M2, M4, FLV - best for DVD/Web ?

[Don Bazley]

As techonolgy is constantly changing I'm curious what others think of which format is best...

For DVD ?

For web ?

[Chris McMahon]

How do you intend on distributing your media via the web?

[Don Bazley]

I do a variety of different types of projects. Some are delivered to clients on DVD. I've always used M2 files to create DVDs but I wonder if M4 isn't a better way to go. I've never done a side by side comparison and I wonder what others have to say.

For the web, sometimes I may be just uploading to Vimeo. Others it may be a file that sits on a server at work. I've been using FLV for web but I think M4s may be better. Again, just curious on people's thoughts on which format is better (and why).

[Martin Mayer]

If you want a "standard" DVD, you've no choice: MPEG2 for video or nothing. There is a choice of audio: PCM or AC3 (AC3 is preferable).

I find for the web, at present, H.264 (a flavour or MPEG4) played back in Flash Player browser plug-in is the best combination of high-quality/small-filesize/quick-download/widescale accessibility by most users...

(I used to use FLV - encoded by On2 Flix - but H.264 beats it on every count.) YMMV!

[Don Bazley]

I use Adobe Encore for DVDs and I've always used M2 files. Adobe says it also supports AVI, QT, WMV and H.264. I guess I'm wondering if H.264 = M4. I'm under the impression it does mean that. (Encore says it supports H.264 but that is a codec not a file type (?).) If h.264=M4, I wonder if M4 is better that M2. Maybe I'll have to try to do a test (when I get a chance..ha ha). I just thought others may know.

Yes, so far I have found the H.264/m4 format to be the best for the web. Before that I was creating FLVs. Again, just fishing to see what others think.

Thanks for the replys.

[Rob Neidig]

Don,

When you say "Adobe says it also supports AVI, QT, WMV and H.264", that only means it supports them as an IMPORT format (with the possible exception of H.264 if you are talking about Blu-ray). If we are talking Standard Definition DVDs, then any format Encore accepts will be transcoded to MPEG-2. That's the predominant format used for Standard Def DVDs. I only say "Predominant" instead of "only" because technically you can put MPEG-1 on DVDs, but with a vast loss of quality. If you choose to use Premiere or a stand-alone encoder to prepare your files for DVD, then you should encode them to MPEG-2 with audio as PCM (sounds great, takes up a lot of space, may "choke" some older players) or AC-3 (Dolby Digital, which is compressed so it's much smaller, doesn't sound as good as PCM, but generally sounds fine and is the de facto standard audio format for DVDs).

If you are talking Blu-ray, then it's H.264, which as you correctly surmise is a flavor of MPEG-4.

I agree H.264 seems to be the best-quality-for-the-file-size option for the Web.

Have fun!

Rob

[Don Bazley]

Thanks Rob. Now that you explained that so well I feel foolish because I guess I knew that. For standard DVD I've been encoding to M2. I guess I was wondering if there is any benefit to encoding to m4 from Premier to put in the timeline in Encore. Wondering if it looks better. I guess what I've been doing is the way to keep doing it.

I'm in the process of finally going HD with 7D and T2i so, then I will be back to learning more about encoding and file management. :)

Thanks again.