What Format do most of you use ?

Illia Sadri · Post by **Illia Sadri** » Wed May 28, 2003 4:22 pm

I prefer to use mpeg1 for distro as I simply do not care for the divx codecs and most other formats have the issue of widespread availiability.

Real Media is a dreadful format for encoding and really should only be used for those on 56k who have no hope concerning uploading a larger file. Sound tends to be average and video simply dreadful (not to mention it saves it at about a 160*120 resolution

Quicktime is something that not everyone uses so upon even seeing the file extention people shake their heads and go what the heck.

DIVX codecs- Really really depends. The most recent one does offer fairly good quality for an encode and is fine if you want an avi file. However, that means your viewers have to keep up to date with downloading the new codecs as they come out so newer videos will play at all.

Xvid- good quality but again, the viewer needs to be willing to get the codec to play these. Some people will not be able to really play these properly on certain computers. So you do limit your audience a bit by this.

mpeg1- they can run to be a tad large but offer rather decent quality and a huge advantage is along with avi, these are the two types of files that jsut about anyone should be able to play. Older computers can play this along with those on Windows, Mac and Linux alike. So while it is a bit larger file (you are looking at 50-80MB in general) it is a very viable and popular method.

mpeg 2- this is DVD quality. It gets no better in terms of quality in picture and sound. However, the incredibly large size makes it an impratical format for general distrobution but makes it an ideal choice for those who opt to circulate their videos by disks or for distrobution to the various contests.

Tab. · Post by **Tab.** » Wed May 28, 2003 4:30 pm

Illia Sadri wrote:I prefer to use mpeg1 for distro as I simply do not care for the divx codecs and most other formats have the issue of widespread availiability.

Real Media is a dreadful format for encoding and really should only be used for those on 56k who have no hope concerning uploading a larger file. Sound tends to be average and video simply dreadful (not to mention it saves it at about a 160*120 resolution

Quicktime is something that not everyone uses so upon even seeing the file extention people shake their heads and go what the heck.

DIVX codecs- Really really depends. The most recent one does offer fairly good quality for an encode and is fine if you want an avi file. However, that means your viewers have to keep up to date with downloading the new codecs as they come out so newer videos will play at all.

Xvid- good quality but again, the viewer needs to be willing to get the codec to play these. Some people will not be able to really play these properly on certain computers. So you do limit your audience a bit by this.

mpeg1- they can run to be a tad large but offer rather decent quality and a huge advantage is along with avi, these are the two types of files that jsut about anyone should be able to play. Older computers can play this along with those on Windows, Mac and Linux alike. So while it is a bit larger file (you are looking at 50-80MB in general) it is a very viable and popular method.

mpeg 2- this is DVD quality. It gets no better in terms of quality in picture and sound. However, the incredibly large size makes it an impratical format for general distrobution but makes it an ideal choice for those who opt to circulate their videos by disks or for distrobution to the various contests.

lol. somebody else point out how much of that info was wrong, I have to go to work.

dwchang · Post by **dwchang** » Wed May 28, 2003 4:47 pm

Tab. wrote:lol. somebody else point out how much of that info was wrong, I have to go to work.

Which part? I thought for the most part it was fairly accurate. It may not have been technical per se, but it answers the question with regards to quality and practicality.

the Black Monarch · Post by **the Black Monarch** » Wed May 28, 2003 4:59 pm

Format: AVI
Codec: DivX

Reasons: Anything other than Mpeg is a joke. Mpeg-1 is inferior to Mpeg-2, and both are generally inferior to Mpeg-4. There are only two common Mpeg-4 implementations that people use: DivX and XviD. It has been my experience that DivX provides much higher quality than XviD at any reasonable bitrate (assuming they use the same bitrate), and DivX is much more user-friendly to encode with. More people can watch DivX files than XviD files. DivX's built-in adware is easy enough to remove under Windows XP (not sure about 2k, probably very hard on 98 and earlier). Oh, and all of XviD's two-pass modes have crashed every comp I've tested them on. So yeah, DivX is pretty much the champion supreme.

trythil · Post by **trythil** » Wed May 28, 2003 5:03 pm

Illia Sadri wrote: Real Media is a dreadful format for encoding and really should only be used for those on 56k who have no hope concerning uploading a larger file. Sound tends to be average and video simply dreadful (not to mention it saves it at about a 160*120 resolution

Uh, no. You can do RealVideo at any resolution and bitrate you want, and it usually looks pretty damn good, assuming you know what you're doing.

What you find on the Web is generally not reflective of what RV can do, given comparable resolution and bitrates to your usual pirated DivX-encoded movie.

Go search around the video forums here for examples. I can't remember the URLs of RadicalEd0's/Tab's comparison pages at the moment, but they really don't lie.

quicktime dosent support nearly as many good codecs as others

Actually, Sorenson Video 3 looks pretty good

trythil · Post by **trythil** » Wed May 28, 2003 5:09 pm

the Black Monarch wrote:Format: AVI
Codec: DivX

Reasons: Anything other than Mpeg is a joke.

Actually, AVI is a joke

B-frames are a major hack, VBR audio is a total mess, you can't stream it, it's dreadfully limited to what you can store in it (video and CBR audio), and so forth. All of which are advancements that other container formats (see Quicktime, RealMedia) don't really have a problem with.

Additionally, MPEG-2 wasn't designed for the same purpose as MPEG-4. Trying to compare them is like comparing Shakespearean theatre and B-grade porno.

dwchang · Post by **dwchang** » Wed May 28, 2003 5:10 pm

trythil wrote:
the Black Monarch wrote:Format: AVI
Codec: DivX

Reasons: Anything other than Mpeg is a joke.
Actually, AVI is a joke B-frames are a major hack, VBR audio is a total mess, you can't stream it, it's dreadfully limited to what you can store in it (video and CBR audio), and so forth. All of which are advancements that other container formats (see Quicktime, RealMedia) don't really have a problem with.

Additionally, MPEG-2 wasn't designed for the same purpose as MPEG-4. Trying to compare them is like comparing Shakespearean theatre and B-grade porno.

Totally agree. MPEG-2 is far superior to MPEG-4. MPEG-4 was created to have decent quality and small file sizes. MPEG-2 is straight-up DVD quality. It doesn't care about filesizes and just maximizes quality.

I like your analogy about Shakespearean vs. porn

(Gives Trythil +5 points in his "book." Also gives Trythil -1000 points for his sigs)

Pie Row Maniac · Post by **Pie Row Maniac** » Wed May 28, 2003 5:51 pm

For online distribution, I use XviD.

For "specially-made-to-put-on-CD-for-cons" versions, I use MPEG2.

trythil · Post by **trythil** » Wed May 28, 2003 5:53 pm

dwchang wrote:
trythil wrote:
the Black Monarch wrote:Format: AVI
Codec: DivX

Reasons: Anything other than Mpeg is a joke.
Actually, AVI is a joke B-frames are a major hack, VBR audio is a total mess, you can't stream it, it's dreadfully limited to what you can store in it (video and CBR audio), and so forth. All of which are advancements that other container formats (see Quicktime, RealMedia) don't really have a problem with.

Additionally, MPEG-2 wasn't designed for the same purpose as MPEG-4. Trying to compare them is like comparing Shakespearean theatre and B-grade porno.
Totally agree. MPEG-2 is far superior to MPEG-4. MPEG-4 was created to have decent quality and small file sizes. MPEG-2 is straight-up DVD quality. It doesn't care about filesizes and just maximizes quality.

I like your analogy about Shakespearean vs. porn

(Gives Trythil +5 points in his "book." Also gives Trythil -1000 points for his sigs)

Well, that wasn't the main point. The point I was trying to get at is that MPEG-4 is both a video compression standard and a multipurpose container format (just like Quicktime). MPEG-2 (AFAIK, anyway) describes a massively overhauled MPEG-1 video stream.

Like Shakespeare vs. porn. Oh, sure, Shakespeare was a pretty raunchy guy, but it's arguable that his plays were designed as popular entertainment. B-grade porno aims for a specific market niche. Two totally different things.

dwchang · Post by **dwchang** » Wed May 28, 2003 5:56 pm

trythil wrote:Like Shakespeare vs. porn. Oh, sure, Shakespeare was a pretty raunchy guy, but it's arguable that his plays were designed as popular entertainment. B-grade porno aims for a specific market niche. Two totally different things.

I've read the majority of his plays and for the most part, there are quite a few sexual jokes in there. At the same time, B-grade porno is well...a bit more "in-your-face" then say a joke...I think I just de-railed the topic....

(tries to get back on topic)

MPEG-2 RULES YOU FOOLS!