mp4 xvid vs H264 mpeg-4 avc quality difference

[johnharlin]

I converted a 1 hour, 2.7gb dvd movie to both an mp4 xvid and a h264 mpeg (both to 720 by 480) and the quality of the H264 was significantly better. The file size for the xvid was 252mb and for the h264 was 254mb so almost the same file size for a lot better quality for the h264.

Is the h264 format considered the best quality for the file size available?

[Baldrick]

Yes. H264 should be better. But it will depend on your settings also. If you for example use x264 ultrafast one pass encoding vs xvid 2-pass, etc.

[Hoser Rob]

x.264/h.264 is the most modern format, so the compressionalgorithms are better. PLus there are more encoding features/settings, and that's really where a lot of the power comes in.

As baldrick said (and there are some here I'll argue with but he ain't one of them), x.264 isn't good enough that a half assed mpv is automatically better than a well encoded xvid avi. Some software doesn't have good settings ... particularly "fast one-click" programs. Or the user doesn't understand what settings are there.

Which I can sympathize with. Advanced encoder settings tends to dump you straight into video geek stuff. And I'm much more an audio geek than video geek.

I use handbrake or vidcoder and h.264 for everything except for some half assed quality videos that were made with weird codecs. Avidemux is good for that.