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H.264 - new codec in town

J

joren

Active Member
H.264

Just wanted to alert everyone to this amazing new codec. It's bundled with the latest version of quicktime (soon to be available to PCs). Previously, I swore by sorenson 3 pro for encoding to the web. I just wasn't impressed with H.263 and earlier mpeg-4 compression. But wow. It's amazing. And now all you have to do is buy QT pro to get a killer H.264 encoder. That's just $30 compared to Sorenson squeeze's $400 or like me cleaner ($650) plus sorenson 3 pro ($200). Of course, the downside is QT 7 has a very low market saturation. Hopefully they'll release a wintel version soon.

I was going to do my own comparison, but I think THIS GUY'S is very thorough. Of course you need QT7 to view it.

Edit: Actually QT7 is now in public preview for Windows. So, everyone download it!
 
H.264 has been around for a while, since like, 2003.

I wasn't impressed with Quicktime's H.264 codec. It didn't suck, it just seemed lackluster and average at best, compared to what else is out there.

Nero Digital on the other hand was amazing. It's got not only an amazing picture quality, but it is also extremely fast. Too bad I can't play it on anything other than a computer with the Nero media playing software, or with massive amounts of struggle, on my Philips DVP-642. XviD is another H.264 codec that's pretty amazing in what it's capable of.

Unfortunately, it's all pointless since DivX 5/6, while not being the best H.264 codec, is still most widely supported. DivX plays on two of my DVD players. QT/MOV doesn't, nor does its H.264 regardless of how hard I try.

Maybe I'll play with it again, but again, it seemed like it was sub-par compared to what else is out there.

Once Quicktime Alternative comes out with the QT7 codecs, I'll get that on the PC. I won't download real QT on my PC though, it seems to take over everything regardless of what I select in the setup.
 
Paul- I think we're talking apples and oranges. Until there is a standard adapted for HD-DVD, mpeg-2 is going to stay the best distribution format for dvd. I was referring to more towards web-based distribution. I've heard Nero and Xvid are great. Nero was the first with h.264 in early 2005 (not 2003). but they won't have the market that QT7 will have soon. Especially with the demographic that most low budget video enthusiasts want to get. Plus, after your trial period, it's gonna cost you more than $30 to encode. I'm really not saying one is better than the other, but perhaps as a PC user, you haven't really had a chance to really test QT7 yet.

Perry, I am going to start using h.264 right away (er, on all my future projects). I don't care if people haven't adopted yet. Now, with a dsl connection and QT7, people can (pseudo)stream stuff broadcast quality, full screen. Web-based content can now look the same as watching a dvd on your computer. For me, that's worth sending them to apple's site to download QT7. It's really the non-tiger mac users that will miss the boat. They have no way of getting QT7 without upgrading their OS. But again, I don't care. I'd rather fewer people have a much better viewing experience. And I never liked cleaner or squeeze.
 
i was referring to web-based distro as well, but simply stating that Divx can also play on some DVD players since it is the most popular as of right now. For web based distro at this point and time, I'd use DivX. It can be played on PC/Mac/Linux with a 200k codec download, as opposed to installing the bloatware nightmares that are Quicktime/Windows Media Player/Real Player/etc. Maybe in a year, if QT7 really takes off, I'd use that, but at this point we're not there yet, and I wouldn't require any user to download Quicktime to see one of my movies. I wouldn't do it for theirs, I wouldn't expect them to do it for mine. Quicktime Alternative works just fine for me, but since it doesn't look as though that will be updated any time soon to account for Quicktime 7, I'll be sticking with DivX.

Also, http://www.mpegla.com/news/n_03-11-17_avc.html shows that it has been around since 2003. I was playing with Vanguard Software had a trial available in late 2003. I'm serious. It's been around since late 2003.

Also, I'm not only a PC user, I'm primarily a PC user. However, I have a fully functioning iBook that I begrudgingly use for editing if nothing else in the entire world works (never) or to test things, like Qucktime 7. I wasn't lying when I said I'd used the codec. I have no qualms about downloading QT7 to my mac. I just don't like installing QT on my PC, since it really seems to frazzle my media configuration and forces me to take 10 minutes to set everything correctly again.
 
Wasn't there something about Circuit City or one of those stores trying to start their own Blockbuster-type movie rental system using the DivX codec, and that's how DivX got started in the first place? I could be wrong, since I heard that from my brother(and heck, he's a dentist)...
 
Well, it was called DIVX, but it wasn't anything having to do with the highly popular compression codec of the same name. Circuit City released a slew of DIVX enabled DVD players, along with inexpensive DVDs to go with them. The catch was that each time you watched the film, the DVD player dialed up via a phone line and your credit card was billed. It was regular DVD, it just billed you when you watched it. Of course, it didn't take off due to being a just plain silly idea.

I think the creators of DivX just decided to steal that things name or something. DivX now is a codec, which happens to be supported on various Philips and Kiss DVD players.
 
This is really convincing me to go ahead and buy QT Pro for my new Powerbook. I'd love to try this out, and from what you're saying, the codec can compress to the best of it's ability right from QuickTime player. That is just too cool!!
 
I tried this codec a while ago when I was putting content on my new website and I wasn't sure that it was quite ready for primetime, so to speak. I'm sticking with my trusty Sorenson for now. We'll see what happens.
 

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