[Gabe Logan]

Ok all you video encoders i got a question.I'm going to be encoding video and i am thinking of either xvid or h.264.The only player right now that i know of is quicktime to play h.264 but if any others out there please let me know.Will h.264 give me the best possible picture at the highest file size or will xvid also give me great quality?Also will xvid have a huge file size with it?

 

[Stephonovich]

h.264 blows away Xvid in terms of quality and file size. A quick Google will show that. Here's a great comparison, using Finding Nemo. Also has a link at the top for another comparison using some really high quality 720p stuff.

 

[Veniogenesis]

The usual suspects can do H.264. MPlayer (Media Player Classic) and VLC can play H.264. Just be cautious; powerful processor required for playback.

 

[Kwisatz]

H.264 content can be played back by any DS compatible player assuming you have a filter for decoding the video stream, and a splitter to handle the type of file that everything has been muxed into. FFDShow (newer builds), CoreAVC, Nero, etc. provide filters capable of decoding H.264. FFDShow is a decent free option, whereas CoreAVC currently offers the fastest / most efficient software decoding of it, but is a pay option. As for a splitter, I'd recommend Haali's for both mp4 and mkv files. Depending on how you encode the audio, additional or alternate filters may be needed too, but I assume you're just going to go the mp3 route.

 

[incognitoedleon]

I feel like a dinosaur still using xvid, but the H.264 encoder seemed quite a bit harder to set up properly. Maybe if I wasn't so lazy...

 

[Gabe Logan]

Looks like h.264 it is

I hear vlc has a beta encoder that is command line so tommorow i'll check it out and see how it performs.