Quality of an mp4 is different than an mov?

[Craig Seeman]

Ironically Quicktime 7 Pro can encode H.264 .mp4 so Apple conspicuously left this out of Compressor 3 and earlier.

I mention the versions because the new Compressor 4 has HTTP Live Streaming templates (which can be altered) which encode H.264 .mp4. Baseline and Main Profile (not High Profile though) along with Multi-pass checkbox and bitrate slider from 64kbps to 10Mbps

[Scott Smith]

sorry. just realized the dates and versions being discussed.

[Craig Seeman]

Compressor 4 now supports H.264 .mp4
I think it’s a big deal and very under reported given all the focus on the FCPX update.
For $50 Compressor 4 is worthwhile even if one isn’t using FCPX.

[Kc Allen]

In Compressor 3, there’s a preset for YouTube. Duplicate the preset, change the file extension to mp4 instead of mov, enable the frame controls but leave everything the same in that tab. Leave the filters the same too. For the size, crop to custom – you can choose custom 16:9, and then I normally use 480×270, but you can size it as you need it. Rename the preset and hit save. Easy-peazy.

That’s how I got around the MP4/H264 problem, and the results look really good.

KC Allen
Allen Film & Video

“My name is actually spelled KC…really…it is…”

[Craig Seeman]

Sorry but in many cases that won’t work. .mov and .mp4 are not interchangeable due to internal metadata. Some systems might handle it and others not. Which is not the kind of risk I’d recommend taking.

Compressor 4 creates a proper H.264 .mp4 and for $50 it’s worth the cost rather than risking file rejection.

[John Dinh doan]

Aside from purchasing the new compressor, another option would be compress the file as h.264 in the old compressor, then open the compressed .mov in Quicktime 7. There, you would set the audio and video codec settings to “pass through” which avoids any additional compression and simply re-wraps the h.264 in an .mp4 wrapper.

Audio and Video unchanged, just muxing (is that word?) .264 stream into .mp4.

[Craig Seeman]

That would work. Basically it’s rearranging the metadata so it’s a valid .mp4
It’s kind of a pain as a standard workflow if you have to do this frequently.