Is x264 a application of H.264/AVC ?

[palmman]

Hi Guys,
JM is developed by official organization, so the newest version always follows H.264/AVC standards. By contrast, x264 adds many features for performance. I am confused at these changes. Do they follow H.264/AVC standards, in other words, does x264 belong to H.264/AVC ? Excuse me, I'm a rookie. :confused:

[J_Darnley]

Yes, x264 is an H.264/AVC encoder. It may be vastly different to JM but it still produces "correct" video.

[microchip8]

To add to what Darnley said, also there's no such thing as x264 video (like you may have seen people write/claim many times on the Net) as x264 does *not* produce its own format but implements/follows the H.264 standard, just like DivX and Xvid are two different encoders/libs that implement one and the same thing, MPEG4 Part 2

[Selur]

maybe this helps:
For most parts the standard mainly describes how a compliant stream should look like not how to create it, so e.g. if the standard would say 'use a motion vector and save it' it would not specify on how to get this information but just how the output needs to look like, which leaves a wide range of possible ways to archive the goal. A reference encoder shows a 'correct and easy to understand' way how to archive the goal, but it does normally not use a particular 'clever' way to archive the goal, the x264 encoder on the other hand is optimized to use 'better' ways. :)

[palmman]

Got it, thanks everybody help. ^^