Handbrake - H.264 encoding or MP4?

[OrangeSVTguy]

Just wondering what others use. Is it really worth encoding in H.264? I've already encoded a ton of DVDs but was wondering if it were worth the extra 2 hours per encoding. It takes my G5 about 2.5-3.5 hours to encode in AVC/H.264 Video | AAC Audio while it only takes about 30-45 minutes to encode to MPEG-4 Video | AAC Audio. Does it really make a huge difference? Because I havn't tried the latter one yet but I will to see if I can tell any difference in quality. I also set bitrate to 1300kbps and I've seen no artifacts or any kinds of irregualarities in the finished product.

Just wondering what settings others use.

 

[MisterMe]

H.264 is a more recent addition to the MPEG-4 standard. Yes, it does make a difference--a substantial difference, in fact. However, you don't encode for the sake of encoding. Choose the compression scheme that best suits your application and audience. These include encode and decode times and the capacity of your storage medium.

 

[gracemac]

it depends on what definition you want, mpeg encode is enough for me and it can save lots of time, IMO, if you are not the fever, mpeg is worth more,
any changes to the preferences make a big deal to the size of the output file

 

[spice weasel]

I might be wrong about this, but I always thought of it like this: h.264 is more processor intensive up front while encoding, but easier on playback. MPEG-4 part 2 is easier on encoding, but more processor intensive on playback. Plus, h.264 scales better.

If you are transcoding your DVD collection, go with h.264. It takes longer, but the results are much better IMHO.