mp4 video, what's the difference between: divx - xvid - AVC(H264)

[nico-t]

File size doesnt seem to matter, that's all fairly the same.

[sojproductions]

couldn't tell you the exact difference but I do know when you are creating MP4s for mobile usage you need 264, as that universally plays on iphones androids etc. The other 2 won't play on iphones or ipads. A lesson I learnt the hard way a while back!

[DamianJ]

mp4 is a container. you can have different formats inside that container.

what exactly is your question?

[BaldBishop]

Xvid (h263) beats divx. Acv (h264) beats xvid. If encoding time is an issue, go with xvid. If you want better quality, go with acv.

[nico-t]

Originally Posted by sojproductions

couldn't tell you the exact difference but I do know when you are creating MP4s for mobile usage you need 264, as that universally plays on iphones androids etc. The other 2 won't play on iphones or ipads. A lesson I learnt the hard way a while back!

yep that's definitely good to know, thanks.

and damian, im looking for the best mp4 format to play on all devices. For tube videos on one of my sites.

I did some testing, and a 3 minute video in AVC with acceptable enough quality is 9,5mb. Is this a good file size or can i make it smaller without too much quality loss?
Bitrate is 384, fps 18, size 640x480. Modifying size doesnt really affect file size. Lower bitrate does but makes the quality almost unacceptable imo.

[BaldBishop]

Too late to edit: that's avc and not acv. I don't know how I made that mistake.

[MaDalton]

the file size is the same when you encode with the same bitrate

mp4 - like Damian said - is just a container (like a shoebox), it doesnt say anything about the codec (divx/xvid/avc) inside

for best results and best compatibility use H264

[DamianJ]

Ah ok, if you want the file most likely to play on the most devices, then yes, as Ma D says, H264.

[MaDalton]

Originally Posted by nico-t

yep that's definitely good to know, thanks.

and damian, im looking for the best mp4 format to play on all devices. For tube videos on one of my sites.

I did some testing, and a 3 minute video in AVC with acceptable enough quality is 9,5mb. Is this a good file size or can i make it smaller without too much quality loss?
Bitrate is 384, fps 18, size 640x480. Modifying size doesnt really affect file size. Lower bitrate does but makes the quality almost unacceptable imo.

fps 18 should make the video look weird to the human eye, keep it at 24/25 (depending on the original)

resolution has no influence on file size, only the bitrate (in your case 384 kbit/s - simply multiply by seconds and you have the size of your file)

[nico-t]

allright, thanks for the pointers

[sojproductions]

Another tip, some software uses iphone presets - dont use iphone presets, they won't stream to androids if you use an embed like jwplayer - something to do with the marker that the presets place in the head use 'customised mp4' instead. Took me an age to work out that little dilemma.

[nico-t]

I've got an issue, the AVC mp4 file doesn't start to play until it's completely loaded in jw player.

I've read that there's metadata in the file, and this needs to be moved to the start of the file for it to be played while it is loading.

I've tried mp4 fast start: Doesnt do anything.
And mp4 Metadata Mover: Destroys the file from playing.

Nice that it's always so simple.

[MaDalton]

encoding program has no streaming option for mp4?

[nico-t]

nope.... can you recommend another one that does have that option? I am using format factory now.

[MaDalton]

Originally Posted by nico-t

nope.... can you recommend another one that does have that option? I am using format factory now.

sorry, i am afraid you will have to try a few

i use Carbon Coder but that costs like $6000 and is therefore not really recommendable (but has that option)

[nico-t]

I already found one i installed a long time ago, gonna try it.

[MaDalton]

PS: i used Metadata Mover in the past with no problems, maybe you try it on an MP4 that you encoded with the other program (if that has no streaming option either)

[sojproductions]

i use metadata mover to, there must be a problem with the MP4 output file, it should take about 1 second to edit the file in metadata mover and shouldn't tamper with the file itself, it just moves a marker.

[nico-t]

I used the other software to encode and it has a streaming option. But now it starts playing after 90% of the video is loaded instead of 1 second like the default option in jw player says. I thought this would be easy since it's a WP plugin but i was wrong.

[MaDalton]

Originally Posted by nico-t

I used the other software to encode and it has a streaming option. But now it starts playing after 90% of the video is loaded instead of 1 second like the default option in jw player says. I thought this would be easy since it's a WP plugin but i was wrong.

how long is the video? i think it still loads a certain amount of video first to buffer. and if the video is only 1 minute...

[nico-t]

3 minutes. So the first 2 and half minute are loaded before it starts playing and thats unacceptable.

[MaDalton]

Originally Posted by nico-t

3 minutes. So the first 2 and half minute are loaded before it starts playing and thats unacceptable.

yeah, there's still something wrong... maybe try setting the player to 10 secs.

[nico-t]

bufferlength value in jwplayer doesnt do anything. Nice.
I quit for today, i've had it. Working on this fucking crap for hours, fuck this.

[DamianJ]

Originally Posted by nico-t

bufferlength value in jwplayer doesnt do anything. Nice.
I quit for today, i've had it. Working on this fucking crap for hours, fuck this.

I always outsource anything that I don't know how to do rather than fuck about wasting a day of my valuable time to try and do something an expert could do in 5 minutes...

[raymor]

Originally Posted by DamianJ

mp4 is a container. you can have different formats inside that container.

what exactly is your question?

Not to be confused with mpeg-4 part 10 aka avc, which is a codec standard. .

mp4 files, or mpeg-4 part 14, are container files formalizing the Quicktime container format which normally contain mpeg-4 (avc) video plus streaming hints.


DivX and xvid are implementations of an older part 2 type codec specification. DivX specifically is a reverse engineered implementation of the old Microsoft codec that was supposed to be mpeg-2 compatible but is in fact broken and not standards compliant.

[nico-t]

after a break, looking with a fresh point of view it was still the file encoding part that wasnt good, did some other settings and now it's working.

[Major (Tom)]

Originally Posted by MaDalton

fps 18 should make the video look weird to the human eye, keep it at 24/25 (depending on the original)

resolution has no influence on file size, only the bitrate (in your case 384 kbit/s - simply multiply by seconds and you have the size of your file)

for pal euro boy
usa shoots 29.97. going to 24fps looks weird Ja Ja

ds

[MaDalton]

Originally Posted by DukeSkywalker

for pal euro boy
usa shoots 29.97. going to 24fps looks weird Ja Ja

ds

sorry!!

i indeed confused the framerate for ntsc