After a painful attempt to move my workflow into Adobe cs4, I am back to Vegas 6.0. Tried and true, and does a great job for me.

For Archiving, I use 1) the MainConcept MPG2, or 2) MainConcept AVC/AAC codec to render my files to mp4 - for best bang for my buck quality/speed/size. Works for my needs.

However, my iphone won't play the mp4 files. So, when I use the MainConcept AVC/AAC ipod codec, the quality is very bad, same size files.

I can (and am) using the AVS video converter to convert the MP4, MPG files to M4V for my iphone, but want to save the step (and the conversion loss) by using an M4V codec direct from the Vegas Timeline.

Does anyone have a favorite codec? Low price is always appreciated.

Mark

After playing around a bit, I discovered that the default bit rate settings in Vegas for MainConcept ipod mp4 were really low. I raised them up to 768 normal, 2mil maximum VBR, and my results both play on my iphone and are much clearer. I can hardly tell the difference between 768/2mil and 4mil,10mil VBR. Is that normal?

Will there be significant differences between codecs from different companies? Is it worth it to purchase a codec to create "better" quality/size tradeoffs than MainConcept?

I've not seen an encoder quality comparison for h.264, aka. MPEG4 part 10.

There is very interesting info at wikipedia, including an encoder feature comparison H.264/MPEG-4 AVC - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.264).

MainConcept does have a very good reputation for their encoders and codec implementations. Encoder and codec quality for the kind of use you're targeting is really measured by quality-for-the-bitrate. Or, looked at another way, what is the minimum bitrate that provides you acceptable quality? If that bitrate is acceptable to your users, you're done!

Had to dig up this old thread as I'm having problems playing the avc mp4. Its strange that the old mp4 files could be played on the itouch 1G. I'll have try the mainconcept later.

oops the avc works at 1.5Mbps! The diff is the videos go under "ipod" videos instead of a movies icon in itouch. Resolution is as good as 1G ipod Touch.