Compressor – codec h.264, container mp4

[Craig Seeman]

In Compressor 4.1.3. Use the “+” on the lower left and select “New Setting…” and in the popup box next to Format: select MPEG4. Then enter the setting you prefer. In most cases my personal preference is to select H.264 profile: High Profile and Entropy mode: CABAC. It’ll be a single pass encode but it’s nearly as good as x264 encoding found in other programs.

[Pam Picard]

Thanks for the reply.

Feel a bit silly asking but is it fair to say that the container is the file extension?

[Jeff Greenberg]

Pam,

Yes and no. Yes, mp4 means an MPEG4.

Think of containers as buckets. Quicktime. MPEG4. FLV.

h.264 is the codec – like water. It could be in any of those three buckets.

Each bucket has some of it’s own rules/compatibility.

[Craig Seeman]

I like thinking of it as sandwich.
There are different types of bread (containers).
You can different types of stuff (codec) between the slices of bread.

Just another way of looking at buckets. I guess I’m food oriented. 🙂

[Pam Picard]

These explanations are very, very helpful. Thank you.

[Tommy Brown]

Hi Craig.

Do you know of any way to change the audio codec or what the audio codec is for the MP4 setting that comes with Compressor.

[Jeff Greenberg]

Apple uses the AAC audio codec – which is similar to MP3 audio compression. Data rates of 160 are excellent in stereo, 80 in mono.

Best,

Jeff I. Greenberg
Author/Master Instructor/Speaker/Consulting
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