Discussion in 'Mac Apps and Mac App Store' started by mymemory, May 11, 2005.
I want to post this to those people who have Quicktime 6 and are planing to upgrade to 7 because of the H.264 codec.
Do not do it unless you have a G5.
I have been converting a few clips to the new H.264 format and they never play smoothly on my 1Ghz 12" Powerbook. I mean, if they do not play well in my system they won't do it in any sistem below and for sure above mine UNLESS you have a G5.
The H.264 is a bit lighter than Sorenson 3 (about 10% in MB weight) and the video quality some 15%. I mean it looks good but save your money for now if you are not really in to web video because all the PCs and Macs would have to update the Quicktime player and... their hardware in orther to be able to run the video at a good rate.
If I knew before I wouldn't purchase the QT Pro yet> probably that is thereason I do not get the lates software as quick because I know there is always some sort of scam or "lemon" under the hud.
What resolution and framerate are you using? H.264 is scalable and smaller content should play without a problem. My single 1.25 can almost play 720p, and should be able to play lesser-quality files without any problems.
H.264 makes a great archival codec. Used at the High to Best quality setting, you can compress a DV video file to 1/10th the file size but retain visually lossless compression. This is a great way to archive video clips. It just needs to be faster, but give H.264 several years and it'll become a viable means to store footage.
It's Time to dump sorenson 3 and move on even apple.com/trailers has converted to h.264 now and the benifits are amazing we are seeing quality better than that of dvd and 5.1 surround sound. The only reason to use sorenson is to cater for quicktime 5 whats the point.
Open your movie in Quicktime, then File -> Export, Movie as MPEG4, play with the settings.
I used Sorenson 3 Pro for several years and didn't think I would find a better codec. It is fast and the quality is top notch and the file sizes are not too bad. I am now doing everything with H.264 primarly because I wanted something more open, smaller files, higher quality, supported on Intel, no need to purchase another professional codec at $300 a pop. The only major trade-off is that it is faster and smoother to scrub thru a video encoded with Sorenson and encoding times are faster.
I wonder if there will be a Sorenson 4 codec?