What is the best video format?

[jackdup]

There's nothing wrong with making multiple encodes to try and decide. Maybe take a portion of the real video and encode it at different settings until you get what you want - that happy medium of small size and decent quality.

Adding to this:

Be sure to select a variety of shots to make sure your sample is representative of the entire video.

When the quality/bitrate gets too low you will lose small low contrast detail, moving edges get rough, and the video may get blocky. Also watch for posterization artifacts in shallow gradients that are in motion (especially dark areas, sometimes the blue sky, etc) -- these can be very obvious and distracting.

Thank you for the additional information. Is there a consensus on the best combination for encoding? Above it was mentioned that mkv-h264-aac was the preferred but not sure if that is a consensus or one persons opinion. Also MP4 was mentioned and may be more accepted in terms of devices that are compatible with it. I believe most of what I have plays both but as I add other devices that may not be the case.

What is the difference between MP4 and MKV aside from the simple fact not all devices will use either or both. Is there an advantage of one over the other technology wise?

Thank you

[jackdup]

First, do you have a program you would recommend that would not require a lot of in-depth knowledge to get quality or reasonable results?

I don't know. What are you trying to do? If you're making a DVD, then AvsToDVD. It'll choose the correct bitrate to fill a DVD+/-R.

MP4 or MKV? Then maybe VidCoder. With that you can choose a CQ (quality-based) setting. 18 is a good number without blowing up the file size too much.

Second what bitrate should a person use...

There's no easy answer to that. It depends on the complexity of the material (how easy it is to compress), and how low you're willing to go before it looks bad to your eyes. You'll have to judge for yourself. There's nothing wrong with making multiple encodes to try and decide. Maybe take a portion of the real video and encode it at different settings until you get what you want - that happy medium of small size and decent quality. When possible (meaning, you don't have to fit a specific file size) constant quality encodes are better because you always get the quality you want, but without regard to file size. Then you have to decide what quality you want. As I mentioned, I use 18 for my MP4 encodes for YouTube. For DVD, because I'm fitting them to a single DVD-R, other factors come into play, but I won't bore you with those.

The pages for both of those programs have guides at the bottom.

I have asked two others that have replied their opinion so wouldn't mind getting yours as well.

Is there a consensus on the best combination for encoding? Above it was mentioned that mkv-h264-aac was the preferred but not sure if that is a consensus or one persons opinion. Also MP4 was mentioned and may be more accepted in terms of devices that are compatible with it.

What is the difference between MP4 and MKV aside from the simple fact not all devices will use either or both. Is there an advantage of one over the other technology wise?

[jagabo]

Is there a consensus on the best combination for encoding?

No. Different people have different needs. Do you care about encoding speed? Do you care about file size? Do you care about container? Do you care about compatibility with specific devices?

Also MP4 was mentioned and may be more accepted in terms of devices that are compatible with it.

MP4 is more compatible -- mostly because Apple devices use and support it. So all the other manufactures have to support it too.

What is the difference between MP4 and MKV aside from the simple fact not all devices will use either or both. Is there an advantage of one over the other technology wise?

They're just different ways of organizing video, audio, and other stuff in a file. MP4 has wider support. MKV is more flexible and support is getting better. I use MKV with AVC video and usually AC3 audio (directly from my DVD rips). At some point I'll probably switch to HEVC, VP9, or AV1 (note that's the number one, not a capitol letter i, not to be confused with the AVI container).

[teodz1984]

MP4 or MKV are just containers..

What you use depends on what ecosystem or APPS are you playing your files on...
Used to be Apple natively support MP4 not MKV on IOS, but not MKV. Don't know if they've relaxed their restrictions

Also remember there are several combinations on how to encode MP4s, so you may not play every MP4 you get (esp if they are not encoded with specs given by the ITUNES store or APPLE's compatibilty list)