Which format is better for me??

[kumarprabhatn]

HI there.., I have media files of about 22 mins, 198 MB.. Quality of which are ok.. Now the thing is I want to compress them to about 90 MB, not consuming much time for encoding and minimal loss of quality.. Since I m not allowed to ask "which is best", I m asking which ones r better encoder, format!! I have h.264 as option but encoding takes a lot of time.. Please give me options..

[Dark Shikari]

What are these files? What resolution are they in? What are they encoded in? Where did you get them from?

[chongy5]

From the rules:
Do not ask "what's best" because this question cannot be answered objectively. Each and everyone has their own view about what's best in a certain area. The best is what works best for you!

[Dark Shikari]

From the rules:
Do not ask "what's best" because this question cannot be answered objectively. Each and everyone has their own view about what's best in a certain area. The best is what works best for you!
I think his question is reasonable because (hopefully) once he gives us the specifics he is asking exactly that: what is the best for him in a specific case, for a specific purpose.

[Doobie]

From the rules:
Do not ask "what's best" because this question cannot be answered objectively. Each and everyone has their own view about what's best in a certain area. The best is what works best for you!

Yeah, you know, only objective posts are allowed in this forum.

[Doobie]

Any reason you overlooked Xvid/Divx?

[FishTank]

HI there.., I have media files of about 22 mins, 198 MB.. Quality of which are ok.. Now the thing is I want to compress them to about 90 MB, not consuming much time for encoding and minimal loss of quality.. Since I m not allowed to ask "which is best", I m asking which ones r better encoder, format!! I have h.264 as option but encoding takes a lot of time.. Please give me options..

i wouldnt go under 130mb for 22mins with mpeg4-asp. that is if
your source is perfect (dvd quality) and has a decent compression value.
dont forget that you will lose quality just because you encode AGAIN! so maybe it'd be better just to leave as is.

(i dont use AVC/x264, my statement is ment for divx/xvid)

btw. nobody can mind read around here, so you need to include
more info in your posts if you want serious help ;)

[PuzZLeR]

22 minutes of video in 90MB files? I hope you're not expecting fabulous quality with this, especially after you have to re-encode something that's probably already been encoded from some DvD source...

Arguably (with respect to rule 12) x264 would be one of the better codecs to use to compress at such low bitrates.

I know you're trying to fit 50 of these things on a DvD-R, but I wouldn't recommend it. You'd be hard-pressed to find a codec, even today, that will give you anything "watchable" at around 500kbps.

Your "source" at 198MB is "fine" for codecs like Xvid and x264, encoding at about 1000kbps, however it's very near what, IMHO, should be the absolute bottom minimum for watchable quality actually.

A previous post mentioned 130MB may work if, like mentioned, the "source" is perfect DvD quality. But this is unlikely. At any rate, if so, it will look decent if it's low complexity low-motion type of video (such as a speaker's face the whole video) and should only be for smaller screens. Even so, you're definitely stretching it here too.

The only reason you should be re-encoding them is if you want to change formats for a different type of compatibility. If so, then try and keep close to the original bitrates (1000kbps) and sizes (198MB).

My advice? Keep the originals as they are. DvD-Rs are dirt cheap today, and HDD space is getting bigger and bigger. If you want to "future-proof" these clips, you'll be glad you didn't butcher them, or spend mega computational time re-encoding them

[kumarprabhatn]

What about rm and rmvb formats?? I heard they have high compression capability??

[PuzZLeR]

What about rm and rmvb formats?? I heard they have high compression capability??

Actually RealVideo 10 is real nice. I tried it too and it was very good. Real Networks claims that it has 15% better compression than H.264. From my eyes, it seems very much like H.264, but not particularly "better". If so, maybe a bit.

However, I'm still skeptical.

Obviously this 15% is a statement from Real, and only Real, themselves. A rosy picture is easy to paint when evaluating and comparing a codec's compression abilities. Not accusing Real of being liars, but I would take it with a grain of salt at first. There could be many other issues involved, such as encoding details, speeds, decoding, etc... Remember, what decodes Real isn't the same as what decodes H.264. Keep that in mind...

As well, what is the compatibility of Real? It's a proprietary format for a certain niche market. If your video fits in this category, great, but I don't think it will ever enjoy wide compatibility and support like H.264 is going to be, and is, receiving despite any compression benefits. It depends on what you want. I personally put more weight on compatibility and future-proofing over a small percentage of increased quality (if it exists).

Also, keep in mind, even if ReadVideo 10 is that good, and I did personally try it, I still believe what I said in my last post, "You'd be hard-pressed to find a codec, even today, that will give you anything "watchable" at around 500kbps." So I still wouldn't recommend the 90MB file size you seek.

Your only options at that small file size is really a significant level of diminished quality, regardless of any codec that exists today.

[Dark Shikari]

Actually RealVideo 10 is real nice. I tried it too and it was very good. Real Networks claims that it has 15% better compression than H.264. From my eyes, it seems very much like H.264, but not particularly "better". If so, maybe a bit.

However, I'm still skeptical.

Obviously this 15% is a statement from Real, and only Real, themselves. A rosy picture is easy to paint when evaluating and comparing a codec's compression abilities. Not accusing Real of being liars, but I would take it with a grain of salt at first. There could be many other issues involved, such as encoding details, speeds, decoding, etc... Remember, what decodes Real isn't the same as what decodes H.264. Keep that in mind...

As well, what is the compatibility of Real? It's a proprietary format for a certain niche market. If your video fits in this category, great, but I don't think it will ever enjoy wide compatibility and support like H.264 is going to be, and is, receiving despite any compression benefits. It depends on what you want. I personally put more weight on compatibility and future-proofing over a small percentage of increased quality (if it exists).

Also, keep in mind, even if ReadVideo 10 is that good, and I did personally try it, I still believe what I said in my last post, "You'd be hard-pressed to find a codec, even today, that will give you anything "watchable" at around 500kbps." So I still wouldn't recommend the 90MB file size you seek.

Your only options at that small file size is really a significant level of diminished quality, regardless of any codec that exists today.
I've found "better than H.264" claims to be very very inaccurate in most cases.

Prime example: VP7. On top settings it actually plays back slower than FFDShow's H.264 decoder (so its not faster) and its quality is slighty lower than H.264 but drastically less stable (SSIM/PSNR jump all over the place).

For low bitrates like the OP is asking, it really depends what the video is.

For example, I've encoded videos of EVE Online fleet battles to 1000kbps and below (at 1680x1050 resolution!) while not only remaining watchable but even the smallest text being completely readable. This worked because the camera
(intentionally) hardly moved during the fight, resulting in most of the data remaining the same from frame to frame. Because of this I could even encode the video at 400kbps (I did it as a laugh) and the quality was still actually watchable.

If the source the OP refers to is anime he could definitely get good quality at the bitrates he describes, especially if it contains very little motion and few highly detailed backgrounds.

[PuzZLeR]

Hello DS,

Yes, every video clip is different and will have different bitrate demands, no doubt about it, that's why we have CRF. I personally encode alot of music videos and the diversity is incredibly wide. Some videos just show someone singing throughout, and others have motion left, right and center. I've stopped trying to determine a "common standard bitrate" for these. It's impossible. I just go with the "Great Quality Equalizer" - CRF in this case, since it's a brilliant quality guarantee.

That's why I mentioned an example of a video with a person speaking the whole movie, such as maybe a speech or something. This would not need high bitrate. You can get away with a smaller file size in this case, just like the Anime example with lower detail.

But, maybe it's my eyes, anything under 500kbps makes me start to cringe. Maybe it's me. :p

As for other codecs, RealVideo and VP7, I'm not so convinced. I don't want to spread bad word here, but codec authors/companies have been guilty in the past of biasing comparisons of other codecs against their own, so I would just wait and see the big picture unfold. So far, I haven't heard much. What I like about H.264 is that it's an open standard. It's not backed by some company looking to make a profit so I trust it more (although Apple is leveraging advantage off it...). I do believe you when you mentioned that VP7 had other issues involved that somehow were not mentioned by the first party. Real's past codecs too were guilty of certain "issues" as well...

So far, the only two advanced codecs that are hitting primetime are H.264 and VC-1, even though H.264 is ahead. VC-1 is only around because it's got the big M as part of its backup...

[Dark Shikari]

Hello DS,

Yes, every video clip is different and will have different bitrate demands, no doubt about it, that's why we have CRF. I personally encode alot of music videos and the diversity is incredibly wide. Some videos just show someone singing throughout, and others have motion left, right and center. I've stopped trying to determine a "common standard bitrate" for these. It's impossible. I just go with the "Great Quality Equalizer" - CRF in this case, since it's a brilliant quality guarantee.

That's why I mentioned an example of a video with a person speaking the whole movie, such as maybe a speech or something. This would not need high bitrate. You can get away with a smaller file size in this case, just like the Anime example with lower detail.
Yup, CRF is absolutely great.

I've worked with a friend of mine to make a simple H.264 encoding GUI (it automatically encodes the video, AAC audio, and muxes it in a single click) and I specifically chose to base it off CRF mode for that reason; you can never trust the user to pick a bitrate, so why not just pick a quality level instead?

The only failing of CRF I've found is that for example, when a user watches a 640x480 video, they are going to scale it to their full screen, while a 1280x960 video will almost fill up their screen anyways. This means that a block in a 640x480 video will look twice as large than one in the 1280x960 video. This means for the artifacting in the 640x480 clip to look the same to the end-user as the artifacting in the 1280x960 clip, a better CRF has to be chosen, in my experience.