What format would you recommend me; MPEG4 or H.264 ??

[Snappy Phoenix]

Guys,

I'm kinda confused to what format to choose... so I've been looking for info and found the following page; http://www.reelseo.com/encoding-formats-mpeg4-vs-h264/

* I want to rip a few dvd's and put parts of the footage on Youtube, and from there link though to my website.
Sure, size of the files is important, but quality is much more important to me.

-----------
Most people say the quality is about the same between both formats...
However, somewhere in the middle of the page it says;

'H.264 = + ENCODING TIME + QUALITY - SPACE + LATENCY
MPEG-4 = - ENCODING TIME - QUALITY + SPACE - LATENCY'


--> Could you guys help me make a decision, for what format to choose?

[LoRd_MuldeR]

berryracer, please edit your post and change the title for compliance with rule#12!
http://forum.doom9.org/forum-rules.htm

"Each and everyone has their own view about what's best"

[paradoxical]

Why are you using some random person's post to a 5 year old marketing article as your basis for deciding what codec to use? That's extremely silly. Just use x264.

[LoRd_MuldeR]

"MPEG4 or H.264" is an invalid question, because H.264 is a part of the MPEG-4 standard.

H.264 is MPEG-4 Part-10, aka MPEG-4 Advanced Video Coding (AVC). H.264 and MPEG-4 AVC are two alternative names for the very same thing, just from two different organizations (ITU vs. MPEG).

So probably your question is about "MPEG-4 Part-2" (as implemented by DivX, Xvid, etc.) vs. H.264/AVC (as implemented by x264, etc.) ;)

And the answer is that nowadays you almost certainly want to go with H.264, because it compresses more efficiently, has better hardware-support and with 264 you have an excellent encoder for free!

But then you say you want to upload your encodes to Youtube. As they are going to re-encode your video anyway (at rather low quality!), all you can do is provide a half-way decent source...

[paradoxical]

He is, but MPEG-4 Part 2 is almost always referred to as just "MPEG-4" in marketing specs.

[xooyoozoo]

Youtube reencodes anything and everything you throw at it, so the best solution isn't to have a better middleman format but rather to not have one at all.

Remux the DVD MPEG2 stream into a container Youtube can accept (mkv/mov/mpg?) and call it a day.

[benwaggoner]

He is, but MPEG-4 Part 2 is almost always referred to as just "MPEG-4" in marketing specs.
Once upon a time, but not anymore.

I don't think I've seen anyone try to market MPEG-4 part 2 encoding in years.

As for the OP, can't YouTube accept a non-CSS'ed .VOB file as source anyway?

If not, for a given speed of encoding, x264 will look substantially better than any mp4pt2. H.264 is just a much better standard, so even a really quick encode can do lots of stuff the relatively weak mp4pt2 can't touch. Also x264 has gotten MUCH more performance tuning than xvid etcetera in the last few years, particularly for hardware with lots of cores and advanced SIMD functions.

It's pretty cool to see x264 running 36 threads and pegging 100% CPU on my 12-core workstation.

[paradoxical]

Once upon a time, but not anymore.

I don't think I've seen anyone try to market MPEG-4 part 2 encoding in years.

Then you haven't looked hard enough. From Apple's iPhone spec page (http://www.apple.com/iphone/specs.html):

Video formats supported: H.264 video up to 1080p, 30 frames per second, High Profile level 4.1 with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 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 per channel, 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


Emphasis added. I can find numerous other examples of this from other companies. It is still a commonly-used way they differentiate H.264 and MPEG-4 Part 2 video in marketing specs.

[Blue_MiSfit]

To add to this fun, the broadcast industry almost universally refers to H.264 as "MPEG-4".

/rage

Anyway, to actually contribute to this discussion - just use H.264. If your intended playback device is a software player, or hardware player that supports H.264 there's basically no reason not to. As far as which encoder to pick, x264 is darn tough to beat.

[paradoxical]

Exactly, as I said above just use x264. Listening to some random person's post to a 5 year old marketing article is silly.

[Asmodian]

"Poised to become the next standard for format of convergence in the digital video industry regardless of the video playback platform"

It is no longer "poised", it has long happened.

"Perhaps more important are the interactive features that MPEG-4 offers. The video functions almost like a Web page, but allowing people to interact with the picture on the screen or to manipulate individual elements in real time."

Was this ever true? I have never seen anything like this.

I don't think that link really is a comparison, it just randomly lists things about the codecs and doesn't capture their differences.

Anyway, like everyone else: Just use x264 :D

[paradoxical]

Well, as I said that article is 5 years old and is some marketing puff piece. H.264 was definitely not as dominant then as it is today.

[benwaggoner]

"Perhaps more important are the interactive features that MPEG-4 offers. The video functions almost like a Web page, but allowing people to interact with the picture on the screen or to manipulate individual elements in real time."

Was this ever true? I have never seen anything like this.
Wow. They must be talking about BIFS (BInary Format for Scenes). That was kind of like QuickTime Interactive or early Flash, based on VRML (going back even further).

I think every company trying to do anything with BIFS gave up more than 10 years ago, and there was never a deployed player that took advantage of those theoretically cool but complex to implement features. Envivo got their start with a BIFS authoring tool, but quickly shifted to live encoders once BIFS thudded in the market.