doom9.org's annual codec comparison

Scintilla · Post by **Scintilla** » Mon Dec 26, 2005 4:07 am

Doom9's <a href="http://www.doom9.org/index.html?/codecs ... tm">annual codec shootout</a> is up, and this year's winner is X264.

Thoughts?

shirohamada · Post by **shirohamada** » Wed Dec 28, 2005 10:36 pm

saw that coming, i mean x264. development been really fast since last year.

Qyot27 · Post by **Qyot27** » Wed Dec 28, 2005 11:39 pm

Perfect time to switch? Wait, I already did [officially] back in September...

SpringBoy · Post by **SpringBoy** » Wed Dec 28, 2005 11:41 pm

Well Dattebayo just switched over to releasing their episodes in H.264 (I think it's x264) so hopefully use of MPEG-4 AVC is on the rise. Higher quality, smaller sizes, it's all good.

x264 still has a ways to go but it's definately getting there. It should become the next codec of choice for anime in the next few years.

jasper-isis · Post by **jasper-isis** » Thu Dec 29, 2005 12:57 am

This makes me wonder if anybody's going to update the A/V Tech guides in the near future. The main page says "Last Updated: 22-Jan-2004," and to my knowledge, there isn't even a mention of H.264 in there. The AMVWiki has been keeping up a little more closely, but I don't know how up-to-date it is...

Qyot27 · Post by **Qyot27** » Thu Dec 29, 2005 1:38 am

Well, from what I remember AD saying about it, x264 is undergoing so much revision at this stage that any guide written right now would ultimately be useless in a matter of a few months. The page on AMVWiki comparing x264 to XviD is also kind of out-of-date also - the revision of x264 is from back in March, and VFW also, so it doesn't have nearly the capabilities and functions that current builds do.

If I had the time I'd post up a page or something that gives the parameters for an x264 encode that would work on lower-end computers (for instance, a four year old eMachines with a 1GHz Celeron with 256MB of RAM) while maintaining a high level of quality, but it takes forever to encode on my machine so that I could make sure that the screenshots adhere to the exact settings I give to MeGUI. I could probably do something like that when I get around to the encoding stage of the video I'm working on, but I'd also need a high-motion scene to capture also, since my current project is mostly static or low-motion.

I'm getting the weirdest feeling of déjà vu...

Willen · Post by **Willen** » Thu Dec 29, 2005 4:09 am

On my 4 (or is it 5?) year old machine, x264 playback is pretty iffy. I really like the file size differences on same quality video compared to Divx/Xvid, but the only thing that seems to play them back reliably is my PSP. I think until the adoption of Blu-ray or HD-DVD which incorporates MPEG-4 AVC (H.264) and editing/authoring tools for them becomes more widespread, usage is going to be pretty much an oddity. The only thing that may speed change is if devices like the iPod with video and the PSP support MP4 AVC drag-and-drop without converting to a specific size and/or flavor (like Quicktime's limits in b-frames and block sizes or the PSP's macroblock limit).

shirohamada · Post by **shirohamada** » Fri Dec 30, 2005 5:04 am

75MB an episode, sweet

trythil · Post by **trythil** » Fri Dec 30, 2005 5:43 am

Jasper-Isis wrote:This makes me wonder if anybody's going to update the A/V Tech guides in the near future. The main page says "Last Updated: 22-Jan-2004," and to my knowledge, there isn't even a mention of H.264 in there.

The mencoder documentation (as well as the mencoder manual page; look for x264encopts) can provide a somewhat complete overview of what each option does, which is a start.

Zero1's working on a more complete guide; hit him up in #AMV sometime.