x264 Encoder by Takashi Mochizuki

[Michael Rampe]

Hi Martin,

The x264encoder component for Quicktime is by far one of THE BEST encoders for H.264 encoding. It shot to fame about a year ago as a solution to the infamous Quicktime gamma bug.

Many people get confused with the term x264 thinking it is not H.264 compliant. H.264 has many names, Mpeg4 Layer10, AVC and even x264. x264 encoded streams are fully compliant with H.264 decoders. I use this component on a daily basis for my FCP work and general encoding needs.

Takashi Mochizuki’s page can be found at https://www003.upp.so-net.ne.jp/mycometg3/
It is a good idea to check back regularly as he is constantly improving it. It is based on Videolan’s libx264 open source library as well as the ffmpeg source code which is also open source.

FFmpeg is the real powerhouse beneath the bonnet. It has very broad support for encoding and decoding a multitude of codecs that you just can’t find anywhere else. Check it out here: https://www.ffmpeg.org/
And here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ffmpeg for a list of supported codecs.

I have been using these libraries from a unix command line on both OSX Snow Leopard as well as Ubuntu Linux. The good thing about these libraries is that they compile on almost any system or chipset and are free under a GPL license. They are also very versatile and a useful tool in your arsenal.

I will be posting some tutorials soon on how to install these for the creative professional not savvy with unix command line tools. In the meantime, do some searching and you will find some tutorials out there, albeit a bit tricky for a unix beginner.

Anyway, x264 is great in it’s various forms and thanks for the first post on this new forum.

Michael