basic questions about benefits of converting to h.264 and PS3 videos.

[cesca07]

Hi, a few months back I just got an hdtv and a ps3, and now that I have some free time, i have begun dabbling into video conversion, since i´ve got a ton of files that I would like to try out on my ps3 and my hdtv.

I do most of my conversions on a Mac, and have the programs ISquint and FFMPEGX.

I´ve also just been to introduced to .mp4, h.264 and all of that stuff.

I´ve tried converting to both (especially with ISquint, since I just installed FFMPEGX), but has just actually tried high-quality conversion (For TV output) with plain .mp4 (which looked rather ugly on my ps3, but maybe it was the file) since checking the .h264 option seeminly takes hours for a single file.

Basically what I want to know is what benefits do I get for converting to h.264, if only HD or HQ contents benefit from it (for a normal non hd .avi file, does looks really better with it?), and wich is the fastest way to enconde? wich files types benefit the most from the conversion? any other tips for PS3 user trying to play files on it? any other useful program? thanks!!

[Baldrick]

Moving you to our Mac forum section.

[rumplestiltskin]

H264 takes plenty of horsepower. Your profile doesn't show what Mac you are using but, based upon the size of the HDs listed, you probably are not using a G5 or Intel Mac. In this case your encoding will take a long time. On my Intel iMac, I get around real-time encoding of AVI source material into H264 640w with MPEG Streamclip. ffmpegX is a bit faster.

Do I lose any quality going from AVI to H264? Perhaps just a smidgen but I dump the videos to my iPod and watch on my standard def TV. Works fine for me but YMMV.

iSquint is also a fine app.

[cesca07]

so the quality will take a serious blow if i convert to basic .mp4?

[rumplestiltskin]

Not a "serious" loss of quality; basic "mp4" (not H264) will, however, require a much higher bitrate in order to maintain the same quality that H264 will achieve at lower bitrates. H264 will take longer to encode. No free lunch.

[cesca07]

So, basically, normal .mp4 will be heavier in size but quicker to convert and .h264 will be better compressed but take longer to do so? if so, space isn´t an issue but time is, i´ll probably got with normal .mp4