.hs64 stuttering playback

[realdanielh]

Hello,

i am trying to encode from .mov animation codec to .mov h264, resolution 1280x720. I was playing around with the settings, but i never got a h264 file that has acceptable quality AND stutterfree playback. I am really wondering why i cant do this, because the apple trailers are also encoded in h264 and i can play back any of these in 720p almost stutterfree plus they are in stunning quality. Their bitrate is about 6-7 Mbit/s, but if i create a h264 movie with that bitrate, i just have a slideshow instead of a movie.
When i decrease the bitrate to about 1.5Mbit/s, then playback is smooth, but quality is horrible.

My Computer is an older generation iMac G5, not the greatest thing, but as i said, it plays the apple trailers almost flawless, so why not the ones created with ffmpeg?

Also i am wondering which encoder exactly to use? I see .mov mpeg-4, .mp4 mpeg-4, .h264 mencoder and .h264 x264 in the presets. Quite confusing. If i use the mencoder, all i get is a black picture when played back in quicktime, but with sound.

[Case]

Also i am wondering which encoder exactly to use? I see .mov mpeg-4, .mp4 mpeg-4, .h264 mencoder and .h264 x264 in the presets. Quite confusing.

MOV mpeg-4 has MPEG-4 part 2 video (like DivX, not H.264) in a .mov file, and uses the ffmpeg engine for converting
.MP4 mpeg-4 has MPEG-4 part 2 video (like DivX, not H.264), but now in an .mp4 file, and uses the ffmpeg engine for converting
h.264 mencoder has AVC/H.264 video in an .mp4 file, and uses the mencoder engine for converting
h.264 x264 has AVC/H.264 video in an .mp4 file, and uses open source x264 for video converting, with help from the ffmpeg engine

The first two are much alike, and the last two are much alike. H.264 has better video compression, and will demand more processing power than 'vanilla' mpeg-4, both on encoding (making the file) and decoding (playback).