Just a noob, ranting about file formats, nothing to see here...

[geminigod]

A comparison of video formats I saw recently: Compare: H.264, Xvid, MPEG4, MPEG2 & WMV


Seriously, I have nothing but respect for the work you guys do. I'm a huge movie fan. My every growing DVD/Blu-ray collection spans everything from superbit DVDs of Labyrinth and the Fifth Element, to russian imports of things like Night Watch and White Sun of the Desert. I've very excited to see some of the amazing works I've read about here. I'm sorry to have offended.

Interesting comparison of formats. Thank you for sharing and welcome. Its important to keep in mind that not all MPEG2 encoders are created equal. That analysis may not play out as consistently as you might think when comparing across various encoders. It is a bit of a running joke among technical geeks that there are open source encoders capable of doing a better MPEG2 encode than what the studios usually produce with their fancy proprietary encoders. Compare the DVD of my Matrix edit against the official studio DVD. You may find the comparison to be shocking.

Certainly the various MPEG4 codecs produce smaller file sizes than MPEG2. They produce smaller file sizes by a significant amount actually. H.264 is something like 40% more efficient than MPEG2. The comparable quality is also undoubtedly a bit better. The problem though is that even if I agree with all that, it doesn't take away from a great many reasons to work with DVD. It is relatively easy to work with. It has universal compatibility. There are no creativity limitations for menus, extras, subtitles, alternate tracks, etc. The format feels more tangible and fun because you can print out artwork, stick it in a case, and put it on a bookshelf. You can play it in a kick-ass home theater or on your computer.

I love HD but am only interested in working in the physical media BD and DVD formats. To hell with the rest. People can strip my edit down and rip it to whatever format they want on their own time, but I am not going to do it for them. I do this to make fun collectible rarities for movie fans; not to provide a free throw-away rental service for Internet geeks.

[Neglify]

a free throw-away rental service for Internet geeks.

Hai. I can has fanedit?

[wabid]

ultra-nice compression 720p movies that clock in at 2-3GB (h264)

At 720p there is a pretty good loss of quality under 4gb. If you compress your blu-rays in the 2-3gb range and consider them ultra-nice, I do not trust your judgement as a measure of quality.

To hell with the rest. People can strip my edit down and rip it to whatever format they want on their own time, but I am not going to do it for them.

Exactly


The other nice thing about DVD's is that I can give them to friends and not worry about user error. Personally I would rather have h.264 files fed to a media server, but DVD is foolproof.

But to defend the intial sentimate of the thread, to all the editors editing blu-rays, a 3-4GB 480p h.264 mp4/mkv file is going to look a heck of a lot better than a DVD mpeg2. On top of that, files released this way often have the black bars cropped out, thus allowing more bitrate for the actual video. A DVD sized mpeg4part10 sd standard would be a nice addition to the current 1gbxvid/vimeo/mp4/mkv/dvd/avchd/bd trend. SO if a BD source is used I would expect the DVD sized h264 and smaller to be of better quality than comparable dvd releases.

[L8wrtr]

First, welcome to the site!

A few things that reinforce what has been stated already and might help further understand the mentality that produces the final edits which become available.

1. An old forum member once created a wonderful set of unofficial fanediting rules, #1 of which was "Edit for yourself". As such, I would say the majority of editors around here seek to produce something that they can put on their shelf. A good fanedit typically takes a lot of work, and speaking for myself, if I'm going to put it out there for other fans of fanediting I only want to release it in the full version that I see I worked so hard to do, which includes things like menus, commentaries, special features etc.. I edit for myself, and then share that with those who might be interested.
2. encoding is never a simple apples and apples comparison, as Gem put so eloquently. I'll not re-hash his comments, but add that not all editing programs/platforms handle codecs and containers the same way. Being an editor on the mac platform using FCP7, mpeg-2 is the way to go, and I'll put the comparative quality against the original source quite happily any day of the week. Filesize and ease of someone else's download is no my primary concern.
3. Faneditors are responsible for making their edits available, not the site. There is no formal requirement of how faneditors make their edits available. Collectively we make due the best we can given distribution means at our disposal, so various file-lockers, usenet etc. Every editor has their own path to follow here. We try to make it as easy as possible, but we also have to stick within what is sustainable and realistic.

You seem a nice enough fellow and certainly interested in fanediting and quality so again welcome and we look forward to your contributions to the forum discussions