Quote:
Originally Posted by FranceBB
That's odd... but hey, apparently there are still people using it for... compatibility purposes?
I don't know...
Besides, I thought MPEG-2 was far more common than Xvid, not just for DVDs that are still being produced for some odd reason, but also for all the SD 480i or 576i TV channels out there that are still on air and also HD/FULL HD standards like XDCAM which just don't wanna die...
It feels weird to talk about these things in 2021, but hey, they're still a thing...  |
MPEG-2 is still big in the world of broadcasting due to all those SD receivers out there (and the reluctance of governments to tell the owners of such receivers it's time to move on). For example, in the UK there is a grand total of 8 HD channels, a couple of H.264 SD channels, and several dozen MPEG-2 SD channels that are broadcast at a very low bitrate and with lots of artifacts. I am talking about major channels that people actually watch that are only broadcast in crappy MPEG-2 SD.
However, MPEG-2 was never big on the internet, due to the fact it can only do widescreen at 720x480/576 resolution in its most common form (DVD-Video), which in turn forces high bitrates (together with the usual inefficiency of MPEG-2). And let's be real, nobody wants a file with mediocre SD video that weighs 4 frickin' gigabytes at minimum. So, MPEG4 ASP in AVI (aka Divx/Xvid) is the lowest common denominator on the internet. Sure it looks bad, but at least it's small and it plays even on most non-H.264 standalone players. Of course, it's always a good idea to also provide an H.264 version of the content.