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tomyboy342000 · 02-22-2010, 03:24 PM

The questions I have are about using Compressor. I have some knowledge of H.264, as well as using Compressor for a number of years, and have had good success with it. I was wondering if anyone else is having good successes with Compressor, and if you would recommend any particular settings for it, for encoding H.264 QT files?

Does anyone know if Compressor does a better job at H.264 encoding than Sorenson 6 on a Mac? Side by side quality and file size comparisons differ greatly? Speed is not a concern for me...

Would you say that the VP6 codec is better than H.264? If yes or no, why?

I’m flustered at all the codecs and encoders out there and at work, working mostly in educational video, instead of converting everything to H.264, as I’ve pushed, my friends in the company want to stick with VP6, but they are looking into the F4V file format for potential conversion in future, instead of QT. I’ve never heard of F4V, what do you understand about it? I know this is an over-load, but any advice or answers would be most appreciated.

benwaggoner · 02-22-2010, 03:57 PM

(02-22-2010 03:24 PM)tomyboy342000 Wrote: The questions I have are about using Compressor. I have some knowledge of H.264, as well as using Compressor for a number of years, and have had good success with it. I was wondering if anyone else is having good successes with Compressor, and if you would recommend any particular settings for it, for encoding H.264 QT files?

I'm not a big fan of Compressor for doing final distribution encodes. It has some great features for video processing and transcoding, but Apple's encoders for distribution formats like H.264, MPEG-4 part 2, and MPEG-2 have always been quite weak.

Their H.264 is really just Baseline+B-frames, and doesn't have the advanced features available in x264, Main Concept, Ateme, Expression Encoder 3, etcetera. No 8x8 blocks, no CABAC, no multiple reference frames...

Quote:Does anyone know if Compressor does a better job at H.264 encoding than Sorenson 6 on a Mac? Side by side quality and file size comparisons differ greatly? Speed is not a concern for me...

Squeeze 6 incorporates a recent version of Main Concept, and would be able to hit the same quality level at quite a bit lower bitrates than Compressor if targeting High Profile playback (Flash/Silverlight/QuickTime; pretty much anything that doesn't fit in your hand).

Quote:Would you say that the VP6 codec is better than H.264? If yes or no, why?

A good H.264 High Profile is definitely better than VP6. However, if you're targeting Flash, VP6 is the best codec that can use an alpha channel.

Quote:I’m flustered at all the codecs and encoders out there and at work, working mostly in educational video, instead of converting everything to H.264, as I’ve pushed, my friends in the company want to stick with VP6, but they are looking into the F4V file format for potential conversion in future, instead of QT. I’ve never heard of F4V, what do you understand about it? I know this is an over-load, but any advice or answers would be most appreciated.

.F4V==.MP4. F4V just means "a MP4 that will work in Flash" - any .MP4 with H.264 video and AAC audio will work fine in Flash. And any .F4V will work fine in QuickTime, Silverlight, etcetera.

tomyboy342000 · (This post was last modified: 02-22-2010 05:44 PM by tomyboy342000.)

"x264, Main Concept, Ateme, Expression Encoder 3, etcetera"

So, are these all software encoders? Do you know how Apple encodes their trailers? Always wanted to know more about that.

So you'd definitely think that Sorenson 6 has better quality and can provide much smaller file sizes? Would you drag in an 8-bit uncompressed QT, and do the compression that way? What settings in Sorenson 6 are directed towards the higher quality specs mentioned in your post? Thanks!

Dave · 02-24-2010, 12:59 PM

(02-22-2010 03:57 PM)benwaggoner Wrote: .F4V==.MP4. F4V just means "a MP4 that will work in Flash" - any .MP4 with H.264 video and AAC audio will work fine in Flash. And any .F4V will work fine in QuickTime, Silverlight, etcetera.

Unless you find that your .F4V is fragmented, in which case you may find that it won't work in some applications until you do a moof to moov atom aggregation using the likes of Adobe's F4V Post Processor util.

Dave

tomyboy342000 · 02-24-2010, 01:35 PM

Quote:Their H.264 is really just Baseline+B-frames, and doesn't have the advanced features available in x264, Main Concept, Ateme, Expression Encoder 3, etcetera. No 8x8 blocks, no CABAC, no multiple reference frames...

So, if I install Handbrake or FFMPEG, and import and 8-bit umcompressed QT file, or another higher quality file, and use the encoder to encode in "x264", will this encode then in theory be better than an output from Compressor? What open source encoders are recommended as far as seeing all the extra settings and means of controlling the encoding more? Can you recommend some, or what you use?

Quote:Squeeze 6 incorporates a recent version of Main Concept, and would be able to hit the same quality level at quite a bit lower bitrates than Compressor if targeting High Profile playback (Flash/Silverlight/QuickTime; pretty much anything that doesn't fit in your hand).

What is "Main Concept", a protocol, formatting, or an encoding company's unique algorithm?

Quote:A good H.264 High Profile is definitely better than VP6. However, if you're targeting Flash, VP6 is the best codec that can use an alpha channel.

What would be the importance of using alpha channels? It is based on more control over the frames and resolution and settings, etc?

Quote:F4V just means "a MP4 that will work in Flash" - any .MP4 with H.264 video and AAC audio will work fine in Flash. And any .F4V will work fine in QuickTime, Silverlight, etcetera.

So, if a Flash Developer came back and said we can only use F4V, we can't use QT, what is he saying, is he afraid of having to re-code the entire site, or is he not wanting to incorporate the flash player, is it a coding issue? Could it be the way the code in Flash is set up? Or how the Flash players are imbedded? Or how the code is linked and imbedded to access and play the video files? They said that it can only be F4V, a QT didn't work, nor did an .mp4? So, are they not want to re-code, or could it be a true technical thing?

Dave · 02-24-2010, 05:51 PM

(02-24-2010 01:35 PM)tomyboy342000 Wrote: What is "Main Concept", a protocol, formatting, or an encoding company's unique algorithm?

A company that makes / sells CODECs

http://www.mainconcept.com/site/

Quote:So, if a Flash Developer came back and said we can only use F4V, we can't use QT, what is he saying, is he afraid of having to re-code the entire site, or is he not wanting to incorporate the flash player, is it a coding issue?

I suspect they are saying they don't want it in a QuickTime .MOV container. Instead they want it in a .F4V / .FLV container.

Dave

tomyboy342000 · 02-24-2010, 07:44 PM

Quote:I suspect they are saying they don't want it in a QuickTime .MOV container. Instead they want it in a .F4V / .FLV container.

But does this really matter? What does the container do that the other doesn't? Doesn't Flash have the ability to play both? Does it have to do with how it is embedded? What would be the reasoning behind this preference? Cause that determines what we finally output, and QT or an F4V, or are they the same thing essentially?