Codecs PC<->MAC

[kinglerch]

What is a good codec that is available (freeware preferrably) on both PC and Mac systems to allow for high quality transferring between systems? I would prefer an AVI codec, possibly MPG. I'm not a big fan of MOV.

[decay]

3ivx, divx, or quicktime.

why are you not a fan of MOV? the quality is there. AVI has too many non-standard, PC-only codecs.

dk

[kinglerch]

I tried using the MOV coverter built into the PC's Quicktime, but the result wasn't great. If my source is an AVI on the PC, is there a better program/method to convert it to MOV?

[galactica]

have not tried this myself, but VLC is cross platform and should be able to handle most all types of codecs

worth a try at least, then no conversion needed

[AntnyMD]

MPEG4/3ivx in QuickTime requires QuickTime 6. The MPEG4 codec from Apple is complete crap compared to a 3ivx MPEG4 file of the same resolution and bitrate.

3ivx is awesome for encoding, but I can't those files to stream over the net at all smoothly...

[fugu]

AntnyMD:

You might try repackaging your 3ivx MOVs to MP4s with the mpeg4ip tools and include the -h (hinting) flag. The result is that hint tracks for streaming will be added for the audio and video, and will decode on systems that only have Apple's MPEG4 codec and not 3ivx. Might help.

[BJ_M]

how about just use DV ?

it works fine for me on both platforms ....

also -- avi has about 50 codecs on the pc platform .. but QT has (last i checked) about 33 codecs for the pc and 39 for the mac .. so QT is not far off of avi ..

they are both wrappers and saying QT or saying avi means nothing ..

[sdm]

I believe there is several variants of DV as well.

--- sdm

[BJ_M]

I believe there is several variants of DV as well.

--- sdm

type 1
type 2
raw
25 and 50

and different codecs used for dv like apple, microsoft, phillips, sony, avid, canopus, mainconcept and many others ..

most are cross platform compatable ..

type 2 dv is ussually used the most on both platforms ..

[sdm]

I tried using the MOV coverter built into the PC's Quicktime, but the result wasn't great. If my source is an AVI on the PC, is there a better program/method to convert it to MOV?

.mov and .avi are a formats, not codecs. the quality of both .movs and .avis are dependant on the codec they 'wrap'.

Therefore a 'divx' encoded mov is as good as a 'divx' encoded avi (for example), assuming all the settings are the same.

you want your .avis to be .mov? On a mac, you just open the .avi in quicktime player and choose save as...
the resulting file will be .mov, but it will use the same codec that the .avi did.
Now, thats assuming that the .avi will open and play in quicktime. If it doesn't you need to install the codec (that is made for quicktime) to decode that particular video.

I have to assume its the same for a pc, but I don't know.

All that being said if you get the .avi decoding in quicktime, why change the format at all.

-sdm

[dnix71]

I've used divx5.11 on both mac and pc. The mac version hacks Quicktime and the pc version hacks WMP but both are compatable. My neighbor from Columbia gave me a divx4 vcd to convert to regular dvd, I did it on both machines to see if it mattered time-wise. Both converted just fine.