Codecs and Containers - the wonderful world of video files

[@GuyusSeralius]

Wow, this is one of the best, if not the best, videos I've ever seen on this subject! Your presentation was so easy to follow, especially due to your animations! I sure wish I had found this video a couple of weeks ago, because I just spent hours upon hours and days upon days for two weeks learning most of this stuff from many different (hard to follow) sources. If I had come across this video sooner it would have saved me two weeks of living hell. However, it still helps to reinforce what I have learned and helps me "see" it in my head better, and so I'm less likely to forget it. From now on, I will refer to this video whenever I need a reminder. Thank you!!!

[@FlorianFahrenberger]

Guyus Seralius This might be the kindest comment I have gotten on KZbin so far. Originally, I made this video for a forum where the same questions and confusion came up on a very regular basis, and instead of explaining it every time, I wanted a simple video to link to. I had no idea people would watch and like it so much. :)

[@jmagemusic]

Florian Fahrenberger I agree. Excellent stuff.

[@davidhill9410]

Guyus Seralius gg

[@davidhill9410]

Guyus Seralius gg

[@davidhill9410]

Guyus Seralius itrue

[@ylstorage7085]

HOLY F**K! the clarity and practicality of this video is Mind Boggling. Some one gives this man a medal

[@kbogiatzakis]

seriously dude, I saved this video for reference! I saw so many about conversion and compression and FINALLY you gave me simple words explanation and a solution! Most of the others don't suggest you they just talk... Thank you!

[@FlorianFahrenberger]

+Konstantinos Bogiatzakis Thanks a lot, man! This is exactly why I made the video in the first place: People on a forum always asked the same questions and I (or others) tried to explain the same principles first. So I made this to have something to link to and save time. :-) Never thought it would be watched this often, but I am seriously happy that it helps, and comments like yours more than make up for the time it took. Thanks again.

[@skeetabomb]

+Konstantinos Bogiatzakis Hands down the best explanation in a nutshell I have ever seen. I FINALLY GET IT! Thank you! I have been so confused with it, and there was nothing that really explained it in any of the software I've used...awesome, dude. Big thumbs UP :)

[@psalmist91]

BEST 10 minutes on Codecs and Containers I've come across! Took notes. Great stuff!

[@WarriorsPhoto]

This is one of the best videos I have ever seen on Codecs. Simple, yet comprehensive. I understand much better now; what I capture in, what I will edit with, and how I will distribute completed files. :-)

[@liv2ska8]

Ran across this video while working on a project. Absolutely brilliant way of the break down for codecs & containers. I don't think is there a better way of explaining the it the way you've done it in this video. Great & priceless video information Mr. Fahrenberger - THANK YOU !!

[@FlorianFahrenberger]

Wow, this is one of the most flattering comments I've gotten yet. It's so great to hear that the effort will be for the benefit of students and totally makes it worth the work. Thanks a lot!

[@markrosmar8484]

Felt confident seeing and reviewing this succinct seminar before a job interview.

[@nileshdongarwar4082]

This video is immensely useful. Sir I appreciate your work. One of the best explanatory videos I've come a crossed.

[@SergeGolikov]

Having taught Digital Media in a High School for 7 years up till 2011, I wish I had this as a teaching aid then, to help to explain this highly confusing issue, thank you, very well done!

[@ThanasisZantrimas0310]

That is one of the best presentations I've seen. As far as the formats are concerned the Matroska and .avi extensions are widely used among the p2p community, also for converting video files.

[@hossainabeer]

boy, this guy explained it well. make more videos man! spread the knowledge. God bless ya

[@villemononen5303]

Very VERY well explained! It holds true even still, even if the standards are slowly evolving. Thank you very much!

[@ksujithkarun]

Thank you so much for creating & sharing this video. This is by far one of the most well explained content on this subject. Special mention on the simplicity of it, since even a layman like me could easily follow this.

[@xXAngelmlXx]

I've been looking for these answers on a lot of videos and they just got me confused! But you man, you did it very nice well explained! Everyone confused about this topic should watch this video. Thanks a lot! Great video!

[@BastianWorrmann]

I think this video is a great addition to yours. Both videos are helpful and become even more powerful together.

[@mamalittlefoot1491]

Thank you Flo for making this wonderful, clear and straight forward video! Imagine how much fun and how easy learning would be if all tutorials were as good as yours! Thanks again!

[@benjamintyus6957]

Thank you Fahrenberger. You really explained codecs and containers in a straightforward way and I learned a lot.

[@MrErsly]

Florian-- GREAT video with vivid and lucid explanations of a sometimes difficult and arcane subject. BRAVO! Zehr Gut!

[@ninazabicka17]

6 years later, still a great explanation! Thanks a lot!

[@TraumaQueen65]

TY! You've made this confounding topic easy to understand and implement. Best info video I'se seen on the subject

[@canertas]

good job man, my eyes are bleeding now because of contrast. next time try green on red

[@ritchietomayao1438]

Me too

[@amirmursyid9626]

the green text will look fade, better yellow on a blue background

[@FlorianFahrenberger]

This made my day. I am very happy that this video is still helping people.

[@Ktread20]

This is an outstanding talk about a complicated subject. Well done!

[@felixjohnvideos]

this is the best video i've seen that explains codecs in the simplest yet detailed form...thank you so much :)

[@FlorianFahrenberger]

See, it's comments like this that totally make the video worth doing. :) Thanks for the encouragement!

[@olatundeawobuluyi8146]

Wow, job well done sir! This is a very, very informative tutorial, packed with tons of concepts, and compressed into a roughly 9 minute long video. Thank you very much for sharing.

[@Jessie90ish]

That was really great. Thank you so much. Trying to get a better grasp on this stuff and that was a wonderful visual presentation on such a complex subject. Well done :)

[@mishinka]

Florian, Thanks for the great video and explanation. Very thoughtful and I'm sure it took you a while. I'll be sharing this with video students in the future as it seems to be one of the hardest things to understand (crash!)

[@YohannaJessup]

Hi Flo, Beautifully clear and concise explanation. Thanks!

[@iamgreta]

This is a very good video...simply explaining complex things...well done!

[@Thornstream]

This has confused me for so many years. Thank you good sir.

[@andrewvalkenburg]

I have been looking for a tutorial like this. Very clear, very instructive. Thanks!

[@welu0701]

Wow that was exactly what I needed, and well made! Great work man!

[@mattthewjames]

Such a great summation of important info. I'm very grateful for the overview! Thank you!

[@noratown]

This was SO helpful. Thank you so much for making it! I leaned a lot. One suggestion - don't use blue background with orange text. It makes an optical illusion-like effect when viewing, making the content much harder to discern.

[@abyhamouda3813]

PERFECT ! PERFECT ! PERFECT ! Many thanks for this thorough tutorial on this complicated subject.

[@jordandowler2344]

damn that orange text on the blue background is really fuckin up my eyes man

[@Trangent]

Excellent presentation of this confusing topic!! Thank you for clearly explaining this!

[@MrUtubeSteve]

Thanks so much for your video. I learned so much. Very kind of you to put it out there.

[@JohnJackson-ny7lx]

Very good content. I like your accent, it's so easy on the ears.

[@TomsCoffeeCorner]

Wow, what an excellent breakdown of codecs and containers, thank you for taking the time to do this! I agree that AVCHD containers are impractical for ingesting, and keeping the metadata intact. I recently bought a Sony CXR-900 and it only offers AVCHD, and I cannot find a good way to import the videos on my iMac without losing the metadata. Am I forced to buy a professional video editing program to import the clips with their associated metadata?

[@MegaPakster]

Thanks. I finally understood the difference between codecs and containers.

[@zion653]

Incredibly helpful, thanks!

[@scottg7520]

Awesome explanation and great job on the video!

[@MitchellRoseFilms]

Thank you, Florian. Very useful. I'll share with my filmmaking students.

[@robertw5837]

Very creative video and a very easy to follow demonstration. Great job!!!

[@miguelcarlostarrosa9109]

Much much clearer to me now. Thanks so much!!!

[@eurositi]

Outside the Apple and Adobe 'bell jars', Matroska (MKV) IS actually a widely supported container format (and even more so now that Microsoft supports it natively (if containing recognized video formats) in both Windows 8.1 and Windows 10), so I beg to differ. ;) MP4 is also inferior to MKV in terms of soft/hardware player support for advanced metadata features (chapters, multiple subtitles/audio tracks) - and it might force to downgrade the quality of your audio and video streams, since it is much more restrictive in terms of format support. MKV should always be preferred for preservation, since it also allows for lossless video and high definition audio formats. MP4 is mainly suited for quick video distribution - not preservation/archiving purposes. MOV and MXF only exist because of professional conservatism against open standards. Anything else only exist because of outdated hardware restrictions. Roughly put, there is in principle no need for other video container formats than MKV (but industry still refuses to play along, so that is why we still have to mess with dozens of soon obsolete container formats). Much the same can be said about FLAC now that it will also be natively supported by Windows. However, MKV is a great streaming format, whereas FLAC is useless for streaming. As for video formats that is something that is constantly improving. H.265 and maybe VP10 might someday fully replace H.264. As for lossless video, the best free format is probably FFV.

[@FlorianFahrenberger]

I absolutely and wholeheartedly agree that MKV is a great and highly flexible container. This video however was not meant to show the best codec or container there is, but to tell people who don't know anything about the subject matter, what codec and containers might be good for them. And as much as I love MKV, there are very few hardware players who support it, most editing software will refuse it and even youtube, the very site you are commenting on, does not list MKV as a supported container for uploads, although they do accept it more often than not. So, while the support is getting better and I love to see that, it is still nothing I would recommend to someone who has no idea. In addition, this video was made 3 years ago and things were still looking much bleaker back then. :) To each his own opinion, and you seem to know what you are talking about, but in this case, I don't think I can agree with your statement.

[@eurositi]

Florian Fahrenberger I forgot to mention that you give some really valuable and information in this video. One of the best I've come across on the subject here on KZbin. :) If I look at a broad range of new consumer hardware used for home cinema (Media Centers, DVD/Blu-ray players, Xbox...), it seems that most of them offer some kind of MKV support: Samsung, Philips, Hitachi, Daewoo, Medion, Panasonic, LG, and even Sony... So what kind of hardware (other than Apple or older hardware) do you mean?

[@FlorianFahrenberger]

eurositi Thanks a lot. I did actually (really, this is not just a silly reaction) want to thank you for writing such an extensive and useful comment, which is also absolutely not common on youtube. And I am sure people will read it and it will help them. At the time I made this video, MKV files were not supported by my BluRay player, by Windows systems out of the box, and by my Android phone. I know that things have gotten significantly better, and with a decent player like VLC, you can basically play any codec or container on modern devices. Yet those older BluRay players are still around and not gone away in many households. If I want my mom to be able to play back a video, I sadly still can't send her an MKV, which is a shame. And I would still hesitate the container to recommend for uploading on youtube and vimeo, since it is not officially on the "supported" list, even though it works sometimes. But maybe I'll just have to go and do some more research to make an updated version of this video. I mean, by now, the H.265 standard is also out and getting more and more widely supported, which would be another increase in quality. If only I had the time to make more informative videos... :) Thanks again for your comment, I'll definitely upvote it and hope that it will help some people.

[@kimtaronji]

Excellent video...thanks for the explanation.

[@FlorianFahrenberger]

Maybe, yes. If you actually only want to change the container (if the .avi already contains an mpeg4 stream of some sort), I programmed a little App called "Video Container Switcher" (it's on sourceforge for free). I did the Mac version, but a nice French guy did a Windows version of it. That will only switch containers and not re-encode the streams. That's very fast and without quality loss. I can't link in a comment, but I'll put it in the video description.

[@HDvideoedit]

Very nice job putting this together.

[@pauljolly6404]

Florian, excellent job!

[@junkyflunky]

Thanks for such a nice concise summary! Really great :)

[@kamalkumarmukiri4267]

Nice presentation so that any one can understand. Thanks.

[@AnttiVirolainen]

Should have watched this much earlier! Lot of good and helpful info! Thanks a lot for making this! :)

[@FlorianFahrenberger]

Thanks a lot, I had not seen this H.264 episode by indymogul. And I'm certainly not trying to compete with them. :) I was just getting annoyed by having to explain this exact same thing on forums over and over. Now I'll just post a link to this video. :)

[@cjammer07]

Fantastic video, clearly explained, to the point. I get it now!

[@Daz_K]

I'm glad someone explained this in simple terms I do think the industry has made it deliberately complicated for the lay person though...

[@tonytran8431]

This was very clear information. Thanks mate.

[@Heppellos]

Thanks Florian. Excellent video- very useful

[@adamwwvlog5852]

Wow, Amazing video! This was truly a great video and you're a really great teacher. Very clear, succinct explanations, as well as fantastically helpful visuals. Thank you so much. I would love to ask you a few questions if you don't mind, and with the new information you just imparted to me, hopefully i can pose my question somewhat clearly... I make animated music videos with an animation software (toon boom studio), and I have been exporting these as .mov container files through a quick time export option, on my macbook pro. Now, I want to edit the movies in an editing software so that I can add small, interactive video thumbnails before finally uploading to KZbin (I will annotate these small video clips at the end of my KZbin videos, so people can click them and be brought to these other videos) So, I successfully carried out this editing task using 'imovie', but my problem is that the new video file has lost a lot of quality...it is no longer the perfectly crisp HD 1080p looking video that it once was when I first exported it from my animation software. So, how can I edit without loosing quality like this? Is imovie simply too weak a program, and I should upgrade and buy something better or more powerful? Or could it be that I'm not utilizing the proper importing/exporting specifications when using imovie, in order to preserve my video quality? Thanks alot for your time and for your fantastic video Florian. Cheers, Adam

[@adamwwvlog5852]

+Adam WW As a quick follow up, I'm guessing I will need to try various import settings into imovie as well as export settings out of imovie. Should i just try to match all specifications identically from the original file with my import/export settings in imovie? Thanks again!( and sorry if I'm not articulating well :S)

[@mattcoyte]

Excellent video. Thanks. Wow video is complicated. Really appreciate you trying to explain it.

[@Automagskb]

It was great to hear you sir, I think i have founf my Guru of Compression. I will ask some questions in my next comments Thanks

[@tarcal87]

Nice video indeed! I'd just say the animation at @4:55 shows that the uncompressed audio size still exceeds to compressed video size 5-fold or so :D I don't think that's the case, the 4 graphs would have to be increasing respectively. But just a minor thing to add.

[@FlorianFahrenberger]

GaborBartal Ha, very true. Thanks for the hint. I didn't even think about making the audio and video bars with realistic relative sizes, since the audio bars practically wouldn't be visible anymore. :)

[@sathyap2967]

You are the Best sir, excellent basics

[@MarcusFinnie]

Thanks! My question is when I exported from the latest fcp prox to the latest compressor, why is the file so big? Comes out to 44 gigs as a pro res file and I need to get it in iDVD. I keep getting a m2v extension when I do it too. I wish fcp had an authoring feature or bundle. Is all of this mainly a compressor thing? Should I export a master file first or send to compressor? Sorry so many questions but I'm 5 days behind on this and pissed. Lol it's an 90 min play. Cheers

[@RobertRFalk]

Thanks for making this! Very informative!

[@rannjanjoawn]

Hi Florian, thank u for ur video. Very well explained!!..I am new to this .. I shot a video with my sony A7sII slow motion in NTSC 60fps slow motion..The result was a Mp4 output.There were lots of folders in the sony files..I just copied the clip folder which contained the footages and left the rest(Like mediapro.xml/ status.bin/thumbnl) My final output should be in PAL 24fps..I am editing in fcpx. Should I transcode the files into apple pro res first or Proxy( How do I relink afterwards if so) or directly work on mpg4. And how do I convert the NTSC into PAL.. ? Thanks a ton

[@globalcitizen952]

Thanks for the video.... just wanted to know the EXACT Differences between codec and container... from what i understand codec is set of frames all compressed and placed in a container for final output... thanks

[@apurvere948]

Excellent presentation

[@aarmington]

this is a VERY GOOD overview....i will have to remember it since i am a videographrer and photographer....just wondering....this was done in 2012...id love to learn about tapeless formats ...specifically HDSLR formats and what is the best way to UP and DOWN convert files....and what is your prefered encoder..

[@FlorianFahrenberger]

Well, even though this was done in 2012, the formats presented here are all tapeless. A tape recording does not have a "container" (unless you see the tape itself as container) but holds the video-, audio-, and metadata-streams as three physically seperate tracks on the tape. HDSLR formats nowadays are almost exclusively H.264 codecs. Some are in AVCHD containers, but most of them are .mp4 or .mov files, since those allow for higher bitrates (there is a restriction in the AVCHD standard), or XAVC, which allows for more modern codec iterations, frame rates, quality, and 4K. My preferred encoder mostly is the editing software I am using. This will keep my workflow simple, and the quality is pretty good. I would do this with all editing software, starting from Adobe Premiere to FCPX and to Avid. They all have their external encoders (Encore, Compressor), which do a pretty good job. It is more important that you tweak the settings than what encoder you actually use.

[@aarmington]

i use preimere also....so can you please explain further H.264 codecs and is whole 4K thing gonna be a whole new set of parameters??

[@FlorianFahrenberger]

Sorry, my notifications didn't come through... So: The most important thing (if you have already picked an H.264 codec, which most converters will do automatically) is to set the bitrate. The higher the bitrate, the bigger your files will be but the better the quality. Are you working with the Compressor included in Final Cut Studio? In this case, just look for the "KZbin 1080p" setting. It's pretty decent.

[@FlorianFahrenberger]

1. If you make a DVD with iDVD, your video will be re-encoded by iDVD, no matter what file you import into it. So, my advice is: Have you tried just taking the huge file you have and importing it into iDVD? 2. The file size will depend almost exclusively on the bitrate you choose for the conversion here. And I don't know what you did there. 3. FCPX and Compressor can both author DVDs directly, albeit very simple ones. Just got to "File->Share->DVD". If you need more elaborate help, message me

[@ankush91wadke]

really go0d graphical representation.. very understandable..

[@digitalmaven.Berlin]

Amazing video! Hands down!

[@unfa00]

Wow, great content!

[@naljor8]

Great guide! Thank you. Little comment: its hard to read orange letters on blue background.

[@325v64]

Excellent and clear, thank you. My question is as I use Prosumer Panasonics for video I have a Choice of .MP4 or the AVCDH. Using the Davinci Resolve Editor I would be best dropping my video files to edit as .MP4 and Davinci will take care of the rest?

[@FlorianFahrenberger]

Well... it's probably gonna be okay. There are two reasons you might consider recording in AVCHD though: Especially in prosumer camcorders, the MP4 recording is often times at a lesser quality (less resolution or bitrate), which is noticeable. I had this problem on some Canon prosumer camcorders. So check your manual for this. You will also have to check if your camcorder model can record longer videos in MP4 if you ever want to do that. The file size on SD cards (at least the FAT formatted ones, which is almost all) is limited to 4GB, so if your video gets longer than a certain time, the MP4 recording can either stop completely or start a new file right afterwards. In my experience, camcorders usually don't do the latter. :-( In AVCHD however, the video can and will be split into file chunks of usually 1GB size and you can record as long as your battery and card space allow. On correct import, the software will just see one long clip. For concerts etc., this is crucial. Hope that helps.

[@325v64]

Thank you, I will look into your reply. As for this, "On correct import, the software will just see one long clip." I am still cutting my teeth on DRS, so saying more than that would take pages.

[@phgachoud]

Really GREAT!!!! THANKS!!! and nice to see that you are not working for Microsoft either Apple

[@iamsyberknight]

EXCELLENT explanation! thank you! question tho... why does it seem to be so difficult to simply change a video's container? for example, when i download ".avi" & ".mkv" video's from the internet & want to watch them on my Apple devices (iPhone, iPad, Apple TV), i need them to be ".mp4" video's instead. i don't want to spend the TIME to go thru the whole "conversion" process with apps like Handbrake when it seems you can simply change their containers out with apps like Mkv2Mp4 or the old Video Container Switcher in a fraction of the time. problem is, when i use those utilities, various problems arise like having mp4's with audio out of sync or no audio at all & sometimes jittery video. i love the speed of these container switcher apps but why don't the video's play exactly the same since they're not actually converting the codecs & such?

[@FlorianFahrenberger]

Well, the role of the container has been simplified to its most relevant parts in this video explanation. The problem is usually: The more modern and advanced the encoder, the more complex the encoding and the relation between the streams and the container becomes. For example, to preserve quality and save disk space, an encoder can nowadays vary the video and audio bitrates constantly and even change video frame rates or audio sampling rate during the film to accommodate for more or less changes in a scene. The problems then usually arise in the "multiplexing" or short "muxing" of the two streams. Essentially, the container stores information at which points the two streams should be stitched together, there can be one of those points (the beginning) or several during the video playtime. And if the conversion is complex and not straight forward, this demuxing and muxing can lead to errors, usually audio and video being out of sync, if the source does wild stuff with frame rates, sampling rates or bitrates...

[@davidhill9410]

Florian Fahrenberger. play one of keri Victoria Tackett show me something of her only hurt she lives in Harriman Tennessee get that one right

[@thinders1951]

I'll give it a try ..... I've been using SuperC, which also supports batch, but it is SLOW .....and for process that I "think" should be a swap ...

[@ykarmi]

Excellent explanation. Thanks very much.

[@FlorianFahrenberger]

Sorry, everyone. Notifications for comments didn't get through to me for the past weeks... I only notice the comments now.

[@chandrasekharmungara]

this is very helpful presentation..... thanks..... how the frames are compressed and decompressed in interframe codecs

[@FlorianFahrenberger]

This is very much dependent on the codec. Almost all codecs create pixel blocks of adjacent pixels with the same or similar colors. Sometimes the whole image is Fourier transformed into frequency domain and the higher frequencies are cut off, smoothing out the image to a certain degree. The algorithms are actually very complicated. I don't think I can help you unless you refine your question.

[@arisingmusic1]

Thank you for your clarity and excellent work in making this video. Beautifully done! I need to edit several DVDs to fix picture quality and add Titles and info , trim out bad sections. and fix the audio where needed. What conversion format should I use ? I was thinking H264 but can a new DVD be burned without converting again first? After the fixes, I need to burn these to DVD again without losing quality. How should I go about this? I am using a Mac.These will be viewed on TVs and also for classes projected onto a large screen. Quality is important.

[@FlorianFahrenberger]

+arisingmusic1 Are those really DVDs? Not BluRays? In SD (standard definition)? And they are definitely supposed to be again burned to DVD afterwards? On a Mac, are you using iMovie for this? Or do you have any other professional editing software? Just for information: Whenever you change anything in the video (like an edit or improving the picture), it has to be reencoded and you can't just keep the original data in any way. DVDs exclusively use MPEG2 for a codec, so H264 in this case does not make sense since it needs to be reencoded. In any case, H.264 probably doesn't make sense. If quality is important, I would probably convert the DVD to a ProRes codec and edit it. You can do that either with e.g. iMovie directly or with a free tool like MPEG Streamclip (from Squared 5). Then in the end when you are finished just export the file with a "DVD high quality" preset, something like that should be available in any editing software. It is almost certain that the exporting quality of your software will be better than if you export to H264 and then do the conversion via your DVD burning tool. Just to encourage you: Unless you really do something very wrong, the exporting and reencoding will probably not degrade your DVD video to a very noticeable degree. So you should mostly concentrate on the editing which will probably be more important.

[@arisingmusic1]

+Florian Fahrenberger Hi Florian Thanks for replying so quickly These are not Bluray- the dvd content was converted and transferred from either VCR or Hi8 analog videotatpe.. I dont want to use i movie because the files will be so Huge. These videos are mostly of someone teaching . Could we communicate by email?

[@FlorianFahrenberger]

+arisingmusic1 Sure, I just sent you a private message.

[@byrum50]

I have a new Kindle Fire HDX device with 7 inch screen. I am having difficulty utilizing Open Ripper version 3 from DVD-cloner as the Kindle Fire is not listed although many product like Android and IPad are listed.. Could you comment upon your recommendation for the best H.264 video parameters includingsample rates, frame rates, etc., plus pixels HxW to display upon the 7" Kindle Fire HDX screen and the best Audio format between AAC and AC-3 you would recommend. This was excellent video!

[@AccionPositiva]

Great Tutorial Florianl! Thanks a lot!

[@FlorianFahrenberger]

I am aware of that. This was supposed to be a very rough overview, and I stick by what I've said. Royalty cost is a pain, but MP3 has is too, just like H.264, and ogg and webm are (sadly) not very well supported. An .avi container with MJPEG video and PCM audio is not very well compressed since PCM is raw and MJPEG is very old. I don't have an XBox or PS3, so it would be interesting to know if .mp4 will not play back on those...? I have had terrible experience with .wmv, then again, I'm on Mac.

[@KWILLFILMS]

flo = my hero

[@iTheBeep]

VERY HELPFUL! I did not know that mpeg-4 was h.264 this whole time, because whenever I checked on Bandicam for mp4 codecs, that was the only one there. All I want to do is record a flash game in 30 fps (480p is fine) so what should I aim for?

[@FlorianFahrenberger]

I was on holiday, but I'm back. :) The easiest way to see the codec is probably: Install the awesome free VLC player. Open the file in the player. Hit Cmd+I to open the information window. Here, you can see a tab called "Codec Details" and information on the different streams in the file. For conversion, "MPEG Streamclip" is a really helpful free tool.

[@FlorianFahrenberger]

Although I have to say: I certainly don't know everything. If you have good thoughts to add, please feel free to create a video response or something. If it adds to what I covered and helps people who this, it's a great thing and I'll definitely link to it. :)

[@thinders1951]

One observation about Handbrake ....... the resultant mp4 file is 40% smaller that the avi ..... Super C was 20% larger and the process I posted above the file size was the same ........

[@kenbahr7235]

Thank you for the great Video. Couple of questions. What is a good codec to save a video in if it will be put into a SCORM package so it can be used for streaming to someones computer in a training video series. the average length of those video's are around 30 minutes. Also a separate question. Does the codec I'm using in editing or output have something to do with how the video plays back. For example I do a lot of DSLR video and sometimes during the camera movement in the outputted movie the camera pan's are not very smooth. I'm wondering if this has to do with the codecs used. Thanks very much!

[@frankharis1947]

Wonderful and Excellent explanation. Thanks very much..God bless u

[@FlorianFahrenberger]

Sorry, I only now noticed all the comments. A great and free tool for video compression is "Handbrake". Link in the video description. It is also easier to understand than most compression software out there.

[@FlorianFahrenberger]

I'm sorry about that. As I said I did not program the Windows interface and can't really help you with debugging there. But if you try the sourceforge website, I'm sure philippe (the Windows programmer) will be able to help you figure out the problem. An error source could be: Do you know what kind of codec is stored within your .avi file? Because the .mp4 container as result will only accept mpeg4-streams (like H.264), but .avi files hardly ever contain those.

[@UlTrA2GaMeR]

Very very well explained, thank you!

[@00225username5]

Super hero, thank you for this nice tutorial. Could you explain what are the difference between mpeg1, 2, 3, and 4?

[@SimoneFerranti]

Hi Florian and thanks! I'm sorry for my bad english...I have a new camcorder Legria HF G30 and a MAC Book Pro bought 6 years ago but I'll buy a new Imac in the next week. In your opinion for the best quality video of my DVDs, is better: -to record in AVCHD and then to convert to MPEG4 in the camcorder? -to record in AVCHD and then to convert to IMOV in the MAC? -to record in AVCHD and then to convert to MPEG4 in the MAC? -to record directly in Mpeg4 and then to edit in my Mac? THANKS