flv vs mp4 quality

[Beefer]

Anyone have thoughts on the quality difference between flv and mp4 such as those on youtube?
regards
beefer

[creamyhorror]

no

[SingSing]

Where is northstar state ?

[Herve]

actually, all new videos are encoded as h264 video + aac audio by video sites
files are usually wrapped as mp4 or flv (or displayed -on the fly- as flv wrapped)

So the wrapper has nothing to do with quality… the important part is their contents

bye

[redwudz]

Minnesota is the North Star state.

Both those file formats are containers that can hold many different video and audio codecs. Quality comparison is difficult as you have to take that in account, along with the myriad of settings possible with each of those codecs.

If your primary interest is in YouTube, you could start here: http://www.google.com/support/youtube/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=55744

[lordsmurf]

FLV is a wrapper, generally has On2 VP6 inside.
MP4 is a wrapper, usually has H.264 inside.

On2 VP6 vs AVC H.264 is no contest -- H.264 wins.
On2 VP7 and VP8 are good, supposedly, but I don't see a future for it. Too late.
Google bought On2, finalized in Feb 2010.
That's the only way I could see it making a comeback -- if Google used it on Youtube.

[EddyH]

FLV is a wrapper, generally has On2 VP6 inside.
MP4 is a wrapper, usually has H.264 inside.

On2 VP6 vs AVC H.264 is no contest -- H.264 wins.
On2 VP7 and VP8 are good, supposedly, but I don't see a future for it. Too late.
Google bought On2, finalized in Feb 2010.
That's the only way I could see it making a comeback -- if Google used it on Youtube.

It may typically have it in, but as FLV is as flexible as AVI or MKV it can quite easily have MP4 inside and that's the way I've usually seen it employed with my own eyes - as a MPG4 container that comes with its own embedded player. Hence and therefore, no quality difference, if encoded at the same rate with an encoder of similar efficiency.

[lordsmurf]

You can't have MP4 inside an FLV, as MP4 is a container, too.
You can rename MP4 to FLV, as that cheat works for a number of players.

[Beefer]

Where is northstar state ?

Minnesota USA

[Beefer]

Minnesota is the North Star state.

Both those file formats are containers that can hold many different video and audio codecs. Quality comparison is difficult as you have to take that in account, along with the myriad of settings possible with each of those codecs.

If your primary interest is in YouTube, you could start here: http://www.google.com/support/youtube/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=55744

TIP If you add '&fmt=18' to the end of the youtube url playing a video, the file is played back and down loaded as MP4 and the quality is close to HD

[Herve]

I usually use "&fmt=22" to access to 720p

bye

[EddyH]

You can't have MP4 inside an FLV, as MP4 is a container, too.
You can rename MP4 to FLV, as that cheat works for a number of players.

Agh! Fair enough. MP4 has merged with H264 to become one and the same in my mind.
Which is dumb, because my phone accepts "MP4" files as an audio format for a start
Just imagine i'd said H264 + AAC as the codec(s), and MP4 instead of/as well as AVI (and MOV, and MKV, and...)