What is better?

[Scintilla]

Yeah, what do you think? It's better to upload an AMV of 7MB with the WMA format so people can download it faster than an AVI or MPG one, whichs video quality is too much superior?

What about a <I>7 MB AVI or MPEG</i> whose video quality is clearly NOT superior?

You have to remember that <i>container format does not have any bearing on visual quality.</i> There are huge, gorgeous WMVs and RM files, and there are tiny, crappy-looking AVIs and MPEG-2s.

[The Wired Knight]

Quality over speed. Sure they can download it faster but they certainly will have a harder time understanding the audio and video with all its flaws due to the conversion.

[Minion]

honestly, i'd like to have a selective audience of people dedicated enough to download a video over 30 megs.
the other douchebags can go have a helping of linkin ball z and narutard.

[trythil]

Yeah, what do you think? It's better to upload an AMV of 7MB with the WMA format so people can download it faster than an AVI or MPG one, whichs video quality is too much superior?

What about a <I>7 MB AVI or MPEG</i> whose video quality is clearly NOT superior? :?

You have to remember that <i>container format does not have any bearing on visual quality.</i> There are huge, gorgeous WMVs and RM files, and there are tiny, crappy-looking AVIs and MPEG-2s.

In this vein, I'd like to point out that filesize really means just about nothing with regards to quality. It's like saying that one microprocessor architecture running at 3.4 GHz must be faster than the other one running at 2 GHz just because the number is bigger: you're ignoring way too many factors.

I'd like to use two of my own videos as examples, because I think they illustrate my point really well.

Let's take this one. Its size is 8.53 MiB. What do you think it looks like? What resolution do you think it is?

You probably won't be able to tell without downloading the thing, and I doubt you really want to, so I'll just say what the resolution is and tell you its current "visual" score. If you want to look at it for yourself...well, download it.

The file is 704x480, with sample / display aspect ratios set so that the thing appears correctly on square-pixel displays. Its visual score is 9.50.

The file was encoded with x264 r501, is roughly a minute long, and really isn't all that complex. All of those factors (and others) contribute to its small size.

But it still doesn't look that bad.

Here's another one. The copy on local is 73.3 MiB. Now, if we're going by filesize alone, this thing has to possess godlike clarity.

It doesn't. Heck, it probably looks about the same as "loli-pop". People seem to agree: its visual score is 9.25.

However, it's around three times as long, was encoded with a different encoder, and is way more complex. (In particular, it involves lots of static and noise, which are two things that tend to not compress very well.) The audio is also 256 kbps MP3, which contributes a bit.

===

These examples don't describe everything that can affect filesize but end up meaning very little in terms of quality. However, I hope that this makes the point.

To close out, I'd like to use a third example. This time, I have two files that were generated from the same encode.

I have two encodes of Reflections of Style 3 (a recently-completed multi-editor project, duration 17:44, lots of fades and lots of action) that have the following filesizes:

Code: Select all

nevrast:~/Movies trythil$ ls -l Reflections\ of\ Style\ 3.*
-rw-r--r--   1 trythil  trythil  292866048 Oct 10 01:49 Reflections of Style 3.avi
-rw-r--r--   1 trythil  trythil  195288770 Oct  9 21:16 Reflections of Style 3.mp4

Now, which one do you think looks better?

You'll find out soon.

[madbunny]

given a choice, I always try to choose a file that is of higher quality. Some people have been playing with various new codecs like x264 and so on, and occasionally offer two files (one more compatible but slightly larger version) and one less easily watched but smaller version. I'll always try to choose the one that the person designates as the better LOOKING one, regardless of filesize. Some of the techno<s>geeks</s>gods around here are turning into masters at making things look good. I'm just trying to follow along.

In spite of it's bad reputation, I have seen quite a few good looking .wmv videos. So to answer: go for the better looking file, and stick a crappy version on hosatchel if you want.

[usa mimi productions]

.rmv, .rm are something i cannnot encode, and wouldn't if i could. i would much rather use h264 or something if i wanted small files, mind you i am new to making amvs...but i have seen more than my fair share of realmedia and windows media player files that did have such horrible quality i didnt want to bother watching them.

[Moonie]

I've heard a rumor that if you are good with encoding its posible to create high quality videos in rm and wmv format