Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
As I was one of those who suggested MP4 instead of MKV, let me provide the rationale. MP4 advantages (vs. MKV): - much better hardware compatibility, even if not complying to standard profiles. MP4 disadvantages (vs. MKV): - no Vorbis support (negligible, as HE-AAC does the job at least as well); - marginally higher overhead (absolutely negligible); - no soft subtitle streams (can be worked around by providing an MKV instead of or as an addition).
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
As I was one of those who suggested MP4 instead of MKV, let me provide the rationale. MP4 advantages (vs. MKV): - much better hardware compatibility, even if not complying to standard profiles. MP4 disadvantages (vs. MKV): - no Vorbis support (negligible, as HE-AAC does the job at least as well); - marginally higher overhead (absolutely negligible); - no soft subtitle streams (the largest disadvantage, but can be worked around by providing an MKV instead of or as an addition).
My experience is that mkvs are gaining rapidly in popularity. Furthermore, from the discussion on IRC, it seems that MP4 is inferior as a container, lacking support for features that have already been used in published encodes. So I think we should continue using mkv. If people need the video in mp4 format in order to play it on specialized hardware, then converting from mkv to mp4 is a quick operation that doesn't require reencoding: ffmpeg -i video.mkv -vcodec copy -acodec copy video.mp4 Why not use mp4, and let people who want mkvs convert instead? Because mkv's features are a superset of mp4's. As for the codec settings, I think being pretty aggressive is ok. If the resulting file follows the standard, then players should be expected to be able to play it. Non-conforming files shouldn't be allowed, though.
Even youtube seems to accept MP4 files directly (which might be one advantage of MP4 to consider).
Speaking of YouTube, now that most (all?) videos can be watched online, is this as much of an issue as it used to be?
now that we have all our runs available for online-viewing, the sole usage of the downloadable media file should be for a high quality encode (though not necessarily lossless).
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
I can think of three possible reasons why someone would want to download the video file rather than watch in from a video sharing site: 1) To watch it full-screen at the highest possible quality. 2) To create a compilation, commentary or other type of derived work. 3) To collect all the videos locally (eg. burn them on a data DVD to share with friends or whatever). In all these cases maximum quality/size ratio is, indeed, the main desired feature.
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
I think Aktan is setting the perfect standard for encodes, reasonably small (Usually inside a 6:1 ratio) while maintaining 'perfect' quality... not that his compatibility is ideal sometimes.
How about just going for a set crf? Does a certain crf have the same quality for every encode?
So you're saying that the perfect standard is to have a less-than-ideal compatibility?
So you're saying that the perfect standard is to have a less-than-ideal compatibility?
... not that his compatibility is ideal sometimes.
There is a limit how compatible one should be, do you want it iPod compatible (=p)?
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
How bigger are you expecting an average file to be in that case? I'd say less than 5–10%, which is very much acceptable.
(So, rather then Sonic 1 having a bitrate of 370 that I used and in turn, made some rather noticeable compression artifacts, publish it with a bitrate of 700 and be on the line of 'lossless' looking and still not have an excessively high bitrate).
