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cbrain

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Dec 9, 2006
1,049
0
North-East, UK
Hi,

I am about to convert some DVDs for a video iPod, but I'm not sure whether to use H.264 or MPEG 4.

Thanks.
 

Eraserhead

macrumors G4
Nov 3, 2005
10,434
12,250
UK
H.264 will take longer to encode but is better quality for a given file size.
MPEG 4 will be quicker to encode and is compatible with every video player out there including the Zune and the Creative Vision M.

Basically in terms of their qualities: MPEG 4=MP3 and H.264=AAC, though MP3 and AAC are audio only formats :).
 

joshysquashy

macrumors 6502a
May 13, 2005
707
1
UK
H.264 will take longer to encode but is better quality for a given file size.
MPEG 4 will be quicker to encode and is compatible with every video player out there including the Zune and the Creative Vision M.

Basically in terms of their qualities: MPEG 4=MP3 and H.264=AAC, though MP3 and AAC are audio only formats :).

and of course size is more of an issue with movie files. depending on how recent your machine is, you may be interested in Elgato's Turbo.264 which speeds up H.264 encodes by using a seperate hardware encoder making a 1 hour film take 1 hour (practically real time).
 

Scarpad

macrumors 68020
Jan 13, 2005
2,135
632
Ma
and of course size is more of an issue with movie files. depending on how recent your machine is, you may be interested in Elgato's Turbo.264 which speeds up H.264 encodes by using a seperate hardware encoder making a 1 hour film take 1 hour (practically real time).

And almost double real time if your using the 320x240 profile. I don't know what my Apple TV's would do without the elgato Turbo
 

georgeoommen

macrumors regular
Apr 12, 2007
144
0
and of course size is more of an issue with movie files. depending on how recent your machine is, you may be interested in Elgato's Turbo.264 which speeds up H.264 encodes by using a seperate hardware encoder making a 1 hour film take 1 hour (practically real time).

I am thinking of getting one of these Elgatos. The question I have is, I have an SR MBP 2.2, which already has 128MB VRAM. will this elgato make encoding any faster? or is it mainly helpful for those who have macbook's that dont have dedicated VRAM?
 

Carrot007

macrumors regular
Sep 18, 2006
209
0
Yorkshire
I am thinking of getting one of these Elgatos. The question I have is, I have an SR MBP 2.2, which already has 128MB VRAM. will this elgato make encoding any faster? or is it mainly helpful for those who have macbook's that dont have dedicated VRAM?

VRAM makes no difference to media encoding whatsoever.
 
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