On Fri, 31 Oct 2008 12:07:17 +0000, Invisible wrote:

> Now here's the thing. Google is very good at answering "what is X?" and
> to some extent "how do I do Y?". But how on earth do you get an answer
> to something like "what's the most popular Z?" Google can't tell you
> that. Only *people* can tell you that.

Try putting "popular video encoders" in the Google search box.  The links 
that come up (just on a quick overview) don't say "this is the most 
popular", but they do give some useful pointers.

> So yeah, there's a pretty huge sea of questions that I couldn't get
> Google to answer. It's not an Oracle, it's just a search engine.

Yes, and if you learn how to speak the language the search engine knows, 
it is a very powerful tool for learning stuff.

With the search terms suggested above (without the quotes), the fifth hit 
is a Wikipedia article on Video Codecs; item 3 in the TOC on that page is 
"Common used standards and codecs" and gives a good overview of each of 
the most popular codecs out there.

For example:

"MPEG-1 Part 2: Used for Video CDs, and also sometimes for online video. 
If the source video quality is good and the bitrate is high enough, VCD 
can look slightly better than VHS. To exceed VHS quality, a higher 
resolution would be necessary. However, to get a fully compliant VCD 
file, bitrates higher than 1150 kbit/s and resolutions higher than 352 x 
288 should not be used. When it comes to compatibility, VCD has the 
highest compatibility of any digital video/audio system. Very few DVD 
players do not support VCD, but they all inherently support the MPEG-1 
codec. Almost every computer in the world can also play videos using this 
codec. In terms of technical design, the most significant enhancements in 
MPEG-1 relative to H.261 were half-pel and bi-predictive motion 
compensation support. MPEG-1 supports only progressive scan video."

Now, knowing what VHS video looks like, that gives a good idea as to what 
sort of quality to expect out of it.

Jim

Post a reply to this message