• Compression Techniques

  h.264 vs photoJPEG question

  Posted by Michael Duff on September 18, 2006 at 5:27 am

  hi everyone –
  currently we provide TVC’s to a digital distribution company in the photoJPEG codec at 100%. They have recently suggested that we can supply h.264 files. I’m just wondering what factors need to be taken into consideration so we don’t lose any quality and if anyone can suggest a datarate that would be equivilent… we are using Squeeze. The files are Standard def PAL and are getting sent mostly to television stations.

  Thanks!

  Charles Simonson replied 19 years, 7 months ago 2 Members · 3 Replies
• 3 Replies

• 

  Charles Simonson

  September 18, 2006 at 5:47 pm

  I would not recommend using H.264 at all for this. Especially since your option is to use Squeeze. Squeeze as an awful, terrible, ugly H.264 encoder. Get my point? Plus, H.264 usually uses B-frames to gain any advantages, and Photo-JPEG is MUCH more distribution-friendly for production environments.
• 

  Michael Duff

  September 19, 2006 at 11:00 pm

  thanks for the response….. I agree with you that photoJPEG is much more distribution friendly, that’s why I was cautious when they suggested h.264 – as far as the quality goes, I’ve done a number of tests (all without B-Frames) and the difference in quality is almost undetectable to the eye….EXCEPT the colours/contrast are all just a little bit off….well, actually, too much off to be able to use it…..
• 

  Charles Simonson

  September 21, 2006 at 6:33 pm

  As far as B-frames, the only way to avoid those is with the Baseline Profile. The main and high profiles each use Bframes. Also, as far as color, baseline is always 4:2:0, while main and high can be 4:2:0 and 4:2:2, and there is support for 4:4:4 in high as well. Whereas JPEG is 4:4:4 @ 100%, 4:2:2 @ >75%, and 4:2:0 @ <74%.

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