29.97 FPS x264 + MP4Box = 25 FPS mp4?

[Elias]

I'm fairly new to AVC, I've done some encoding before (at least 6 months ago), with Nero's AVC and I didn't see how AVC could be appropriate for my webcam movies, because encoding speed was extremely slow, and AVC didn't work in QuickTime 6. However, I'm impressed with the latest x264 CVS builds; great speed optimization!

Anyway, I have two concerns here:

1) When encoding a webcam clip of 29.970 FPS, no matter what features I use or don't use (I even tried unchecking everything) in x264, every MP4Box muxing becomes 25.000 FPS. Why? And yes, I do it right: I demux the .h264 stream from the avi with YAMB, and then I remux it via commandline with MP4Box. Why do I get 25 FPS?

2) QuickTime compatibility (it's important to me not because I cherish the player, but I send the clips to friends, and they don't know how to use MPC etc). I unchecked 8x8 Transform, and it actually worked in QT7, but the playback was a little skippy. What else do I need to uncheck to get maximum quality, but still retain QT compliance? Also, why is there a white screen in QT7 at startup, but disappears when playing these x264 mp4 files?

Here is my codec-impartial conclusion of all the encoding tests I've done so far with XviD and x264:

1) At lower bitrates (320 kbps for 320x240), x264 definitely pwns XviD at simple profile. XviD just cannot compare with x264 at such low bitrates, even in ASP mode.

2) At higher bitrates (1150 kbps for 320x240), x264 still looks better, but slightly better. It's really not much difference at all. XviD really can compare with x264 at higher bitrates. Of course, this is by watching in full screen, and carefully analyzing the video streams. At 320x240 normal view, the human eye cannot spot any difference.

Software used:
x264vfw.revision352.7z
xvid.cvs.head.2005.10.16.7z
MP4Box 2005-10-31 dev build.

[stephanV]

1) add -fps 29.97 to commandline for mp4box. 25 fps is default.
2) give your friends a link to a VLC nightly build? I believe quicktime only supports up to main profile.

there has been a thread bout this though, maybe you should try search.

[Doom9]

Why do I get 25 FPS?Because you forgot to put the proper FPS into the mp4box commandline?
2) QuickTime compatibilityThat has been discussed to death, please use the search.

[Elias]

That has been discussed to death, please use the search.I really did that, that's how I found the uncheck 8x8 Transform box, by some post of bond. I even checked the Doom9 guide, but it never mentioned anything about QT compatibility.1) add -fps 29.97 to commandline for mp4box. 25 fps is default.Thanks! This worked great. Is there any command to keep the FPS as it is, because sometimes I capture at 25 FPS, and switching cmd bat files for MP4Box might lead to pressing the wrong one, and get the wrong FPS without noticing it (I can do a half assed job sometimes :)).
2) give your friends a link to a VLC nightly build? I believe quicktime only supports up to main profile.I do it all the time, but it's really much easier to depend on QT7 for such things, and maximum compatibility is something I strive for. What settings do I need to uncheck for main profile in x264?

[stephanV]

:devil:

Errr, I never thought I'd do this but... :search: :readfaq:

Although with three minutes of searching I already found about 40 reasons not to use quicktime, and none to use it...

[smok3]

stephanV: can you suggest some other mode of 'play while downloading' delivery of mp4 movies over the web than qt? (nope vlc isnt working, nope mplayer isnt working.)

[stephanV]

Ok, if that is so you have 1 reason to use quicktime, but I don't see how that is applicable here.

[MeteorRain]

I demux the .h264 stream from the avi with YAMB, and then I remux it via commandline with MP4Box.

Software used:
x264vfw.revision352.7z
xvid.cvs.head.2005.10.16.7z
MP4Box 2005-10-31 dev build.
i'd like to invite you to have a try on MeGUI+x264 CLI, which directly output H.264 stream into *.mp4. :p :p

[Randall]

There is a QT compatibility guide on the boards here if you used the search. http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=96958&page=1&pp=20 comand line for x264 on the Mac and PC are the same. No AviSynth though (I think). Anyway, I've gotten mixed results with this approach as well. I am in the process of finding a general solution that actuly works, but I don't think that's gonna happen. I also think that some of the videophiles on this board are ready to strangle us for talking about Quicktime 7 compatibility so much. ;)

[Elias]

Guys, for the love of God, I used search. But thanks anyway.I also think that some of the videophiles on this board are ready to strangle us for talking about Quicktime 7 compatibility so much.Yes :)

Edit: I've been reading through that last post now (not the first time btw), and I have yet to find exactly what settings I need and don't need to get it to work in QT7. All that post gives me is discussion about how bad QT is, and that people use Nero's filter more for HE-AAC etc. Ah well, I guess I'll stick with XviD for my mp4 files.

[Randall]

I am doing the same as you trying to come up with the approprite settings to have fully QT compatible H.264/AVC MPEG-4 video. I am not giving up yet, because I did have success in ripping a few of my Simpsons Season 2 DVD episodes to H.264 (using x264 main profile). But I have had mixed results with the same process used on some other DVDs I own. I cannot come up with a good reason for my failed attempts, or any apparent pattern to the madness. I will keep you posted though, and as soon as I hit a solution, I will be sure and post a step-by-step detail of every setting I used, as well as program versions etc. As soon as I can be reasonably sure that my proceedure is successful. ;)

I woudn't give up yet, because H.264 looks to be a futureproof solution that will be native in just about every media player, whereas XviD never will be.

[Elias]

I woudn't give up yet, because H.264 looks to be a futureproof solution that will be native in just about every media player, whereas XviD never will be.It would be unwise to not support MPEG-2 Part 2 (XviD/DivX etc) in the next generation DVD players. I bet this is a move HD-DVD will pull, because as it is now, Blu-Ray has more companies than HD-DVD, and a strong advantage at that. So HD-DVD has to come up with benefits over Blu-Ray players, and that will probably be to handle MPEG-2 Part 2 in mp4, I doubt the Blu-Ray camp would want to be inferior. Also, don't forget that MPEG-2 Part 2 already has strong hardware support (iPod/PSP/NeroDigital etc). I'm definitely counting on MPEG-4 Part 2 in the future. Just my guess anyway.

Anyway, I'd appreciate that from you. However, I believe that x264 is still not ready yet for archival purposes. Nero's AVC perhaps is, but not x264 because I doubt that when unchecking just about every feature x264 has, and then encoding (which also gave me kick ass encoding speed for AVC), it still didn't work properly in QT7 (I got a white screen at startup, after I pressed play, it disappeared). And I could not create another mp4 from QT via pass through; some error message popped up at the end.

[Randall]

I agree with you about support for MPEG-2 part 2 in future hardware players. Hopefully we'll see it.

x264 is still very new in development, but I think that it will have a rock solid core later down the road, as does most open source software. You're right though, it might be a little premature to use x264 for archival purposes. I had the Exact same problem with QT7's white screen of death. Since x264 main profile works beautifully in every other media player I have that supports H.264, I tend to think that this is a QT issue we're having. Despite the pre-mature status of x264.

[Elias]

That might be so, but it's not always QT's fault. I remember the same issues with mp4UI and everyone blamed QT at first, then they realised that it was actually mp4UI thatw as superb0rked. I'm sure x264 will rock later on, but I doubt that it's anywhere near the codec it can be today. Why is it so that every other AVC codec in mp4 work great in QT?

[ChronoCross]

wtf is with people and quicktime? x264 mainly uses high profile which quicktimes doesn't really support....reference the other million threads on this. you have to use certain settings to get it to work in QT. People who are on windows using quicktime for mp4 are well to put it bluntly kinda stupid. none of the other players have problems with mp4's made by x264.

[Randall]

I for one was excited with the idea of platform independent decoding of H.264 without having to install any third-party codecs to decode it. I'm glad you voice your opinion of me as being stupid. Just go back to enjoying your anime.

[Elias]

@ChronoCross: QuickTime has a large user base (yes, even on Windows, mostly due to the movie trailers), and therefore, QT compliance in mp4 files is valid imho.

[bond]

:rolleyes: :D

[ChronoCross]

I for one was excited with the idea of platform independent decoding of H.264 without having to install any third-party codecs to decode it. I'm glad you voice your opinion of me as being stupid. Just go back to enjoying your anime.

Platform Independent means it has to be useable on pretty much everything. Limiting to just windows and mac(which is what quicktime supports) is just the same as if you have to install a 3rd party codec. oh btw I do enjoy my anime...trying to use it in an insult is feable.

@ChronoCross: QuickTime has a large user base (yes, even on Windows, mostly due to the movie trailers), and therefore, QT compliance in mp4 files is valid imho.

The problem isn't mp4 compatibility it's h264 feature compatibility. Quicktime doesn't support quite a few of the features that x264 has. This is a QUICKTIME issue as they have not developed their decoder as much as needed by advanced features.

see
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=96958 to figure out what features need to be disabled. This time actually read it because all results from it produce files that work perfectly in mp4 for quicktime.

[Randall]

platform independent means that it can be supported by all OSes native media players. Windows Vista will be adding support for H.264 in Windows Media Player, the Mac has QuickTime (which at the moment is half-assing H.264 support, but I'm sure its better then what Microsoft will be able to come up with) and Linux can lick my ..er I mean it has mplayer or whateverthefsck player to fully support playback of x264. Get it?

[ChronoCross]

platform independent means that it can be supported by all OSes native media players. Windows Vista will be adding support for H.264 in Windows Media Player, the Mac has QuickTime (which at the moment is half-assing H.264 support, but I'm sure its better then what Microsoft will be able to come up with) and Linux can lick my ..er I mean it has mplayer or whateverthefsck player to fully support playback of x264. Get it?

ah yes because lord knows that your statement shows that your looking forward to platform independant considering you think microsoft will blow it. and you don' care about linux basically your just a quicktime fan. What's to say their support of h264 will be any better than anything else. I'd have to say that windows media player is the most used media player by the planet. so we should be having the discussion on how we should build things to have support in WMP. oh wait they use directshow which is what ffdshow and nero's decoders are...wow support is already there for people who are actually watching h264 content created by nero or x264.

Right now the only way your going to get proper support for quicktime is to use their encoder or the forum that was pointed to earlier.

[Sharktooth]

3 letters: VLC !!!
is it so hard to understand?

[ChronoCross]

3 letters: VLC !!!
is it so hard to understand?

not for me. but I guess this arguement centers around popularity among average consumers. Since both windows media and quicktime are the most known players it would right now be the solution for someone looking for easy distribution of whatever h264 content. Since only quicktime has native support atm it is a good alternative to a codec pack however with it only supporting main profile it is rough to get high quality that people are used to with the high profile features.

[Randall]

Let's face it. A lot of the people out there just use the software they're given to playback media files. One of the exciting things about H.264 is that it's support will be broad compaired to most other codecs with the acception of DivX, which is quite popular. And I was hoping that there would be native support for H.264 built into the OS, so that you don't have to go telling clients, "oh you just have to download x codec to see the movie" etc. Anyway you get the idea. This wasn't just about QuickTime support, althought that is were I wanted to start, because you can throw just about any settings you want at mplayer, VLC, and Nero for MPEG-4, but QuickTime is fussy. Basically, if you can get your x264 encode to play in QT, then you can be sure that it will play on ANY device claiming to have H.264/AVC playback.

[ChronoCross]

Randall Good point. However there are many other things you have to take into account when making a file for compatibility. Even if something says "we support H.264" there are other constraints such as vbv(divx players are a good example of this) Resolution(ipods, psp's) and even special codec features can throw things off. it's hard to tell if any software will ever completely cover all encoding methods internally which is why vlc and ffdshow are a good idea. They aren't swayed by the capitalistic market for producing a product fast.

[Doom9]

One thing you should be aware of: Quicktime is not the AVC reference implementation. So don't treat it as such. It's a rather lackluster implementation of the standard and if you're taking it as a reference, you are bound to fall on your nose.
And when it comes to hardware, you should forget about QT even more.. you need a tool to validate bitstreams against levels as hardware will likely support a number of levels and nothing else.

And when speaking of widespread, to the best of my knowledge, the Realplayer is still more widely used, and both don't hold a candle against WMP. And don't tell me you can expect a QT installation in a workplace.. no IT admin is going to install a 30 MB multimedia package. And you as a user with a restricted account can't install it either. So you are left with self-contained software like mplayer or vlc.

And as far is Vista is concerned, I see no indication that it'll support AVC. We can expect WMV9 because it's Microsoft's thing, but it is already pretty clear at this point that you'll need to buy a separate codec pack to play all kinds of HD DVD/BluRay discs.

Last but not least you know that Fair Use generally only covers family, so there really isn't much to worry about when it comes to sharing whatever content.

You may like QT but don't delude yourself into thinking just because it's picky it's a good validator (it isn't), and as far as it comes to widespread use, since in a corporate environment multimedia software is out, you're much better off downloading mplayer/vlc than trying to get QT to run.

[Randall]

That is very true, and I have all those players and servers that support our encodes. The problem is exactly what you mentioned. Propritary software not releaseing their specs so it is basically trial and error until you come up with something that works. And if you're lucky enough to actually find something that works, it might break in product x, which is also closed source. So esentally I am fighting a losing battle here, you are right that there will probably never be a decent encoding method that will satisfy even the crappiest of media players.

[Randall]

One thing you should be aware of: Quicktime is not the AVC reference implementation. So don't treat it as such. It's a rather lackluster implementation of the standard and if you're taking it as a reference, you are bound to fall on your nose.
And when it comes to hardware, you should forget about QT even more.. you need a tool to validate bitstreams against levels as hardware will likely support a number of levels and nothing else.

And when speaking of widespread, to the best of my knowledge, the Realplayer is still more widely used, and both don't hold a candle against WMP. And don't tell me you can expect a QT installation in a workplace.. no IT admin is going to install a 30 MB multimedia package. And you as a user with a restricted account can't install it either. So you are left with self-contained software like mplayer or vlc.

This is also very true. I had hopes that H.264 could be enjoyed by everyone that didn't know what VLC or mplayer was. Maybe someday it will, but when you have companies like Microsoft that tell the standard to go screw, that dream of allowing everyone to enjoy H.264/AVC content naitivly dies.

[QuadraQ]

I haven't really weighed in on the "QuickTime debacle" on any of the threads yet, but these are my 2 cents worth: (well maybe half-a-cent...)

QuickTime for Windows is not a good performer because large portions of the Mac OS were ported to run under Windows as part of the package. This leads to serious perfomance issues. It's also starting to bow under it's own weight. It's been around for so long and now "supports" so many different formats, that I'd hate to see the code; I'm betting it's a mess.

On the other hand things should get better. Apple is (finally) making the move to x86 processors, which will hopefully improve matters as regards performance (not immediately - but eventually work must be done to optimize the code).

As regards h.264, Quicktime's implementation is pretty raw right now, but will most likely improve. The best way to get this to happen (in my opinion) is to continue developement of competing programs (Nero, x.264). Once DivX caught on, Apple did finally add support for it. I suspect the same will happen with their h.264 support. With better encoders/decoders available it will push them to improve their implementation and broaden their support of h.264 features.

Many here could care less what QuickTime does or doesn't support. But I think that improved h.264 support in QuickTime would be a good thing for everyone, simply because it will make it easier for those who want to distribute video in the MPEG-4 AVC format.

Realistically though, with the change to Intel hardware, I'm sure most of their development resources are going into that right now.

[Randall]

:goodpost:
I like your opinion on QT, and pretty much agree with everything you said. Except it's x264 (without the dot) and capital H on H.264. If you care about such things... ;)

Also, I am currently working on a guide for encoding an x264 movie that the QT decoder doesn't bork over. Should have it up by tonight. :D

[Sharktooth]

well, h.264 support in quicktime already brought confusion. they presented it as it was proprietary or as they (apple) invented it...
they're also out of standard and incompatible with other softwares and use .mov (i hate it) just because apple guys think they're so cool they need their own container and their own standards, but they arent even able to put a finger in their... you know what (referred to all the bugs in QT).
IMHO if QT will burn in hell maybe VLC with other better (than QT) and open source softwares will have chance to be used by masses and not only by geeks.

[QuadraQ]

well, h.264 support in quicktime already brought confusion. they presented it as it was proprietary or as they (apple) invented it...

Well I remember watching the MacWorld SF presentation in January of this year, and Steve Jobs made it VERY clear that H.264 != QuickTime. It was simply going to be added to QuickTime. In fact he pointed out that no matter who wins the BluRay vs. HD-DVD war the H.264 part of MPEG-4 was already a lock from the viewpoint of what file format they will use.

It might be nice if everyone could use the geek tools available as easily as us geeks, but frankly that will never happen. At least we appreciate them! ;)

[Randall]

well, h.264 support in quicktime already brought confusion. they presented it as it was proprietary or as they (apple) invented it...
they're also out of standard and incompatible with other softwares and use .mov (i hate it) just because apple guys think they're so cool they need their own container and their own standards, but they arent even able to put a finger in their... you know what (referred to all the bugs in QT).
IMHO if QT will burn in hell maybe VLC with other better (than QT) and open source softwares will have chance to be used by masses and not only by geeks.

I agree with you, but unfortunately I'm afraid that all of the excellent open source media players like VLC and mplayer will only ever be used by geeks.

[Sharktooth]

maybe Steeve Jobs is more honest than the apple site marketing men...
think to be the "average joe" user and read here: http://www.apple.com/quicktime/player/win.html
the big Q with "h.264" below it... they refers to h.264 as a technology they have in their player... but dont tell you who made this tech leaving the "average joe" with the idea it's their own stuff...
They say "QT deliver gorgeous video with the new h.264 codec"... and still they let you think QT is the responsible of the greater quality, while the codec is part of QT... etc...

EDIT: sorry for the "off topic", i will stop here.

[Randall]

Steve Jobs has a knack for smooth talking his way around anything. He makes average joe user believe just about anything he wants them to believe. He did mention somthing about H.264 not being "Apple" technology, but I completely agree with you that the QT developers make it sound like H.264 is their own creation. They don't even have good support for it!

Not to mention the whole Apple ".m4v" extension thing. Ugg. They are starting to remind me of the way Microsoft would butcher the standards because their heads are so swelled that they think their own ideas about what should be standard are much better then the standard.

HA! I should use this as my sig.
http://images.apple.com/quicktime/player/images/playerindexh26420050429.gif <-- The "Q" is the new official symbol for H.264 :D

[Doom9]

Ask Joe Average computer user about QuickTime. He will not have heard of it. He'll also have no idea what WMV9, AVC, ASP, MPEG whatnot is. His Dell PC may be able to play DVDs because it contains PowerDVD or WinDVD pre-installed, may even play DivX because those commercial DVD players now support MPEG-4 ASP, but give them something their preinstalled media player can't handle, and they're lost. Face it, unless WMP /PowerDVD automatically downloads codecs when playing something unknown, it's a nogo. And the player that does that is WMP, and it knows the Microsoft codecs, but nothing else.
I've been testing codecs for over 5 years now.. Apple's offering has consistently been sub-par. QT6 does ASP, doesn't it? It's sub-par. Did it get better because there are better codecs out there? No. So, will QT make the codec comparison 2006? I very much doubt that. And since there are better solutions out there, tell your friend he needs VLC to play an MP4, not download the much clunkier, slower and worse performing than QT. Plus, you're not supporting big business - Apple isn't a nice company at all.. remember them shutting down tunes that free iTunes from the DRM corset, and now the patent to lock a PC to a certain OS - but open source. It's not like a vlc installation is any harder than Quicktime, you can even get people to install ffdshow and mpc.

I guess the reason myself and a bunch of others get so iffed at all the attention QT gets is that this place is generally a very free software friendly and commercial alternatives usually only get attention if they bring additional value to the table, say authoring tools, or CCE being a really good MPEG-2 encoder. QT is none of that. Instead it brings all those threads here about how to cripple a good codec to make it work in a bad player, and that really makes very little sense. Apple doesn't get us further in the AVC arena, it slows us down. Don't let them..

[smok3]

doom9: for /me it is only about web delivery, as soon as vlc or mplayer are cabapale of progressive download of mp4 content (as they do just fine with avi...), the qt story is pretty much over (so thats it, qt will end with nice, stable opensource/free solution for web delivery, usable by my mom and even by my boss for example) - uhmm so there is actually an edge of qt in existance right now.

[Randall]

Well currently Apple has a 4.5% market share of Computers in the world, Microsoft compatable x86 has the other 95%, while the rest is miscilianious. say a small persentage (less then 5%) of the x86 computers run linux or BSD, then that leaves you with at least 90% of the computing world able to play back H.264 content that runs on QuickTime, since QT is native to OS X and available for Windows. Now I understand that you have to download it... BUT consider this... QuickTime and iTunes are integrated now, so if you have iTunes, you have QuickTime. Boom! All of the sudden a TON of computer users have QT on their OS, and (some) support for H.264. A lot of people have iTunes for Windows installed.

Doom9: I completely agree with your take on Apple "crippling" the H.264 support, but I have to assume that their support will get better and better with each release. They are way behind the libavc players and Nero digital, but they'll catch up. In the meantime I can still make excellent looking encodes that play on QT. ;)

[QuadraQ]

Isn't the whole idea about standards? Really MPEG-4 AVC (aka H.264) has the best chance of becoming universal, or at least as close to it as anything out there. THAT's what I'm excited about. If support (crappy though it may be) exists in Quicktime - or the WMP for that matter - that will increase the amount of AVC content (and in the end it's all about the content - at least for me it is :)) .

This is good for the rest of us who are in the know and can use our favorite tools to enjoy that content. I guess what I'm saying is that in the end the success of MPEG-4 AVC as a format is more important than the tools that are used to create or use it.

[Sharktooth]

@mods: please split this thread.

@Randall and QuadraQ: the problem is quicktime produces and playback a non standard and crippled MPEG-4 AVC usually in a proprietary container (.mov).
If they will use their own non standard DRM system (as in iTunes), it will prevent to watch the content in other players.
Also their player is not able to reproduce all kind of AVC streams and that behavior was (and is still) the same with ASP... so dont think it will change. It will bring only chaos and mayem.
So if tons of computers will have quicktime it will be BAD coz quicktime does not support standards but only part of them making final users in serious troubles when they think their quicktime player will play h.264.
Quicktime spreading is a menace for the AVC spreading...

[QuadraQ]

I guess only time will tell.

[Randall]

AFAIK the support for H.264 in QuickTime isn't broken, it's just not complete. I don't believe that anything is against the standards, just not all of the standard is implemented. Also, it always helps to have a major distribution method already in existance. The spread of AVC will not be helped by having people download VLC or mplayer, of which most people don't even know exist. Hardware support is probably the best way to help AVC grow in popularity. Handhelds like Sony PSP and Apple iPod support basic functionallity, and soon Blu-ray will support all profiles. That is the day I'm waiting for. Blu-ray or HD DVD will help spread AVC in the most successful way.

[LeonMcNichol]

Hi, I was just doing searches for encoding to *.mov files and h.264 and I came accross this thread at 5am in the morning. I'm a student at Antelope Valley College and they do all (and I mean all) video editing and image editing on macs. Have you guys ever tried working between macs and pcs? I have and it's a bitch. Adobe didn't put avi support in their products that are on macs, why? I don't know, but they didn't. So you HAVE to have a .mp4 or .mov file to be able to edit video footage. Truthfully, I don't give a damn about quicktime, but it's a necessity for macs. Yes, VLC player and Mplayer work nicely (though, I still think the subtitle support is borked on BOTH programs), but what little good that does me for video editing?

To my point, I'm trying to find high quality encoders that I can encode on PCs and be able to edit on macs. So far, the method I use is DVD->AVS->VDM->3ivx in an AVI container. I encode the audio to wav in besweet then to aac in either nero wav editor or quicktime. Both result in good audio and speeds vary. I then mux the video and audio in Yamb. (Nice little product btw.) This allows me to bring a nice quality MP4 file to school to be able to edit. (We are doing trailers in my after effects class.) I wanted to try out h.264, since the quality is a tad bit better than 3ivX. (And 3x the speed to encode...) But getting it to play in quicktime doesn't work and I believe even the windows version of after effects wont support the x264 streamed mp4 file. So having quicktime play x264 is a valid issue. As it is, quicktime and the adobe programs can output h.264 in the mov and mp4 containers, but there is no way to be able to do a full dvd movie to these methods. Premiere and After Effects just laughs at you and dies like 2% in and there's no way to get your file into quicktime w/o bringing it to a lossy codec first. I think I've only found MJPEG to work in quicktime as an avi. I want to be able to do DVD -> Quicktime w/o having to output to a temp lossy file somewhere.

I'm not sure if I got off the topic as it's 6am and I need to sleep, but I'm trying to say that it's valid to want to have quicktime support. There are tons of people I know in school who has a PC or Mac and you mention stuff that can play video files and they cock their heads and look at you. Self contained programs, like VLC player is a nice touch, but still not good enough. Macs come preinstalled with quicktime and general PC users have it installed for streaming trailers. So having high quality h.264 content play on both w/o having like several different programs to play it in, is a good idea.

Oh and I agree with the previous guy who said, x264 is nice, but not ready for file archiving yet. I felt the same way when xvid 1.0 pre final release came out.

On a different note, anyone got any ideas on how to get avi content, such as xvid into after effects w/o it laughing at you? The best methods I found are either dumping it into a lossless codec that it'll read or using the old vfapi method. (Oh God, is that a slow method.)