Video Labs is on the H.264 Bandwagon. Are you?
While the list of media deliverables from our clients becomes ever more diverse, it is apparent that an H.264 file is becoming as common of a request as is a dBeta or HDCAM dub.
First, understand that H.264 is a codec. A codec is short for “compression/decompression.” The main purpose of a codec is to reduce the size of a media file to make it manageable while at the same time maintaining as much quality of the original file as possible.
As an analogy, think of how a .pdf of a Word doc maintains the quality (and other advantages) while doing so at a much smaller file size.
An H.264 is acknowledged as one of the best codecs at doing that for video.
The name H.264 is actually a combination of identification protocol structures from two international technical organizations. One uses letters and another using numbers, hence H.264 If you want to drill down further into that, click here.
As a side note, H.264 can also be referred to as AVC or “Advanced Video Codec.” You might also see it referred to as a mpeg4 file. The mpeg4 part of this can get confusing, but suffice it to say that you’ll run across H.264 files that have either .mov or .mp4 in the extension.
The properties of the format allow for versatile use, from mobile phone video . . . to being “the first advanced codec to be accepted into the Blu-ray format.” (from the book, “Blu-ray Disc Demystified”)
And its that versatility that has made H.264 so popular.
But all is not perfect.
While H.264 is a great delivery codec, Final Cut Pro and AVID both have to decompress such files and convert them into a file format acceptable to them. For example, for Final Cut, a popular conversion is to Apple ProRes files. Such conversion adds a step, which means time, and time means $$.
That’s why if you are just sending us a sequence from your Final Cut project to import into ours, we may ask you to export it as a ProRes file on to a hard drive rather than give us an H.264 file.
But our research indicates that newer versions of the editing programs coming to market will be able to accept H.264 as a native codec.
Regardless, our present experience here at Video Labs shows that our clients feel that the advantages of H.264 as a delivery format far outweigh any possible disadvantages.
And to that we say, "Keep ‘em coming!"
While the list of media deliverables from our clients becomes ever more diverse, it is apparent that an H.264 file is becoming as common of a request as is a dBeta or HDCAM dub.
First, understand that H.264 is a codec. A codec is short for “compression/decompression.” The main purpose of a codec is to reduce the size of a media file to make it manageable while at the same time maintaining as much quality of the original file as possible.
As an analogy, think of how a .pdf of a Word doc maintains the quality (and other advantages) while doing so at a much smaller file size.
An H.264 is acknowledged as one of the best codecs at doing that for video.
The name H.264 is actually a combination of identification protocol structures from two international technical organizations. One uses letters and another using numbers, hence H.264 If you want to drill down further into that, click here.
As a side note, H.264 can also be referred to as AVC or “Advanced Video Codec.” You might also see it referred to as a mpeg4 file. The mpeg4 part of this can get confusing, but suffice it to say that you’ll run across H.264 files that have either .mov or .mp4 in the extension.
The properties of the format allow for versatile use, from mobile phone video . . . to being “the first advanced codec to be accepted into the Blu-ray format.” (from the book, “Blu-ray Disc Demystified”)
And its that versatility that has made H.264 so popular.
But all is not perfect.
While H.264 is a great delivery codec, Final Cut Pro and AVID both have to decompress such files and convert them into a file format acceptable to them. For example, for Final Cut, a popular conversion is to Apple ProRes files. Such conversion adds a step, which means time, and time means $$.
That’s why if you are just sending us a sequence from your Final Cut project to import into ours, we may ask you to export it as a ProRes file on to a hard drive rather than give us an H.264 file.
But our research indicates that newer versions of the editing programs coming to market will be able to accept H.264 as a native codec.
Regardless, our present experience here at Video Labs shows that our clients feel that the advantages of H.264 as a delivery format far outweigh any possible disadvantages.
And to that we say, "Keep ‘em coming!"
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