Author Topic: h264 vs Photo JPEG (Read 9760 times)

urbazon · « **on:** August 28, 2017, 12:36 »

Hi there!

For the past few weeks I've been busting my head about this dilemma so I've finally decided to ask around here.
I see a lot of topics and different opinions about this.
What I'd like to find out is - am I losing sales/customers because I offer (almost) all my portfolio in h264 codec? Does it really matter, sales-wise?
The only "research" I conducted is to check the top 100 popular clips on ShutterStock and rougly 15% uses h264 codec, while other 85% are a mixture of ProRes and PhotoJPEG. But I can't know how big of an influence codec plays when it comes to sales.

Thank you all in advance!

Noedelhap · « **Reply #1 on:** August 28, 2017, 12:46 »

I've been wondering this as well.

PhotoJPEG often gives me terrible banding issues with smooth gradients, even after applying a light noise effect.
So I decided I wanted to try ProRes, but there just didnt seem to be an option to use that codec on a Windows machine. Fortunately, with AfterCodecs I was able to render with the ProRes codec and since then I no longer have ugly banding.

As for sales, I think it doesnt play that big of a role, but ProRes should give the end user the most possibilities when it comes to color correcting or editing your videos.

Bad Company · « **Reply #2 on:** August 28, 2017, 13:00 »

We did this one topic a while back- look at the survey (50/50 results) in votes of what is best. Seems like we are still looking for the best one...

http://www.microstockgroup.com/equipment-and-software/h-264-vs-photo-jpeg-the-ultimate-discussion/

urbazon · « **Reply #3 on:** August 30, 2017, 09:12 »

Thank you for you answers. As far as I understand, I won't be gaining much from switching to photoJPEG.

increasingdifficulty · « **Reply #4 on:** August 30, 2017, 09:53 »

Quote from: urbazon on August 30, 2017, 09:12

Thank you for you answers. As far as I understand, I won't be gaining much from switching to photoJPEG.

No, it's like switching back to a 28.8 modem and a 4:3 TV.

Perry · « **Reply #5 on:** August 31, 2017, 02:51 »

This depends also on the source format.

ccbcc · « **Reply #6 on:** August 31, 2017, 03:19 »

Do we have to have this discussion every few months? One of the many previous threads should be stickied (if possible) there is a lot of good information in them.

urbazon · « **Reply #7 on:** September 02, 2017, 07:47 »

Quote from: ccbcc on August 31, 2017, 03:19

Do we have to have this discussion every few months? One of the many previous threads should be stickied (if possible) there is a lot of good information in them.

I agree, some of them should be stickied; I missed them before I posted here, and they indeed are full of valuable information. Or at least to make a new thread, locked and stickied, which contains only links to other threads about this

PeterChigmaroff · « **Reply #8 on:** September 03, 2017, 10:43 »

Quote from: increasingdifficulty on August 30, 2017, 09:53

Quote from: urbazon on August 30, 2017, 09:12
Thank you for you answers. As far as I understand, I won't be gaining much from switching to photoJPEG.

No, it's like switching back to a 28.8 modem and a 4:3 TV.

I agree, maybe not 28.8 but definitely no more than 56k

"Motion-JPEG: this is an adaptation for video of the JPEG compression scheme (used for still photographs). Actually MJPEG just encodes each frame with JPEG, using optimizations for speed and possibly for similar frames."