Preferred Video Format

[Dizzy Gee22]

I'm happily using Video Studio Ult X10 to render Time-lapses and other video projects) It is intuitive and the learning curve has been manageable with the many tutorials out there. I am generating a fair amount of content for different future destinations (TV, Wedding, YouTube, projection video, etc) There are several formats to choose from in VS UltX10.

Which format(s) is/are preferred by Forum members ? (or, which codec has the least compression MPEG4, AVI, H264, or MOV ? )

many thanks to all. -Jim

[Ken Berry]

I think you could get as many different answers about preferred formats as there are users here! I guess the real answer is that you need to choose your format according to the target of your output. If burning a DVD, for instance, you have no alternative but to use mpeg-2. If it's a Blu-Ray, you can choose between Blu-Ray compatible mpeg-2 and AVCHD. The latter is, of course, mpeg-4 but rendered using the H.264 codec. It is much more compressed that its mpeg-2 equivalent.

MPEG-4 and AVCHD are seemingly the formats du jour at the moment. But you also mention AVI and MOV. In a sense, by doing so you are missing the point that these are not really formats in their own right. They are really only wrappers which can enclose a fairly large variety of of formats.

AVI, for instance, can run from totally uncompressed (or 'true') .avi which is huge -- running to around 65GB per hour. But it can go through an enormous range of compression to highly compressed ones at the other end of the spectrum, including mpeg-4. Much the same could be said for MOV. However, there is a bit of a cloud over the head of MOV since some wormholes have apparently been discovered in some of its associated software which make it a security risk.

There are also other highly compressed formats which are increasingly popular, such as Matroska or .mkv -- though that too is really a wrapper format. An emerging format is H.265 though you need fairly high-end hardware to run that.

All in all, therefore, I think your would be safest with mpeg-4/AVCHD. Places like YouTube can run it; AVCHD is a Blu-Ray format; and most recent HDTVs can play it either directly or via a USB thumb drive or external hard drive plugged into a Blu-Ray play attached to the TV.

[MrJohnny]

Hi Dizzy (Jim)

Fully agree with what Ken states.

The “fair amount of content for different future destinations “; are those short intro and out-tro clips?

If so, my preference is for either uncompressed AVI on clips less than 60 seconds or a lossless codec in an AVI wrapper. The lossless codec could be HUFFYuv, Lagarith or UT Video. You may not have all/any of these on your system, but you will have uncompressed as an option.

There are also alternative codecs such as the various flavours of Matrox and different Avid codecs using the MOV file format. All with varying degrees of compression/loss versus file size. Note, not all of these are available on 64 bit set-ups but they are in the free public domain. Caveat emptor.

Having established your library of re-usable clips in your chosen archive format, when you come to producing your next masterpiece, convert your clip(s) to match the Visual Studio timeline properties before pulling them onto the timeline.

Parameters that influence the choice of archive codec are available/future HDD capacity, final file output properties and obviously the availability (and future availability) of the chosen codec.

John

[Dizzy Gee22]

Ken and John, Thank you for your thoughtful replies. It is certain that others benefited from your replies as well as I. It is the willingness of experts like yourselves to help that make this forum very useful. -Jim