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

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

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.

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.

Doesn't Magic Lantern give you the option to capture raw video?
link: http://www.magiclantern.fm/forum/index.php?board=49.0

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.

Hmm, as both a producer and buyer of stock I find exactly the opposite is true. Broadcast intermediate H264 (I assume that's what we're talking about here) is completely superior to PJPEG in quality, particularly regarding artifacts as well as comparative file sizes.

I've just completed a series of background animations with some quite subtle color gradations and in PJPEG, even at 92% quality the color banding is clearly visible. No such problems with H264 broadcast intermediate. And the same goes for any shot footage with color gradients (sky, walls etc). When buying stuff I'll always prefer H264 because the quality is clearly superior.

My post-prod with live footage (shot at less than ideal data rate H264) is to always apply a layer of good denoiser with tweaks to enhance (red giant's stuff is stellar). This solves many problems, particularly banding which annoys me to no end. After that, export to H264 BI and voilla! No banding, no visible artifacting of any kind. Exporting to PJPEG would make most of this work useless since * PJPEG seems to love those color bands sooo much. Just loves to place em whenever it can.

I don't know how it is with other buyers but if they're prefering PJPEG to H264 BI they're clearly shooting themselves in the foot.

I always export my footage to Photo-Jpeg @95%
To avoid banding i add a little bit of grain or noise, just a little. That helps, because the codec has to work preciser then.
Unfortunately ProRes is not available for PC users... :-(

BTW, Magic Lantern only allows 5 - 15 seconds of RAW video recording, even with a very fast CF-Card.

Best regards,

Martin

But Getty doesn't accept ProRes encoded with third party plugins.
Only files exportet via Mac are welcome.

It's a question I've spent some time contemplating and researching and reading about and in the end, despite all the reasons about why photo-jpeg should be better, I could not see it on the clips. Yes H.264 recompresses but it's still a better quality clip.

Apparently it's a secret because I've asked for render settings for h.264 export before (Premiere or AE) and nobody responded.

I try again now, if anyone would like to share their settings? I understand that file size of Photo-JPG is not favorable but for the life of me I cannot achieve artifact-free renderings of my CG clips (TIFF sequences) with h.264.

Photo-JPG is as easy as can be using 95% quality and every single frame is tack sharp without any artifacts.

Kindly note that I'm talking about 3D renders and not large gradient ares such as skies etc.

I've been toying around with ProRes on PC but Fotolia seems to have encoding issues (at least for the preview) and it's propably not the preferred way for (buyers/editors to use PC encoded ProRes copmpared to Mac generated files?

Thanks in advance.

The h.264 setting I use are as follows for HD videos, I will just go through the main things to look at. I take it you know how to set the frame size, aspect ratio and frame rate based on your original footage.

h.264 render setting Media Encoder or AE:
Format: H.264
Profile: High
Level: 5
Bitrate Encoding: VBR, 2 Pass
Target Bitrate: 70
Maximum Bitrate: 101
(You can set this to what you like, I would not go below 50 and above 200 [Mbps] for HD
Use Maximum Render Quality 'Check box'

Then save it as a preset

hi,
sorry for my late answer, I think h264 is better than JPEG, let us see their differences at first:
H.264 pros/cons
+ reduces bandwidth and storage consumption significantly
+ adaptive video quality based on bandwidth
+ suitable for storage
+ / �  complexity setup � sometimes tricky to set up � streaming quality, frame rate and i frame rate. GOP, VBR, CBR etc.
MJPEG pros/cons
+ consistently great image quality
+ robustness, if one frame is dropped, then it does not affect the video
� no sound
� consumes much more bandwidth and storage
� no storage support at angelcam
see more info: https://blog.angelcam.com/what-is-the-difference-between-mjpeg-and-h-264/ [nofollow]
by the way, I'd like to say it just aims image instead of video, and H265 is the best format for video, I usually  rip my DVD to H265 because of this. http://www.videoconverterfactory.com/tips/dvd-to-h265.html [nofollow] There is a little pull away In conclusion, when it comes to deciding whether to use MJPEG or H.264, it always comes down to what the consumer is looking for and where the camera is being installed. Although H.264 will be the preferred way for many, MJPEG may be a format of choice for those who seek higher quality with crisp details, but can�t support the H.264 stream.

Which will make the most sales though?

Which do buyers typically want