Codec Question!

HuffyUV is the best of the lossless (when I can get it to work right), but DiVX =) is the best compressed codec, pound for pound. For most versatile I would say Quicktime followed by WMV and Real is somewhere way down the list.

With out getting sued by them and without unfairly effecting the poll - I think the general feeling is that realplayer shouldn't exist!

RealPlayer just dosen't cut the mustard, or butter the bread.

Redemption

Real Player is a dieing brand I feel. What purpose are you outputting? I choose a codec by its application. I have a good animation one that sucks for live video but is great for After Effects animation sequences. I use the MPEG3 plug-in for Premiere for web use, and I use AVI for file data transfer or some other lossless if sending to a Mac. And I like Quicktime for a good streaming source at half frame size. But overall, because of it’s universal compatibility, I’ll use Quicktime for computer viewing, and the standard Premiere default for exporting to tape.

One thing I have noticed is that Premiere and other Windows based editing platforms have many many codecs to choose from in their standard packages (not to mention the plug-ins), and Mac platforms only have a handful and don’t appear to have the same options. Does anyone know why?

I don't even install RealPlayer. I hate it with a passion. Quicktime works the best for me.

QT is King

RealPlayer might as well have never been created...

DivX is great (quality/filesize) but you have to use about 15 different programs and know what you're doing to really achive great quality.

The most versatile though is QuickTime. QT is not a codec though (Cinepack, Sorenson, QDesign Music 2, etc., are QT codecs). Sorenson Video 3 for QT has awesome quality (especially when viewed on Mac).

And I'm finding all of this info to be very informative. I will be exporting to QT in the near future for web viewing as well as WMV and DiVX =) . Just to recap what was said above, DiVX is among the more difficult to get right but when you do I just don't think anything can compete with the quality vs. filesize. If I wanted to use DiVX for near lossless I would use 3000-5000 bitrate (depending on the source.. if you go too high for the source, you get green blocks). But I tried a DVD > 3001BR Hi-motion DiVX 3.11a capture the other night and I swear it came out so beatiful I just wanted to eat it with a fork and knife. It was a high motion, complex pixeled scene, 1:30 in length, the end result with 128k MP3 sound was 10M. It looked almost like uncompressed AVI. Of course I was starting with a s35 film (which is why I say source is so important for a good conversion), but damn did it look good. So I just have to go back and say the all around king for me has been for several years, and continues to be DiVX =) but for pure versatility vs. quality vs. filesize I think QT is gonna be the winner, with HuffYUV DEFINITELY being my favorite capturing codec (reduces filesize of AVI vs. uncompressed by 50%-200%). Of course then I have to process in VD with deinterlace and/or 2:1best reduction, but the end result is worth it.