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Re: Best codec
If you were asking about which format to offer for surfers I would agree with the Xvid or DivX codec being best... But as I understand it the question the content is for reselling, which means you won't have to consider bandwidth costs too much as files will only be downloaded / sent once per sale, right?
If I'm right this far then I would definetely recommend going with an uncompressed format, or at least a format that is only slightly compressed.
You lose too much quality if you encode several times... So if your customers are going to recompress then the only way to make sure the final product is good is to offer uncompressed video. -You do end out with huge files, but on the other hand true DVD-quality is 7-9 GB per disc, which is a lot, but not so much that it isn't possible.
Another advantage of uncompressed files is that they're perfect for editing, they'll open up in any editor without trouble.
There are also several lossless codecs out there (I don't remember any names right now), that can compress the files to a certain degree without ANY loss... AFAIK about 50% of the uncompressed size. The only disadvantage is that they aren't 100% compatible with all editing programs, but if you use the same codec every time then customers will only need to install once, so I guess it wouldn't be the biggest problem.
As far as I remember both DivX and Xvid are a pain in the behind to open for editing, although both are very good codecs for VIEWING.
Mikkel Christensen
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