MainConcept AVC / Sony AVC/ACC – What’s the diff?

[John Rofrano]

[Frank Manno] “For what uses is Sony AVC/ACC? – Can someone give me examples of why you would render something using Sony AVC/ACC and not the MainConcept one? – For which delivery method is the Sony one usefull for. ? Rendering for PLaystations or something maybe? For Blu Ray?”

Take a look at the templates that Sony provides and that should tell you a lot. They recommend MainConcept AVC for Apple iPod type of renders. They recommend Sony AVC for AVCHD, Blu-ray, and Internet video. The MainConcept encoder supports variable bit-rate which is good when you need really small files, while the Sony AVC only supports constant bit-rate.

[Frank Manno] “I was under the impression that the Mainconcept one is H.264 and that the Sony one is not. Am I right?”

No, they are both AVC/H.264 codecs. They’re just made by two different companies and Sony licensed the MainConcept one before they created their own so both are in the product more for historical reasons.

I mostly just use the Sony AVC codec and haven’t had any problems.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[Frank Manno]

Thanks John for your response again..

I’m starting to get it. I think. So they are both h.264, that’s the main thing I needed to understand.

If I dissregarded the presets and I put my own custom settings in both the Sony AVC and then also the MainConcept AVC and made the settings the same, will they then essentially more or less be the ‘same’ codec??

Is this just a case of the same thing but different brand? Sony v MainConcept??

[John Rofrano] “Take a look at the templates that Sony provides and that should tell you a lot. They recommend MainConcept AVC for Apple iPod type of renders. They recommend Sony AVC for AVCHD, Blu-ray, and Internet video. The MainConcept encoder supports variable bit-rate which is good when you need really small files, while the Sony AVC only supports constant bit-rate.

[Frank Manno] “I was under the impression that the Mainconcept one is H.264 and that the Sony one is not. Am I right?”
No, they are both AVC/H.264 codecs. They’re just made by two different companies and Sony licensed the MainConcept one before they created their own so both are in the product more for historical reasons.

I mostly just use the Sony AVC codec and haven’t had any problems.”

[Frank Manno]

Also, regarding below..

If I was to use the Sony one with the proper parameters for iPod type renders by matching the mainconcept settings for iPod, again it would yield the same result am I right??

[Frank Manno] “They recommend MainConcept AVC for Apple iPod type of renders.”

[John Rofrano]

[Frank Manno] “If I dissregarded the presets and I put my own custom settings in both the Sony AVC and then also the MainConcept AVC and made the settings the same, will they then essentially more or less be the ‘same’ codec??”

Yes, but depending on the settings one may do a better job than the other. As I pointed out, MainConcept is probably better and really low bitrates because it will vary the bitrate where it is needed, whereas Sony may do better with HD at higher bitrates. Also MainConcept AVC only supports the Baseline and Main profile, while Sony AVC supports Baseline, Main, and High profile. So formats like AVCHD which require High profile cannot be created with MainConcept AVC.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[John Rofrano]

[Frank Manno] “If I was to use the Sony one with the proper parameters for iPod type renders by matching the mainconcept settings for iPod, again it would yield the same result am I right??”

It should. That template is similar to the Sony AVC template: Memory Stick QVGA baseline – 896 Kbps.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[Frank Manno]

Ok now I get it.

John just for educational purposes and not that I need to do this.. What is meant by option 2 below..i.e., What is ‘MPEG-4 Video’ in the below context?

And lets say I wanted to use option 2 below, where in vegas is the option to render for ‘MPEG-4 Video’?

-Frank

iPad & Apple TV can play the following video formats:

•H.264 video up to 720p, 30 frames per second, Main Profile level 3.1 with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps per channel, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats

•MPEG-4 video, up to 2.5 Mbps, 640 by 480 pixels, 30 frames per second, Simple Profile with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats

•Motion JPEG (M-JPEG) up to 35 Mbps, 1280 by 720 pixels, 30 frames per second, audio in ulaw, PCM stereo audio in .avi file format

[John Rofrano]

[Frank Manno] “And lets say I wanted to use option 2 below, where in vegas is the option to render for ‘MPEG-4 Video’? “

MPEG-4 is an extremely broad specification containing 27 parts that deal with encoding video and audio in different ways. Probably the two most popular parts are MPEG-4 Part 10 Advanced Video Coding (AVC/H.264), and MPEG-4 Part 2 Advanced Simple Profile, used by codecs such as DivX, Xvid, QuickTime 6, etc.

You will notice that under QuickTime 7 in Vegas Pro a codec called MPEG-4 and H.263. Both of these are MPEG-4 and probably fine for Apple TV as well. They won’t look as good as H.264 though but they are available as well.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[Márcio Nascimento]

So, If i want to burn a Blu-ray disc with maximum possible quality using DVD Archtect…

I recorded a wedding with Canon 6D and Canon T5i. It means high video bitrates.

I rendered in vegas mainconcept FullHD 24p 40Mbit but Archtect warned me: “The overall bit rate is greater than 28 Mbps. The overall bit rate of the specified file is too high for burning Blu-ray onto a DVD.”

My answer: “- I know that Archtect… I´m not trying to burn Blu-ray onto a DVD. I´m working on a Blu-ray Disk project.”

So… searching in Archtect´s Help, I found: “If your project’s target media size is 25 or 50 GB and you choose to continue, your title may not play properly in some players.”

My questions:
1. Is the Help talking about DVD players or Blu-ray Players?
2. What means “DVD” for Archtect? Does it mean both types of media (DVD and Bluray)? Cause I never saw DVD with 25 or 50Gb, only Blu-ray.
3. Should I use 28 Mbps in MainConcept when rendering in Vegas?

Thanks!

Márcio Nascimento
– Editor, cinegrafista e fotógrafo –

[Aaron Star]

DVD Architect is politely telling you that your video exceeds the Blu-ray standard.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blu-ray

The Blue-ray standard player spec is only 32mbs from disc, including audio bit rate.

28Mbs with audio would be about as high as you would want to go and maintain reliable playback on all bluray players.

I would render your project using on one the default Blu-ray profiles under Sony AVC.

Modern bluray players will support up to 60p now, but then you get into problem areas with older Bluray players. Best to stick to the standard.

[Norman Black]

AVC = H.264, H.264 = AVC.

Mainconcept AVC does support Baseline, Main and High Profiles.
Mainconcept supports single pass VBR, two pass VBR or constant bitrate.

Sony AVC is single pass VBR.

In Sony AVC, the AVC selection is always High profile. To get to Baseline and Main you have to select memory stick. Who knows why SCS makes the Render as templates so quirky.

Only Sony AVC can output to an AVCHD m2ts file container.

Mainconcept AVC is probably better at low bitrates than Sony AVC, since it uses more B-frames, but who cares. Neither Mainconcept or Sony AVC are remotely close to x264 in this regard.