MPEG-4...

[Immortal25]

Hey ppls, just a question regarding mpeg-4. We all know mpeg-1 is vcd and mpeg-2 is dvd...what is mpeg-4? I'm using Studio 11 and I just encoded a movie into mpeg-4...and the description given by studio is that mpeg-4 is used mainly for internet distribution meaning the file size is small? but how about quality?

I mean is mpeg-2 is better than 1 in terms of quality and size also bigger, how come 4 seems to have gone down? Anyhow after encoding I decided to have a look for myself the quality but then it came out searching for codec and error downloading codec (darn WMP )...anyways what codec does mpeg-4 use? It doens't come with WMP or Mircosoft? I mean, we have to download it separately?

So basically I need some enlightenment on mpeg-4 and when to use it...is it really a good format?
Thanks ppls!

[edDV]

MPeg4 can be many things including small for internet distribution or half the size of MPeg2 at similar high quality. MPeg4 (AVC H.264). SD video at commercial DVD quality would be ~3000 Kb/s.

Tradeoff is MPeg4 takes more computer power to compress and more CPU or GPU (both at HD rates) to decompress.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MPEG-4
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.264
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VC-1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xvid

There are dozens of MPeg4 codecs. If you get a MPeg4 file, use GSpot to help determine which codec is needed. Some of the more popular ar divx, xvid, h.264.

MPeg4 codecs come in different flavors for different applications. Best player is VLC which comes with internal decoders for popular formats.

[Midzuki]

Immortal25 wrote:

mpeg-1 is vcd and mpeg-2 is dvd...

Incorrect. VCD is a subset of the MPEG-1 specification,
and DVD-Forum~compliant video is a subset of the MPEG-2 specification.

\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\