Microstock Footage Forum > Video Equipment / Sofware / Technique

H.264 vs Photo-Jpeg - The Ultimate Discussion

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Ron:
Ok, lets settle this once and for all.

I have followed many discussions on 264 vs pjpg but as always, there are some saying 264, some saying pjpg and some saying it doesnt matter. All added up, what I understand from that, is that it really does not make a difference what codec you use. I have yet to find someone to tell me that they lost sales over using a certain codec.

Confused.

So.... lets settle this, what is the wisest thing to do, and what brings the most sales?

h.264 or photo-jpeg

CrackerClips:
h.264 is much more compressed than photojpeg.  H.264 looks good when played as a finished project but people buying stock footage generally want to edit and color grade the footage to match the rest of their project and this is where h.264 falls apart.  Due to it's compression there just isn't enough info to do any significant editing without the quality taking a hit.

Every agency I distribute through uses photojpeg except for one.  That one converts my photojpeg file into an h.264 file.  I've stopped uploading there as they don't make any sales.

Ron:
Thank you. So my 6D shoots 264, if thats compressed already, how does converting to pjpg make it better then?

ACS:

--- Quote from: Ron on October 28, 2013, 11:55 ---Thank you. So my 6D shoots 264, if thats compressed already, how does converting to pjpg make it better then?

--- End quote ---

Good question.

I certainly believe my out of camera original H264 .mov is much more editable (at least one step ahead) than the H264>PJPEG .mov file. As a submitter I make the conversion to upload, okay, but the file becomes an edited file and therefore becomes less resistant to the further possible edits.

Am I missing something?

CrackerClips:
Unless you're camera is capturing uncompressed footage (which is unlikely at this point) you're working with a compressed format out of the camera.  Once any editing is completed you don't want to compress it all the way back down to the same level of extreme compression that came out of the camera.  While photojpeg is still a compressed format it is not nearly as compressed as h.264 and gives buyers more room to make their own edits. Exporting to photojpeg doesn't make the quality in and of itself any better but it provides the buyer with more leeway on their end.

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