comparing wmv9 to h.264 for quality

[Charles Simonson]

Note, that the QT 7 available for Windows is still in preview mode, and there are still bugs in it (although the current preview is MUCH better than the first preview release). So, until it reaches gold status, and the adoption rate is high enough, I wouldn’t even consider H.264 for delivery to PC clients.

As far as which is better, well for 1080p and bitrates under 10mbps, I would have to say AVC is the leader. For 720p under 8mbps, Windows Media is very competitive and can actually best AVC in some cases. For 480p under 2mbps, AVC is the clear winner. And at lower resolutions, Windows Media again shines. Most of the AVC encoders I have used appear to be focusing more on HD resolutions, which may explain the better results for the most part with larger frame sizes. Windows Media 9 encoders generally try and optimize for all output sizes, which may explain why it can produce better results at the smaller sizes.

[Ben Waggoner]

Charles,

Are you comparing WMV9-MP or -AP to H.264? I think the Compression Master H.264 beats WMV9-MP at everything below 1 Mbps I’ve tested. I imagine that a mature WMV9-AP would also do the trick, but we don’t have anything like that readily available.

My Book: https://www.benwaggoner.com/books.htm
Squeeze and ProCoder tutorials: https://www.classondemand.net/benwaggoner/
Compression Class at Stanford: https://www.digitalmediaacademy.org/compression.html

[Charles Simonson]

Ben, sorry it took me so long to get back on here. My comparisons are of WMV MP. When I stated lower resolutions, I have to admit to drawing a total blank on CM’s AVC encoding at the time. I agree that it is very good. I haven’t been totally impressed with it at HD resolutions (most likely due to no multi or two pass abilities), but for smaller framsizes, it is quite good.