I wish it could preserve the original header information when cutting (for archive purposes).

Wait for Avidemux 2.5 ...

[ChronoCross]

Entertaining read. I personally have no use for h264 in AVI or the whole Editing argument because I use the Avisynth and mkvmerge method if I really feel the need to make a mashup of whatever I'm encoding.

I think that continued use of AVI is a bad habit for those people who have no will to learn anything new.

[Amdh]

i cant understand... what's the problem in using another container like mp4 or mkv?
why avi? it's obsolete, has a lot of overhead and doesnt support new technologies... oh ... and it's more or less bound to VFW... that has the same problems if not worse...

Yeah .. We All Know That MP4/MKV Are Better Then The Old AVI, However When It Comes To Sharing A Video In Forums We Need To Take In Consideration That There Are People Who Will Be In Trouble If They Double Click A Video They Downloaded And It Just Doesn't Open .. These Ones Do Not Understand That They Should Install A Better Player Or Update The One They Have .. They'll Just Tell That The Problem Is In The Video Itself.

[Sharktooth]

"downloaded" videos... ... ...
the problem is different... the OS bundled media player (i mean WMP) isnt able to read/playback standard/non M$ formats by default.
blame M$ for that.

[Milvus]

Amdh > Stupidity of others is a very bad excuse for making more stupidity of our own. It's better to educate people. Yeah, I know it's frakking hard. But it's the way...

[Avenger007]

It's better to educate people.
True, but the question is "HOW?".
Sometimes you just have to play by their rules for them to take you seriously.
Sometimes that means getting down-and-dirty with them for their sake to educate them in the long run. :cool:

Note: I'm not condoning Amdh's post, since the correct way of doing things should always be done.

[Yoshiyuki Blade]

I'd say just let the trends educate people. If people are reluctant to move away from AVI, then so be it. My personal experience was a shift from xvid in avi to x264vfw in avi (didn't last long), and now x264cli in mkv. I just saw where the trends were headed and adjusted myself accordingly by trying out new tools to reproduce the routine that I was used to. It's good to move along with the times than to be stuck with what you know.

I don't wanna end up like the ppl who absolutely refused to move from AGP to PCI-e for top performance video cards, and were willing to pay more money for less performance just to have it in their AGP slots. I also, don't wanna be like an old school college professor that doesn't keep himself up to date with the times, and teach what he was qualified to teach 30 years ago :P.

[Avenger007]

I'd say just let the trends educate people.
...
I just saw where the trends were headed...
Sometimes they don't know or go towards (for whatever reason) the trends; you just have to bring the trends to them.

[Amdh]

"downloaded" videos... ... ...
the problem is different... the OS bundled media player (i mean WMP) isnt able to read/playback standard/non M$ formats by default.
blame M$ for that.

Yeah .. We Don't Stop Blaming M$ For That .. So, Till They Decide To Support MP4/MKV Natively In There "Player", It's Safer To Stick To AVI.

[Shinigami-Sama]

Yeah .. We Don't Stop Blaming M$ For That .. So, Till They Decide To Support MP4/MKV Natively In There "Player", It's Safer To Stick To AVI.

this isn't 2002 anymore
just give a link to CCCP with the video...

[Amdh]

Amdh > Stupidity of others is a very bad excuse for making more stupidity of our own. It's better to educate people. Yeah, I know it's frakking hard. But it's the way...

Educate People .. Humm Very Intresting ! Look, There Are People Who Do Not Want To Learn, They Want The Video To Play The Easiest Way .. They're Ready To Stick To Bad Quality WMVs In Case These Are Easier To Play With That Ugly WMP. Do You Think That I've Not Tried Educating Them, I Tried .. But .. Nothing ...

[Amdh]

I'd say just let the trends educate people. If people are reluctant to move away from AVI, then so be it. My personal experience was a shift from xvid in avi to x264vfw in avi (didn't last long), and now x264cli in mkv. I just saw where the trends were headed and adjusted myself accordingly by trying out new tools to reproduce the routine that I was used to. It's good to move along with the times than to be stuck with what you know.

I don't wanna end up like the ppl who absolutely refused to move from AGP to PCI-e for top performance video cards, and were willing to pay more money for less performance just to have it in their AGP slots. I also, don't wanna be like an old school college professor that doesn't keep himself up to date with the times, and teach what he was qualified to teach 30 years ago :P.

Right .. I'm Right With You. MP4 is the future so we do not have to hurry up .. it will take it's chance !

[Amdh]

Sometimes they don't know or go towards (for whatever reason) the trends; you just have to bring the trends to them.

Yeah .. So If I Need To Introduce A New Thing To You, Then I Introduced It In a language you do not understand, will you be willing to learn more about it ? Of course No !

So, let's introduce avc h264 to those who do not know it with something they know "avi", so that they can play the videos easily after the setup of a small decoder, once they discover the quality it offers, we can turn to mp4 container.

NB. Sorry for my bad english !

[Avenger007]

Yeah .. So If I Need To Introduce A New Thing To You, Then I Introduced It In a language you do not understand, will you be willing to learn more about it ? Of course No !
Your analogy is utterly irrelevant and useless.

So, let's introduce avc h264 to those who do not know it with something they know "avi", so that they can play the videos easily after the setup of a small decoder, once they discover the quality it offers, we can turn to mp4 container.
H.264 is an ISO Standard, which the x264 encoder implements.
MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 Information (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=96059)

AVI is a container, never more.
The association in people's minds is/should be:
Xvid, DivX -> AVI
x264 -> MP4, MKV

Sticking x264 in AVI leads to confusion to say the least, not to mention headaches and avoidance of x264 when noobs try to do the same thing (like trying AVC+AAC -> AVI).

MP4 and MKV are much better containers and they are the correct way of encapsulating all kinds of multimedia content (like AVC+AAC).

MP4 Faq (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=62723)
MP4 is the global file extension for the official container format defined in the MPEG-4 standard (ISO 14496-14)
MP4 is streamable and supports all kinds of multimedia content (multiple audio-, video-, subtitlestreams, pictures, variable-framerates, -bitrates, -samplerates...) and advanced content (officially called "Rich Media" or "BIFS") like 2D and 3D animated graphics, user interactivity, DVD-like menus... - next to nothing handled by the often used AVI

Matroska FAQ (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=54306)
The matroska project is a free, opensource container format, aiming to be able to offer a lot of advanced features, which older formats like AVI can't handle, on an extensible basis.
Matroska supports for example the storage of Variable Bitrate audio content (VBR) without any hassles, Variable Framerates (VFR), Chapters, attachment of files, Error Detection (EDC) and modern A/V Codecs like "Advanced Audio Coding" (AAC), "Ogg Vorbis" or "Realvideo 9" (RV9), next to nothing handled by AVI

[Milvus]

Educate People .. Humm Very Intresting ! Look, There Are People Who Do Not Want To Learn, They Want The Video To Play The Easiest Way .. They're Ready To Stick To Bad Quality WMVs In Case These Are Easier To Play With That Ugly WMP. Do You Think That I've Not Tried Educating Them, I Tried .. But .. Nothing ...

People who don't want to be educated, even if you help them, encourage them, show them the way ? Of course they exist. But in that case they juste deserve to have problems. In our case, they don't deserve to have H.264 quality. Mpeg-1 ripped from an old VHS will be good enough for them (and they probably wouldn't see the difference).

Compromises can be done, we have to make things easy for non-technical people, of course. But AVI-in-H.264 is just a stupid bad practice which don't fit into that category.

[Sharktooth]

People who don't want to be educated, even if you help them, encourage them, show them the way ? Of course they exist. But in that case they juste deserve to have problems. In our case, they don't deserve to have H.264 quality. Mpeg-1 ripped from an old VHS will be good enough for them (and they probably wouldn't see the difference).

Compromises can be done, we have to make things easy for non-technical people, of course. But AVI-in-H.264 is just a stupid bad practice which don't fit into that category.
wise words.
+1

[Yoshiyuki Blade]

Sometimes they don't know or go towards (for whatever reason) the trends; you just have to bring the trends to them.

For those who are not familiar with what goes on in this area, certainly. It would be somewhat difficult for someone to convince a newbie here on these forums to use something that's outdated, mainly because more people that will convince them otherwise.

From what I've seen, the users that are most reluctant to accept the changing trends are the ones who have knowledge of older trends.

[poisondeathray]

Yeah .. So If I Need To Introduce A New Thing To You, Then I Introduced It In a language you do not understand, will you be willing to learn more about it ? Of course No !

So, let's introduce avc h264 to those who do not know it with something they know "avi", so that they can play the videos easily after the setup of a small decoder, once they discover the quality it offers, we can turn to mp4 container.

NB. Sorry for my bad english !

Since they already are installing something, why not suggest installing something like Mplayer / SMplayer instead of some "small decoder"?

It natively supports many formats, containers, codecs - internally without the need to install multiple external codecs/splitters. That way you can playback h.264,.mkv, .mp4, .rmvb, .mov....etc.... with 1 simple install

[Sharktooth]

VLC, mplayer, MPC and all players based on them are free and wont need external "codecs" or anything for h.264 in both mp4 and mkv.
you need a codec or source filter for divx/xvid, h.264... and many other (almost all) non-microsoft formats to be able to play them in the default media player (WMP).
what's easier?

[bob0r]

If you.... are thinking.... of using.... H.264 .. in avi... DON'T! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6803Gu8tpuw)

[Sharktooth]

Lol... ... :D

sorry, i couldnt resist.