Hello everyone! Since some people are having trouble watching my videos, I`d like to know if encoding the videos in WMV format will result in worst quality! I never encoded anything in wmv so I was never able to compare the wmv - Xvid quality! Do you think there will be a big difference or the quality can be the same? One more thing, do you prever the Xvid AVI or WMV? Thanks!
WMV quality-wise?
- Thread starter Keichi
- Start date
There`s a big difference in those 3 formats; WMV and Xvid are compressed formats, and AVI (non Divx) is generally an uncompressed format, offering top quality but at the price of huge filesizes. I find a good compromise is a top quality WMV - as all my videos and tributes start as - making sure the res is 704x576 - with correct framerate for the contents too. Daja and I did some tests a while back, and found Divx can cut the filesize by about 30% with only a 5%-ish loss of quality. We also found no discernable difference between a DivX AVI and an MP4.Keichi said:
Kirky made a good point there... I`ll start to encode my videos in DivX since I guess it`s more common than Xvid and people are more likely to already have the DivX codec installed... I think this will solve the problem that some people are having witth some of my videos! Thanks for helping me out Kirky, Marni and Dolbyman!
Fair point; I`ve still got the gigs of AVIs in my collection ripped of DVDs from times gone by - long before modern compression was popular ;Ddolbyman said:
just a little hint avi is just a container and can be used by tons of codecs .. so avi does not reveal much about the codec at all
I really dislike wmvs, and it's far from my microsoft hate. Quality wise wmv is really suited for being able to show decent stuff at extremely low bitrates. But it slams into a brick wall as you increase the bitrate and try to make it better. Besides detail loss though my biggest beef is that it discolors everything far more than the other codecs. It helps blend the image to make it appear clearer but I hate the discolorment
I'll say it again .. I tried some codecs for my videos (xvid,divx,wmv,x264) and my choice went to wmv (using simmilar encoding that is used on Blueray and HDDVD) It had the best quality to size ratio (multipass encoding) and the best colors .. maybe codecs evolved since late summer 2007 so my future codec of choice might be diffrent
marni1971 said:
Why 704x576? Isn't 640x480 standard (well, it is in the US, I can't speak for Britain).
Me personally, I have no issue with WMV. I'm not a big fan of Windows Media Player, which is independant of my opinion on the codec. I just use Flip4Mac so I can play WMV files in Quicktime, so WMV works for me just fine.
Actually, standard NTSC is 720x480, which can be anamorphized to 4:3 or 16:9. For PAL it's 720x576 but at 50 fps instead of 60.
Btw, I choose x.264 encoded with StaxRip for the win. WMV is good if you want to interlace your video, and thus might be considered for 1080i encodes. However, I prefer deinterlacing and then encoding, as long as the motion isn't too strong.
Check this file out!
http://www.mousebits.com/sirlamers_stuff/render_tests.zip
Btw, I choose x.264 encoded with StaxRip for the win. WMV is good if you want to interlace your video, and thus might be considered for 1080i encodes. However, I prefer deinterlacing and then encoding, as long as the motion isn't too strong.
Check this file out!
http://www.mousebits.com/sirlamers_stuff/render_tests.zip
I still use apple's h.264 just because it's all most computers can handle and is at least a basic form of h.264. I'd love to start moving up to the more complex levels of h.264 once I get my HD camcorder but until new video cards with some better hardware support become more commonplace I'll probably keep the complexity down.
clintobean
Member
I am an apple user, and if other users out there use macs don't know the Flip4Mac codec is built specifically that WMV files can be played in quicktime, it really is amazing, you do zero work to watch WMV files. Anyway, I still say that apple's h.264 codec is the most ubiquitous, as I'd wager most everyday computer users use iTunes and also have quicktime. They are MUCh less likely to have installed xvid/divx codecs, and h.264 is much better than wmv.