Someone is capturing an animation sequence from AutoCad on-the-fly. They can give me H264 or MPEG4. I would normally ask for the H264 as a cleaner, better compression ... but I never work with MPEG4 anymore ... is it LESS compressed?
This is for an HD frame.
I'm going to convert either codec to ProRes the moment I get it.
Will I get a better ProRes from the H264 or the MPEG4?
All ears,
Ben
MacBook Pro (15-inch Glossy), Mac OS X (10.6.8)
You need to ask more questions. H.264 is a codec. It's used in a number of frameworks, including both QuickTime and MPEG-4. MPEG-4 is both a framework and a codec. Basically H.264 or MPEG-4 doesn't make much sense in itself, because you can have an H.264 MPEG-4 file, which is what you export from FCP when to make a master file for Computer. If the choice is QuickTime or MPEG-4 for FCP, go with QuickTime.
H.264 is a more complex, advanced, better quality version of MPEG-4. MPEG-4 is the original rough compression codec, where H.264 was built from MPEG-4, as a much more advanced version. Either way, both are good for web deviltry, or fast camera captures. Both are highly compressed, super compressed, and not what I'd want as an Auto-CAD delivery. I'd ask for a much lesser compressed codec, myself. But if those two are your only choice, H.264 for sure, since it retains much more color and detail data than the original MPEG-4 codec.
Thank you BenB,
I had something hovering on the periphery of my memory like that. Very helpful. I'm trying to see if I can squeeze any 'less' compression out of what they are doing. They are using a PC system app. Which delivers a slightly odd, for me, set of codecs.
I'll go for the H264 unless I can get my hands on their recording app and see if I can find something a bit less compressed.
Very much appreciated,
And thank you too Tom, valuable info. And I didn't know that MPEG-4 wasn't a Quicktime.
Ben
H264 or MPEG4
