MPG vs AVI vs WMV

[COKEDUDEUSF]

What are the pros and cons of these video formats (MPG vs AVI vs WMV) vs each other?

[iamtheky]

http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/flash-web-vide...eg2-vs-wmv.html

and a decent old article comparing rates to size and such

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/divx-6,1060-4.html

Edited January 23, 2010 by iamtheky

[CoffeeFiend]

What are the pros and cons of these video formats (MPG vs AVI vs WMV) vs each other?

MPEG 1 or 2 are older formats which aren't not so great

-MPEG1 support is pretty much universal though which is why some people use that despite the low quality and low resolutions (e.g. 352x240)

-MPEG2 is used by DVDs and looks decent at higher bitrates (but that's a waste of space/bandwidth)

AVI is merely a container (a bit like a zip file), it doesn't mean much beyond that. You use that along with a video codec (divx, xvid, 3ivx, etc) and a audio codec (mp3, ac3, etc). The quality will vary depending on which you use (and bitrate obviously). Almost all avi files out there are encoded using xvid or divx (video wise) which are both MPEG4 ASP codecs which give similar results as MPEG2 but at much smaller file sizes (but require a bit more CPU power to decode) and most of the time with mp3 audio which sounds just fine (AC3 is normally used for multichannel audio i.e. Dolby Digital). The same codecs can be used inside other containers such as the fairly popular mkv format.

WMV is Microsoft's format (container and codecs). It's pretty good (good enough that it's used for Blu-Ray titles under the name VC-1), but it's mostly Windows-centric (which is perfectly fine by me).

There are also other formats, namely H.264 (one of the most popular and best encoders/codecs being x264; modern Quicktime versions and DivX since version 7 also use H.264) which is usually stored inside mkv or mp4 containers (with different types of audio). It's what most Blu-Ray titltes seem to use. Amazing quality but LONG encoding times. Good support by modern hardware (some newer generation "hardware" players support it directly, and PC-wise recent video cards do the decoding as well) Even satellites and cablecos are moving to that.

IMO: H.264 in MKV is where it's at. MPEG1 & 2 are obsolete. WMV has always been average. MPEG4 ASP (DivX pre-v7 and XviD) was good, but it's time to move on. And indeed everything is: Quicktime ditched Sorenson for H.264 (also means iTunes content and Apple Movie Trailers in H.264), DivX ditched ASP for H.264 in version 7, Flash is moving to H.264 as well so sites like Youtube are adopting it, many HD channels on satellite are already in H.264, loads of Blu-Ray discs are encoded in H.264, Silverlight 3 is getting H.264 support, etc. It's the obvious choice.

[strel]

Haven't played with MKV but when I played with OGM some years ago (also a rich feature container no longer developed), I finally prefered to use simple avi as it also support more than one audio stream muxed, and you can add subtitles in .srt (editable text) in the same folder. Easier. I'd only use MKV if I were looking for compact neat results or for streaming capabilities, and in that case I'd keep an eye on the possible incompatibilities of the format on some hardware or software player, though it seems MKV is more widely adopted than OGM was.

Edited January 24, 2010 by strel

[CoffeeFiend]

MKV lets you have multiple audio streams including formats that aren't valid or possible in avi files. You can also mux several subtitles too. MKV is supported by pretty much any codec pack out there, and basically every decent H.264 "hardware" player too (e.g. popcorn hour). Loads of other advanced and useful features (like alternate movie endings using seamless branching, supporting ANY video/audio codec, being able to sync streams, great settings for aspect ratio, proper support for VBR audio and B frames, etc) There are great tools for working with it too. Avi files are a relic from the early vfw days (think Win 3.1 era). You don't want to even try H.264-in-avi...