where is mpeg 4 compression in Compressor 4?

[Craig Seeman]

What do you mean by MPEG4?
H.264 is MPEG4 Part 10 and can be exported as H.264 .mov.

The iOS presets, which end in .m4v are also H.264 and in fact you can hand change .m4v to .mp4 as they are the same. Note you can’t do that with .mov because the metadata is different even if the codec is the same.

If you look at Compressor 4 HTTP Live Streaming video presets you’ll discover that they are H.264 .mp4. Duplicate and modify as you like.

[Craig Seeman]

Just to be clear (I hope)
MPEG4 is a codec which has undergone revision over the years and has a number of variations.
.mp4 is a container.

Please don’t use them interchangeably.

[Shane Trowbridge]

okay that actually makes sense. So basically H264 is a “form” of MPEG 4?

Thanks for the clarity on .mp4 as a container. That is actually what I was needing. I think I was getting MPEG 4 and Mp4 confused.

Shane

[Craig Seeman]

Compressor 4, unlike Compressor 3, can encode to H.264 .mp4.
Quicktime 7 Pro can also encode to H.264 .mp4

Most software, including Flash and Silverlight can use H.264 .mov though. Flash and Silverlight are extension agnostic when it comes to H.264.

Interesting addendum, I’m working with a client to deliver a spot for cable and they accept H.264 .mov but not .mp4. Also interesting is that they require H.264 .mov in 4:2:2, not 4:2:0. Compressor only does H.264 4:2:0. Of course I’m using Telestream Episode though.

[Shane Trowbridge]

okay, odd, I thought I was creating .mp4’s with h264 when I was using Compressor 3. Shows that I probably didn’t realize what I was doing.

Oh well, going forward I will use compressor 4 anyway.

shane

[Craig Seeman]

It was likely the older inefficient (poor quality relative to data rate) form of MPEG4.